[BlueStreak03]

USGS Release: 3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Technically Recoverable Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation—25 Times More Than 1995 Estimate— (4/10/2008 2:25:36 PM)


3-4.3 BILLION barrels of oil recoverable within our own borders. No off shore drilling required, no R&D on new technologies and techniques. All we have to do is build more derricks and pump it out of the ground. Oh yeah and that pesky problem of refinery capacity is once again kicking our butts. If some company would get off their duffs, drop some cash and build a refinery, the price of energy would come WAY down and the cost of product from extraction to market would drop tremendously also.


I don't see a loser in this plan. The company gets more profit per barrel and reduced operating costs. There can only be a certain number of reasons why we haven't gotten this giong yet and none of them are rational. None make a lick of business sense.

[Cusp]

Originally Posted by BlueStreak03

USGS Release: 3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Technically Recoverable Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation—25 Times More Than 1995 Estimate— (4/10/2008 2:25:36 PM)


3-4.3 BILLION barrels of oil recoverable within our own borders. No off shore drilling required, no R&D on new technologies and techniques. All we have to do is build more derricks and pump it out of the ground. Oh yeah and that pesky problem of refinery capacity is once again kicking our butts. If some company would get off their duffs, drop some cash and build a refinery, the price of energy would come WAY down and the cost of product from extraction to market would drop tremendously also.


I don't see a loser in this plan. The company gets more profit per barrel and reduced operating costs. There can only be a certain number of reasons why we haven't gotten this giong yet and none of them are rational. None make a lick of business sense.

Because worshiping the environment and creation has supplanted the creator. Environmentalists ought to be tried under the establishment of religion theory. Maybe then we could get on about the business of becoming energy self sufficient. But then the powers that be have set us up for failure. Its sad to see their plan succeeding.

[hotshot]

Well look at how fast that 3.5 million is used up. We americans consume quite a lot of it very quickly...

Personally i think this is the way things are being thought out.

Use up the Middle East's supply of oil. When WW3 comes around, we will be able to begin to tap out supply in Alaska and other locations throughout the US because we won't have access to other foreign supplies.

So its simple logic, use up their supply and save ours as a backup in case of war or emergency

[04KenneBellGT]

Originally Posted by hotshot

Well look at how fast that 3.5 million is used up. We americans consume quite a lot of it very quickly...

Personally i think this is the way things are being thought out.

Use up the Middle East's supply of oil. When WW3 comes around, we will be able to begin to tap out supply in Alaska and other locations throughout the US because we won't have access to other foreign supplies.

So its simple logic, use up their supply and save ours as a backup in case of war or emergency

Thats one way to think of it.

[tripleblack]

Originally Posted by hotshot

Well look at how fast that 3.5 million is used up. We americans consume quite a lot of it very quickly...

Personally i think this is the way things are being thought out.

Use up the Middle East's supply of oil. When WW3 comes around, we will be able to begin to tap out supply in Alaska and other locations throughout the US because we won't have access to other foreign supplies.

So its simple logic, use up their supply and save ours as a backup in case of war or emergency

Just a small correction, the higher number is 4.3 Billion barrels. Combined with our existing production (despite 4 decades of constant harrassment, high taxes, and outright banning) which ranks third in the world (behind Russia and Saudi Arabia), this would NOT be enough to make us independent of imported crude, but it would make a very large dent.

I would have to disagree as to the wisdom of any strategy that sees us paying insane prices for imports while letting our own resources sit in the ground. We cannot afford to do this, $150 oil threatened to bankrupt us last year, and it WILL come again, probably sooner than we want it to.

One reason oil IS so expensive is because we ARE sitting on our reserves.

[napalmbomb]

It cost a lot of money to drill a well, set up a infrastructure of pipelines and terminals. Plus the cost of maintaining the wellhead. No company in their right mind would invest this kind of capital and then have the Government or enviro's pull the rug out from them with law suits and overbearing regulations.
Bottom line, get use to higher prices and seeing your money going overseas. even though Canada is our biggest importer of oil.

