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Speaker 1: Yeah, hey guys, and welcome to the podcast. This is

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Speaker 1: Alice not m Off, the science editor at how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb, science writer

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Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. And this so week

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Speaker 1: we're going in search of offshore oil. Yes, indeed, I

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Speaker 1: had to say the title like that. I can't do

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Speaker 1: a Learned Nemore impersonation, but learned Namo. I had that

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Speaker 1: old show that was like in Search of Bigfoot, in

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Speaker 1: search of UFOs, etcetera, which are admittedly a lot more

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Speaker 1: fantastic than what we're going to talk about. But what

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Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about is pretty interesting. When it's pretty interesting, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because you know what, there's a whole lot of oil

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Speaker 1: out there, and a whole lot of it is bird

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Speaker 1: underneath the ocean. And do you guys have any idea

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Speaker 1: how people uh extract oil from the ocean. I really,

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Speaker 1: until we edited your article and you wrote that article

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Speaker 1: on how start drilling works, I was a little hazy

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Speaker 1: on the details. Yeah, it's I mean, one way to

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Speaker 1: look at it is people are always like people are

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Speaker 1: really fascinated by shows like Breaking Bad and like news

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Speaker 1: reports about about, you know, people with addictions because of

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Speaker 1: the links they go to to UH to feed that addiction.

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Speaker 1: And you know, people have pointed out like that we're

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Speaker 1: UH a civilization addicted to oil and the lengths that

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Speaker 1: we will go to satisfy the ad that addiction. You

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Speaker 1: need to look no further than than offshore oil drilling

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Speaker 1: because it's amazing the industry that goes into this. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a pretty complicated and complex affair. Yeah. So, I mean,

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Speaker 1: you guys know, and I think a lot of us

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Speaker 1: are familiar with us, of course because of the recent

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Speaker 1: BP oil spill. Um So we consume a heck of

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Speaker 1: a lot of oil. Just to give you a ballpark

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Speaker 1: figure if you are looking at estimates from the CIA

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Speaker 1: World Factbook, a handy resource if ever there were one,

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Speaker 1: UM US consumes nineteen point five million barrels per day

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Speaker 1: and worldwide, I think that's about eighty million according to

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Speaker 1: their figures. So yeah, to maintain that pace of consumption,

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Speaker 1: and I know not everybody is interested in maintaining that

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Speaker 1: pace of consumption, but oil companies certainly are. And and

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Speaker 1: to maintain you know that that amount of oil, we've

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Speaker 1: got a search for it all the time. It's it's

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Speaker 1: a full time endeavor, and the easy to find oil

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Speaker 1: tends to go first, you know, or the stuff is

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Speaker 1: either easy to find or not, you know, you know,

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Speaker 1: in a place that's just really cut off by laws

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Speaker 1: and regulations. So um, you know, he gets to the

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Speaker 1: point where you're like, Okay, we're gonna have to go

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Speaker 1: after oil under the bottom of the ocean. Right. I

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Speaker 1: ave already dug up all these holes in my backyard,

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Speaker 1: found a couple of gushers. Now we're really going to

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Speaker 1: have to expand the search to, say, in the North

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Speaker 1: Sea or something some crazy environment like that, you know,

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Speaker 1: with waves pitching and rolling, and I can only imagine

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Speaker 1: what it would be like to work on one of

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Speaker 1: those rigs. By the way, it's like constant implement weather there.

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Speaker 1: And of course all this makes sense because we live

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Speaker 1: on a water world. I mean, we're it's mostly ocean,

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Speaker 1: so most of the oil guess what has ocean on

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Speaker 1: top of it, right, So I thought it'd be fun

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Speaker 1: to take a step back and look at the history

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Speaker 1: associated with offshore aisle and some of the equipment that

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Speaker 1: goes along with it. So, you know, just in case

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Speaker 1: you guys have forgotten what oil is, it all started

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Speaker 1: you know a couple of million years ago when oil

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Speaker 1: and natural gas started making their way back to the

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Speaker 1: Earth's surface, right, yeah, more than a couple, more like

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Speaker 1: between ten and six indeed, and that is more than

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Speaker 1: a couple. So oil started off as plankton, and you know,

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Speaker 1: the plankton, these tiny little animals that died in the

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Speaker 1: ancient seas, and they've floated on down to the sea floor.

