The everglades, a region of approximately 1,900 square kilometres of sawgrass prairie in the southern tip of Florida, is a World Heritage Site. Sawgrass is a type of wild sedge that grows naturally all over the world, particularly in tropical and temperate regions. World Heritage Sites are those places that the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organizaton deems to be of special cultural or physical significance. Despite the state not being the first place you think about in terms of oil exploration, companies are drilling in Florida. The scientific name for sawgrass is Cladium.
It turns out that poking around for fossil fuels has been done before. In 1947, the Humble Oil company drilled a couple of test wells in the region of 1,500+ feet deep. Neither well produced economically viable amounts of oil or gas and so prospecting was abandoned here.
The appetite for exploring for oil in the Everglades is directly proportional to the price of oil. When the price is high, prospectors are willing to take bigger risks boring previously uneconomic reserves. When they are low, there is less interest.
Cheap oil is not necessarily a good thing. True, it relieves pressure to ravage environmentally sensitive areas like the Everglades. Human nature being what it is, the cheaper it is, the faster we will use it and, because its supply is not infinite, the sooner we will run out and have to learn to live like cave men all over again.
Oil producing countries are a bit like drug dealers in that respect. Once we get a taste for cheap oil, our demands will increase. That is when they will start jacking up prices. Eventually, unless we have been investing and developing viable alternative energy supplies, we will have to find new uses for our tablets and toasters.
New technologies in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing mean that previously inaccessible oil and gas reserves became economic to drill almost overnight. This controversial process is known as fracking. The most promising fields for fracking are in Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Texas, and Oklahoma, although there are a few others with viable amounts of hydrocarbons sequestered deep in the fine shale rock formations of other states. Florida is one such state.
In 2014, the Miami Herald reported that there were around half a dozen oil and gas E&P companies that spent millions on plans to explore Southwest Florida. At that time, oil prices were high. Two years later, the price of oil was low and the dollar was sagging in value compared to other currencies like British Sterling. This gave the industry some breathing space and allowed the environmentalists time to regroup.
However many shale rocks are cracked in the meantime, there is going to be a day when oil supplies dry up and the lights will go out. The question will should be asking in the meantime is whether we should start aggressively investing in alternative energy forms, such as solar, wind, and geothermal, or is it really worth it to channel financial resources, which are also finite in supply, toward extracting low volumes of oil from habitats of natural beauty and significance.
It turns out that poking around for fossil fuels has been done before. In 1947, the Humble Oil company drilled a couple of test wells in the region of 1,500+ feet deep. Neither well produced economically viable amounts of oil or gas and so prospecting was abandoned here.
The appetite for exploring for oil in the Everglades is directly proportional to the price of oil. When the price is high, prospectors are willing to take bigger risks boring previously uneconomic reserves. When they are low, there is less interest.
Cheap oil is not necessarily a good thing. True, it relieves pressure to ravage environmentally sensitive areas like the Everglades. Human nature being what it is, the cheaper it is, the faster we will use it and, because its supply is not infinite, the sooner we will run out and have to learn to live like cave men all over again.
Oil producing countries are a bit like drug dealers in that respect. Once we get a taste for cheap oil, our demands will increase. That is when they will start jacking up prices. Eventually, unless we have been investing and developing viable alternative energy supplies, we will have to find new uses for our tablets and toasters.
New technologies in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing mean that previously inaccessible oil and gas reserves became economic to drill almost overnight. This controversial process is known as fracking. The most promising fields for fracking are in Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Texas, and Oklahoma, although there are a few others with viable amounts of hydrocarbons sequestered deep in the fine shale rock formations of other states. Florida is one such state.
In 2014, the Miami Herald reported that there were around half a dozen oil and gas E&P companies that spent millions on plans to explore Southwest Florida. At that time, oil prices were high. Two years later, the price of oil was low and the dollar was sagging in value compared to other currencies like British Sterling. This gave the industry some breathing space and allowed the environmentalists time to regroup.
However many shale rocks are cracked in the meantime, there is going to be a day when oil supplies dry up and the lights will go out. The question will should be asking in the meantime is whether we should start aggressively investing in alternative energy forms, such as solar, wind, and geothermal, or is it really worth it to channel financial resources, which are also finite in supply, toward extracting low volumes of oil from habitats of natural beauty and significance.
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