Gasoline prices are climbing…and so are those of food, clothing, other necessities, luxuries, energy bills, etc.  It’s easy to figure out that with climbing gas prices, the shipping costs of food and other goods will rise, and those costs will manifest in the check-out line.  But, why are prices rising?  What does a geologist have to say on the matter?  Read on:

Where is all the gasoline?!!

Face it, oil is running out.  There is a concept in the petroleum industry of “peak production,” in which the currently producing wells hit a maximum that can no longer be exceeded.  In other words, petroleum production (meaning, the recovery of oil and natural gas out of the ground) increases worldwide until a point where there is no more increase; production stays at a high level.  Some petroleum analysts say that we have yet to hit peak production; still others maintain that we currently are hitting peak production, or that we actually have passed peak production and either are in a leveling-off stage or are actually in decline.  Put on top of this the increase in demand for petroleum: many countries, including the U.S., India, and China, which shelter 1/3 of the world’s population, are actually seeing a rise in use of gasoline, jet fuel, natural gas, etc. because of the increase in useage, such as the growing number of cars on the road, better heating, and more travel.  So, why don’t we drill for more oil?

Where is all the oil?

Petroleum is created within the Earth’s crust.  The Earth is made up of layers: the solid inner and liquid outer cores, both of which are metallic in composition; the mantle, which is a thick layer of solid rock that behaves plastically (it is a solid that can “move” or “flow” in the same way that glass or glacial ice can flow), and the very thin crust, which contains the continents and oceans.  Imagine a basketball with a layer of paint on it; the average thickness of the crust compared to the rest of the Earth is about the same ratio as the layer of paint to the rest of the basket ball!

Heat produced in the Earth leaks upwards through the layers and into the crust.  Of course, it’s not very hot on the surface of the Earth, where we live, but if you were able to dig a kilometer into the crust, you would find that the temperature had risen about 60 degrees.  Go deeper, and the crust becomes even hotter.  This is a critical thing for the creation of petroleum.

Now, where do you think oil comes from?  Many people think dinosaurs – fossils – it is a “fossil fuel” after all, isn’t it?  In actuality, most petroleum comes from the decay of tiny microscopic marine organisms, the single-celled and microscopic algae that floats in the oceans or lives in shallow ocean sediments.  Now, here’s how to turn these micro-organisms to useable, capturable petroleum:

1.  The algae die and fall to the bottom of the ocean.

2.  Sediment covers these dead remains and protects the dead algae from scavengers.

3.  More sediment covers the previous layers of sediment; over time, the algae are buried under kilometers of sediment.  This can be a slow process, as some parts of the ocean receive less than 1cm of sediment per year!

4.  As the algae are buried deeper in the sediment, they alter.  The carbon in the algae is released.  At some point, these carbon molecules are heated well enough to form petroleum in its liquid, gas, and tar forms.  If the algal remains are buried too deeply, or near a heat source such as magma, the algal remains can “overbake” and the petroleum can be “cooked away”.

5.  Keep in mind that there is usually water in rocks, including deep groundwater.  If a body of rock, formed from the sediment deep in the crust, is porous in just the right way, then liquids and gasses can move – water and petroleum can migrate.  If these fluids migrate, they often continue to move until they get “stuck” or trapped against a barrier, such as a salt diapir (underground mass of salt), a fault, an impermeable rock or sediment unit such as clay, or a geologic structure.  Gaseous petroleum rises so it rests on top of liquid petroleum, as it is much less dense; liquid petroleum rests on top of water – oil floats on water, even kilometers deep in the crust!

6.  Geologists utilize a variety of methods to locate potential traps for petroleum, and then after careful testing, dig test wells.  If a well produces enough petroleum, then it is drilled for production.  After this, the captured liquid petroleum is shipped to refineries where it is “cracked” to produce the various products: jet fuel, butane, gasoline, even oils for making plastic and cosmetics.

So, oil is in the crust, but not everywhere.  There needs to be (1) the right marine sediments with the (2) right environmental conditions to preserve (3) the right mass of dead micro-organisms, plus (4) these sediments can’t be buried too deep or too shallow in the crust and (5) the petroleum must be created in the right kinds of rocks to be able to migrate and eventually (6) be trapped at some impermeable boundary.  Then, (7) geologists must undergo the complicated and often erroneous process of locating the oil and (8) deciding if it is worthwhile to drill.  Wow, those are a lot of factors to deal with!

Currently, places just offshore along the coastlines are good for oil drilling.  This is because all of those factors listed above come to play. Oil found within continental crust is in the same manner; all of the necessary factors, throughout geologic history, plus discovery by geologists, have culminated in the vast oil fields of the California Great Valley (which is essentially a giant, dried-up and buried inland sea!), the Midwest North America (which also is a dried-up and buried inland sea!) and Texas (ditto!).  So, why not drill more?

Why not drill for more oil?

There are several factors that come in to play in whether or not to drill for more oil.  One is that we need more; even if we are developing “greener” substitutes for energy, we do need enough oil to tide us over until those “green solutions” truly are environmentally friendly plus efficient. However:

1.  There may not be any more big finds.  The U.S. wishes to drill offshore of the East Coast and in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge; however, we are not yet sure whether there really is oil in these places, or if it is indeed recoverable.

