4 Comments U.S. Tops in Energy Resources , page 1

U.S. Tops in Energy Resources

www.humanevents.com

The United States has largest energy reserves on Earth, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service.

As shown in the charts below, the U.S. has 1,321 billion barrels of oil (or barrels of oil equivalent for other sources of energy) when combining its recoverable natural gas, oil and coal reserves.

While Russia is a close second with 1,248 billion barrels, other energy producing nations are far behind. No. 3 is Saudi Arabia (543 billion barrels), followed by China (494 billion barrels), Iran (426 billion barrels) and Canada (221 billion barrels.)

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
epw.senate.gov

[edit on 2/11/09 by plumranch]

Go directly to the Congressional Research report for details. But the truth is the US DOES HAVE MORE ENERGY RESOURCES than any other country. However much of that energy is the kind that is not economical or marginally economical to extract right now.

"It is important to note that the deposits at the bottom of the pyramid may be quite extensive. Deposits may
be of poor quality or diffuse, but may occur in vast quantities. Examples of fossil fuel deposits that would
be found at the bottom of the pyramid are oil shale and methane hydrates (both discussed further below).
Oil shale and methane hydrate deposits contain massive amounts of oil and natural gas, but their mode of
occurrence, poor accessibility, and difficult recovery make them sub-economic. The economic threshold
for producing deposits further down the pyramid is, of course, partly a function of commodity price. That
threshold is also moved by the development of new extraction technologies that make production feasible
at lower cost."

So you and I and none of our direct descendants will ever be without oil. We may have to pay more for it!

www.humanevents.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 2/11/09 by plumranch]

reply to post by plumranch

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It's never been an issue of what we have. It's all about how cheap it is to produce. Today it's still cheaper to buy it then have it shipped around the planet than it is to pump our stuff out of the ground and or process coal here. On top of all that we have a block on Nuke plants etc. Processing Coal into other types of fuel gets a bad rap from environmentalists.

Strategically speaking it does make sense. Buy their fuel now, save ours for later.


Coal

Coal is one of the true measures of the energy strength of the United States. One quarter of the world’s coal reserves are found within the United States, and the energy content of the nation’s coal resources exceeds that of all the world’s known recoverable oil. Coal is also the workhorse of the nation’s electric power industry, supplying more than half the electricity consumed by Americans.

US Energy Policy

* According to the American Petroleum Institute (API), federal lands, including those on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), hold an estimated 116 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 650 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas — enough to fuel over 65 million cars for 60 years and meet the natural gas needs of 60 million households for 160 years.

* However, there could be much more oil and natural gas than has been estimated in areas where industry has not been permitted to explore, and where new technologies allow enhanced recovery of energy resources while protecting the environment.

[edit on 2-11-2009 by SLAYER69]

Here is a great video series I uploaded to our ATS video portal last year.

Enjoy

reply to post by whatukno

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Well, maybe this is why we have not switched to "new" energy resources...or maybe we are slowly switching in a directly proportional relationship with how much gas we consume?

More gas consumed results in better efficiency, but only to keep it at a certain level?

reply to post by FritosBBQTwist

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Technology that can run a car off of hydrogen, water, methane, whiskey, whatever will always be kept strictly under wraps.

The reason is we want the rest of the world to run out of oil before we do. We want them to buy our oil. When it gets to that point all of a sudden some "breakthrough" will happen where we no longer need fossil fuel to run a car efficiently. The technology is out there, everyone knows about it. They won't build it because it is not in the best interests of the people in charge.

They got to get that money from whatever country they can. Depleting the competition is the first step in that process.

reply to post by FritosBBQTwist

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Now...give or take 50 years for increased consumption or new resources, and we could just say 130-230 years of barrels of oil we have.

To be at all accurate in any prediction like this you'd have to take in future technological improvements in efficiency in the way we use our energy, alternative energy usage and improvements in how we recover the oil, coal, methane, natural gas, etc.

You want to make some predictions in these areas? Please be my guest!

reply to post by whatukno

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Do you know why we set up the strategic oil reserve? When we use up all of the oil from every other country we can, the US will be the major supplier of oil for the world.

You are overstating the purpose and potential of the SPR! It is only a 6 month supply at most and it takes a Congressional act to release it for domestic use. Mostly it is reserved for strategic (military) use!

Most of the wiggle room that the US has in terms of energy use is the potential to open up off shore drilling, open ANWAR, allow nuclear and allow clean coal production. All these sources have been stopped or made illegal by Congressional acts at one time or another.

Don't ever think that any or all of these would not become available by Congressional Act should the emergency suddenly or eventually come! The nature of a limited resource means that eventually will certainly occur. Environmental and ecological concerns are theoretically but not practically a concern when the needs of the country and especially the military are a consideration.

[edit on 3/11/09 by plumranch]Strategic Petroleum Reserve

The United States started the petroleum reserve in 1975 after oil supplies were cut off during the 1973-74 oil embargo, to mitigate future temporary supply disruptions for example fallout with Relations dealing in oil or World War. According to the World Factbook[7], the United States imports a net 12 million barrels (1,900,000 m3) of oil a day (MMbd), so the SPR holds about a 58-day supply. However, the maximum total withdrawal capability from the SPR is only 4.4 million barrels (700,000 m3) per day, making it a 160 + day supply.

[edit on 3/11/09 by plumranch]

reply to post by plumranch

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Under the radar: Saudi oil exports to U.S. fall to 22-year low

Under the radar: Some trends are obvious enough and visible to all investors. Others are more-subtle, but are just as potent, and these often slip 'under the radar.'

