which . for allowing expansion of petroleum resources,
required expansion
of alternative energy systems. There is posterity to think
about. If we aren't
running out of oil now, there are finite limits and we will
reach some kind
of peak in 2090 or 2150, after which decline will be
irreversible.
America, let us hope, will still be around in 2500 AD, as a
beacon to the nations.
Is there some reason we should exhaust our oil resources as
soon as possible rather
than trying to maintain those resources to be prudently
managed for the future ?
When he was running for the Oval Office four years ago amid
$4-a-gallon gasoline prices, then-Sen. Barack Obama
dismissed the idea of expanded oil production as a way to
relieve the pain at the pump.
"Even if you opened up every square inch of our land and
our coasts to drilling," he said. "America still has only 3%
of the world's oil reserves." Which meant, he said, that the
U.S. couldn't affect global oil prices.
It's the same rhetoric President Obama is using now, as gas
prices hit $4 again, except now he puts the figure at 2%.
"With only 2% of the world's oil reserves, we can't just
drill our way to lower gas prices," he said. "Not when we
consume 20% of the world's oil."
The claim makes it appear as though the U.S. is an
oil-barren nation, perpetually dependent on foreign oil and
high prices unless we can cut our own use and develop
alternative energy sources like algae.
U.S. Awash In Oil
But the figure Obama uses — proved oil reserves — vastly
undercounts how much oil the U.S. actually contains. 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.
A separate Rand Corp. study
found that about 800 billion barrels of oil shale in Wyoming
and neighboring states is "technically recoverable," which
means it could be extracted using existing technology.
That's more than triple the known reserves in Saudi Arabia.
All told, the U.S. has access to 400 billion barrels of
crude that could be recovered using existing drilling
technologies, according to a 2006 Energy
Department report.
When you include oil shale, the U.S. has 1.4 trillion
barrels of technically recoverable oil, according to the Institute for
Energy Research, enough to meet all U.S. oil needs for
about the next 200 years, without any imports.
And even this number could be low, since such estimates
tend to go up over time.
Back in 1995, for example, the USGS figured there were 151
million barrels of oil in North Dakota's Bakken formation.
In 2008, it upped that estimate to 3 billion barrels to 4.3
billion barrels — a 25-fold increase. Now, some oil analysts
say there could be as much as 20 billion barrels there.
And USGS in 2002 quadrupled its
oil estimate in Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve.
To be sure, energy companies couldn't profitably recover
all this oil — even at today's prices — and what they could
wouldn't make it to market for years. But from the
industry's perspective, the real problem with domestic oil
is that the government has roped off most of these supplies.
The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of
1980, for example, put a huge swatch of land off-limits to
drilling. And in 1982, Congress blocked access to most of
the oil in the Outer Continental Shelf. Much of the oil on
federal lands is also off-limits.
Obama and others say the industry's claim about lack of
access isn't true, since they aren't even using many of the
offshore leases they already have. The industry counters
that this is misleading, since a company needs the lease
before it can determine if any oil exists there — a
potentially time-consuming process.
In any case, any attempt to get at these vast new oil
supplies is sure to face fierce opposition from
environmental groups worried about oil production's direct
impact on the environment, as well as global warming
worries.
But given today's prices, most of the public is willing to
expand drilling offshore, in ANWR, and in shale oil
reserves, according to the latest IBD/TIPP poll.
"This is not a geological problem — it's a political
problem," said Dan Kish, senior vice president for policy at
the Institute for Energy Research. "We've embargoed our own
supplies."
