Absolutely, you can count on my support for drilling for oil anywhere and everywhere. I think it's stupid to hold off on that.
Exploiting those oil reserves would put a significant dent in our foreign imports
If you are talking statistics, then look at the numbers. We use about 24 mbpd of oil. We import about 18 mbpd of oil, or 75% of our use. Based on the latest estimates from the DOE, if we drilled everywhere the oil companies want to, we could produce an incremental 5-6 mbpd within 10 years. That would only account for 1/3 of our imports. So is that significant? Yes. Will it get us to oil independence? No.
If we conserved, we could reduce our usage by 25%, or 6 mbpd of oil. If we created alternative electric vehicles, we could reduce our usage by 6-7 mbpd, minimum (calculated based on 3 trillion miles driven per yr in USA).
So drilling + conservation + electric vehicles = 6 + 6 + 6 = 18. Voila. We're oil independent.
If we got to oil independence, then we could give the Middle East, Russia, Venezuela, and every OPEC cartel member the finger. We could pull out of the Middle East and just fund Israel to fight their wars over there. We could save ourselves the cost of future wars like Iraq and not be so meddlesome in the Middle East that we attract the attention of folks like Al Qaeda. Then the next time Iran or any other cartel member gets pissed and wants to create a supply shock to the oil markets, we could say "go ahead, make my day."
But even better. I guarantee you every other country on earth would want to do what we did to get to oil independence and they would pay gobs of money for our know-how, technology, products, and services. That is the future that I want. And I just don't get why the folks on this thread fight so hard against a no-brainer like this. |
