Lads and Lasses, gentle readers, and all you folks that are new to my blog; I'm now going to embark on a fact presentation mission. A mission that will prove once and for all that our "Dependence" on Middle Eastern oil from countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates is...to use my own colorful language..A huge pile of worm infested shit!
Then of course there are those that call our buying oil from Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez deplorable. My response to this? Then by all means, lets STOP buying Venezuelan oil. We don't really need it all that badly anyway.
Let me present to you a few little facts about our supposed dependence on Middle Eastern Oil.
FACT: We import more oil from CANADA ALONE than we do from Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait COMBINED
FACT: We import more oil from MEXICO than we do from Saudi Arabia.
As for our Central and South American Neighbors....
FACT: We only import about 100 barrels a year more from Venezuela than we do from Mexico.
FACT: Again our Canadian Imports ALONE; are greater than our imports from Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil and Ecuador.... COMBINED.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html
I looked at 2 or 3 other sites and they all confirm what I just told you.
So lets by all means..Stop buying and importing oil from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Shut off those spigots. We don't need them THAT badly.
Now, onto the world is running out of oil and we need to wean ourselves off it for the sake of the planet and ourselves before the planet runs dry. Again I call, BULLSHIT!
Now if we keep the spigot turned on to Saudi..I read a report somewhere in 2009 that there was 55yrs, or a quarter TRILLION barrels of crude left, under the sands of the Kingdom of Saud. Here's another little link for you to peruse:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/reserves.html
And of course no one EVER mentions the the estimated U.S. Shale Oil reserves, which clocks in at an estimated 1.5 TRILLION barrels, or 250 YEARS worth of oil. Just in shale oil deposits in Colorado and..Wyoming. So please, DON'T tell me the world is running out of oil and we have to wean ourselves off it this instant! Will getting it out of shale be cheap? Not by any means. The tech for shale extraction is still in it's infancy so even assuming the stuff the companies try works..it'll be expensive because it's new tech. It will also by all accounts of what I can find and read, be a tad messy and nasty. Which means we spend a decade or so suckling the teat of the other people we import from til we're ready to turn off ALL the import spigots, because we've perfected shale extraction. Yes I said turn off ALL the import spigots..and estimated 250YEARS of oil locked up in shale remember? If we perfect shale extraction tech, what the hell do we need foreign imports for? Seriously? If that takes another 20yrs[that is my own outside maximum guess as to time line if pursued vigorously] to perfect the tech and we suckle at the rest of the worlds oil producing teat for that long..so be it. Small price to pay to be COMPLETELY independent of the rest of the world, no? I think so.
http://dailyreckoning.com/oil-shale-reserves/
Who knows maybe by the end of the 250yrs some smart soul will have discovered the energy motherload as described in science fiction stories. An undiscovered, unknown to our planet, metal they call 'Unobtanium'. The proverbial FREE LUNCH, where energy is concerned. A metal that produces power in astronomical amounts. More power than is applied to it, to produce an energy bonanza. It is in energy and scientific communities, The Unicorn. The fabled mythical creature. Who's to say it doesn't exist...somewhere out in the vast reaches of space? And, as long as we're going exploring anyway... :)
Carry on.
Well, the physicists and chemists are pretty sure that they've got all the possible elements sorted out, and unobtainium of that sort isn't in the list. But in two centuries we ought to be able to get the bugs out of hydrogen fusion, and that is enough energy to run the stars for billions of years, so it should be a decent source for us.
ReplyDeleteThe key isn't energy creation, it's energy storage. The reason fossil fuels are so attractive is that nature did the hard part, storing millennia of solar energy in a convenient liquid form practically free for the taking. Figure out a safe easy to use compact inexpensive storage means and suddenly most of the problem goes away. But it must have an energy density comparable to that of gasoline and cost in the same range as what processing hydrocarbon fuels does now.
ReplyDeleteGrin. Due to experience, talking with farmers and ranchers on the High Plains of BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and even a little bit in Montana, I am _sure_ that the water usage, by Shale Oil extraction, is gonna have to _buy_ their initial stock of water, then very carefully clean and recycle it! Because there is no way that the local folk are gonna allow their agricultural water going to industrial use.
ReplyDeleteI do concede that one major Oil er Energy Company, has figured out how to do the Shale Oil extraction without digging open-pit mines...
Regards,
Bigfootneil
@Skydancer-well be that as it may..wouldn't it be entertaining and fun to see if such a thing DID exist?
ReplyDelete@Anon--if you can't produce energy you can't use it. Although...For electric cars if they can come up with a better battery..I might not be so opposed to them. But then you get into the other argument of what produces the energy and electricity you use to charge the car?
@Bigfoot- I did say it was a tad nasty and messy didn't I? Agreed though, the farmers are sure as hell not gonna want their water used for that..and might just object with guns, No?