As petroleum geologists, we are in the business of finding and supplying energy. It has been estimated that the world has used two-thirds as much energy in the last 100 years as in the preceding 18½ centuries. The United States is now using approximately 50 times more energy than it did 150 years ago. Oil and gas are now supplying 57 per cent of the energy requirements of this country.

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There may be temporary leveling-off periods in the demand for energy, principally oil and gas, such as the one we are now experiencing, but long-range estimates indicate a steadily increasing demand.

How long will we petroleum geologists be able to continue the rate of discovery we have maintained for the last 15 years? Does atomic energy offer a threat to our markets or will we welcome it as a supplementing source of supply? Are there other energy competitors?

When you realize 140 tons of uranium has been estimated to be the equivalent in energy of all the oil and its products consumed in the United States in one year, it is apparent that atomic energy ultimately will have a profound effect on the energy markets of the United States and the world. All estimates for the foreseeable future indicate that it will supplement and not replace oil and gas uses. Solar energy may eventually have far-reaching effects on our every-day lives. In this connection, much research is now underway and some very interesting results have already been obtained with a form of algae known as chlorella. Research on the production of fuels synthetically continues to make progress, especially in the oil shale field.

It seems safe to predict that the oil industry and we, as petroleum geologists, will be called upon to supply the increasing energy need of our country for some time to come. While we have performed through the years a praiseworthy job, it has only been in the last 15 years that we have hit our stride. By the end of the 1930's geophysical prospecting, principally the reflection seismograph, was having its full impact on oil finding. At about this same time the geologists and geophysicists laid aside any misgivings they may have been harboring for one another and began to join in a cooperative effort that through teamwork has found in the last 15 years approximately half of the oil that has been discovered in our country since Drake drilled his well. Since there are no new methods in s ght, such as surface mapping, core drilling, subsurface geology, torsion balance, and reflection seismograph, which as each became available as a tool in the past, gave us new hope and extended successfully our frontiers of exploration, we must rely upon a further intensification of our teamwork of the last 15 years to find new oil fields in old producing areas, to push our exploration deeper into structural basins, to pioneer entirely new sedimentary areas of promise, and to develop the tidelands of our coasts. The job of keeping our country supplied with energy will be tremendous but we can accomplish it.

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