[Tominator]

Use up the Middle East's supply of oil. When WW3 comes around, we will be able to begin to tap out supply in Alaska and other locations throughout the US because we won't have access to other foreign supplies.

So its simple logic, use up their supply and save ours as a backup in case of war or emergency

That has been my theory since the mid '70s.

Also, remember that 'scientists' predicted we only had 30 years of oil supply in the WORLD back then.

There are two 'bubbles' of oil in Illinois said to be the largest in the lower 48 states.

In the ground they stay...

[tripleblack]

These so-called "experts" who engage in these zero-sum games regarding things like oil, climate or how to run our country give me a rash.

They make a "calculated set of assumptions" (wildass guesses) and then build intricate "models" on top.

They are usually wrong, too. Sometimes hilariously so.

Here are some of those predictions which were the height of pop culture back when I was graduating from high school, just as Tominator mentions:

1. We are going to run completely out of oil by the year 1994. We will have to start breeding draft horses again, and civilization will fall.

2. We are going to run out of food by the year 2000. We will revert to cannibalism, and civilization will fall.

3. We are going to run out of heat by the year 2002. A new Ice Age will begin, triggered by all the soot and pollution we have put into the air which will block out the sun. Oh, yes, and civilization will fall.

4. We are going to be overrun by Communism by the year 1992. Capitalism, Democracy and the Rule of Law are failed experiments, and the superiority of socialism and communism will become more apparent every year until their ideology rules every nation on earth. And yes, I would consider THIS result as civilization falling!

5. We are going to all die by the year 2000, the end of the millenium, probably when we fight it out with the Russians and blow up the planet, after which civilization will fall.

For some odd reason, NONE of these predictions came to pass, despite the large numbers of earnest professors who insisted they would.

Not a single one of these hair-brained ideas were as nutty as the current versions, all of them embodied by our current national leadership in Washington, DC.

I can only hope that once again, the "experts" are proven wrong before they manage to kill us all.

Originally Posted by Tominator

That has been my theory since the mid '70s.

Also, remember that 'scientists' predicted we only had 30 years of oil supply in the WORLD back then.

There are two 'bubbles' of oil in Illinois said to be the largest in the lower 48 states.

In the ground they stay...

[Tominator]

One of my favorite mis-predictions was claiming deer would be extinct by 1985 because it took 700 acres to support each one and urban sprawl and farming were ruining the habitat!

As I stated in another thread, Liberals have had control of the education system for over 30 years and now they crucified Rush Limbaugh using the same type of lies and made up 'facts' used to indoctrinate the youth of this country.

Under Obama there will be ZERO new exploration/drilling and ZERO nuclear plants being started. This plan will draw us down to where we should be....

[hotshot]

The issue right now is that China is willing to pay insanely high prices for oil therefore decreasing the supply and therefore driving the price up even further.

Supply and demand distates that if you are able to sell off your entire supply at a fixed price level, if you increase the price slighty and still sell it all off, you will do that. And they do this up to the point where they are about to drive people away. But the fact remains that there are no 100% successful substitues for crude oil therefore we are dependant upon it from the largest supplier of it.
Hence them having us by the neck and us not able to do much of anything about it.

Yes we can start to drill our own oil, but what is to stop the middle East from saying, alright no more oil for the US since they don't need it, lets sell it all to China now and help push them further into a more industrialized civilization.

Did you know soon we are going to see Chinese cars on the roads in the US?

