The Oil Scarcity Myth
http://news.investors.com/article/604303/201203141303/oil-abundant-in-the-united-states.htm
In fact, far from being oil-poor, the
country is awash in vast quantities — enough to meet all the country's oil
needs for hundreds of years.
The U.S. has 22.3 billion barrels of
proved reserves, a little less than 2% of the entire world's proved reserves,
according to the Energy Information Administration. But as the EIA explains,
proved reserves "are a small subset of recoverable resources,"
because they only count oil that companies are currently drilling for in
existing fields.
When you look at the whole picture, it
turns out that there are vast supplies of oil in the U.S., according to various
government reports. Among them:
At least 86 billion barrels of oil in
the Outer Continental Shelf yet to be discovered, according to the government's
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
About 24 billion barrels in shale
deposits in the lower 48 states, according to EIA.
Up to 2 billion barrels of oil in shale
deposits in Alaska's North Slope, says the U.S. Geological Survey.
Up to 12 billion barrels in ANWR,
according to the USGS.
As much as 19 billion barrels in the
Utah tar sands, according to the Bureau of Land Management.
Then, there's the massive Green River Formation in Wyoming,
which according to the USGS contains a stunning 1.4 trillion barrels of oil
shale — a type of oil released from sedimentary rock after it's heated.
Interesting. Thanks for this.
ReplyDeleteScrew it, though. Let's keep ourselves enmeshed in the crappy politics of the Middle East rather than drill in our own borders.
ReplyDeleteIt is indeed hard to understand liberals - these facts alone should convince them to overcome the nutty environmental lobby and start to responsibly use our own resources, start drilling in ANWAR, and bring on the Keystone Pipeline, and these things would also create lots of jobs, etc.
ReplyDeleteLiberals seem to be "brain dead" - no morality and no common sense at all.
It would also dry up the resources of a lot of Muslim terrorism in the Middle East (as Rhology sarcastically points to) -
Good results:
1. increase of jobs
2. stimulating the US economy
3. depending on our own oil and resources
4. drying up Middle East Muslim terrorists and tyrannical regimes
these are lots of good results from this that conservatives should use in their case against Obama.
Even if we hold to the side environmental concerns, the economic reality is that oil prices are based on global supply and demand. Even if we got all of our oil from domestic production, the price of that oil (and gas for our automobiles) would still depend on events happening in the Middle East and how financial & commodity markets react to such events. The only way to free our economy from being affected by Middle East politics is to convert our economy to a non-petroleum based economy. This is the key economic point that nobody ever talks about - more domestic production does not de-link us from global markets and events in the Middle East. The only path to this desired freedom is in fact freedom from oil.
ReplyDelete