More oil drilled in North Dakota than California? Run that by me again.

Did you ever think you would see this headline?

N.Dakota Oil Continues Exponential Growth and is on Pace to Become the No. 2 Oil State in January.  That is a post from Mark Perry pointing out the dramatic growth in oil production from North Dakota sites.

Check out the graph to see the drastic expansion the last four years.  In about 2008 oil production hit an inflection point.  Here’s the basic shape of the graph:  horizontal before 2008 and on roughly a 45° angle after that.

Here is the professor’s closing comment

Bottom Line: At the current rate of ongoing record-setting increases in its oil production, North Dakota is on pace to surpass both California (540,000 barrels per day) and Alaska (550,000 barrels per day) by next January to become the No. 2 oil-producing state in the country, behind only Texas (1,410,000 barrels per day).

More oil from North Dakota than California or Alaska.  Wow.

Is the amount of energy stored in the earth finite? Of course. However the economic cost of getting resources out of the ground is the biggest constraint, far more of a factor than the actual amount of minerals in the ground.

As technology improves and energy costs go up, it becomes possible to extract resources that were not economically feasible before. Here is a new idea for you to ponder:

Energy is economically infinite.

That is certainly not an original idea from me. I came across a comment a few weeks ago in one of the many blogs I read. Cannot find it immediately. Did a Google search on the phrase “economically infinite” and quickly realized that is an idea that has been discussed widely. It’s just a new concept to me.

Think I will ponder and  talk of that some more.  In the meantime, check out the production graph.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *