{"id":7742,"date":"2020-07-19T16:01:19","date_gmt":"2020-07-19T16:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=7742"},"modified":"2020-07-19T16:01:19","modified_gmt":"2020-07-19T16:01:19","slug":"petroleum-engineering-quo-vadis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2020\/07\/19\/petroleum-engineering-quo-vadis\/","title":{"rendered":"Petroleum engineering \u2013 quo vadis?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I listened into a conversation the other day about petroleum engineering courses in UK universities. \u00a0In this, one of the contributors expressed surprise \u2013 shock almost \u2013 that such courses still existed, given what we know about climate change and net-zero carbon targets. \u00a0In fact there are a lot of such courses in our universities (mostly as components of chemical engineering degrees). \u00a0See <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ucas.com\/explore\/subjects\/chemical-engineering\">UCAS<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.studyin-uk.com\/studyuk\/oil-gas-and-petroleum-engineering\/\">other<\/a> data.<\/p>\n<p>Their continuing existence would seem quite rational as universities have a range of criteria for running a degree course. \u00a0Prominent amongst these are: there is a demand from well-qualified young people, there are well-paid, graduate level jobs to be had at the end of a degree and post-graduate opportunities, there are well-qualified staff to teach it, a research base to support it, and the course enhances (or at least does not diminish) the institution\u2019s reputation.<\/p>\n<div class=\"\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"\">Given that we shall be using petroleum for a long time, even when we reach \u201cnet-zero\u201d (*), their continued existence and recruitment is not a surprise. \u00a0How long they will continue to exist is a trickier question. \u00a0Supply \/ demand factors will change no doubt as the industry declines \u2013 or more likely evolves to something <i class=\"\">beyond petroleum<\/i>, and many companies are in this transition already. \u00a0An unknowable factor must be the reputational one: will universities draw back if the degrees come to be seen as beyond the carbon pale? \u00a0Who knows. \u00a0One factor in reputation may be the extent to which such degrees explore post-carbon futures with students. \u00a0Given where we are, it would be irrational for a university not to do this, as it would hardly be good graduate preparation. \u00a0As to what they do, and how, and how much, better ask an academic chemical engineer.<\/div>\n<div class=\"\">........................................................<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"\">(*) The clue is in the term \u201cnet\u201d. \u00a0We shall likely still be using petroleum when we are at net-zero and off-setting it because we shall still need it; the vital services provided by the petroleum industry when we reach net-zero are likely to be dominated by the need for chemical feedstocks, but who knows what other avenues will open up in the coming years.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I listened into a conversation the other day about petroleum engineering courses in UK universities. \u00a0In this, one of the contributors expressed surprise \u2013 shock almost \u2013 that such courses still existed, given what we know about climate change and...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7742\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}