Undiscovered oil 3

[rjoubert]

The Arctic accounts for about 13 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and 30 percent of the undiscovered natural gas, the USGS reported.

The above paragraph is from an article I read on Foxnews.com. I'm a bit confused...how can the USGS make such an assertion? How can they say that 13% of the world's undiscovered supply is in the Arctic, when it's UNDISCOVERED?

Should they have used another word instead of undiscovered? Perhaps untapped would've been better, if they have an idea of how much "undiscovered" oil is out there.

Of course, they could just be making that number up...as we all know, approximately 57% of all statistics are made up.

 

[CajunCenturion]

Perhaps an example from astronomy will make sense. We can study one known body and from that determine there is a second unknown body which is exerting force on our first known body. We can measure specifics on our known body and draw conclusion about the location and size of the second body. However, even though we have all this evidence about the second body, it remains undiscovered until we actually see it.

Undiscovered oil is much the same. We have evidence of that oil from seismic tests, from geologic conditions, and other geophysical measurements. We have a good idea of where it is, and how much there is, but just like the second astronomical body remains undiscovered until seen, this oil remains undiscovered until we actually drill into it.

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[sleipnir214]

Proving an oil or gas reserve is not just verifying the existence of oil where it has been predicted -- it's also determining the nature of the oil in the reserve.

For example, knowing whether a crude oil reserve contains "light sweet" (non-viscous, low-sulfur) oil or "heavy sour" (viscous, high-sulfur) oil is important, as light sweet crude will bring more money. Light oil is easier to transport (there are crude oils that are a solid at room temperature), and sweet oil is easier to refine.

Also, it's good to know if or how much natural gas or condensates are in the reserve: the presense of these things can make it harder to get at the oil. Oil can be found with very toxic substances, probably the most notable is hydrogen sulfide gase.

Whenever I heard the verb to prove growing up in the oil patch, it always seemed to both carry the sense of to prove the existence of and the sense to proof alcohol.

Although I can't find any corroboration in any online dictionary, I seem to remember an archaic meaning of to proof or to prove to refer to the process of assaying a mineral find in prospecting.


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[Thadeus]

I think the simplest example of something that was 'undiscovered' but measurable and known would be the elements of the periodic table that were 'missing' from early tables.

Once you know the properties of of the elements weighing just more and just less and there's a hole in the table, that hole represents an undiscovered element. Undiscovered, but we can tell plenty about its properties.

~Thadeus

 

[rjoubert]

I'm curious if rjoubert understands what is meant by undiscovered oil and untapped oil, and the difference between the two.

Yes, I believe I do now. All of your explanations, coupled with this very outdated article (from 1989) that I "discovered" on the internet (

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE5DB1638F933A1575BC0A96F948260),

definitely helped to educate me.

Undiscovered oil is an estimated volume of oil that has not yet been drilled into. The oil industry has proven methods of arriving at a decent estimate of the volume, thus their confidence in arriving at that "13% of the world's undiscovered oil" estimate for the Arctic. Undiscovered oil has not yet been assessed for accessibility or it's viscosity/sulfur content. Once the undiscovered oil is assessed for these things, and it is determined that the oil is not accessible, it can move into the untapped oil category (which is what occurred in the outdated article I posted above).

Thanks to everyone for your help.

 

[hawks]

rjoubert,
Thanks for starting this post, I also learned from it.

 

[Welshbird]

I vaguely remember one of the Waltons running a car of the 'recipe' created by the two old ladies. Surely if we could do it then we must be able to do it now?

Fee

"The cure for anything is salt water – sweat, tears, or the sea." Isak Dinesen

 

[rjoubert]

I would prefer something like the Flux Capacitor used in the DeLorean time machine in "Back to the Future." Feed it garbage and it fuels your car. It would kill two birds with one stone...it would help reduce landfill as well as cut down on our dependence on foreign oil.

 

[KornGeek]

rjoubert,

Yeah, but it hits problems at high speeds. You're cruising down the freeway on a nice day, hit 88, and boom, you're in the old west.

 

[AnotherHiggins]

rjoubert:
You're thinking of the Mr. Fusion, not the Flux Capacitor.

The Flux Capacitor is the device that makes time travel possible. It requires 1.21 gigawatts of power to do its thing. Originally this power is produced via a nuclear reaction which Doc powered with some plutonium that he got from some Libyans (who were expecting a nuclear bomb in return).

When Marty was back in the 50's, he and Doc used the lightning strike of the clock tower to provide the necessary power.

Then, when Doc shows up at Marty's house from the future (2015, I think), he has a Mr. Fusion on the back of the DeLorean. This is what uses garbage to power a nuclear reaction.

Back in the 80's, Mr. Coffee was a popular brand of coffee maker, and the Mr. Fusion looked a whole lot like a Mr. coffee.

Why in the hell do I know that? That brain space should be holding important information, dammit.

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[rjoubert]

Thanks for clearing that up. Great...now I want to watch that movie again.

 

[Michael52x]

If I had any "undiscovered" knowledge, would it still be called knowledge? It could be in there somewhere, just not cognizent of it, or do not need it at this particular time.
Uh, look's like I found another one. Yep, there it goes.
Probably did'nt need it anyway.

"Impatience will reward you with dissatisfaction" RMS Cosmics'97

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

If I had any "undiscovered" knowledge, would it still be called knowledge?"

You could have undiscovered potential for knowledge, which would entail exhibiting signs that there might be intelligence lurking under the surface, but, like the oil, we would have to dig to see if the signs bear fruit.

Might still be found, but if unused, it's untapped.

Although clearly that's not a huge hassle for some world leaders (innocent whistling...)

Edward

"Cut a hole in the door. Hang a flap. Criminy, why didn't I think of this earlier?!" -- inventor of the cat door

 

[kjv1611]

Hey, I think I just saw one o' dem UFKs fly by a moment ago!

U.F.K. - Unidentified Flying Knowledge



--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me

 

[KornGeek]

I don't understand how some people can flatly deny that U.F.O.'s exist. There is undeniable proof that they exist.

Now, keep in mind, U.F.O. does not mean "alien spaceship"; it means "Unidentified Flying Object". How can anyone deny that there have been flying objects that somebody failed to identify? There have been many times where I saw something, but wasn't sure if it was a plane, helicoptor, or something else. From my perspective, it was a U.F.O.