Peak Oil continues to haunt us...

[Ideologue]

Soon oil will be as cheap as bottled water. 

Indeed.  While your house sits underneath ten feet of water, all the desperate refugee Westernized Asian women of your fair city will head east.  FAIR DEAL!

[Phillip V]

Looks like the next Chinese passport map's going to include Australia as its territory.

The United States should annex Australia for its own protection. This is part of the new American defense "pivot" to Asia as well as entry of women into combat arms.

[CountDeMoney]

Sea water can be used for fracking.

Lovely.  Nothing like adding saline to the water table.

[Phillip V]

Sea water can be used for fracking.

Lovely.  Nothing like adding saline to the water table.

I WANT CHEAPER STUFF.

[Viking]

My understanding is that the exploitation of shale oil requires lots of water. Australia is short of that so I'm doubtful that the news is of much importance 

No, shale oil merely requires more water than regular oil and gas production.

Just so you can get the order of magnitude here right.

http://ecowatch.org/2012/water-for-fracking/

Note this is an anti-fracking source and it doesn't compare like to like given that the rate of water usage and this doesn't give a water use per standard cubic meter of gas produced or anything like that. But, using roundish numbers based on the texas numbers you get 10,000,000 liters per well.

Now, so you can understand the magnitude compared to other activities. The USGS (US Geological survey)

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/qa-home-percapita.html

Has water usage at 80-100 gallons per day ~400 liters per day or 140,000 liters per person per year. This is about 71 man years of water usage per well. Given that well can go for 10 years without needing re-completion or re-fracking the rate of water usage is comparable to the personal usage (not total water usage) of the residents of a small town cul de sac for one well or a small apartment building in a city.

Comparing it to beef production.

http://www.waterfootprint.org/?page=files/Animal-products

Beef is 15,000 liters per kg. The water usage for one frack is the same as is used to create 667 kg of beef, that is about two cows.

Yes, Fracking a well uses the same amount of water as two cows. Please let this trope die the death it deserves, doubly so since fracking water is usually  brackish water unsuitable for farming or drinking or anything other than being dumped.

[Viking]

Trillions of dollars worth of oil found in the the Outback.



If it came to it, I think I'd prefer looking for work in the Outback to, say North Dakota or Alberta. Just for the hell of it.

I've actually mentioned this before. This is in the magical sedimentary center of australia that is covered in Aboriginal Holy sites and other hinderances for operations. All the igneous geology was stolen from the the abbos a century ago for mining as well as the good farmland. They were left with the sedimentary desert, which is precisely what this is. This is where the british tested their nuclear bomb and the british army still has a rocket testing site in that region (region being about the size of france and germany put together mind you). This is the land nobody wanted and the abbos got. When I first got to australia my first question was why nobody was looking in the great sedimentary center and the answer was aboriginies plus that its fucking hot and nobody wants to work out there.

There is certainly shale oil and gas there, geology says so. Geology also says that there is little conventional oil and gas in that region as well. But, on the plus side, they've been fracking wells in queensland for 40 years at least, so the people and technology is there (and I've met most of the guys who will be doing the work). I say good for them.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Thanks for that Viking, I will do some further reading on the subject so that I can get the facts clear in my head.

The intellectual dishonesty (or is it simple innumeracy?) of the media never ceases to amaze me, I'm annoyed to have been caught out by them yet again...........should know better.

[Viking]

Thanks for that Viking, I will do some further reading on the subject so that I can get the facts clear in my head.

The intellectual dishonesty (or is it simple innumeracy?) of the media never ceases to amaze me, I'm annoyed to have been caught out by them yet again...........should know better.

Given the numbers I kept thinking I had an order of magnitude error, but I re-checked it a few time. Fracking a well takes less water than raising two cows for slaughter. Given the eating habits of roughnecks I am also tempted to suggest that feeding the rig crew for the duration of the fracking job probably consumes more water than the fracking job itself.

I run on the assumption that it is both innumeracy and dishonesty. Innumeracy means that people are not immune to blatant emotional bullshit, that emotional bullshit convinces them to join a side. Once they have joined a side then they are willing to lie, cheat and steal to achieve their goal. The confirmation bias will mean that they pretty much only believe what confirms their preconceptions and disbelieve what disconfirms it.

[Viking]

But Australia's massive. It's just a bit bigger than the continental US and lots of it's a massive desert, or on fire. Depending on where this find is getting sufficient sea water there will be a massive, and very expensive, business.

Can't use sea water out there. Piping sea water to the location is problematic, not to mention pointless since not much water is really needed. They will truck the water to the location. The water is not drinking water so it's not really depriving anybody of water.

[Eddie Teach]

So the problem is basically that there's not enough water?

[The Brain]

Oil? They already have uranium.

[Viking]

So the problem is basically that there's not enough water?

There is more than enough water, just no infrastructure to get it there. Nicole Kidman's family alone runs 200,000 cattle out in the middle of butfuck nowhere - thats enough water to frack 100,000 wells for the numerically deficient.

[Eddie Teach]

But fracking takes too much water!!! (We really need a devil smiley.)

[Tonitrus]

Looks like the next Chinese passport map's going to include Australia as its territory.

The United States should annex Australia for its own protection. This is part of the new American defense "pivot" to Asia as well as entry of women into combat arms.

Bring back SEATO.

[jimmy olsen]

How much will be extractable of that 233bbn? I'm sure it will be more than the 3.5bbn on the low end, but how much more? Can we extrapolate from American and Canadian experience?