Society will be using oil and gas for at least the next 50 years even with the advent of the hydrogen car, Doc Stokley said Tuesday as part of the Inaugural Distinguished Intrapreneur Speaker series.
"Battery-operated cars and alternative ideas aren’t reasonable because of the lack of economics," he said. "As long as we, Americans, are in love with cheap oil and big cars, we will be using oil and gas."
Stokley, TAM International’s vice president of research and development, has spent years working at Schlumberger and Exxon.
Americans will continue to improve oil and gas technology, which will only be more detrimental toward the dependence of those resources.
Even with this acknowledgement, Stokley said that this kind of technology is the key to success and improvement in a business. He said to not rely on luck, but rather think creatively.
"If you do the same thing, the same way as we you did yesterday, expect the same results," he said.
Pushing the advancement of new technologies will help further the innovation of the oil and gas industry, he said.
An example of success would be the use of missile control system technology, which has increased the effectiveness of the horizontal well drilling.
"Drilling horizontally increases the production about 6 percent, keeping the cost of drilling similar to drilling downwards," Stokley said.
Stokley was chosen to come to the University by the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization and the Cullen College of Engineering.
"We wanted to bridge engineering and business people through communication," said Natalie Hendricks, entrepreneur senior and Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization president. "We wanted to do the series with the most innovative college on campus."