RE: Interesting article on proposed energy policies.
July 7, 2011 at 12:12 pm
(This post was last modified: July 7, 2011 at 12:32 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(July 7, 2011 at 1:27 am)Epimethean Wrote: The whys of paying places like Brazil to drill for oil when we have access to it here in the States bug the shit out of me. While we are in the process of inventing or perfecting greener energy sources, it seems senseless to add insult to injury via debt.
The total proven US oil reserve is about 20 billion barrels. Total us annual consumption is about 7 billion barrels. If we were to rely only on our known reserves, we'll run completely dry in 3 years. Then we can't even squeak should someone embargo us. So We do want to have some ready-use domestic reserves in our back pocket.
There are substantial but unknown new reserves. But we are discovering them at much slower rate than our consumption, and they tend to be expensive to extract, so they won't help much in deferring that date. The arctic national wildlife refuge republicans are so eager to violate, if fully violated, will add but one year to our run-dry date.
We simply don't have the domestic oil reserves to supply oil needs. It's pay the brazilians now, When the Chinese are bidding only to fill a hundred million or so gas tanks, or pay them later, when the Chinese would be bidding even higher to fill their own half billion gas tanks.
