Jun
13
Posted by bakken
I was doing some reading this morning and found that our government (mostly congress) is currently prohibiting drilling or exploration in the following areas in the US:
• The Green River Formation. Shale oil in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming which holds 1.2 trillion to 1.8 trillion barrels of crude but the crude is resident within the rock formations itself
• Alaska’s outer continental shelf. There could be approx 25 billion barrels there.
• Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Recoverable oil in this region (ANWR) is estimated to be 10 billion barrels to almost 20 billion.
• The lower 48 outer continental shelf. There exists 80+ billion barrels of crude in the Gulf of Mexico to which access is federally restricted. Also another 4 billion to 10 billion barrels on the Atlantic coast and 11 billion to 14 billion on the Pacific coast.
If you sum up the conservative recoverable crude of these finds we have more oil than Saudi Arabia or any other country in the Middle East for that matter. In a very short time, a normal 4 person family could find itself spending $750 – $1000 on gas PER MONTH and thus far there is nothing the government is doing to alleviate this (don’t talk to me about temporary suspension of filling the strategic oil reserves as that does nothing). I have not seen talk of curbing drilling in the Bakken region and localities seem to be liking the tax revenue that accompanies all of the land transactions so hopefully the govt can keep its grubby paws clear of the area.
UPDATE: You can actually vote to start drilling in these locations by going to the American Solutions Website http://www.americansolutions.com/
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Jun
12
Posted by bakken
I have a few “acquaintances” that are treehuggers and they are passionate about the negative environmental impact of drilling in the Bakken & ANWAR regions. Their claims are vague and centered around destruction of the environment and complain non-treehuggers are not putting forth a long term solution to solving America’s dependence on foreign oil (ie they want us driving around in hybrid flower powered + solar buggies ). Furthermore, they argue that the 3-4 billion barrels of oil would only sustain America for 9 months so its useless and overhyped. To me, this argument is ridiculous. America doesn’t have to extract ALL the oil in Bakken to make a difference, just enough to sway the current import imbalance which is approximately the 45 million barrels of oil a month we rely on Saudi Arabia for. In fact, I gather if we were able to pull 20 million barrels per month from Bakken, it would drive the speculators out of the market and we could see sustained sub $100 oil for the forseeable future. But the treehuggers I talk to don’t want this….they want $300 a barrel oil and $15 a gallon gas…. this way it will make America spontaneously solve it’s oil problems by forcing everyone to bike or walk to work (privileged individuals could take SegWays). The remaining individuals would lose their jobs permanently and not have to worry about their carbon footprint. Treehuggers think this strategy will save the world. I keep asking them whether that is before or after the 20 year Great Depression #2 and global economic ruin that will result from this line of thinking.
The only positive from this mess is that now capitalism is hard at work looking at other fuel sources that can replace oil to some extent….but i guarantee that oil isn’t going away in our lifetimes (JMO)..
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