DOHA, Qatar--Srhi Shankar Aiyar, minister of petroleum for India, knows the idea sounds outlandish, but he believes that India could become a petrodollar state in the 21st century.
"If you don't get into the Bay of Bengal now, you will be left back as an Okie," he said during a presentation at the International Petroleum Technology Conference last week. "Unless you step into the breach, you may regret one day dismissing me as a raving lunatic."
The optimism is grounded in massive oil deposits, close to 30 billion tons, in Central India. That's twice the size of the deposits in Iraq (13 billion tons, according to the Institute of Petroleum) and just shy of Saudi deposits. With this, India, which imports 70 percent of its oil, could become an exporter, Aiyar hypothesized.
Although nations are clamoring to build their economies around clean industries like semiconductor design and outsourcing, there's still a lot to be said for 19th century activities like drilling holes into the ground and blowing up rocks.
Unfortunately, oil is stuck under the Deccan Traps, a deep layer of volcanic rock created 65 million years ago when the protocontinent Gowandaland smacked into Eurasia. The collision coincided with the extinction of the dinosaurs.
"How do you begin to do seismic surveys before you even drill through this mess?" he said. "It is necessary that the best kind of scientific R&D be brought to bear upon this problem."
Although nations are clamoring to build their economies around clean industries like semiconductor design and outsourcing, there's still a lot to be said for 19th century activities like drilling holes into the ground and blowing up rocks.
For one thing, it's sort of cool. Exxon Mobil is working on ships that carry 260,000 cubic meters of liquefied natural gas across the Atlantic without accidentally blowing up. When was the last time someone jumped out of helicopters over Baku to wrestle customer relationship management software back into line?
Exxon is also now drilling 2,500 meters down in some offshore wells. In the '90s, the limit was 1,000 meters.
The technology and energy worlds will also increasingly become more intertwined over the next decades. Oil and gas consumption will double by 2030, in part because of growth in tech centers like China and India. Gulf states this year will export $313 billion worth of oil and gas, a figure that will rise to more than $600 billion by 2030.
"In 2004, the oil map changed. For the first time ever, Asia consumed more oil than North America," said Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates.
Meanwhile, rising demand will prompt companies to devise technologies to extract more natural resources and contain environmental hazards. The oil industry, it turns out, is not that efficient. On average, only about 35 percent of the oil in a given deposit actually gets brought to the surface, according to industry estimates. If that could be raised to 45 percent, the world's proven known oil supply could be extended by 20 years.
Scientists are thus tinkering with ideas such as genetically modified microbes that could generate gases to increase underground pressure. For students, this will likely become a strong job market. Academics and international oil companies--which laid off hundreds of thousands of employees in the 1980s--say the industry now faces a huge shortage in engineers.
For India, exploiting its oil resources could represent a massive step forward in modernization. Blackouts remain common in most Indian cities. Nearly half the country's electricity, according to various estimates, gets stolen by individuals placing illegal feed wires onto power lines. In Aiyar's dreams, it could also reverse the balance of power between East and West.
"We have the opportunity to band together to restore Asia's role as the vanguard of civilization, which has traditionally been Asia's role," he said. "Asia only lost the role around 200 years ago. Two hundred years is but a blink of an eye in a long, long saga."
Becoming the light of civilization, however, will require some outside help. Geological science remains a second-class citizen at the Indian Institutes of Technology. Although Aiyar is lobbying the government to change the situation, India will have to rely on foreign expertise.
"Luckily, we're not as broke as we used to be, so we can pay for the services," he said.
Biography Michael Kanellos is editor at large at CNET News.com, where he covers hardware, research and development, start-ups and the tech industry overseas. He has worked as an attorney, travel writer and sidewalk hawker for a time share resort, among other occupations.
Now the Americans have eyes on India's natural resources. After ******* up the Middle east now they want to use the muscle power and lobby in Indian **** sucking government of Sonia Gandhi and make Aiyyar say that lets take out Oil from India so that our American brothers can drive their Hummers comfortably at $1.25 a gallon
I think this kind of ignorant idiotic response only furthers stereotypes about Third World people. The goal is not to extract oil for America, but to replace the 70% of oil that India imports. But only foreign companies have the expertise to actually drill that deep and develop the deposits. Indian companies are not the ones creating novel equipment, they can only import equipment or make obsoleted equipment cheaply.