[napalmbomb]

I hate to sound like a broken record here but, we get very little oil from the middle east, at last check it was around 11% of our imported oil. Yes we do get a lot of refined products like aviation fuel, diesel fuel and polyfins from Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain but that is normal during peak seasons. Canada, Mexico, Nigeria and of course uncle Hugo in Venezuala are our chief importers. And Canada is the largest. At last check they are still friendly to us.
Trip, your right about the predictions in the 60's and 70's. Remember the books "The Naked Ape" and "The Population Bomb"?? We should have been extinct in 2001.LOL

[tripleblack]

China uses its geopolitical muscle (it has, after all, been exporting communism and supporting all manner of regimes for 50 years, after all) to wrap up sweet deals for raw materials from choir boys like Iran, who sells to them for ideological motives. China therefore buys well below the market price, whereas other consumers pay extra. They also don't hesitate to swap things like nuclear weapons technology for preferential pricing, when it suits their long term goals. Cats like Akhmedinamadman are their particular marks.

Also, there is NO free market for oil, beyond North America, and even there it is highly regulated. Oil has been a 100% political tool since Jimmy Carter's day, and was about 50% so even before.

Therefore, I have always argued that it has to be viewed first and foremost in this light - and divorced from other commodities like wheat, soybeans, OJ or even gold, where something like an actual market and legitimate trade helps to set prices.

Even when prices for gas hit nearly $5 a gallon recently, and crude was going for $150 a barrel, the truth was that half the price at the pump was pure tax - a political equation rather than a market-driven one. Even discounting so-called speculation (anyone who can create an actual "free market" also free of speculation can take a stab at defining that for me), pricing has left the realm of supply/demand and entered a world of complex political players long since.

Originally Posted by hotshot

The issue right now is that China is willing to pay insanely high prices for oil therefore decreasing the supply and therefore driving the price up even further.

Supply and demand distates that if you are able to sell off your entire supply at a fixed price level, if you increase the price slighty and still sell it all off, you will do that. And they do this up to the point where they are about to drive people away. But the fact remains that there are no 100% successful substitues for crude oil therefore we are dependant upon it from the largest supplier of it.
Hence them having us by the neck and us not able to do much of anything about it.

Yes we can start to drill our own oil, but what is to stop the middle East from saying, alright no more oil for the US since they don't need it, lets sell it all to China now and help push them further into a more industrialized civilization.

Did you know soon we are going to see Chinese cars on the roads in the US?

[Mpov]

Originally Posted by tripleblack

Also, there is NO free market for oil, beyond North America, and even there it is highly regulated. Oil has been a 100% political tool since Jimmy Carter's day, and was about 50% so even before.

Therefore, I have always argued that it has to be viewed first and foremost in this light - and divorced from other commodities like wheat, soybeans, OJ or even gold, where something like an actual market and legitimate trade helps to set prices.

Even when prices for gas hit nearly $5 a gallon recently, and crude was going for $150 a barrel, the truth was that half the price at the pump was pure tax - a political equation rather than a market-driven one. Even discounting so-called speculation (anyone who can create an actual "free market" also free of speculation can take a stab at defining that for me), pricing has left the realm of supply/demand and entered a world of complex political players long since.

There will never be a free market for oil because production is controlled by an oligopoly - OPEC - and look at who the members are. Kind of scary to think about how countries like Iran, Nigeria and Venezuela can affect our economy. Our best defense is to reduce our reliance on oil as an energy source.

While I am all in favor of drilling for domestic oil when it makes economic sense to do so, one has to keep in mind that this is a temporary solution. We just need to start reducing the amount of oil we use. I am not suggesting that anyone turn in their Mustang for a hybrid, but we do need to start thinking about, and investing more money in, alternative sources of energy like nuclear power, wind, solar, etc.

[Tominator]

Don't get me started on wind and solar....both are expensive alternatives and would do little to nothing to decrease our dependency on oil.

[Jwalks]

I love the number of people that state wind and solar power are ways to decrease dependancy on oil when over 90% of the power produced today in north america (not coming from alternative fuel sources) is produced using non petrolium products. The only petrolium product used to create power is natural gas, which is extracted and refined in north america.

The alternative fuels that will reduce dependancy on foreign oil are mostly biofuels and hydrogen, and biofuels looks that best becuase the infrastructure is already in place for distribution. And no you do not have to use food stock to make biofuels, can easily be made using waste oils and waste emissions.