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Speaker 1: Kind of a peaceful that doesn't sound like a bad

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Speaker 1: way to die, Just kind of swaying your way down

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Speaker 1: to the ocean floor. Picture like sediment in a swimming

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Speaker 1: pool drifting down to the bottom. Yeah, sounds kind of peaceful.

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Speaker 1: And all these plankton wind up covered with sand and mud,

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Speaker 1: and so you have this oxygen free environment going on.

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Speaker 1: It's anaerobic, and you have a slow cooking process that's

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Speaker 1: going to start taking place. And and by by slow,

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Speaker 1: of course, we win millions of years. And all that

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Speaker 1: heat and pressure is going to eventually transform those tiny

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Speaker 1: little plankton into a oil, you know, in the form

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Speaker 1: of liquid gas and solid petroleum. And and when it

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Speaker 1: forms in these spots, these spots are called traps, and

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Speaker 1: they're they're captain traps that rhymes under thick layers of rock.

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Speaker 1: And then of course, just a quick review, you're you're

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Speaker 1: going to call your liquid petroleum oil, your gaseous petroleum

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Speaker 1: natural gas, and your solid stuff is going to be

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Speaker 1: found in oil shale or tar sans. Yeah. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: all this biomass ends up being converted into this other

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Speaker 1: substance and for ages. It's just down there. But then

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Speaker 1: eventually human beings start noticing this stuff. Like I guess

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Speaker 1: animals probably knows it beforehand because they would get trapped

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Speaker 1: in it. Say, you know the tar pits and all that.

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Speaker 1: Have you ever seen the tar pits, by the way,

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Speaker 1: just in cartoons and the like, just like the episode

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Speaker 1: where the Simpsons get stuck in it. Yeah, I would

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Speaker 1: like to visit them. They're in l a Thelabria tarpets,

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Speaker 1: among others. Yeah. Yeah, there's a futurama where I think

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Speaker 1: Mel Gibson's no Sylvester still in skeleton was in there

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Speaker 1: or something. Yeah. But then around three a d um

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Speaker 1: according to a st M International that's a voluntary standard

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Speaker 1: organization that's apparently pretty interested in oil, the Chinese started

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Speaker 1: drilling for in the ground. Yeah, so Chinese were the

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Speaker 1: big original oil barns, and the same piece from a

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Speaker 1: STM International also mentioned that Persians may have been digging

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Speaker 1: wells by hand back in fifteen nine, which I thought

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Speaker 1: was interesting. I mean, they were talking about you know,

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Speaker 1: consumption and addiction. You know, they're so desperate for oil

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Speaker 1: there digging with their hands, gotta get to the oil well.

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Speaker 1: I mean, but at the at the time, it probably

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Speaker 1: wasn't really I'm thinking much of an addiction as I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know, like the entire society didn't depend on it,

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Speaker 1: you know, so the Persians were kind of like probably

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Speaker 1: like you know, like, hey, this stuff's really cool, like

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Speaker 1: you know, doing like parlor tricks with it, and you

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Speaker 1: know the kind of thing. But interesting, yeah, because they

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Speaker 1: were probably like this stuff's pretty cool, but I don't

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Speaker 1: know if it'll ever amount to anything, you know. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it sure did should change the Middle East, that's

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Speaker 1: for sure. So you got a lot happening with oil

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Speaker 1: that century, because, as you mentioned in your piece, you

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Speaker 1: have the Spanish conquistadors who observed oil rising to the

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Speaker 1: surface in the Gulf of Mexico, which of course is

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Speaker 1: now a huge side of offshore drilling and oil spills,

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Speaker 1: and that was happening back then too. And then fast

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Speaker 1: forward a couple of centuries and we we hit the

