Waffles
08-08-2008, 01:10 AM
Several years ago I wrote about prospective drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. Also, last year I wrote about the causes and effects of gas prices. It’s because of the research I did while writing those articles that I’ve been able to sort the political hogwash from reality in these last few months.
There has been much discussion about the rise of gas prices and how or even if to combat them. One group wants to drill, thus increasing supply and lowering prices. Another group wants to ignore oil and move directly to alternative fuels. Somewhere between, there is a group that wants to increase supply while developing the alternative fuels. The debate between these groups has become very intense, and at times downright vicious. The presidential election has brought this to the forefront more than any other forum.
Barack Obama is perhaps the most controversial candidate that is a serious contender for president in our nation’s history. He recently gave a speech on his energy policy on August 4th. I listened to much of his speech, but one part in particular jumped out at me. See, in my previous research there is one thing I’ve learned to be more skeptical of than anything else, a Liberal's statistics.
“He [John McCain] know tat if we opened up and drilled on every single square inch of our land and our shores, we would still find only three percent of the world’s oil reserves. Three percent for a country that uses 25% of the world’s oil,” stated Obama.
After Obama said this, I just stared at the TV, completely stupefied as people applauded. Here, Obama was pulling numbers from who knows where that were completely false, and comparing barrels in reserves to barrels of production… and no one seemed to notice.
Yes, the U.S. does consume 25% of the oil produced in the world, but production is not directly tied to the amount of reserves. Saudi Arabia is top in the world in both. Iraq is a good example, being fourth in reserves, but 15th in production. Inversely, the U.S. is 14th in reserves, but fourth in production. You cannot directly tie use of produced oil to the percentage of reserves held. Saudi Arabia has 262B barrels in proven reserves versus the U.S.’s measly 22B barrels. However, the U.S. produces 7.8M barrels per day versus Saudi Arabia’s 9M barrels per day.
Using Obama’s own numbers, which are in error, discovering a further 3% of the world’s reserves is nearly tripling the 1.66% we already have. If we increased our production on the same scale as we increased our reserves, we’d produce nearly 22M barrels per day and actually exceed our current consumption by 2.25M barrels per day. This would mean we’d be completely and totally free from all foreign oil.
I’ve read several articles supporting Obama’s statement, that have misconstrued it to prove him right. They have calculated, not based on his “three percent” figure, or based on his “every single square inch of our land and our shores,” but on confined exploration. They’ve based it on certain areas of the Gulf of Mexico only, on ANWR only, but have totally excluded oil shale and never combined them all, as Obama did in his statement.
ANWR alone is estimated to yield practically recoverable reserves of between 5B to 7B barrels of oil, producing over 600M barrels per day. Chevron recently discovered reserves 175 miles off the coast of Louisiana with a conservative estimate of 3B barrels of oil and quite possibly as much as 15B. This would yield 800,000 barrels per day within 7 years and peak near 1.5M.
Oil shale is another yet untapped resource in the U.S. Estimated yields of oil shale in the U.S. are among the largest in the world, dwarfing that of the oil reserves in Saudi Arabia. There are an estimated 1.5 trillion barrels of oil shale reserves in the U.S., well over half of the oil shale reserves in the world. Estonia, China, Brazil, Germany, Israel, and Russia already produce kerogen from oil shale. The practical problems with developing oil shale reserves are the costs and the young technology. However, initial costs range from $70-90 per barrel and soon fall to below $40 per barrel. Given the current oil market, this makes oil shale production very practical. Technology is also ever increasing efficiency of pyrolysis, the artificial chemical decomposition that converts the kerogen to synthetic crude.
I wrote a year ago, that peak oil was a farse. I wrote that capitalism would answer, and it has. You ask me if there is anything wrong with developing wind farms, hydro-electric or solar power? I completely support any viable source of energy. But to say that we can’t drill ourselves out of this “emergency? Bologna. That’s just a sales pitch for a company that builds windmills.
