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U.S. officials cut estimate of recoverable Monterey Shale oil by 96%

94 points by T-A 12y ago

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
throwaway_yy2Di 12y ago
"Just 600 million barrels of oil can be extracted with existing technology, far below the 13.7 billion barrels once thought recoverable from the jumbled layers of subterranean rock spread across much of Central California, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. [...] The Monterey Shale formation contains about two-thirds of the nation's shale oil reserves." Here's the source from 2009, which puts US "undeveloped technically recoverable" shale oil at 24 billion barrels, ~15 billion in Monterey (rounded apparently), http://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/usshalegas/ http://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/usshalegas/ This looks dated, since the most recent "technically recoverable" estimate is 58 billion: http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=11611 http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=11611
- Lagged2Death 12y ago
  It is my understanding that projections and estimates from the EIA are generally understood (by experts in the field) to be political artifacts, and to generally be wildly optimistic, from the point of view of the fossil fuel business. That probably goes equally for the revised estimate; it may have been adjusted downward in part to make some other prospect look relatively more appealing.
jqm 12y ago
They mention the retrieval method as fracking. Is this a good idea along a fault line near large population centers?
- chc 12y ago
  AFAIK we don't know enough to say, really.
- 001sky 12y ago
  No, you're mis-reading the article. (1) They say expressly say fracking is not suited to the geographic topology in CA; and (2) They compare and contrast the monterey geology in CA to texas and ND where is it better suited. Basically, fracking is better in areas with flat-sediment-shale-beds. CA has dedformed rock strata. Similarly, much of the formation is not in heavily populated areas. They mention Kern county, for example, which is not considered a part of metro LA (it is seperated by a massive desert/mountain range). http://gen.usc.edu/news/monterey-shale.htm http://gen.usc.edu/news/monterey-shale.htm
- ArkyBeagle 12y ago
  It depends. Minor quakes in Oklahoma are believed attributable to fracking but it's hardly conclusive. Oklahoma hasn't had people who could read living on it for much more than a hundred years now. There's no data base; the people who lived there before didn't leave a record. As hard as it may be to believe, there's not that much material doing downhole. It's usually as much-ish as a middling stock tank - a few million gallons - tennish or so acre-feet. Determining cause and effect will be a mighty task. http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidblackmon/2013/07/01/water-for-fracking-in-context/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidblackmon/2013/07/01/water-f... goes to the water use, with awater always being the big item. David Blackmon is a bit of an oil industry flack, but his logic and numbers marry up to other sources well. Given California's politics, the geology ( fault lines ) and the way prices are working out, it's probably better left alone for now. The rate of innovation in fracking is staggering. The technology will be there sooner or later. I have a friend who's roughly from the general Kern County area and its a brittle place environmentally. This being said, the LA Times is not exactly an oil/gas friendly publication - the quotes were all from professional anti-frackers. Sadly, since the Enron fiasco, we have to watch for that sort of thing. Claiofornia also has had "oil people" and "water people" and "oil and water don't mix."
  - ahnick 12y ago
    There is strong evidence that indicates that recent fracking activity(2009 and onwards) in Oklahoma is solely responsible for the earthquake activity they are seeing -> http://www.decodedscience.com/increasing-earthquake-frequency-oklahoma-signals-potential-damaging-future-quakes/45963 http://www.decodedscience.com/increasing-earthquake-frequenc... To indicate anything otherwise is disingenuous.
    - jessriedel 12y ago
      From your link: > Another USGS analysis shows recent earthquake rate changes are likely not due to normal fluctuations in natural seismicity rates. Instead, the most likely cause is from wastewater being injected into deep geologic formations and causing faults to fail in a process called injection-induced seismicity. (Did I miss a stronger statement in there?) So random fluctuations are unlikely to be the explanation and, of the remaining explanations, the most likely one is fracking. As I read your articles, it does not claim strong evidence of fracking as the sole cause.