Case in point: Saudi Arabia's oil exports to the United States have fallen to a 22-year low, at 745,000 barrels per day (bpd) in August, the latest month for which data is available, from 1.14 million bpd in July, according to data compiled by the U.S. Energy Information Agency. August's 745,000 bpd total is the lowest since December 1987. On a year-over-year basis (August 2008-August 2009), those exports are down about 50%.

U.S. Imports Of Saudi Oil Fall By 50 Percent


Read more at: www.huffingtonpost.com...&cp

It's become conventional wisdom that the U.S. needs to reduce how much oil it imports from Saudi Arabia, in order to both improve our energy independence and to stop sending billions of dollars to the country that spawned Osama Bin Laden and almost all of the 9/11 hijackers.

That demand became a bipartisan campaign refrain in both the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections and has been repeated by countless columnists such as the New York Times's Thomas Friedman.

So, the recent announcement that oil imports from Saudi Arabia had dropped dramatically to its lowest point in 22 years and that the country had fallen from second to fifth (behind Nigeria) on the list of the biggest foreign suppliers of oil to the U.S. in August would seem to represent a fulfillment of that wish.


Read more at: www.huffingtonpost.com...&cp

reply to post by whatukno

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You beat me to my theory. I was going to say the same thing. The US is buying up all the cheap resources and hording our own for the future.

It's a matter of economics. Supply and demand. We burn up all the oil which reduces supply then the prices go up, and then it becomes cost effective to pay Americans to extract our own resources.

In case your wondering, yes I'm joking.

The only problem is that when that happens, we will have to invade our own country and pay no bid contracts for the contractors to haul that stuff around.

We also have another resource that other countries can't come close to. Think of all the nuclear weapons we have that can be converted to run in nuclear power plants. That will be dirt cheep energy for centuries. So what if we glow in the dark.

Originally posted by Dermo

So can any of you explain this to me properly? How can the US have a proven equal amount of fossil fuel reserves as almost all of Eurasia and five times more than the expanse of Canada? Im not looking for an explanation as to how fossil fuels are created, just how these figures have been fathomed. Thanks.

Pretty much luck of the draw. It's combining all "Fossil Fuels" Oil, Natural Gas and Coal.

Here you go. The US Dept of Energy
Fossil Fuels
Overview of Fossil Fuel Energy Resources

reply to post by SLAYER69

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Good post!

Yes, the US big choices these days. Here's a list of the top 15 in current order of volume: Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Algeria, Angola, Brazil, Columbia, Russia, Kuwait, Guinea, Ecuador, UK.Crude Oil and Total Petroleum Imports Top 15 Countries

So depending on price, availability, political climate, etc. we have quite a choice. Truly a world market!

reply to post by Dermo

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Just wondering how it is known that the US has all these reserves? It just seems like another one of these "USA is the greatest" points of view.

Seems like it doesn't it!

I've lived in AK the last 35 yrs. We have so much coal up here! We could burn coal forever practically. The problem is that it is mostly low grade, clinker coal. But it is there if we ever need it!

Same situation with the Oil Shale Reserves of Colorado/Dakotas. There is more oil there that there ever was in Saudi Arabia and you could probably throw in Iraq and Kuwait. Problem is it is rather diffuse and hard to extract! But it is sure nice to know that it is out there!

And then there was the "Saudi Arabia of coal", a 1.7 million acre coal area of Utah that Bill Clinton for some strange reason decided to declare a National Monument off limits for mining back on Sept 18, 1996. That was 62 billion tons of environmentally safe low-sulfur coal worth $1.2 trillion and minable with minimal surface impact. We probably will never see that high grade coal again without a national emergency of significant proportion! That was a political payoff to the family of James Riady, BTW. Thank you Bill Clinton!

reply to post by plumranch

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Saudis Seek Payments for Any Drop in Oil Revenues

Saudi Arabia is trying to enlist other oil-producing countries to support a provocative idea: if wealthy countries reduce their oil consumption to combat global warming, they should pay compensation to oil producers.

The oil-rich kingdom has pushed this position for years in earlier climate-treaty negotiations. While it has not succeeded, its efforts have sometimes delayed or disrupted discussions. The kingdom is once again gearing up to take a hard line on the issue at international negotiations scheduled for Copenhagen in December.

Originally posted by SLAYER69
Here you go. The US Dept of Energy
Fossil Fuels
Overview of Fossil Fuel Energy Resources

Thank you

Originally posted by plumranch
Same situation with the Oil Shale Reserves of Colorado/Dakotas. There is more oil there that there ever was in Saudi Arabia and you could probably throw in Iraq and Kuwait. Problem is it is rather diffuse and hard to extract! But it is sure nice to know that it is out there!

Nice one

It still doesn't completely explain how they came to these conclusions in comparison the the rest of the world. While it may be easy to test this across the US for instance, doesn't mean the same tests have been done all across Russia etc.

Originally posted by SLAYER69
reply to post by plumranch

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Saudis Seek Payments for Any Drop in Oil Revenues

Saudi Arabia is trying to enlist other oil-producing countries to support a provocative idea: if wealthy countries reduce their oil consumption to combat global warming, they should pay compensation to oil producers.

I have seen this before. It is an extremely provocative idea, how can they expect this to work in their favor?

[edit on 5/11/09 by Dermo]

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