California Conservative

After a closer examination of Leonardo Maugeri’s Newsweek article, I found this gem:

Today the average recovery rate for oil is about 35 percent of the estimated “oil in place,” which means that only 35 barrels out of 100 may be brought to the surface. And only a part of those 35 barrels is considered “proven reserves,” which means they are immediately available for production and commercialization. The role of technology is critical. Over the decades, technology has greatly expanded the quantity of oil that can be extracted, through the injection of water and natural gas as well as horizontal drilling, hydraulic fracturing and more. All this progress has boosted the average recovery rate, which was only around 20 percent as late as 30 years ago, and less than 15 percent 60 years ago. In the future, further gains are expected from technologies that are still in their infancy.
Simply put, new exploration methods have increased existing reserves over time, even without any new discoveries. The oil literature is full of examples. A most astonishing one is the Kern River field in California, discovered in 1899. In 1942 its “remaining” reserves were estimated at 54 million barrels. Yet from 1942 to 1986 it produced 736 million barrels, and still had another 970 million “remaining.”

Here’s what I said in the first article:

I remember how the extremists predicted that the Alaskan Pipeline would destroy the caribou herds for a few measly years of crude oil. Thirty years later, they’re still pumping it through that original pipeline, with no end in sight.

I remember how people predicted the end of oil supply in Saudi Arabia, telling us that the oil was still there but that the oil couldn’t be extracted because it was too deep under the earth’s surface to be able to pump it all the way to the surface. Reagan told the innovators to innovate, which they did. The result was that the oil that was deemed too far beneath the earth’s surface to be extracted was soon extracted. They’re still getting oil from those wells a quarter century later.

In short, the most logical thing to conclude is that we have vastly more oil to power our factories and automobiles, etc. than the extremists claim we have. The extremists would have you believe that the earth wasn’t created with all the natural resources that we need. Simply put, they’ve been proven wrong on such a consistent basis that their experts aren’t worthy of expert status. In fact, they’re only worthy of scorn and ridicule.

Let me be clear about something. This isn’t an argument to be wasteful of our energy resources. Rather, it’s an argument in favor of listening to the true experts who have long histories of being the most accurate. It’s an argument against wasting time listening to the extremists’ experts. It’s an argument for making decisions based on facts. It’s an argument against making decisions based on hyperventilating myths and suppositions.

Let’s make something else clear. Mr. Maugeri’s article should be seen as a shot across the environmental extremists’ proverbial bow. This should be the point of telling the Al Gore-like extremists that their scare tactics and propaganda don’t work in a world where so much truly reputable information is at a person’s fingertips thanks to the internet Gore ‘created’.

Just once, I’d love to watch someone like Mr. Maugeri or Michael Crichton utterly dismantle Robert Kennedy’s arguments on stage in a debate. I’d pay to watch that because ending Kennedy’s fanaticism would be a huge first step in destroying the extremists’ agenda and their power base.

Technorati Tags: Alaskan Pipeline, Robert Kennedy, Environmental Extremists, Al Gore, Michael Crichton, Internet

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 27th, 2006 at 9:01 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Economy, Environment, Foreign Policy, Subversives, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.