In the summer of 1858, Edwin Drake punched 33 ft of cast iron pipe into the earth to prevent near surface water from collapsing the hole. He then lowered drilling equipment into the cased hole and used a steam engine to drill a successful, 69 ft deep well. On August 27th, shallow oil flowed almost to the surface and was recovered with a sump pump. Within 10 years more than 5,500 wells had been drilled, and 1,200 were producing oil. Edwin Drake made absolutely no money on developing modern drilling technology and died a poor man. The North American oil industry four years after Drake's well. The Phillips well is on the right, and the Woodford well on the left. Located in the middle of Oil Creek Valley (note the river at the right of the photograph), these two wells showed the early promise of the Oil Regions. The Phillips well was the most productive ever drilled to date, flowing initially at 4,000 barrels per day in October 1861. The
In this blog, I continue to write about the environment, ecology, energy, complexity, and humans. Of particular interest to me are human self-delusions and mad stampedes to nowhere.