9. Peak Oil

Question 1

What is shale oil?

Answer 1

• oil that’s mined form rock pores
• aka tight oil
• expensive and labor intensive: fracking/ mine, crush, heat

Question 2

Deepwater Horizon?

Answer 2

• oil rig off coast of Marshall islands (relax maritime laws)
• burned down and sank
• leaked 5 million barrels of oil
• BP required no bailout

Question 3

How much is a barrel of oil?

Answer 3

42 gallons

Question 4

What is crude oil? What is it used for?

Answer 4

• aka petroleum
• naturally occurring
• 50% refined to make gas, 25% diesel, 10% jet fuel, makes plastics and solvents
• average household uses energy of 15 barrels of oil/ year
• Venezuela has the most

Question 5

What is Hubbert’s peak?

Answer 5

• Marion King Hubbert
• predicted that oil production would decrease in 1972, he was right until 2008
• applied to global oil production and fossil fuels

Question 6

Why didn’t Hubbert’s peak work?

Answer 6

1. We learned how to extract tight oil from shale rock

2. We do deep offshore drilling in Gulf of Mexico

Question 7

Who consumes the most oil? Who produces the most oil?

Answer 7

• consumes: US, then China

- US produces more than Saudi Arabia and Russia

Question 8

How much oil do we think is left?

Answer 8

1-3 trillion barrels of oil left

1 trillion barrels from shale regions

Question 9

How much energy does one barrel of oil hold?

Answer 9

5.8 MBTU of energy

Question 10

Describe the chemical makeup of oil.

Answer 10

• CnH2n+2
• made of alkanes
• alkanes with less than 4 carbon are gases at STP
• alkanes with 5-20 carbon are liquid
• alkanes with 7-11 carbon atoms are turned into gasoline
• for every one molecule of methane combusted (CH4), create one CO2

Question 11

What were the pre-industrial levels of CO2? What are they now? In what time period were they the same?

Answer 11

Pre-industrial: 280 ppm
Now: 390 ppm
Like this 20 million years ago

Question 12

What 4 conditions are needed to form oil?

Answer 12

1. abundant organic matter in original environment
2. Lack of oxygen to preserve
3. Cap rock to seal in oil (salt) buried by thick sediments
4. optimal cracking pressure, temperature, time to break down hydrocarbons. 10,000 feet of rock. 80 degrees C

Question 13

When did oil form?

Answer 13

100-200 million years ago in Jurassic and Cretaceous period

Question 14

What is cracking?

Answer 14

when organic molecules are broken down into hydrocarbons at optimal pressure, temperature (80 C), for time, depth (10,000 feet)
“cooking”