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Speaker 1: first offshore oil platform. Yeah. Yeah, we'd we'd already uh

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Speaker 1: you know, the the oil the drive for oil. It

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Speaker 1: started up in earnest Um on the ground and yeah,

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Speaker 1: the first one was at the end of a wharf,

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Speaker 1: so just sort of barely like you know, it's kind

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Speaker 1: of like the kid getting up this courage to come

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Speaker 1: to the ocean and we're like putting his feet in,

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Speaker 1: you know, a little. At first, we started off on

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Speaker 1: the wharf, and then we gradually, uh you know, got

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Speaker 1: up our courage to go a little a little farther out. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so we're going on these piers and then we started

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Speaker 1: making artificial islands. And then you have a Texas oil

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Speaker 1: man and he, uh, he starts up the first mobile

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Speaker 1: oil platform for in the wetlands. Yeah. I think I

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Speaker 1: saw a picture of this one I was writing the article,

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Speaker 1: you know, and it's the kind of thing that's kind

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Speaker 1: of as basic if you can imagine like a barge,

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Speaker 1: it's been that someone put an oil rig on top

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Speaker 1: of and just you know, floated out there and start drilling. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: simple affair, but it definitely set the standard for what

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Speaker 1: was to come. And so we just kept moving farther

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Speaker 1: and farther, Like Robert was saying, like a kid waiting

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Speaker 1: farther and farther out into the ocean. We just kept

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Speaker 1: pursuing the oil into the depths and back in a

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Speaker 1: consortium of oil companies. UM built the first one not

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Speaker 1: sure enough you couldn't see from land anymore, and that

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Speaker 1: was located again in the Gulf of Mexico, and uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, and today they're enormous. Uh, some of these

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Speaker 1: are enormous. They really are, and you really have to,

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Speaker 1: like I do recommend checking out the article online because

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Speaker 1: there are some amazing pictures in there. That one of

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Speaker 1: the Norwegian the jeweling platform off the coast of Norway.

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Speaker 1: I mean it's a city. Yeah, you know, they took

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Speaker 1: the picture at nighttime. It's just alive with lights and

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Speaker 1: it's it's huge. Yeah. It's probably one of the easiest

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Speaker 1: things I've ever had to find pictures off for an article,

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Speaker 1: because photographers love taking photos of oil rigs because in

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Speaker 1: the daytime, at night they're just like you have the stark,

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Speaker 1: you know, barren ocean and then this this enormous construction

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Speaker 1: and and if you look at the article too, we

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Speaker 1: also have um some house stuff works created art and

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Speaker 1: illustration showing you all the different types which were not

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Speaker 1: really going to get into in these two podcasts, but

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Speaker 1: they're hit the highlights. Yeah. But but there's there are

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Speaker 1: like several different varieties and they're all like some of

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Speaker 1: them are like skyscrapers underwater. You know, it's that they're

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Speaker 1: they're that huge. Yeah, So things things progressed. I mean,

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Speaker 1: we started off with, you know, kind of peers and stuff,

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Speaker 1: and now we have these just enormous oil riggs and uh,

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Speaker 1: according to a May two thousand and ten article in

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Speaker 1: the Week, they're now some six thousand five offshore oil

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Speaker 1: and gas installation worldwide and about four thousand those where

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Speaker 1: are they? Gulf of Mexico you met, So you you're

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Speaker 1: probably wondering, how do you you know these things are expensive,

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Speaker 1: these things um you know or are enormous, how do

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Speaker 1: you figure out where you're gonna park one? You can't

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Speaker 1: just you can't just take them out anywhere and be like,

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Speaker 1: all right, this looks a good spot, boys, drop the drill.

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Speaker 1: Now you've got to you've got to seek out the

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Speaker 1: spot you can't just fire your rifle, uh into the

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Speaker 1: underbrush and expected to come a bubble and crude. And

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Speaker 1: so we have several technologies that are really useful for that.

