Saturday, May 21, 2011

More news that legacy media forgot to tell us: Congressional Research Service says America's energy resources are the largest on Earth

Peter Glover, writing at Energy Tribune, relays a stunning report that describes America's natural energy reserves as an embarrassment of riches.

Which begs the question: with its economy running on fumes, skyrocketing energy prices, and a staggering deficit, why is America the only country on Earth that restricts access to its own vast energy resources?

Because Democrats want it that way.

...America’s combined energy resources are, according to a new report from the Congressional Research Service (CSR), the largest on earth. They eclipse Saudi Arabia (3rd), China (4th) and Canada (6th) combined – and that’s without including America’s shale oil deposits and, in the future, the potentially astronomic impact of methane hydrates.

...it perhaps falls to a friend of the US (i.e., me) to state that if the White House is in any way serious about impacting the economic Black Hole that is the burgeoning national debt, reinvigorating business big-time, creating real jobs and restoring ebbing national wealth, the best shot by a distance if you’re American ... well, you’re standing on it, or rather above it.

...While the US is often depicted as having only a tiny minority of the world’s oil reserves at around 28 billion barrels (based on the somewhat misleading figure of ‘proven reserves’) according to the CRS in reality it has around 163 billion barrels. As Inhofe’s EPW press release comments, “That’s enough oil to maintain America’s current rates of production and replace imports from the Persian Gulf for more than 50 years”. Next up, there’s coal. The CRS report reveals America’s reserves of coal are unsurpassed, accounting for over 28 percent of the world’s coal... that’s a couple of centuries of coal use, at least.

...In 2009 the CRS upped its 2006 estimate of America’s enormous natural gas deposits by 25 percent to around 2,047 trillion cubic feet, a conservative figure given the expanding shale gas revolution. At current rates of use that’s enough for around 100 years... [and] methane hydrates [could] be enough to provide America’s natural gas for more than 400 years.”

...With hundreds of thousands depending on oil and gas drilling for work, it is as yet unknown just how many of Obama’s policies are putting people out of jobs – and preventing the creation of new ones. What we do know however, is that ‘green’ jobs in the alternative energies industries just aren’t cutting the employment ice. In mid-March, a new study by Verso Consultancy estimates that for every new green job created by diverting public money into renewable energy projects in the UK, 3.7 British jobs were destroyed.

Meanwhile US energy policy persists in pursuing the myth that renewables are the economically viable future, with fossil fuels already, as the president said in January, “yesterday’s energy”. With 85 percent of global energy set to come from fossil fuels till at least 2035 no matter what wishful thinkers may prefer, current US energy policy – much like European – is pure political pantomime.

In 2012 we must elect leaders who understand the real world. The leaders we have today exist in some sort of a fantasy dream-scape. Because in the real world, there are no unicorns, no mermaids, no dancing ponies and no "green jobs".


Hat tip: D&S

3 comments:

Buddahfan said...

Nice to see you post this but it very old news.

He is not the first to publish this. In fact you don't even need his article.

You can just Google "Oil Shale" or "Shale Oil" and see that its known reserves are about twice of Saudi Arabia's total known oil reserves.

Anonymous said...

Please also see:

Office of the Secretary of Defense, Clean Fuels Initiative presentation by Dr. Theodore K. Barna,
link: http://www.westgov.org/wieb/meetings/boardsprg2005/briefing/ppt/congressionalbrief.pdf

This shows that the US has over 2X the hydrocarbon resources of all of Arab OPEC.

I take the enviro-Dem's efforts to suppress the development of our own energy resources as a form of self-loathing writ large.

We used to have sufficient prosperity to afford to entertain the demands of these people. But not only did their policy recommendations cause skyrocketing energy prices, they imposed an unnecessary dependency on us and put us at the mercy of long supply chains that we are force to protect at great expense.

Meanwhile these same people induced a substantial fraction of the US to become dependent up government, also at great expense, and then they sought to pay for this mega-debacle by borrowing from foreign lenders and inflating our own currency. Even now they are in denial about the fiscal and monetary reality.

I should say that it is time for a reality check of the greatest magnitude.

mujeres said...

Good food for thought here. Thank you very much for the extensive explanation. Very nicely written. Really makes think.