Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 6 February 1981:
Vol. 211. no. 4482, pp. 576 - 579
DOI: 10.1126/science.211.4482.576
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Articles

Petroleum Drilling and Production in the United States: Yield per Effort and Net Energy Analysis

CHARLES A. S. HALL 1 and CUTLER J. CLEVELAND 1

1 Section of Ecology and Systematics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14850

For the past three decades the quantity of petroleum (both oil and oil plus gas) found per foot of drilling effort in the United States for any given year can be expressed as a secular decrease of about 2 percent per year combined with an inverse function of drilling effort for that year. Extrapolation of energy costs and gains from petroleum drilling and extraction indicates that drilling for domestic petroleum could cease to be a net source of energy by about 2004 at low drilling rates and by 2000 or sooner at high drilling rates, and that the net yield will be less at higher drilling rates.

Submitted on August 15, 1980
Revised on January 16, 1981


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Energy and the U.S. Economy: A Biophysical Perspective.
C. J. Cleveland, R. Costanza, C. A. S. Hall, and R. Kaufmann (1984)
Science 225, 890-897
   Abstract »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)