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Both terms, ‘paradigm shift’ and ‘sustainability’ have been grossly misused in recent years. Paradigm shift, a phrase that was supposed to mean a different starting point (akin to the Sanskrit word, _{आमूलम}, Amulam, meaning ‘from the beginning’) has repeatedly and necessarily used the same starting point as the William Stanley Jevons (1835-1882), John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) the two most prominent alarmist of our time, both of whom were inspired by Adam Smith (1723-1790), the ‘father of Capitalism’ and virtually added nothing beyond what Adam Smith purported as the ‘ultimate truth’. Scientists, in the meantime, followed suit with regurgitating Atomism (a doctrine originally started by Democritus), recycled by Newton in name of New Science. The loop was completed when engineers blindly followed that science and defined ‘sustainability’ in a way that would satisfy politicians, whose primary interest lies in maintaining status quo – the antonym of progress. It is no surprise, therefore, our survey from over decade ago revealed that there is not a single technology that is sustainable (Chhetri and Islam, 2008). That leaves no elbow room for petroleum engineering to survive, let alone to thrive. Unsurprisingly, even petroleum companies have resigned to the ‘settled science’ that carbon is the enemy and petroleum resources have no place in our civilization (Islam et al., 2012; Islam and Khan, 2019).

The current book is a continuation of our research group’s work that started publishing on the subject of global sustainability involving energy and environment, dating back to early 2000s. In terms of the research monograph, we started the paradigm shift from economics, the driver of modern civilization, aptly characterized as the brainchild of Adam Smith. When our book, Economics of Intangibles (Zatzman and Islam, 2007) was published, it was perhaps the first initiatives to recognize the role of intangibles in economics and eventually all science and engineering. At that time, the very concept of intangibles in Economics was perceived to be an oxymoron. Ten years later, it became recognized as a natural process (Website 5), and a recognized branch of economics (Website 6). Now we know that without this approach, we cannot solve a single paradox. For that matter, economics is a branch that has the most number of paradoxes among all disciplines. It is quite revealing that after publishing some dozen of research monographs on the topic on sustainability in energy and environment, there had to be an encore of the original work on Economics to present specifically economics of sustainable energy (Islam et al., 2018a) – a book that solved all major paradoxes, included many cited by Nobel laureate economists.

By adequately introducing a paradigm shift in economic consideration, new features to sustainability could be invoked. When the concept of intangibles is introduced to fundamental engineering analysis, ‘zero-waste’ production becomes a reality. There again, when we introduced the concept of zero-waste as distinct from waste minimization over a decade ago, it was met with scepticism (Khan and Islam, 2012; Chhetri and Islam, 2008). Even the academics couldn’t stomach the concept that rocked the foundation of their long-term belief that waste can only be minimized and sustainability is a matter of adding another means to cover up the immediate consequences of the ‘toxic shock’, which no doubt made a lot of money for those who initiated it, leaving behind a ‘technological disaster’. Today, zero-waste engineering is accepted as a frontier of sustainable development (Khan and Islam, 2016).

Perhaps the biggest shock was when our research group introduced the concept of Green Petroleum in mid 2000’s. When our books on Green Petroleum (Islam et al., 2010; Islam et al., 2012) were introduced to the general readership, the phrase Green Petroleum was considered to be an oxymoron. The word ‘green’ was reserved for renewable energy sources – something we deemed to be unsustainable (Chhetri and Islam, 2008). Ever since that pioneering work, the world has become more accustomed to the phrase ‘Green Petroleum’ although petroleum engineers remain clueless about how to fight against the ‘carbon is the enemy’ mantra that has swept the entire globe outside of the 3% scientists, who are marginalized as ‘conspiracy theorists’, ‘creationists’, etc. In defence of the 97% alarmists, the 3% never talked about real science, instead resorting to denying climate change altogether (Islam and Khan, 2019). The biggest victim of this saga has been real science and real engineering. Today, when petroleum engineers talk about sustainable development, they mean coupling with biosurfactants, or generating some energy with solar or wind power. They have all but forgotten petroleum itself is 100% natural and that if a paradigm of ‘nature is sustainable’ - a time honoured principle that has millennia of history to back it up, there is nothing more sustainable than petroleum itself.

With that paradigm shift, our research group was able to debunk the following myths, some of which are in the core of every technology of modern era.

Myth 1: Natural resources are limited, human greed is infinity;

Myth 2: There is no universal standard for sustainability, therefore, total sustainability is a myth;

Myth 3: Environmental integrity must come with a cost and compromise with cost effectiveness must be made;

Myth 4: Human intervention is limited to adding artificial or synthetic chemicals;

Myth 5: 3 R’s (Reduce, Recycle, Reuse) is the best we can do;

Myth 6: Energy and mass are separable, meaning mass has no role in energy transfer;

Myth 7: All physical changes are reversible and original state can be restored as long as external features are brought back to the original state;

Myth 8: Carbon, natural water, and natural air are our enemy and sustainability lies within reducing carbon, natural water and natural air, thus purity must be sought in every level;

Myth 9: Synthetic chemicals can be a replacement of natural chemicals as long as the most external features are comparable;

Myth 10: Zero-waste is an absurd concept; and

Myth 11: Economic viability must precede technical feasibility, which itself is preceded by environmental integrity test.

Of course, had we not started with premise different from what all those philosophers and scientists started from, we would end up shifting the number of years on Hubert’s graph (Hubbert, 1956) or adding another coefficient to the curve fitting endeavor to account for another unknown that we have no clue about, meanwhile ignoring the 800 pound gorilla that everyone is afraid to talk about (Islam et al., 2018a). We would also revel about new array of chemicals, which are even more than their predecessors, meanwhile ignoring the toxic shock of the current ‘technological disaster’ (Chhetri and Islam, 2008). This book is not about repeating the same conclusion that has been made for over centuries. This book is not about replacing dogma theories with New Science theories or replacing “original sin” dogma with some utility theory that’s premised on the same theme that humans can’t do better. The conclusion of this book shall not be: the best humanity can do and must try to do is follow the same path that brought us here. If this book proves anything, it is that with paradigm shift, the outlook changes like never before and after that the obsession with status quo is gone for ever. The ‘story’ this book has to offer has not been told before.

The starting point of this book was entirely different from that taken by every book on EOR. This approach made it possible to offer solutions that do not create long-term disasters nor do they cover up long-term liabilities. Then, key questions that have puzzled industry as well as academia are answered without resorting to dogmatic assertions. If the book has to be summarized in one line, it is: It gives a recipe on enhancing oil recovery while restoring environmental integrity and economic appeal. It is not a matter of minimizing waste, or maximizing recovery or even minimizing cost, it is about restoring sustainable techniques that are inherently less expensive and beneficial to the environment.