After leaving high school, I worked for an oilfield service company that specialized in cement for newly drilled oil and gas wells. I got my truck driving license. I was trained to operate a cement bulker truck.
Oilwell cementing is an industrial process. Trucks, pumps, high pressures, big iron, big noise, dry and wet cement moving around, senior workers barking orders at junior workers.
Each cement job requires at least three trucks at the wellsite. Setting up, pumping cement, tearing down. Physical labor, but we also had to be smart and solve problems. No two cement jobs were the same. When we got back to town, we had to prepare our trucks for the next job.
The job involved crazy and long hours. We fought the weather. There was lots of pressure to get this job done right. A good cement job was expected to last for decades. Big money was on the line.
At that time in my life, I needed a “man’s job,” and cementing oil wells allowed me to prove how tough I was.
Looking back, this 18-year-old Dave was so unprepared for this industrial job that it is a wonder he had no serious accident. There should have been better training. But I was hooked. I liked the excitement of the oil patch. I knew I was going to go to engineering school, but I didn’t have a preferred branch of engineering. This job directed me to petroleum engineering.
Next summer, I was working on the drilling rigs. Riggers made twice the money as cementers. In four months of rigging, I was able to earn enough money to pay my tuition, rent, food, a car, and too much beer for the rest of the year. My engineering colleagues who didn’t work in the oilfields took on debt, worked part-time, or stayed with their parents. The oil patch paid well for me to be independent, soothing my macho ego.
I liked working outside. And studying engineering for four years had been kind of against that nature. So when I graduated, I did not want to work in an engineering office. I found a job as a “drill stem tester,” a blue-collar oilfield job that required both physical and technical skills. Another demanding oilfield occupation with a big paycheck.
My unconventional career path eventually had me wanting a real engineering job in my mid-30s. The work I found can be quickly best described as “sweatshop engineering,” where I conducted routine technical analyses. I was grinding numbers for the petroleum engineers making the big decisions. Maybe someday I would be such an engineer.
Altogether I had about 14 years in the Canadian petroleum industry: Five as a blue-collar worker, six in business, and three in low-level petroleum engineering.
Then I got a long-term illness. I could not work for two years. When my health improved, I could not go back to stressful occupations. I took on simpler work to make ends meet. It took about 12 years to recover well enough to take on engineering again. But being out of this profession for so long meant employment in the petroleum industry was unlikely.
Dave The Environmentalist
My petroleum engineering curriculum had me taking two courses in thermodynamics, which is the study of heat transfer and energy exchange. From these studies and other observations, I came up with the following postulates:
1. The planet Earth is in a precarious energy balance. The sun’s radiation coming in plus the nuclear reactions in the Earth’s mantle are offset by the infrared radiation leaving Earth. If the balance is not maintained, there will be a temperature change.
2. Millions of years ago, conditions were suitable to store the sun’s energy in coal, oil, and gas. Now we are releasing that energy. If the nuclear energy from the mantel is the same and the outgoing infrared radiation is the same, then burning fossil fuel means there is now more energy coming into the system than going out. We should expect the temperature to rise.
3. Rising temperatures mean more movement in the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans. We should expect more vibrant weather patterns on the Earth’s surface.
I figured this out in 1982, despite being educated in a petroleum engineering way.
My solution was to increase taxes on all fossil fuels. In this way, humanity would tend to use less fuel while making other forms of energy more competitive. I believed we could keep the temperature increase at bay as we searched for other solutions for our energy.
In my way, I was an environmentalist. While I was part of a profession that would soon be vilified, I could see that change was needed. Petroleum engineers had an important role to play in this transition. In 1982, the world was not going to kick its fossil fuel habit anytime soon. A good career was in store for petroleum engineers.
Not Blaming the Petroleum Industry
Medium has so many articles blaming the petroleum industry for our environmental woes. I’m going to shift that blame to somewhere else. If you are an open-minded reader, please stay with me.
And no, I’m not going to put the blame on the consumers. While many of us can reduce our consumption of fossil fuels (and we should always be thinking along this way), we simply cannot go back to caves and firepits and hunter-gatherer societies. Or maybe societies where slaves do the work instead of machines. The real blame belongs somewhere else.
And I’m not going to whitewash the petroleum industry. Let me give you a little anecdote from my oilfield experience in Alberta.
Gas wells have a tendency to produce little water. This water collects in the well to the point where it hinders the flow of gas. Lower gas rates mean lower profits. So, removing water from the well is profitable. Finding profits is what petroleum companies do.
The traditional way to remove the water was to open the well to the atmosphere for 15 to 30 minutes. The gas would blow the water out. Then the well operator would route the gas back into the pipeline, but with a higher gas rate than before.
But this water was usually salty — and it fell on the ground near the wellhead. This salt affected the nearby topsoil of the farm or natural land. Plants stopped growing.
Circa 1990, the Alberta government passed a law that petroleum companies could no longer “unload” gas wells in this way. Unloading then became a much more expensive procedure. So, the salt water had to be diverted to a tanker truck and disposed in a more environmentally friendly way.
The industry has abided by this rule ever since. So we can say that the industry obeys the regulations — when the regulations are put in front.
