Read the excerpts from a speech given by Rex Tillerson, Chairman of ExxonMobil Corporation, on energy and technology. Discuss with your classmates your perceptions of the importance of technology on your education and your chosen field as that perception relates to Mr. Tillerson's remarks.

** Your original post should be between 100 - 150 words in length.

*** Please, help me with this. This is "the excerpts from a speech given by Rex Tillerson, Chairman of ExxonMobil Corporation, on energy and technology." I will post the article "Meeting energy challenges with oil and gas technologies by Rex W. Tillerson" below.

*** This is discussion from the PTAC 1350-Industrial Economics class (Process Technology). Please, help me to write a paragraph between 100-150 words. Thank you so much.

* The article:

Meeting energy challenges with oil and gas technologies

Rex W. Tillerson

Chairman and CEO, Exxon Mobil Corporation

The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas

Austin, Texas

January 6, 2011

It is always a pleasure to be back in Austin - and being an engineer myself, it is a special honor to address The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas.

This morning, I'm going to talk about the vital role energy will play in helping our economy recover, grow, and create new jobs, and how technology will be a critical enabler in meeting the world's growing energy needs.

In my remarks, many of the principals and challenges attendant to energy can be just as easily found in the other fields of medicine, engineering, and science. We know from centuries of history that reliable and affordable energy is essential to human progress in Texas, throughout the United States, and indeed around the world. To sustain progress, we must continue to safely expand the world's energy supplies, improve the ways in which we consume energy sources, and address attendant environmental challenges.....

Energy and Technology

Few Americans realize that the U.S. energy industry is one of the most technologically advanced sectors of the economy.

Energy technologies have not only helped expand supplies and increase safety, but they have also made America more competitive. When the public and our policymakers think about technological innovation, they typically think of Silicon Valley or MIT or some other research institute on the West Coast.

But because of our role in creating new energy technologies, it is worth noting that Texas is one of the most important locations in the nation for developing new energy innovations innovations that have been exported to the rest of our nation, and the world.

To illustrate this point, I'd like to touch on a just a few examples of energy technologies ExxonMobil helped develop here in Texas. We are only one company in an innovative sector, and there are many more examples of technologies developed by other companies based in the state. The few I will highlight are by no means the only ones just the ones I am most familiar with.

To start with, over the past century, scientists and engineers with ExxonMobil invented butyl rubber, a critical commodity to the Allied war effort in World War II which today is found through continuing innovations and countless expanded uses from in applications from industrial to medical. We developed the fluid catalytic cracking process for upgrading heavy crude components into large volumes of transportation fuels. We developed the first digital reservoir simulators and we pioneered 3-D seismic technologies to more accurately locate energy resources in new challenging locations. All of these technologies can be found in our industry the world over today.

More recently, the integration of directional and extended reach drilling with hydraulic fracturing have opened up new supplies of natural gas, once thought to be unrecoverable. By combining these time-tested techniques in innovative, new ways, we have unlocked a 100-year supply of cleaner-burning natural gas in the United States. These technologies, perfected in the Barnett Shale gas fields of North Texas, are currently at work across the nation in many fields in other states, but also here in Texas in the, Freestone, Haynesfield and Eagleford Shales.

Similarly,Enhanced Oil Recovery2technologies have enabled us to produce energy once believed to be too expensive to recover, allowing us to revitalize mature fields, thought to be reaching their economic limit. The energy industry here in Texas is also making it easier for consumers worldwide to save energy. For example, our researchers in Houston are leading a global team which has developed a host of new innovations for the transportation sector. Thanks to advanced plastics, we are helping make cars strong, but lighter-weight. We have also been instrumental in developing battery-separator film technology for lithium-ion batteries. This could enable the more widespread use of hybrid and electric vehicles. And we are pioneering technologies that make tires last longer and stay inflated better, which helps with fuel mileage and handling. The industry is also playing an important role in the development of commercially viable, renewable energy sources. Our advanced synthetic lubricants developed and manufactured by ExxonMobil help wind turbines in Texas operate safely and reliably.

