Both political parties keep harping about our dependence on foreign oil, although their solutions are, as expected, far different.
In a recent newspaper article, it was stated that the US imported roughly
750 million barrels of oil in 2010 and exported roughly 850 million barrels of oil and oil products. An even bigger export surplus is expected for 2011 and IIRC, there was a smaller surplus in 2009.
Am I missing something here? There is no dependence? The only reason we import oil is so the oil companies can export the products thereof at higher profits than they can make in the US?
Imagine - it's all happening without GWB being Prez. Does it make you think BHO might be paying off all his old buddies in one way or another as the left kept pounding during GWB's term?
Either you or the article confused automobile gas imports/exports with oil....due to falling local demand of (4% if I recall correctly) U.S. gas consumption, we're now net exporters of refined gasoline(from refineries). However we still import roughly 50% of our oil (a few years ago it was 60%). Although Canada, Mexico,Venezuela etc. account for the largest share. Our daily consumption is approx. 20 million barrels. Our local production has increased with fracking, corn etc. and our consumption has decreased with price and a lousy economy. Rod
I think that it has been proven that using corn for fuel is another government backed failure. Fuel from corn does not yield any more energy than it takes to produce it.
US Oil Production: 9.14MBBL/day (of which 5.36 MBBL/day is crude) US Oil Consumption: 18.81MBBL/day
That leaves 9MBBL/day imported, mostly from canada, mexico and venezuela.
Face it, you misread the newspaper article (or it was factually incorrect) and used it as an excuse to rant about something you know little about.
Data here: http://205.254.135.7/countries/index.cfm?view=consumptionGlobal Production is 85.5MBBL/day, while consumption is 85.6MBBL/Day.
The US consumes 22% of the daily worldwide oil production, but produces about 11%.
No matter how you work the numbers, the US imports half its oil.
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of the lowered demand for gasoline, several refineries are scaling back or shutting down. When we export gasoline and other refined products we're acting as a refiner for the customer, nothing more, nothing less.
If you actually look at the numbers, there _isn't enough_ oil in the ground (in the US and territorial waters) to make up for our imports. First, we'd need to _double_ production. Even if we drilled the hell out of ANWAR and the california coast, it would take decades before an additional 9MBBL a day comes on line, and then it would be exhausted quickly.
The total proven US reserves are 21 Billion barrels. At 18 MBBL/day, you do the math (it works out to 3 years and it's all gone). The SPR has another
700 MBBL, but that would only last a month at 18MBBL/day US consumption. And the barrels that are left in the ground are much harder to get at than the barrels that have already been pumped (whether fracking, steam injection or horizontal drilling, all are much more energy intensive - when the energy required to obtain oil starts to get close to the energy that can be extracted from the obtained oil, then things become real interesting (DAGS Energy Trap).
FWIW the Bakken field is producing about 300,000 bbl/day (up from 80,000 a decade ago). The production curve for most wells is heavily loaded at the front end and tails off rapidly.
So, above is the useful information. Now what do you think?
(and don't spout that abiogenic nonsense. Even if it were true for heavy hydrocarbons, the rate of production will never be near 18MBBL/day).
The days of gushers are over. The worlds production has plateaued and is starting to decline. These are numbers and facts that cannot be easily glossed over by "drill baby drill" mantras.
Meanwhile, large cities are planning for 50% population increases over the next three decades - there's no way we can increase petroleum production at the same rate, it is not sustainable; so either alternatives need to be developed (and none of them can easily replace petroleum on an energy density and portability basis) or we need to cut back (or likely, both).
Well, yeah. It's like saying we import bauxite and export aluminum. Or importing Indian rosewood and exporting guitars. We bring in the raw materials and export a finished product. Nothing wrong with that.
And oil is a perfectly good reason to go to way. The Japs attacked Pearl Harbor, ultimately, over oil. Hilter invaded Russia for oil.
Really, Leon? Really? My mom tells me that when I was a baby in LA in the mid-50's, there were days you literally couldn't see two blocks because of smog. When was the last time kids in your town weren't allowed to go play outside because of air quality? It's the "environmentalists" that brought cleaner air to you.
Hear! Hear! I remember trying to play softball on a second-stage alert saturday in Pasadena in the early 80's. Couldn't even run to first base without stopping to try to breath.
Since 1995, there has not been a single first-stage (much less second or third) smog alert in the LA basin. Primarily, this is due to automobile emissions reductions mandated by CARB. Secondarily, to other VOC controls in the basin.
I suspect that the older of us also remember dead rivers burning in the east coast industrial regions in the 60's and 70's.
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