But we should acknowledge the petroleum industry knew — for decades — the damage it was causing to the topsoil. It could have volunteered to stop this practice. But it stopped only when the government got on top of this issue. It took about two decades for the government to get on top.
In essence, the industry took advantage of a wise regulation that was delayed. Maybe the industry successfully lobbied the government to counter the activists who were trying to stop the unloading of gas wells. Or maybe the government was just too preoccupied with bigger issues. Or maybe the issue was just a small issue until it became a big issue. Whatever reason for the delay, the petroleum industry just earned a little better profit for each year of delay. It had a financial benefit in the delay of legislation that it could see coming sooner or later. Why not later?
Many of us would like to put the blame on the petroleum industry itself. But given that it is driven by profit, why should we expect it to create a rule that prevents it from blowing salt water onto topsoil? This is such an unrealistic expectation, isn’t it?
The Political Workings of the Petroleum Industry
Did the petroleum industry shape our car culture — so they could sell us more gasoline?
Yep.
Has the industry invested in political parties and politicians to gain access to government leaders that many of us would never have?
Yep.
Has the industry lobbied politicians to get them to see things more in the industry’s light?
Yep.
Has the industry invested in think tanks and social media to placate a good part of the public, thus shaping public opinion probably in the wrong way?
Yep.
Has the industry taken advantage of the cumbersome nature of legislatures modelled for the 1800s?
Yep.
Does the industry have a 20-year vision that is superior to the vision of the average political party looking to win the next election?
Yep.
Does the industry win all of its political battles?
Nope.
It lost the unloading gas well battle. But it wins enough battles to justify the expense of interfering with the political process.
Part of the petroleum industry’s 20-year plan is to prevent, delay, and water down anything that is unfavorable to the petroleum industry.
If the goal is to generate profits, why should the petroleum industry be thinking any differently?
The same goes for all the other industries: mining, banking, pharmaceutical, finance, shipping, agriculture, etc., etc. etc. All these industries will influence the political process to protect their profits.
At this point, many readers believe that they need only vote for a political party that promises to tackle the petroleum industry. Maybe this party wins the election. Maybe it keeps its promises. The petroleum industry is beset with new regulations. Great! But while the political party has had its regulatory sights set on this industry, other repairs to society are left to fester.
Let’s face it, our 19th-century political processes are working too slowly for the 21st century.
Tiered Democratic Governance (TDG).
Being a petroleum engineer isn’t popular on Medium.
But remember, this petroleum engineer could see the follies of continued and increased fossil fuel consumption in 1982. I had a solution, but the world was not ready for that solution.
I also spent six years with a Canadian political party as an active volunteer. I was hoping that I could somehow influence my ideas for a better society — like a much higher fuel tax. I wasn’t influential. But I was observant:
1. Big money does influence elections. While it does not always get its way, it gets enough reward for its political investment.
2. Elected politicians spend too much time working for their political party. They need to be working more for their society.
3. Our legislative procedures are slow because of the various checks and balances in case we have corrupt or inept politicians. Our current electoral processes have proven not to be great filters to weed out corrupt or inept politicians.
Politics vs. Governance, Part 1
Then, in 1992, the flaws of Western democracy became very apparent to me. I somehow invented a new system of governance. Here is how the TDG would address the three observations above:
1. TDG elections require no campaign contributions. So elections cannot be bought — or be perceived to have been bought.
2. The elected representatives can focus their political time and energy on the people they serve. There are no political parties in the TDG.
3. The TDG representatives will be regarded as more trustworthy and capable than today’s elected representatives.
As the TDG is building itself, it will be experimenting with new ways of governance. Because TDG representatives are more trustworthy and capable, the legislative processes will be streamlined from the 18th century. More new legislation is possible. Ineffective legislation will be more quickly repealed or amended.
Petroleum Engineers and Regulations
My experience in the petroleum industry is that petroleum engineers follow the regulations. When petroleum companies get big fines from the government, there are consequences for people who break those laws. Big paychecks get smaller with demotions. Jobs can be lost. Careers can be stalled. The job of a petroleum engineer is both technical skills and knowing/following the regulations. These days, making sure oilfield operations stay “in compliance” occupies more time for many petroleum engineers than petroleum engineering.
We just need a better way to create better regulations. The TDG is a solution you should be investigating.
If we had a TDG in place in 1982, we would have a sensible plan of transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Instead, we have the petroleum industry using the flaws of Western democracy to delay this rightful and eventual direction.
If we blame a bear for being a bear, we are not going to find a good solution for the bear. So we should not look to the petroleum industry as the source of our dysfunction. Blaming the petroleum industry is only a reflection of our own incompetence.
What is at fault is our system of governance. We need a new way.
And, like my hefty fuel tax of 1982, suggesting our current democracy should be replaced with a better democracy has proven to be an unpopular opinion.
In the meantime, we need good petroleum engineers more than ever. But let’s plan for fewer petroleum engineers 50 years from now. But can we plan as our current political structures are the way they are?
Published on Medium 2023
Toto, I have a feeling we are not in the 1960s anymore
Be the Example You want our Politicians to Be