Another example is our collaboration with Synthetic Genomics Incorporated, on research into the potential of algae as a biofuel. Researchers are hoping to develop strains of algae that could ultimately produce refinery feedstock for the production of transportation fuels.

If research and development milestones are successfully met, we expect to spend more than $600 million on the algae biofuels program over the next decade. And while we have much research and development still to do, the theory is that certain types of algae, grown with water, sunlight, carbon dioxide and nutrients, could produce bio-oils on a sufficient scale to be processed in our refineries to supplement supplies of conventional gasoline, diesel, aviation fuels, and marine fuels.

Again, these are just a few examples, but Texas-based technological advances like these, and the many others across our industry, have had a tremendous impact on energy supplies the world over, the ways in which consumers use energy, and consumer choices around the world.

They have also spurred investment and economic growth. That is especially true in Texas. For example, in 2009 ExxonMobil made capital investments of over one and a half billion dollars in the state. That number increased to over $2 billion in 2010 much of which was associated with the development and deployment of new technologies here in Texas.

Energy, Technology, and Education

In addition to upholding stable energy and regulatory policies, an area in which state and national policymakers and the private sector can make a tremendous contribution to continued technological progress is in education.

As technology and innovation are the bedrock of American competitiveness, economic progress and job creation, people are the bedrock of technology and innovation. In the energy industry, as with all American industry, the ultimate source of innovation is people. The technological breakthroughs of tomorrow begin in the minds of scientists, engineers and researchers today. There is a clear nexus between education, innovation and economic progress.

Given this vital connection, it is especially troubling to see how our nation's leadership in science, technology, engineering and math education has eroded in recent years relative to other industrialized nations. Three decades ago, the United States ranked third among developed nations for college students earning science and engineering degrees. Now, about 20 other countries rank ahead of us in these vital subjects. At ExxonMobil, this is a point of great concern to us, and as you heard in the introduction, we have put significant energy and financial resources into supporting education programs, particularly in math and science. It is an investment that directly impacts our competitiveness, and our ability to remain a technological leader. As part of this effort, we partner with other companies, state governments and universities through the National Math and Science Initiative, or NMSI, focusing on programs that support both teachers and students. I am pleased to say one of the programs NMSI identified as being particularly effective is the UTeach program, which began here in Austin at the University of Texas. UTeach has become a model for increasing the supply of qualified math and science teachers through rigorous undergraduate education programs at colleges and universities across the country.

Thanks in part to NMSI support, this program is now being utilized in 22 universities across the nation and helping build the foundation for future technological and economic progress.

TheNational Math and Science Initiative3is an example of the kind of productive public-private partnership that can help lift education results in math, science and other critical subjects.

This, in turn, drives technological progress across our economy, including the energy sector, and supports long-term economic progress that can help drive growth, increase revenues and create jobs.

Our nation is faced with great challenges: an economic and jobs challenge, with a fiscal house that is in disarray, an education system that is in need of reform, and an erosion of our technology and innovation global leadership position.

I would submit that addressing our needs in education and technology as our highest priorities if we address those, it will take us a long way down the road to ensuring America's place in the global community is secure, and will underpin an economy that will allow us to get our fiscal house in order. These should be our highest priorities.

And as we bring along the next generation of mathematicians, scientists, engineers and medical researchers, we must instill in them a keen sense of their obligations to scientific integrity and ethics. You and they alone, stand between the public policymakers, the public themselves, and scientific fact and theory, scientific theory and fiction. Failure to have the courage and conviction to provide clarity around these differences can misinform and mislead policymakers and set back many solutions to our most daunting challenges.

The oil and gas industry has long made an important contribution to our state's proud history of innovation. As a Texas-based energy company, ExxonMobil is proud to have played a role. And, together with others across our industry, and with the support of state government and our leading science and engineering institutions, we look forward to continuing to be an important part of technological progress in the future.

I thank you for all that you do for science and technology and I thank you for your kind attention.