http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110209/ap_on_re_us/us_shale_oil_3
Where has this news been hiding? “Fracking” also works for oil in addition to natural gas. As a result, domestic oil production has been going up the last two years while consumption has been going down (because of the economy).
Peak oil? In your doomsday cultural suicidal dreams, Progressives. Jimmy Carter’s warnings in the 1970s that we only had a few years of oil left were as untrue then as they are today. Proven oil reserves that are economically recoverable (before fracking) are well over a trillion barrels – the “piggish” U.S. consumes less than 10 billion barrels a year. Fracking oil fields may well result in oil reserves going up to 50 or 100 years of global consumption….
Our #1 national security issue should be to become completely independent of oil suppliers in countries run by Islamic governments. Treat it like the war that it is. Return the Arab kingdoms to wandering around the desert in their tents.
Nuclear energy, natural gas for home heating instead of fuel oil, resume offshore oil drilling. Oil should be used to make plastics and transportation where it is the only reasonable fuel (jet fuel) – but not by coercion or subsidy, but by making it the priority to get government out of the way – reining in environmental, endangered species and pollution regulations that are there solely to obstruct development – expedite approval of pipeline and electric transmission line construction, using the power of eminant domain if necessary, removing the obstacles for nuclear power – either open Yucca Mountain or permit power companies to build their own private solutions for spent nuclear fuel, etc…
From the shale oil article linked above:
“…production is rising so fast there is no space in pipelines to bring the oil to market. Instead, it is being transported to refineries by rail and truck. Drilling companies have had to erect camps to house workers. Unemployment in North Dakota has fallen to the lowest level in the nation, 3.8 percent — less than half the national rate of 9 percent. The influx of mostly male workers to the region has left local men lamenting a lack of women. Convenience stores are struggling to keep shelves stocked with food.”
Meanwhile President Obama crisscrosses the job-deficient industrial heartland trying to explain how more government spending is the key to prosperity. Pay no attention to those evil capitalists in North Dakota. The great OB has spoken!
Art…the commonsense, achievable answers are all right here. Nuclear, gas and our own oil. Really…how hard is this?
Hard Questions.
American ingenuity saving the day? Probably.
Hard Question #1: Why are these companies selling chunks of these finds/fields to the Chinese oil company instead of keeping them for themselves?
So we invest in new technology here in America and we find better ways to harvest the oil. Also, I’ve read numerous articles this past year on how much nat gas we are discovering now. And there is supoosedly enough coal in (do I remember correctly?) Wyoming for us to use for the next 300 YEARS! Surely we can apply a some technology here to figure out how to burn it cleaner and with more efficiency.
Hard Question #2: But will Osama let us develop these “dirty” sources when he keeps touting solar and wind?
Doubtful. Another reason to make him another OTDP (One Term Democratic President).
So, sit back and ponder the Hardest Question of All: Why do we continue buying this resource from the most volatile neighborhood on the Planet?
There must be a reason …..
Well, the obvious theory is that they own our political system (whoever they is). A big part of why I don’t trust Fox News is their Saudi prince investor.
Someone somewhere (besides me) really needs to call out the BBC. They are way beyond the line of reporting the news and actively inciting the violent overthrow of a sovereign country. The BBC World Service was completely funded by the Foreign Office (the British equivalent of the State Department) to broadcast propaganda around the world. The BBC Domestic service is funded by the television tax.
Over the past decade, insiders have pointed out that homosexual activists have infiltrated the BBC and dominate its editorial process. When the caliphate swallows England, they’ll be the first ones stoned to death.