Can the u.s. Oil and gas resource base support sustained production?

Aggressive drilling for oil and gas in the lower 48 states of the United States over the past decade yielded reserve additions sufficient to arrest decline and to stabilize levels of production. Such positive response from a maturely explored and developed oil resource base was unpredicted and largely unanticipated. Two elements of the recent experience-maintenance of stable rates of finding and substantial levels of conventional reserve growth in older fields-indicate that the capability of the resource base to sustain production is yet considerable. The volume of domestic oil and gas production that is necessary in the national interest and the extent to which the resource base should be pursued are the central issues of public energy policy.     

Is there a u.s. Productivity crisis?

Long-term data on U.S. productivity growth show its enormous contribution to U.S. living standards but do not confirm fears that the country is losing its manufacturing jobs to other countries. Growth in U.S. manufacturing productivity shows no downward trend; the U.S. share of world manufacturing employment is rising and, although the share of U.S. service sector jobs has increased, that in Japan has risen three times as quickly. The threats to U.S. productivity growth are mostly shorter term, for example, the federal deficit that absorbs savings which would otherwise be used to modernize and expand plant and equipment.     

Geodynamics--where are we and what lies ahead?

The introduction and evolution of the plate tectonics hypothesis during the past two decades has sparked the current renaissance of research in the earth sciences. An outgrowth of active geophysical and geological exploration of the oceans, the plate tectonics model has come under intense scrutiny by geologists, geochemists, and geophysicists who have attempted to apply the model to the origin and growth of continents, the generation of oceanic and continental crust, and the nature of the lithosphere, asthenosphere, and underlying mantle with respect to their evolution through time and to the driving mechanism or mechanisms for plate tectonics. The study of other terrestrial planets and moons has been helpful in understanding the earth model. The unequal distribution of geological features, both in the continents and oceans, emphasizes the need for ongoing studies of international scope such as the recently completed International Geodynamics Project and its successor, the International Lithosphere Program, both stressing studies related to the dynamics of the lithosphere.