Chris
(c) copyright 2008 Compass of Mind (http://www.CompassOfMind.com)
There has been much discussion about the rise of gas prices and how or even if to combat them. One group wants to drill, thus increasing supply and lowering prices. Another group wants to ignore oil and move directly to alternative fuels. Somewhere between, there is a group that wants to increase supply while developing the alternative fuels. The debate between these groups has become very intense, and at times downright vicious. The presidential election has brought this to the forefront more than any other forum.
Barack Obama is perhaps the most controversial candidate that is a serious contender for president in our nation’s history. He recently gave a speech on his energy policy on August 4th. I listened to much of his speech, but one part in particular jumped out at me. See, in my previous research there is one thing I’ve learned to be more skeptical of than anything else, a Liberal's statistics.
“He [John McCain] know tat if we opened up and drilled on every single square inch of our land and our shores, we would still find only three percent of the world’s oil reserves. Three percent for a country that uses 25% of the world’s oil,” stated Obama.
After Obama said this, I just stared at the TV, completely stupefied as people applauded. Here, Obama was pulling numbers from who knows where that were completely false, and comparing barrels in reserves to barrels of production… and no one seemed to notice.
Yes, the U.S. does consume 25% of the oil produced in the world, but production is not directly tied to the amount of reserves. Saudi Arabia is top in the world in both. Iraq is a good example, being fourth in reserves, but 15th in production. Inversely, the U.S. is 14th in reserves, but fourth in production. You cannot directly tie use of produced oil to the percentage of reserves held. Saudi Arabia has 262B barrels in proven reserves versus the U.S.’s measly 22B barrels. However, the U.S. produces 7.8M barrels per day versus Saudi Arabia’s 9M barrels per day.
Using Obama’s own numbers, which are in error, discovering a further 3% of the world’s reserves is nearly tripling the 1.66% we already have. If we increased our production on the same scale as we increased our reserves, we’d produce nearly 22M barrels per day and actually exceed our current consumption by 2.25M barrels per day. This would mean we’d be completely and totally free from all foreign oil.
I’ve read several articles supporting Obama’s statement, that have misconstrued it to prove him right. They have calculated, not based on his “three percent” figure, or based on his “every single square inch of our land and our shores,” but on confined exploration. They’ve based it on certain areas of the Gulf of Mexico only, on ANWR only, but have totally excluded oil shale and never combined them all, as Obama did in his statement.
ANWR alone is estimated to yield practically recoverable reserves of between 5B to 7B barrels of oil, producing over 600M barrels per day. Chevron recently discovered reserves 175 miles off the coast of Louisiana with a conservative estimate of 3B barrels of oil and quite possibly as much as 15B. This would yield 800,000 barrels per day within 7 years and peak near 1.5M.
Oil shale is another yet untapped resource in the U.S. Estimated yields of oil shale in the U.S. are among the largest in the world, dwarfing that of the oil reserves in Saudi Arabia. There are an estimated 1.5 trillion barrels of oil shale reserves in the U.S., well over half of the oil shale reserves in the world. Estonia, China, Brazil, Germany, Israel, and Russia already produce kerogen from oil shale. The practical problems with developing oil shale reserves are the costs and the young technology. However, initial costs range from $70-90 per barrel and soon fall to below $40 per barrel. Given the current oil market, this makes oil shale production very practical. Technology is also ever increasing efficiency of pyrolysis, the artificial chemical decomposition that converts the kerogen to synthetic crude.
I wrote a year ago, that peak oil was a farse. I wrote that capitalism would answer, and it has. You ask me if there is anything wrong with developing wind farms, hydro-electric or solar power? I completely support any viable source of energy. But to say that we can’t drill ourselves out of this “emergency? Bologna. That’s just a sales pitch for a company that builds windmills.
Chris
(c) copyright 2008 Compass of Mind (http://www.CompassOfMind.com)