For all the clamor about Indian tech center this and that, the fact of the matter is nothing present in an average Indian home of today has been conceived in India. From electricity, TV, cement, paint, fans, geysers, phones, computers, washing machines, cooking gas, stainless steel, pretty much everything has been conceived by others. People know this, and like in Middle Eastern countries also who know their cultures cannot invent any new concept, it leads to tremendous frustration and blaming everything from the planets to the moon to America or whatever for the lack of original thought in the culture is an easy way out. Unless there is a culture of personal responsibility and self-examination, even another 200 years hence the third world will firmly remain the third world serving as cheap labor or workshop for cultures which value intellectual property.
10 years ago INdia's major cities were a disaster in terms of polution, today they have improved significantly. Still a lot more to do but quite a bit of progress. Indians are getting more proactive about protecting the environment so hopefully "India's next big business" is not a rape of the environment but thought through to ensure harmony with nature.
Sigh its when you walk in to such rubbish posted by topaz2007 that you being to wonder how well the "Over night rich" syndrome has spread in the West. The over night rich syndrome is where someone becomes rich overnight and starts behaving in a lunatic manner trying to act all rich. Its like the difference between being educated and literate.
Somebody tell the Westerners that Indians,Egyptians and the Chinese were the most advanced civilizations in the world when their ancestors were still HUNTER-GATHERERS. The Indians were building great urban cities when the Westerners were out hunting! For 2000 years the Westerners were leading a primitive life with neolithic technology while the Indians, Egyptians and Chinese were actively trading stuff with each other. The Indians and Chinese built the world's first ports, came up with some innovation as geometry, algebra, calculus, astronomy etc when the Westerners contributed zilch. We taught the West how to count and gave them gun powder. Most of the mathematical base concepts came from India, China and the Middle East whilst the Westerners were living in caves.
And then 200 years of Wester supremacy starting in 17th century. As happens with most cultures, when at their peak they produce cutting edge technology and science. But the Problem with the West is that it is the only culture which produced innovation. The gall!
And then there is the standard statement, nothing around the household comes from India. Someone please tell them that the telephone that they speak on became possible as a result of the pioneering work in wireless communication by Bose, an Indian scientist. The television was invented by the Soviets, who did not consider themselves as part of the West! The concept of schools, universities, the modern number system, the fundamental basis for how computers operate, binary numbers and boolean logic all first came from India almost a thousand years earlier than in the West.
So every time you hear a westerner talking about his "innovations", tell him that his culture's 15 seconds of fame are over and that the civilization heavy-weights, India and China will come by and relegate them to the dustbin. It is indeed irritable to see the West acting all innovative when in the world of inventions their share is miniscule. Shame!
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For all the clamor about Indian tech center this and that, the fact of the matter is nothing present in an average Indian home of today has been conceived in India. From electricity, TV, cement, paint, fans, geysers, phones, computers, washing machines, cooking gas, stainless steel, pretty much everything has been conceived by others. People know this, and like in Middle Eastern countries also who know their cultures cannot invent any new concept, it leads to tremendous frustration and blaming everything from the planets to the moon to America or whatever for the lack of original thought in the culture is an easy way out. Unless there is a culture of personal responsibility and self-examination, even another 200 years hence the third world will firmly remain the third world serving as cheap labor or workshop for cultures which value intellectual property.
Somebody tell the Westerners that Indians,Egyptians and the Chinese were the most advanced civilizations in the world when their ancestors were still HUNTER-GATHERERS. The Indians were building great urban cities when the Westerners were out hunting! For 2000 years the Westerners were leading a primitive life with neolithic technology while the Indians, Egyptians and Chinese were actively trading stuff with each other. The Indians and Chinese built the world's first ports, came up with some innovation as geometry, algebra, calculus, astronomy etc when the Westerners contributed zilch. We taught the West how to count and gave them gun powder. Most of the mathematical base concepts came from India, China and the Middle East whilst the Westerners were living in caves.
And then 200 years of Wester supremacy starting in 17th century. As happens with most cultures, when at their peak they produce cutting edge technology and science. But the Problem with the West is that it is the only culture which produced innovation. The gall!
And then there is the standard statement, nothing around the household comes from India. Someone please tell them that the telephone that they speak on became possible as a result of the pioneering work in wireless communication by Bose, an Indian scientist. The television was invented by the Soviets, who did not consider themselves as part of the West! The concept of schools, universities, the modern number system, the fundamental basis for how computers operate, binary numbers and boolean logic all first came from India almost a thousand years earlier than in the West.
So every time you hear a westerner talking about his "innovations", tell him that his culture's 15 seconds of fame are over and that the civilization heavy-weights, India and China will come by and relegate them to the dustbin. It is indeed irritable to see the West acting all innovative when in the world of inventions their share is miniscule. Shame!