- badman_ting 12y ago
  If the causation can't be proven, will it matter?
- justin66 12y ago
  Someone mentioned Oklahoma but it's certainly not the only place: http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2014/04/ohio_acknowledges_connection_b.html http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2014/04/ohio_ack... There's actually a lot of news out of that area regarding fracking and earthquakes, going back a few years. The data have improved over time and we've moved past the "correlation isn't causation so come on and have another cigarette" stage. An earthquake happening right under a fracking well is considered scientifically significant. I don't know if the drilling is on the same scale in CA but I just assume that the eventual rules for avoiding faultlines will be even more strict in a state with a history of serious earthquakes.
jchrisa 12y ago
Good. Our only hope is to not burn that stuff anyway.
- PhasmaFelis 12y ago
  Yeah, this is excellent news. The sooner we can cut down our dependence on the shit, the better. Local supplies just give us an excuse to keep sucking on the pipe.
Lagged2Death 12y ago
Oil is of course part of a global market; that global market consumes ~85 million barrels of oil every day. Even the higher 13.7 billion barrel figure was only enough oil to power the world economy for five months, assuming you could magically get it out of the ground fast enough.
- astrodust 12y ago
  I think people often forget this when they try to hand-wave away concerns about peak oil and think energy independence is just a case of allowing for more drilling. On the whole we're burning through the easy stuff at a staggering rate, and when these are depleted, the only thing left will be the types that are far more expensive to extract. There might be a time when the stubborn tar sands are actually the cheapest, and the only other types of oil are even more colossally expensive.
  - kordless 12y ago
    LED bulbs for everyone!
  - vostrocity 12y ago
    I think there will be a lot to worry about before we have to worry about running out of oil.
    - flavor8 12y ago
      There are 42 years of estimated recoverable oil left (in the top 17 producers) according to 2012 EIA numbers. 1324B/85M/365 = 42.675. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves That assumes no consumption growth. The economic argument from peak oil people says: "OK, when we're down to 10 years of oil left, just how much more expensive is a barrel of oil going to be, given that increasing scarcity is evident? Does that price rise also feed back to 20 years? What does it do to the economy, and/or what alternate forms of energy take its place due to economic pressures?" So yeah, within your lifetime you'll probably feel the effects one way or the other.
andor436 12y ago
Interesting. David Hughes at the Post Carbon Institute said roughly this same thing in 2013. PDF here: http://www.postcarbon.org/reports/Drilling-California_FINAL.pdf http://www.postcarbon.org/reports/Drilling-California_FINAL.... At the time he pointed out that much of the original estimate was derived from oil company investor presentations. Perhaps not the most unbiased source for the EIA to use.
beedogs 12y ago
I'm glad the myth of the United States as "net energy exporter" is finally being taken out back and shot.
- kbutler 12y ago
  Allow me to disagree in both assertion and sentiment - "not recoverable with today's technology" doesn't mean much with the rate of progress of oil extraction technology. And rather than 2/3 of the US Shale oil reserves, the 13b barrels is less than a quarter of the current estimate (58b - http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=11611 http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=11611), which still leaves 50% growth in reserves over the 2012 figures. And given the trouble throughout the world caused by US energy imports, I'd be happy to try exporting for a while.
  - wazoox 12y ago
    Something called EROEI will stand between the best technology and this oil, I'm afraid.
leorocky 12y ago
That's a lot of money just sitting there underneath the ground. There's more than enough incentive to figure out how to get it out of there.
- vostrocity 12y ago
  There's also a lot of disincentive that's not necessarily about money.