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Speaker 1: For instance, we have sniffer equipment. Yeah, yeah, this is

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Speaker 1: these are this is really interesting stuff and this can

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Speaker 1: this is used both on land and I'm sorry, this

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Speaker 1: is used both from airplanes flying above the surface of

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Speaker 1: the earth and also in the water. Okay. And what

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Speaker 1: these do is they they sniff molecular signatures of trapped

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Speaker 1: high hydrocarbons floating any of the air or in the

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Speaker 1: in the water. Yeah, so it's you know, it's a

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Speaker 1: sniffer and pably cool. I didn't know they did it

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Speaker 1: from airplanes. Yeah, yeah, apparently it's it's really widespread from

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Speaker 1: airplanes and they I think possibly was was used was

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Speaker 1: used by airplanes first. But at any rate, it's I

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Speaker 1: kind of picture a device that looks like a big

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Speaker 1: fake nose, yeah, you know, hanging from the bottom of

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Speaker 1: an airplane or the underneath the ship. But it's it's

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Speaker 1: a little more technical looking in that, right. And the

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Speaker 1: problem with this particular equipment, um is that it can

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Speaker 1: only help find particular kinds of deposits and seeping deposits.

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Speaker 1: So the oil companies are like, well, I don't know

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Speaker 1: if this sniffer is gonna work this time, so we

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Speaker 1: better being some other equipment along. We've gotta have some

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Speaker 1: other ways of locating traps. Yeah, it's yeah, it's kind

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Speaker 1: of like a like a I don't know, like a

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Speaker 1: possum roaming around your backyard. You know, see, you know

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Speaker 1: he's not gonna find the or a bear. I guess

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Speaker 1: you know there. Okay, I'm waiting to see where you

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Speaker 1: go with this analogy. Sometimes I just love these analogies exactly. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: sometimes they get a lot of control. But but no,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of like if it's like food. This imagine

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Speaker 1: And then there's something that has like this cracked open.

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Speaker 1: The bear is gonna smell that and go right to it.

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Speaker 1: So this this helps us fine thing, you know, petroleum

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Speaker 1: reserves that are leaking a little bit, but you know,

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Speaker 1: if it's if it's really deep and contained and then

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Speaker 1: these aren't going to find it. Right. So another means

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Speaker 1: if that if that bare food isn't readily available that

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Speaker 1: oil companies are gonna imply is that they're gonna pull

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Speaker 1: out some magnetic survey equipment. And uh. And we've we've

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Speaker 1: the Earth can can alter Earth's normal magnetic field. So

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Speaker 1: basically that's what this is looking for, is like looking

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Speaker 1: at variations of the magnetic field and using that to

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Speaker 1: determine what's possibly in the interior of the Earth. Right,

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Speaker 1: And surveyors also have another check in their bag of tricks,

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Speaker 1: and that's seismic surveying or sparking. Yeah, so tell us

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Speaker 1: tell us about sparking. Um, this is basically all right.

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Speaker 1: The principle here is that when you have like sound waves,

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Speaker 1: like a like a shock wave of sound, and it's

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Speaker 1: going to move differently through different type of rock. So UM,

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Speaker 1: what they do is they'll have like a boat and

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Speaker 1: it will drag these devices but behind it called hydrophones. Okay,

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Speaker 1: and uh, with the AIDA computers, Um, they can they

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Speaker 1: can analyze the information that's bouncing back up like that.

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Speaker 1: The waves go down, they go through some rock, they

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Speaker 1: hit something to come back up. And then we analyze

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Speaker 1: the return signature and they can they can analyze it

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Speaker 1: and figure out what again, what's hidden underneath the earth. Yeah. Again,

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Speaker 1: we're not shamelessly plugging our site. But there is a

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Speaker 1: pretty cool illustration of this on the how off shore

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Speaker 1: drilling works, and you should check it out if you

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Speaker 1: can't visualize it, because sometimes it can be yeah, right

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Speaker 1: to see. Now there's a side effect of this, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is a good place I think to kind of

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Speaker 1: talk about some of the effects of offshore drilling on

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Speaker 1: the environment. And that's going to be noise pollution for

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Speaker 1: surrounding marine creatures and even not so surrounding. Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: can confuse you know, whales, um, you know and cause

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Speaker 1: them to beat themselves, which we've we've covered that in

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Speaker 1: a recent podcast as well and on the blogs. Um. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: when we have an article about why off shore drilling

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Speaker 1: is so controversial, and the writer Jennifer Horton mentioned an

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Speaker 1: instance in which exce On Mobile had to suspend exploration efforts.

