renewables will remain the world's energy work-horse for many decades to come. I would add that the oil industry is committed to improving the efficiency and environmental friendliness of petroleum, and that we will continue to see strides in its sustainability, thanks to an emphasis on conservation and a strong new innovation focus. The oil industry's unprecedented drive to push the limits of technology is yielding results unimagined even a few years ago. Saudi Arabia's national oil company, Saudi Aramco, is focusing research and development campaign on technologies that help find and recover more oil in an environmentally sustainable, cost effective manner. Some of the company's frontier technologies have implications for the entire industry. Three such technologies are Extreme Reservoir Contact wells that optimize recovery; giga-cell reservoir models which increase our understanding of reservoir behavior over time; and the I-field, or intelligent field, concept, facilitating quick data transmission to inform production and reservoir management decisions. The horizon is full of such futuristic, beneficial applications. The company is looking ahead with the industry award-winning “resbot” concept, which deploys nano-scale reservoir robots into oil-reservoir rock to analyze and store vital mapping information. Stunning technologies like these, present and future, are just a glimpse into the industry's proactive commitment to research and development to assure supplies of environmentally sustainable energy for many decades to come. Given the immense promise that such technologies hold, there is no excuse to pin our hopes only on alternatives, which today are just supplemental energies, when it comes to optimizing our energy future. When the supplies are there, and when we are continually making their harvesting and production greener and cleaner, the answer is an inclusive energy mix. Considering the role fossil fuels play in keeping economies functioning and improving quality of life for billions, let us continue to enhance their sustainability, use all energies more efficiently and conservatively, and create an energy context that lets all viable sources become efficient, cost effective, safe, and clean enough to contribute. Here I must offer a word of caution against calling for a premature shift from fossil fuels to slowly evolving alternatives. Regardless of intentions, the consequences can be deeply counter-productive to global energy security, and indeed to the natural environment. When we talk about such a shift, two negatives quickly emerge. One negative is progressively lower levels of investment in the fossil fuels that make modern life possible; after all, demand uncertainty creates a strong sense of investment risk for producers. New technologies such as Extreme Reservoir Contact wells and resbots emerge only in a culture of innovation and applied research; inhibiting that culture significantly impedes the adequate, timely flows of money to the energy sector that make such breakthroughs possible. Diminished investment in fossil fuels will impact our ability to provide the energy that will be needed when the economy turns around; to meet growing future demand; to develop the products and processes and conduct the studies that continually lighten our environmental footprint; and to enhance energy conservation practices. --More