94 points by T-A 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

"Just 600 million barrels of oil can be extracted with existing technology, far below the 13.7 billion barrels once thought recoverable from the jumbled layers of subterranean rock spread across much of Central California, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. [...] The Monterey Shale formation contains about two-thirds of the nation's shale oil reserves." Here's the source from 2009, which puts US "undeveloped technically recoverable" shale oil at 24 billion barrels, ~15 billion in Monterey (rounded apparently), http://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/usshalegas/ http://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/usshalegas/ This looks dated, since the most recent "technically recoverable" estimate is 58 billion: http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=11611 http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=11611

Lagged2Death 12y ago
It is my understanding that projections and estimates from the EIA are generally understood (by experts in the field) to be political artifacts, and to generally be wildly optimistic, from the point of view of the fossil fuel business. That probably goes equally for the revised estimate; it may have been adjusted downward in part to make some other prospect look relatively more appealing.

jqm 12y ago

They mention the retrieval method as fracking. Is this a good idea along a fault line near large population centers?

chc 12y ago
AFAIK we don't know enough to say, really.
001sky 12y ago
No, you're mis-reading the article. (1) They say expressly say fracking is not suited to the geographic topology in CA; and (2) They compare and contrast the monterey geology in CA to texas and ND where is it better suited. Basically, fracking is better in areas with flat-sediment-shale-beds. CA has dedformed rock strata. Similarly, much of the formation is not in heavily populated areas. They mention Kern county, for example, which is not considered a part of metro LA (it is seperated by a massive desert/mountain range). http://gen.usc.edu/news/monterey-shale.htm http://gen.usc.edu/news/monterey-shale.htm
ArkyBeagle 12y ago
It depends. Minor quakes in Oklahoma are believed attributable to fracking but it's hardly conclusive. Oklahoma hasn't had people who could read living on it for much more than a hundred years now. There's no data base; the people who lived there before didn't leave a record. As hard as it may be to believe, there's not that much material doing downhole. It's usually as much-ish as a middling stock tank - a few million gallons - tennish or so acre-feet. Determining cause and effect will be a mighty task. http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidblackmon/2013/07/01/water-for-fracking-in-context/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidblackmon/2013/07/01/water-f... goes to the water use, with awater always being the big item. David Blackmon is a bit of an oil industry flack, but his logic and numbers marry up to other sources well. Given California's politics, the geology ( fault lines ) and the way prices are working out, it's probably better left alone for now. The rate of innovation in fracking is staggering. The technology will be there sooner or later. I have a friend who's roughly from the general Kern County area and its a brittle place environmentally. This being said, the LA Times is not exactly an oil/gas friendly publication - the quotes were all from professional anti-frackers. Sadly, since the Enron fiasco, we have to watch for that sort of thing. Claiofornia also has had "oil people" and "water people" and "oil and water don't mix."
- ahnick 12y ago
  There is strong evidence that indicates that recent fracking activity(2009 and onwards) in Oklahoma is solely responsible for the earthquake activity they are seeing -> http://www.decodedscience.com/increasing-earthquake-frequency-oklahoma-signals-potential-damaging-future-quakes/45963 http://www.decodedscience.com/increasing-earthquake-frequenc... To indicate anything otherwise is disingenuous.
  - jessriedel 12y ago
    From your link: > Another USGS analysis shows recent earthquake rate changes are likely not due to normal fluctuations in natural seismicity rates. Instead, the most likely cause is from wastewater being injected into deep geologic formations and causing faults to fail in a process called injection-induced seismicity. (Did I miss a stronger statement in there?) So random fluctuations are unlikely to be the explanation and, of the remaining explanations, the most likely one is fracking. As I read your articles, it does not claim strong evidence of fracking as the sole cause.
badman_ting 12y ago
If the causation can't be proven, will it matter?
justin66 12y ago
Someone mentioned Oklahoma but it's certainly not the only place: http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2014/04/ohio_acknowledges_connection_b.html http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2014/04/ohio_ack... There's actually a lot of news out of that area regarding fracking and earthquakes, going back a few years. The data have improved over time and we've moved past the "correlation isn't causation so come on and have another cigarette" stage. An earthquake happening right under a fracking well is considered scientifically significant. I don't know if the drilling is on the same scale in CA but I just assume that the eventual rules for avoiding faultlines will be even more strict in a state with a history of serious earthquakes.

jchrisa 12y ago

Good. Our only hope is to not burn that stuff anyway.

PhasmaFelis 12y ago
Yeah, this is excellent news. The sooner we can cut down our dependence on the shit, the better. Local supplies just give us an excuse to keep sucking on the pipe.

Lagged2Death 12y ago

Oil is of course part of a global market; that global market consumes ~85 million barrels of oil every day. Even the higher 13.7 billion barrel figure was only enough oil to power the world economy for five months, assuming you could magically get it out of the ground fast enough.

astrodust 12y ago
I think people often forget this when they try to hand-wave away concerns about peak oil and think energy independence is just a case of allowing for more drilling. On the whole we're burning through the easy stuff at a staggering rate, and when these are depleted, the only thing left will be the types that are far more expensive to extract. There might be a time when the stubborn tar sands are actually the cheapest, and the only other types of oil are even more colossally expensive.
- kordless 12y ago
  LED bulbs for everyone!
- vostrocity 12y ago
  I think there will be a lot to worry about before we have to worry about running out of oil.
  - flavor8 12y ago
    There are 42 years of estimated recoverable oil left (in the top 17 producers) according to 2012 EIA numbers. 1324B/85M/365 = 42.675. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves That assumes no consumption growth. The economic argument from peak oil people says: "OK, when we're down to 10 years of oil left, just how much more expensive is a barrel of oil going to be, given that increasing scarcity is evident? Does that price rise also feed back to 20 years? What does it do to the economy, and/or what alternate forms of energy take its place due to economic pressures?" So yeah, within your lifetime you'll probably feel the effects one way or the other.

andor436 12y ago

Interesting. David Hughes at the Post Carbon Institute said roughly this same thing in 2013. PDF here: http://www.postcarbon.org/reports/Drilling-California_FINAL.pdf http://www.postcarbon.org/reports/Drilling-California_FINAL.... At the time he pointed out that much of the original estimate was derived from oil company investor presentations. Perhaps not the most unbiased source for the EIA to use.

beedogs 12y ago

I'm glad the myth of the United States as "net energy exporter" is finally being taken out back and shot.

kbutler 12y ago
Allow me to disagree in both assertion and sentiment - "not recoverable with today's technology" doesn't mean much with the rate of progress of oil extraction technology. And rather than 2/3 of the US Shale oil reserves, the 13b barrels is less than a quarter of the current estimate (58b - http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=11611 http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=11611), which still leaves 50% growth in reserves over the 2012 figures. And given the trouble throughout the world caused by US energy imports, I'd be happy to try exporting for a while.
- wazoox 12y ago
  Something called EROEI will stand between the best technology and this oil, I'm afraid.

leorocky 12y ago

That's a lot of money just sitting there underneath the ground. There's more than enough incentive to figure out how to get it out of there.

vostrocity 12y ago
There's also a lot of disincentive that's not necessarily about money.