2.  The time lag between the search for new oil and when that new oil arrives at the gas station is about 10 years.  In other words, IF we search for oil today and IF we are fortunate enough to find producible quantities, it will take 10 years before you see a change in prices, and perhaps longer – remember that world population, and world energy consumption, are growing at exponential rates!

3.  The search for new oil consumes a lot of oil and takes financial resources away from the development of alternative energy.

So what about “green” energy?

But, keeping all of this in mind, none of our “green” energy sources are truly and completely environmental friendly.  Electric cars rely on electric recharge, which comes from an outlet, whose electricity is produced by an electric plant – and many of these burn petroleum or coal products.  Wind power is cheap, but wind fields are high-cost upkeep; if a windmill needs a touch-up in paint (a bad spot of paint can decrease the efficiency of the windmill, so they need high maintenance), all of the tines on the windmill must be stripped and repainted so there are no bumps or paint mis-alignments.  Hydroelectric power requires dams, which are good in the short term for producing energy, but after a few to ten years, require high-cost dredging of sediment buildup behind the dams.  Also, dams greatly alter river and riparian ecosystems.  Solar energy is good, but right now, the efficiency of solar energy productoin is low, so is not practical on a mass-energy basis.  Other energy production, such as utilizing ocean water masses, tidal currents, and geothermal heat, is good only if the appropriate source for the energy is nearby.  Have I left out anything?

Yes, biofuels.  These are great in concept, but perhaps you’ve seen news reports of decrease in food production (and impacts on people) for biofuel sources.  Amazingly, these drastic results of biofuel production come earlier than experts predicted.  Biofuels do not burn cleanly, and require the production of the biological material for the fuel.  Not only does this decrease the amount of food cropland, but it also increases soil loss from farmland erosion, loss of nutrients from the soils (less crop material is recycled back into the soil), and is quite complex to produce, including the removal and disposal of waste sludge.

So…

This is a tough one, isn’t it?  We need the fuels, but we also need a good, livable planet.  What can you do?  Here are some ideas from one of my Energy and Technology classes:

1.  Take fewer trips in your car, and carpool; better yet, ride a bike or walk and you will then spend less of your valuable time in the gym!

2.  Turn off unused lights and unplug things like computers and DVD players.  These devices actually draw current while off; the only way to make them stop using electricity is to unplug them.

3.  Recycle.  It takes less energy to recycle aluminum cans then to dig up new aluminum ore and process it.  Other areas of recycling haven’t caught up yet with aluminum, but the more we recycle and use recycled goods, the sooner these other recycled materials will be efficient.

3.  Consume local produce and products.  These haven’t traveled so far in petroleum-consuming transport!

4.  Upgrade your home to be energy efficient and utilize solar heating.

5.  This one is mine, and it’s my classroom mantra: consume wisely.  In other words, think before you buy; plan what you need, and simply buy less.  The fewer things you buy ultimately mean that the fewer of those items are grown or made.  The more people that consume wisely will ultimately have an impact on decreasing global production of stuff.

6.  Vote wisely, and vote, and vote, and vote.  Your vote cannot be tallied unless you cast it.

A few last facts about petroleum, taken from one of my lectures:

1.  Fossil fuels – natural gas, oil, tar, and coal – are not renewable.  When they are gone, they’re gone for good.

2.  In 2003, every U.S. citizen’s share of energy consumption was 3.7 tons of coal, 74,900 cubic feet of natural gas, 23.2 barrels of oil, 2600 kilowatt hours of nuclear electricity, and 1986 kilowatt hours of renewable energy production.

3.  Global oil consumption is nearly 10 barrels per person.  Compare that to 23 barrels for a U.S. citizen! 

4.  The U.S. is 5% of the total world population, yet we use 33% of the total world energy.

5.  In the U.S., energy from coal production is 52% of total U.S. energy production; nuclear electricity is 20%, natural gas is 16%; hydroelectric is 7%, other petroleum is 3%, and other energy sources (wind, solar, geothermal) is 2%.

6.  About 1/3 of fossil fuels go towards residential and commercial use; a bit more than that goes into industry; and the remaining, about 25%, goes into transportation.

7.  Use has indeed exceeded production of energy in some places; remember the California rolling black-outs and brown-outs, and look at the price of gas!

8.  If you have US$20 in your pocket, you are among the top 20% richest people in the world.

9. At the current rate of use, coal would last the U.S. 1,500 years (however, at high environmental and health costs).

10.  At the current rate of use (and use exceeds production, hence the high cost), natural gas will run out in about 150 years.

11.  100% of U.S. natural gas comes from North America, because natural gas cannot be shipped cheaply overseas; it must be supercooled into a liquid at -260F.

12.  Two-thirds, and often more, of petroleum is left in the ground because it is unrecoverable.  We rely on the underground pressure of the oil to send the initial 15% of the reservoir upwards through the drilled pipeline.  However, eventually this pressure recedes as oil is released, and only about 15% of the remaining oil in the ground can be pumped out.  We can use detergents and hot liquids to help loosen the remaining oil from the rock, but this is expensive and does not recover very much.