I still remember a time when they said oil sands were worthless, because of all the processing needed to extract it!! I'm not even that old, just 40!!!!!

Thank you very much for the most unbiased "oil talk" I've ever seen. You Sir are a true scientist.

As an energy expert, I appreciate you giving a very good and complete introduction to oil and natural gas exploration for everyone out there. Hopefully it will help everyone understand what a precious resource these fossil fuels are.

More than an energy problem, many things in everyday life a made of oil. When we run out how will we create them?

8:55 The cost of oil will become so expensive that it's no longer economically viable. COVID: Laughs in $-37 a barrel oil.

So they use a Seismic Vibrator to search for tight oil, then repeatedly drill for it. Ah, the things you can learn from science....

As a doctor of petroleum engineering I congratulate you on the job you've done with this video. I'm used to hearing horribly mangled explanations of this topic and you've done quite a good overview with practically no mistakes, while remaining admirably apolitical. (As a PhD I am obligated to provide corrections - (1) a reservoir seal would much more likely be a shale layer, rather than granite or marble, and (2) the first syllable of bitumen should be stressed, not the second.)

As a petroleum engineer, I found this surprisingly accurate. Most of these types of videos on oil are filled with "untruths". I would like to mention that "fracking" (short for high pressure fracture stimulation) is not a new technology. It has been used for 50+\- years, we are just getting much better at it.

This was an extremely useful, informative video. Thanks!!!

jeez Hank, you sounded pretty enthusiastic about increasing oil production at 5:54 settle down

Thank you . Excellent treatment of a difficult, complex problem.

Thank you for all this hard work oil companies. I really like my electricity, plastics, and vehicles.

Dirty.... And extremely informative!!!!!

It's great that we have the technology to keep finding and drilling the continuously harder to get oil... but let's hope we don't take this extra time for granted. It will run out in future generations, so it's best to start shifting to new energy sources as much as we can, without delay!

My uncle is a physicist at Lancaster university (head of the department too). He's being commissioned by BP to work on an oil extraction method involving nano-technology. Basically, the nano thingys are injected into the oil move to the edges of the well. They then harden to form a kinda bag. This method means that they can extract 100% of the oil in an single well.

I'm super stoked you talked about SAGD!! I'm from Alberta and as far as oil extraction goes, SAGD is the best method we have so far. It has one of the lowest steam to oil ratios and a large percentage of the steam and water is reused. Loved this video!!! DFTBA

Finally someone who doesn't say peak oil is a myth...also, I like how much he moves his hands, it keeps me focused, he's like a magician.

Hank made a vibrator joke; now I've seen everything.

I did offshore seismic exploration in the early 80's and we combined seismic with gravity and magnetic instrumentation back then. I'd really like to see some of the advancements they have made over the last 30 years. I got put out of work when crude oil sunk below $20 a barrel and now it is $108.

This was a super interesting episode, one of my favourites!

Our grandchildren will ask us how we drove internal combustion machines manually and we will sound so bad ass.

Seismic vibrators and bio-holes...

Something rarely mentioned in my experience is settling priorities and using less.

Why Mr. Green, I believe you hit the nail on the head with this one. "Everyone knows we have to start exploring technologies that don't use oil" bravo...nice vid as always.

"How much oil we think or fear we have left is influencing how and where we're looking for it." Boo yah social science factoids.

The best use for oil is lubricating bike chains.

Love Sci-Show, keep it up hank!

One thing we learned in material class in engineering school was that even though plastic is made from oil, the oil usage is only 2 kg for one liter PP-plastic, while it is 4,5 kg oil for one liter of regular low-strength steel and it is 15 kg oil for one liter of new aluminum. Recycled aluminum is only about 1,5 kg though, so more recycling gets the oil (energy) usage for aluminum down and also the price of it.

Seeing this in 2022, seems like a really good time to invest in renewables.

You don't need fuel if you're not alive to see it.

Hey Hank, a follow-up video on renewable energy sources, and a proper look at whether or not they're economically viable right now would be nice. Lots of people say that renewable is the way forward when they're dead set against fracking, but I can't help but feel that converting the world to run purely on these sources is a lot more complicated than simply putting up a few hydroelec dams.

Really interesting stuff. Thanks guys!

LOL, the giant seismic vibrators penetrate. LOL

I am using hydo power. My whole province uses water power!!! GO CANADA! ^_^

I love how so many people forget that over 90% of plastics - including the PCBs* in our electronics - are made of oil. Heck, we've got beds and clothes made of oil. Things to cook with and store food in. Plastic parts in most toys and all transportation means of ours use oil. It's not just for fuel. (*PCB stands for Printed Circuit Board).

This video is highly informative, thank you. I now feel smarter.

Let's put some dinosaurs in the microwave and make some oil (That was joke I know that won't work shut up)

What would've happened to the oil if we had found an alternate form of fuel before its discovery? Would it just build up or would it decay? Or, was it inevitable that we would use it?

