In a vibrant, active and expanding global energy workforce, many professional organizations and opportunities exist. We can’t belong to all of them and participate in any meaningful way, so we have to choose those that best fit our professional goals, opportunities and needs. We must also choose those that best benefit our employer, especially if we hope for them to pay our membership fees!
There are many choices, so how do we choose?
In the parlance of my co-workers at NASA – what mission do we join?
EMD’s Mission
Considering the scope of the global energy market and the demands of the future, the geoscience understanding and technology needed to adequately utilize and protect our planet, and the need to grow and develop future earth scientists, AAPG is a go-to choice. AAPG is diverse, covering all aspects of fossil energy as well as many aspects of other energy sources. To drill deeper, to understand the specifics of various other energy sources, and to understand the global energy mix and future – which mission of AAPG to choose?
If you consider the figure below, then I hope to prove that the Energy Minerals Division’s mission is critical.
This figure is a simple bar chart of energy production by source for December 2017. This chart shows data for the United States but the overall distribution can easily be extrapolated to the remainder of the planet. The units are in quadrillion British Thermal Units (BTU’s). As expected, oil and gas – now and into the foreseeable future – dominate. However, other earth science-dependent and earth-derived resources are increasingly sought and utilized. The mission of the EMD is highlighted by the location of the EMD logo. For coal, EMD’s mission includes just about everything, including coal-bed methane production. For dry natural gas, EMD’s duties and goals include unconventional as well as tight gas resources and methane hydrates. For crude oil, the EMD works with shale, bitumen and heavy oil resources. In nuclear electric power, the EMD mission covers uranium resources and utilization, and the same for geothermal. This figure alone proves the value of the EMD mission for our future global needs.
In summary – for the global energy mix, the AAPG EMD has the responsibility, the mission, for the energy sources of bitumen and heavy oil, coal, coalbed methane, gas hydrates, geothermal energy, oil shale, shale gas and liquids, tight gas sands and uranium. We also maintain the state of the science and art with energy economics and technology and renewable energy. We are growing in our support to the rare-earth elements on which modern technology depends, especially those produced from fossil fuel sources such as coal. The EMD has a mission that covers a broad spectrum of the goals for AAPG and the growing needs of professionals in the global energy workforce.
The Benefits of EMD
I offer three proofs that the Energy Minerals Division offers the value and opportunity we have just discussed. First, take a look at our offering at this year’s Annual Convention and Exhibition in Salt Lake City.
The EMD is sponsoring sessions in global unconventional systems, oral and poster sessions on “Finding the Sweet Spot: New Tools and New Ideals to Get the Most from Unconventional Systems,” oral and poster sessions on North American unconventional systems, and poster sessions on unconventional systems of the western United States, petrophysics of unconventional systems and on global shale systems.
We will display more than 3,000 feet of lacustrine core in the exhibit hall and we are sponsoring short courses and field trips.
EMD, jointly with the Division of Environmental Geosciences, is sponsoring a top-notch EMD/DEG luncheon speaker in Rikki Hrenko-Browning, CEO of Enefit American Oil, who will discuss oil shale. This promises to be an outstanding talk.
Second, and probably the quickest proof, can be found on our EMD committees web page where you can see all that we do..
As a final proof, the EMD believes that its mission is so important to the success of our mutual global energy needs that we offer our membership for free to those who are Members of AAPG. You can join at ACE, online, or when you send in your membership renewal.
For me, I believe that the ‘mission’ of the EMD is critically involved with the future of our global energy resources. I hope you agree and join us! See you in Salt Lake City!