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Speaker 1: Uh they were doing near Madagascar after more than a

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Speaker 1: hundred whales beach themselves. That's really sad. Yeah, I can't

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Speaker 1: imagine coming across that site. Yeah, it's and it's it's

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Speaker 1: one of those that I think, you know, everybody's similar

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Speaker 1: with some of the other ways that offshore oil drilling

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Speaker 1: can harm the environment at this point, but this is

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Speaker 1: one that I think often gets kind of forgotten. It's

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Speaker 1: important to note, even with all these different tricks that

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Speaker 1: they can they can pull to try and figure out

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Speaker 1: what's underneath the bottom of the ocean, it's still it's

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Speaker 1: it's still kind of a mystery. They're not going to

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Speaker 1: know for certain until you actually drill. So they find

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Speaker 1: an area looks promising you you know, your market with

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Speaker 1: a booie you you jot down the GPS coordinates and

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Speaker 1: you don't want to lose that right, and then this

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Speaker 1: is important to make sure you can actually drill there

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Speaker 1: because that is a key part of the equation. You're

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Speaker 1: gonna have to make sure that you have rights from

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Speaker 1: the you know, like from the government, I like from

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Speaker 1: the federal government or the state government's involved, or you

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Speaker 1: know whatever, you know, because because most of the ocean

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Speaker 1: is going to be under somebody's don't make right, Because

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Speaker 1: we wouldn't want to give any of you listeners, who

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Speaker 1: are you know, getting ready to go do some offshore

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Speaker 1: oil exploring any misinformation on that. Yeah, I'm going to

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Speaker 1: give you the right procedural steps that would be a

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Speaker 1: hobbyist offshore. It's like it's a hobby that's limited to

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Speaker 1: like the three richest men in the world. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: when they're not busy flying on spaceship too, or women

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Speaker 1: like you know, like oprah Man Martha Stewart could do it.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah. Um. Well, so this brought up

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Speaker 1: an interesting point for me. I wonder if they start

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Speaker 1: the paperwork years and years ahead and kind of know

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Speaker 1: the swath of ocean that they want to patrol for

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Speaker 1: the particular oil to pose it, because you would think

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Speaker 1: that the paperwork and the legally is involved in obtaining

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Speaker 1: that lease um, for the particular site you're interested, which

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Speaker 1: is take years right. Yeah. Well, and you know, the

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Speaker 1: oil companies are not above getting estimates for areas that

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Speaker 1: they know they can't drill in. You know, it's like

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Speaker 1: you can look up figures, um, you know, and we

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Speaker 1: have cited in the in the article what is it

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Speaker 1: five most promising Uh yeah, yeah, that's COVID COD And

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Speaker 1: there are you know, there are areas like the Poles,

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Speaker 1: especially in article where nobody you know, right now, nobody

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Speaker 1: is allowed to drill there, but but you know, people

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Speaker 1: have estimations about how much is down there and they've

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Speaker 1: done the research. So yeah, which reminds me of that

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Speaker 1: article who owns the Oceans? Yeah, so yeah, they're you know,

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Speaker 1: they have no problem with just going hand getting a

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Speaker 1: ballpark because they might have able to drill there now.