I have worked on oilfields in alberta that use the seam assisted method. Its by far the most ecologically friendly way to extract the stuff.

I must thank you for replying so much, your helping me practice reading those captcha images :P

actually, the energy that powers my house comes from a hydroelectric station. But great episode hank.

Can Hank keep his hands still?

Thank you!!

Thank you for the great videos. I have a suggestion of doing more videos discussing alternative energy.

No Hank, I'm on water power. Because Norway

1 pound of uranium produces as much energy as 18,000 pounds of coal. produces a hell of a lot less waste to energy ratio and costs 100$ per pound where as 18,000 pounds of coal costs 410 dollars... without shipping costs...

hey scishow love ur work, would love to see any episode on renewable energy technology

i know the point of i just learn more easily with videos like UKposts instead of "Goggling" it and the guys at sci show are great at explaining stuff

This explains the political situation in the Middle East

Hank you are wrong! I am not using fossil fuels to power my computer. The electricity that powers my computer is generated via hydroelectric dams operated by Manitoba Hydro.

Cool vid now do one on how they repurpose is after it's been used. Thanks

yeah, the bakken! love a good ND shoutout.

The solution to oil is the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor. Build a couple of these that do nothing but produce hydrogen and extract CO2 from the atmosphere. Combine the two and make dimethyl ether, which can be used to replace diesel fuel. You can also use the hydrogen and CO2 to make ethanol, which can be used to replace regular gasoline. Do that and we stop spending trillions every year on oil and all of our fuel becomes carbon neutral. Problem solved and we also help solve the greenhouse gas problem.

It's all about the money! We've build everything around us from oil, and we now very dependent on it! 1:49 Like Hank said, "Obviously, were dealing with a finite resource, here. So, there will come a day when it will run out!" The main problem that we will face within the next 5 years: the transportation of the oil! Where the oil comes from is getting more and more unstable because of religion and war/violence (see the Middle East....) Once the oil runs dry, new technologies will have to rise to take it's place (they do already exist, or so I've been told).

Hank, thanks so much for this informative episode and for the whole series -- it's one of the best on UKposts. :-) Can you do a geographical follow-up at some point where you point out all of the known oil reserves and their estimated exhaustion date? I'm really curious as to how these regions compare to each other. Might the Saudis run out of oil a few years or decade(s) before we do? Also, petroleum is used to make many products--what alternatives are there for when oil runs out?

Very good general explanation (from oil industry insider)

Fossil fuel is only good for so long. I believe that it was just to start us (humanity) off. Alternative energy and nuclear power plants are way more sustainable than oil and coal, with nuclear being the more scalable and cheaper alternative fuel. Though I'd still take a gasoline/diesel car over electric any day. Use electric for vehicles that travel thousands of miles each day, not for those that do 50 miles/wk at most. And for the sake of everything green, develop public transportation and make the damn NJ/NY trains run on time and fast (probably adding several lines tbh). If taking the train is cheaper than driving (time and expense-wise), more people will use them. Only rural dwellers will have to drive if public transportation in the suburbs improves. I'd take the bus to my college if it weren't 2 fkn hours long!

Hank said that it's pretty freakin difficult. I say it's pretty FRACKIN difficult. Yeah, that was bad.

I believe that once they get to a certain depth, they withdraw the drill from the hold, then insert a wedge into the hole, then push another drill on a flexible shaft down the hole. The wedge pushes the drill bit sideways.

I think that the extra use of oil is because of the vast distances between cities in Canada. Trucks, trains and aircrafts have to travel much more and use much more oil just to get to their destination, larger amounts of electricity are lost on the longer high tension lines, etc.

Fossil fuels for energy? What is this, the 1920ies?

6:30 you can also use horizontal drilling to recover oil from underneath elementary schools it's an exceeeelent technique :P if puns were baseball that would be a Homer xD

Good video, I recently subscribed, I love and binge watch this channel, my career entails, Geomagnetics and Directional drilling, it would be an cool topic to cover in a video :-)

I actually helped engineer the perforating system used in getting the horizontal wells to pressurize.

This is what wars are fought over.

i hope they have ornithopters to protect the thumper trucks, i didnt see any. surely this is against OH&S

Please do a video over abiogenic oil, proving or disproving it and clearing up misconceptions over it.

thank you your right.

So why dont we put bones in pressure cookers to make oil.

lol most of my energy is hydro :p

Very good show though if not your best. Not educational for me but will clear up a lot to many. THX.

To know more about the cost of extracting, read some about ERoEI - Energy Return on Energy Invested. Some stuff like bitumen tar sands is down to 3:1 - so you have to use one barrel of oil in order to extract 3 barrels. So a lot of people who talk about peak oil has refined this to be "peak affordable oil" - that is a peak in the oil that so far has made classical economical growth possible. Expect a serious slide down the other side of Hubbards curve any time soon...

