Bakken Formation

– Recently, I heard about a new oil discovery here in North America called the Bakken Formation. There seems to be a lot of excitement about it and, like a few other recent discoveries (), it may push the menace of Peak Oil away for a number of years more.

Most of the information I’m seeing is recent but This Wikipedia article shows that we’ve known about the Bakken Formation for some time now. But, it may be that with the current price of oil so high, extracting it from places like this becomes profitable.

– And indeed, it is just this logic that has made me think for some time that the Peak Oil crises will not come on like a lion – but rather more like a lamb.

– As the oil prices go up, sources that were formerly marginal will become profitable and oil use will continue. People do not want to give up the perks of our oil based economies so we will continue to pay higher and higher prices for oil and continue to extract it from ever more difficult sources until, finally, the pain is just too high to continue.

– Along the way, many of us will continue to talk about the rising CO2 levels and Global Climate Change which are resulting from the continued use of oil – but I fear no one will be listening to those complains either – until it is far too late.

– I googled for “Bakken Formation” and got a huge number of hits.   here are just three of the first ones: 

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

The Bakken Oil Formation

Bakken Reserve Estimates

Bakken no energy panacea

– research thanks to Dave C.

Leave a Reply