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Speaker 1: But you know, we're gonna want oil, you know, for

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Speaker 1: a while, and you know, you think, yeah, so let's

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Speaker 1: say they get that lease in hand, so they start

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Speaker 1: doing some exploratory drilling, and you got to have you know,

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Speaker 1: some mobile base of operations. So they set up a

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Speaker 1: mobile drilling platform and typically they'll you know, set down

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Speaker 1: for temporary exploratory wells and they'll start drilling them over

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Speaker 1: the course of about six ninety days. Um, it's gonna

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Speaker 1: take that long to to drill each well. And your

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Speaker 1: first task, what is this? What do you want to know?

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Speaker 1: You want to know what the heck is in there?

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Speaker 1: So you gotta get some samples. Yeah, of course sample,

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Speaker 1: which is kind of like I think the analogy I

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Speaker 1: used in the art ice cream Cake. Yeah, point it out.

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Speaker 1: That's the way do you ask all right, so you're

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Speaker 1: a kid, right, and there's an ice I'm not recommending

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Speaker 1: to do this because your mom is gonna kill you.

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Speaker 1: But if there's an ice cream cake and you're like wanting,

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Speaker 1: whoa what I wonder what's in there? What are the

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Speaker 1: different levels? What I mean, what are the different layers? Right,

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Speaker 1: because you encounter a mystery dessert, you're not sure, you

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Speaker 1: know what is that really sweet stuff inside? Is it

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Speaker 1: molten cherry or is it you know, kind of like

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Speaker 1: being curd. Yeah, you know, you never know when they're

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Speaker 1: in a surprise you with the bean curd ice cream.

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Speaker 1: But but no, So imagine you took a clear plastic

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Speaker 1: cylinder and you just like stabbed it right down in

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Speaker 1: the middle of the cake, right, and then you removed it.

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Speaker 1: And when you removed it, it had a core sample

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Speaker 1: of the ice cream cake. Right, you'd be able to

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Speaker 1: see the frosting and the cake part and then that

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Speaker 1: little sprinkle e chocolate rocky you know, yeah, the Rocky

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Speaker 1: Road kind of stuff. And then you're like, oh, being kerd,

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Speaker 1: scrap it, let's just let's let's explore the next cake

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Speaker 1: and see what's in there. So, yeah, it's a similar thing. Again,

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Speaker 1: it's like each step is these guys checking to see

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Speaker 1: is there something here we can invest in? Right, And

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Speaker 1: what they're looking for is a show is what it's

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Speaker 1: called in the terminology, and I think that's the old

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Speaker 1: term you tell, you know, hailing back to like oil

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Speaker 1: blasting out, you know, of the you know, the surface

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Speaker 1: kind of a deal. Okay. And once they once they

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Speaker 1: get that evidence, the drilling stops and the geologists perform

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Speaker 1: all these tusks because they want to make sure that

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Speaker 1: what they're going after, what they're spending all this money on,

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Speaker 1: is of a quality and quantity that's sufficient to you know,

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Speaker 1: justify further expenditures. So, yeah, they wanted to last light

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Speaker 1: a couple of decades generally. Yeah, I think the ten

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Speaker 1: to twenty years are the estimates for some for the

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Speaker 1: lifespan of some wells. Yeah. So we're gonna leave you

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Speaker 1: there because this seems like a good time to end,

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Speaker 1: and we're doing a two part series on a on

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Speaker 1: an offshore oil. Yeah. These will probably go up the

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Speaker 1: same week, so you can jump right into the next

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Speaker 1: podcast to find out what's going to happen with this oil.

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Speaker 1: Now that we explored it, we found the good stuff

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Speaker 1: in the ice cream cake? What are we going to

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Speaker 1: do next? Yeah? You know what I found in the

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Speaker 1: ice cream cake? A letter from a listener, Oh listenerrail Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I've actually got a couple of here. Alright, alright, read

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Speaker 1: away which you cast. Received an email here from Anne Marie.

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Speaker 1: And Marie is a frequent a frequent writer. She's been

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Speaker 1: after us. I think to do a podcast on the

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Speaker 1: scientific method and how different podcasts or research and this

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Speaker 1: is pretty important. And let me just say that if

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Speaker 1: we do one on scientific method it's going to be cool.

