Oil in America
 

Estimates:

ANWR: between 600 million and 10 billion barrels
Florida coast: potentially 500 billion barrels, north Cuba Basin may contain 4.6 billion barrels alone
Montana Bakken: between 4 and 400 billion barrels

Average annual US oil imports: 4 billion / year

This doesn't take into accounts costs of sinking wells, extraction, time to market, and the possibility that today's technology cannot extract some portion of it. But when I worked for Exxon years ago, one of the things they told us during initial orientation was that more oil deposits are discovered each year than the US produces. Not all of them are immediately extractable, but they are located and marked for future technology.

Don't tell me America can't be "oil independent" if the environmentalist wackos would just get out of the way.

And why no new nuclear power plants?

Over thirty and he use to work for Exxon. Tex has really opened up here lately.

I know it's not germane to oil, but the "environmentalist wackos" statement just gets me going. Folks in the City of Portland will probably be cutting a lot of trees now because they can. Soon they won't be able to...

I saw a 1910-1920-ish photo of my town and surrounding countryside (suburban Portland). The vegetation was wiped clean. I am convinced there are more trees now (at least in the US) than in the early part of the twentieth century.

Back to oil... Are these reserves any harder to extract (i.e. more expensive to get to)?

Let's say we continue consumption at current levels, bigger & bigger SUVs, higher & higher speed limits, and more & more toys being of the internal combustion variety.

How would opening up all these oil fields resolve the issue of oil being a finite resource? Cheap oil is an addiction we're wrestling with as a nation, and as a planet. Peak Oil is a reality, whether it is today, 5 years from now or 30 years from now.

Environmentalists serve an (unintended) role in clamping down on supply... we need to shake this addiction one way or the other. We can start it now, or defer it to the kids & grandkids. What we're doing today is not sustainable.

That said, if conservatives agreed to 40mpg standards for ALL vehicles within 5 years, I'd agree to open up ANWAR (as though I have the power to do so. lol)

There are two separate issues at play here. One is how do we respond to the inescapable fact that we are so dependent on a finite resource. Second is how do we respond to being so dependent on our energy needs from international sources which are often hostile to the US.

The second problem needs to be resolved independent of the first.

high oil prices are our escape to both of these. Without the high prices, we will never develop new sources and conserve. Look at the dramatic shift away from SUVs and trucks. Americans are responding, and this will have effects for decades, what is going on right now.

I know the high oil prices have helped the Europeans. They drive mainly small, economy cars. I think they only pay $10 a gallon, $5 of which is tax. The European economic model the dems are so in love with should help us down the road.

Their economies are less dependent on cheap oil than ours. Which is exactly what they were going for.

Americans are moving towards the European model of smaller cars, diesel engines etc.

Why? Would you subsidize gas to make it cheaper? Would you get rid of the gas tax?

I didn't think so.

LOL, I thought the same thing.