We don't need oil anymore - except for greasing and even THEN, there are viable alternatives. The only reason oil is still being widely used is due to both stagnation and fear of oil companies losing business. We have so much viable alternatives that oil use could be lowered to 10 million barrels in 5 years If they were used. But of course, the desire for money is stronger.... I wish they would listen and stop letting their psycho money loving tendancies control them.

So... Ummm solar freaking highways!!!!!!

it's a tool for the accelerated dissemination of knowledge, what is lacking is the understanding of the general public to appreciate that.I try my best to explain things in the clear (as should my peers I hope) but sometimes that requires over simplification, which blurrs the knowledge we are trying to impart making it meaningless. This grates across my nerves because it's teaching mis-truthes. No-one can force anyone to learn, including the learning the language needed to understand the lesson.

Fracking is the technique and it can be used for several things. It can be used for oil, natural gas and even water.

i'm actually not using fuel to watch this hank. the country i live in has over 90% renewable energy so HAH!

Fracking is bad!!

I'm actually either going to college for petroleum engineering, or going straight offshore into oil production and hopefully become the manager of the platform one day. Let's just see how it works out...

It's been a while but... There are a few definitions of acid, but basically an acid is a thing that can "donate" hydrogen ions (protons). When acids are in water, you have H3O molecules, which can give off that hydrogen as needed. Mixing acids with water gives off heat (the proton donor is becoming more stable). If you only have a small amount of water, the water gets heated up a lot, causing it to boil/vaporize, which can splatter. Yet if you pour acid into water, the heat doesn't concentrate

So, then why are we not building engines that get more than 100 miles to the gal. This technology exist, but was bought up by the oil companies and then buried in order to to keep the consumer dependent on the oil, and artificially inflate the price of oil. With the prices that are currently dropping, people don't think about this as a limited resource; however those prices are just one gun shot away from skyrocketing if a war were to break out in those oil rich countries. We need to produce our own oil, quit selling it abroad, and start producing the most efficient engines in the world. Then sell those to those countries that are holding the oil hostage. If enough autos are converted to being efficient then the demand will decrease and force the prices back to a level that's more affordable. Meanwhile we need to seriously look for alternative sources for energy. Perhaps we need to dust off the blueprints that Tesla had. Force those companies that are shelving the inventions that will increase the MPG of today's automobiles. This needs to be instigated now, before are backs are against the wall. Necessity is the mother of invention. More now than ever we need to encourage today's engineers, and steer tomorrows students towards science.

Entire worlds of hydrocarbons sitting on our doorstep. We need to get off of this dirty little rock.

I understand what you are saying xertris, but 'renewable' means it can be made as fast or faster then we can use it (or at least within reasonable time). It may be an ongoing process but we use it much faster then it can be made. Hence we can run out, hence not renewable.

welcome back hank :3

Here in France most of the energy comes from nuclear plants, and hydraulic fracturing is forbidden by law.

I am thankful for fossil fuels every day. They have made my life easier, cleaner and safer. Without them life would be short, brutal and dirty. Alternatives will come about, and when viable ones do I'll be just as thankful.

I wish I could have contributed more but thanks for the content.

Hank, you should do an infusion dedicated to alternative energy sources. I loved the one you did about solar energy, and I'm sure there's a lot of stuff out there about alternative energy that people don't commonly know. Just a thought.

there are few things i would like my children watch and i am happy to say scishow is one of those things

I wish we could go back before 2012. That spike in US oil production pretty much ruined the economy in Alberta Canada. Hank is correct. It is very expensive and time consuming to get that oil out of the sand.

I am really impressed by how informative and NON-political/ biased this video is. Thank you for providing facts, not opinions.

have you guys done a show on ethanol production and how it is progressing. like better ways to make it without so much waste. I heard about switch grass being way better than corn.

It would be kinda nice to pick and choose from renewable or non-renewable for a home you own... if the lights stay on

I did a project on fracking when the fracking well is deied out they then could be modified and converted into geothermal wells a renewable resource

Hank! I would have thought that you would have mentioned something along the lines of all the products that derive from crude oil and not just the implied and obvious energy uses. Would love to see your thoughts on that. Just how much would plastic prices increase if it were not for the profitability of the more combustible components????

Make a vid regarding the topic discussed at the end

Excellent video. Can you guys please do one on bio-fuels (not just ethanol additives but a proper gasoline substitute)? One that could also run in vintage cars since modern fuel with ethanol is damaging to old systems. And could it also replace petroleum in things like rubber, plastic, and vaseline?

Oh Hank, continue making videos

Forgive me, 2 parter... If it was a broadly used solution power grid draw would be far reduced, and that's only one renewable solution. Nearby Bakersfield in the mountains, there already exists a massive wind farm of which only some of the generators are constantly active. In areas which have good conditions tidal generators could be employed or even seabound wind generators, not to mention the potential for new geothermal technologies. It just takes effort to think of how it will work together.

GOLD