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Speaker 1: It's that's the one that definitely sounds is actually more

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Speaker 1: interesting than it now, um, much like offshore oil. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: well offshore oil instantly, I don't know if I think

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Speaker 1: offshore oil sounds more exciting than scientific methods. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: we can make the scientific method exciting. Yeah, yes, totally

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Speaker 1: totally because it is. It's the it's like the well

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Speaker 1: foundational science and how it's executed. Yeah, well, what is

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Speaker 1: that exciting about that? It's plenty exciting, But we'll get

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Speaker 1: into it. Her emory rights and she just says, howdy,

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Speaker 1: I just wanted to let you know that the Putney

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Speaker 1: School in Putney, Vermont has a tracking solar array that

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Speaker 1: provides power to its net zero field house. Any surplus

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Speaker 1: is sent back to the grid. A neat thing is

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Speaker 1: that on the coldest day of the year last year,

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Speaker 1: the electric bill of the field house was about negative

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Speaker 1: forties six dollars, meaning that on the coldest day of

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Speaker 1: the year in March, I think Putney was producing enough

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Speaker 1: power to heat light and run the field house and

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Speaker 1: still so all power back to the state. That's pretty cool. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And she points out that you can check all this

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Speaker 1: out at www dot uh Putney school dot org. So

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Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. That's She's of corseresponding to our recent

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Speaker 1: podcast dealing with the smart grid and smart grid innovations,

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Speaker 1: where we sort of left it, you know, sent the

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Speaker 1: call out to all the listeners. It's like, hey, if

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Speaker 1: you got some cool tidbits about smart grid technology in action,

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Speaker 1: you know, we'd love to hear you. Let us know,

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Speaker 1: and people have been letting us know. Thanks. And the

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Speaker 1: other one is one that I meant to read last

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Speaker 1: week from Luke and Uh. Luke wrote in about our

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Speaker 1: Space Elevator's podcast, The Great Space Elevator. Did he request

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Speaker 1: it as well? I thought Luke did huh, Luke, I

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Speaker 1: thought you did. Correct us if we're wrong. Um. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And he's just wanted to point out in another concept

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Speaker 1: um that he had read about, and he sent me

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Speaker 1: the link to and I was checking it out, and

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Speaker 1: he said. Another concept that discovered while researching space elevators

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Speaker 1: is something called a rolling skyhook. This version would use

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Speaker 1: a giant cable orbiting the Earth end over end, with

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Speaker 1: points at at which the ends near the surface, allowing

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Speaker 1: for payloads to be attached and catapult into space. All right,

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Speaker 1: this it's it's kind of hard to picture. It's picture

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Speaker 1: and you know, without a drawing of it, but it's

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Speaker 1: kind of like imagine if you had a giant jump rope.

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Speaker 1: Both handles are touching the surface of the Earth. Uh,

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Speaker 1: but then the rest of it goes up into outer space.

427
00:21:20,359 --> 00:21:23,240
Speaker 1: So you could like attach a cable car and ride

428
00:21:23,280 --> 00:21:26,600
Speaker 1: that sucker up in two. Um. Yeah. So it's it's

429
00:21:26,640 --> 00:21:30,320
Speaker 1: it's another take on a very uh you know, epic

430
00:21:31,400 --> 00:21:35,840
Speaker 1: construction project. Pretty cool. So you got any others over there,

431
00:21:35,880 --> 00:21:37,359
Speaker 1: We're going to wrap it up. That's it. They just

432
00:21:37,400 --> 00:21:39,440
Speaker 1: have those two right now. All right, Well, we'll see

433
00:21:39,440 --> 00:21:42,639
Speaker 1: you next time. As we continue this adventure into offshore

434
00:21:42,640 --> 00:21:44,960
Speaker 1: oil drilling. Yeah, and if you want to talk about

435
00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:47,640
Speaker 1: your adventures with offshore oil or your hobby as an

436
00:21:47,640 --> 00:21:51,040
Speaker 1: offshore oil explorer, UM, we'd love to hear from you,

437
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438
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439
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