"With only 2% of the world's oil reserves, we can't just drill our way to lower gas prices," President Barack Obama said in his weekly address March 10. "Not when we consume 20% of the world's oil."
The claim is, if not blatantly false, at best grossly misleading. If the President didn't know this, some advisors should be dismissed. If he did, he needs to accept the blame and formally correct it.
As Investors Business Daily explained,
… the figure Obama uses-proved oil reserves-vastly undercounts how much oil the U.S. actually contains. In fact, far from being oil-poor, the country is awash in vast quantities-enough to meet all the country's oil needs for hundreds of years.
The U.S. has 22.3 billion barrels of proved reserves, a little less than 2% of the entire world's proved reserves, according to the Energy Information Administration. But as the EIA explains, proved reserves "are a small subset of recoverable resources," because they only count oil that companies are currently drilling for in existing fields.
How much recoverable oil does the U.S. have in addition to the 22.3 billion Obama had in mind? Start with the Green River Formation in Wyoming: 1.4 trillion barrels-sixty-two times as much as Obama counts.
After Green River, it's almost embarrassing to count other sources: 86 billion on the outer continental shelf; 24 billion in the lower 48; 2 billion on Alaska's north slope; 19 billion in Utah tar sands; 12 billion in ANWR. Then add in oil shale: 800 billion just in Wyoming and neighboring states. As IBD sums it up: "When you include oil shale, the U.S. has 1.4 trillion barrels of technically recoverable oil, according to the Institute for Energy Research, enough to meet all U.S. oil needs for about the next 200 years, without any imports."
These estimates are almost sure to rise over time-to anywhere from three or four to twenty or twenty-five times as much. Those are the ranges of error on past official estimates of recoverable oil. Here is what Robert Bradley Jr. calculated back in 2000 for the carbon-based energies:
Proved oil reserves today are estimated to be fifteen times greater than the original 1948 estimate despite interim production of eleven times this amount. World natural gas reserves in the last thirty years have increased almost five-fold despite interim production that has been 80 percent above the 1967 estimate. World coal reserves today are estimated to be over four times the amount calculated nearly a half-century ago.
So, which is it, Mr. President? Did you know these facts? Or did your advisors mislead you? One way or the other, the outcome was that you misled the American people-not slightly, but grossly.
One of Obama's Democratic predecessors, Harry Truman, famously kept a sign on his desk in the Oval Office: "The buck stops here."
Misinformed, or misinforming, either way, Mr. Obama is responsible. If he won't embrace that responsibility, the American people should impose it on him.
By. E. Calvin Beisner
This article was provided by MasterResource
MasterResource is a blog dedicated to analysis and commentary about energy markets and public policy.Precisely because energy is the lifeblood of the modern economy –… More
Comments
A real expert like Gail Tverberg has repeatedly pointed out that it is economically recoverable oil that counts not just whatever happens to be lying around.
I don't know who 'Masterresource'is but it wouls seem this person is talking out of their hat...to be polite...
The sad thing is that oil is too important an issue to play politics with. It lubricate the economy while over heating the planet and the debate should be at a level that reflects those facts. Our children and grandchildren will never forgive us if we just let it be a political football as Master Resource would have us do.
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/US-May-Hold-Large-Reserves-of-Shale-Oil-but-is-it-Economically-Out-of-Reach.html
Not only the shale oil takes lot of energy to drill, but they also run out in just 3 years.
Besides we need the Hydrogen from Natgas to mix with Carbon rich Shale Oil and produce Motor fuels like Gasoline, Kerosene & Diesel
To summarize Shale Oil is not Crude Oil.
Oilprice.com is actually a 'dangerous' site for such 'disinformers' to venture into because there are so many better than usually informed people here who can deliver a robust and intelligent response.
I tend to get annoyed by responses such as AJ4USA who seem to get fixed that if you're not a (neo)Con you're a knee jerk Lib...
Hasn't occured to some people that on this site we get a lot of very intelligent REALISTS who can see both sides (very often) and rrespond accordingly...
After all, it is NET energy that is the important factor when talking about energy from an economic perspective.
Environmental impact is another important factor to take into account. Sure, humans transform the planet, but the consequences of the transformation need to be considered, from the point of impact on human life, health of ecosystems and biodiversity.
Without these important issues factored in, articles like this tend to be rather meaningless and end up being more about political spin than anything else.
Second, 2.3 billion barrels of "Undiscoverd oil"? Why not just say 100 Trillion Barrels? It's undiscoverd so nobody knows. It could just as well be "0"
Here's the old Oil Price Blog misstating or misunderstanding or lying about oil for some arcane reason.
22 billion barrels of "proved reserve"--OK I buy that.
400 billion barrels of "technically recoverable oil"
STOP a minnit. That 400 billion is part of the remaining 3.1 trillion shale and "undiscovered resources"--like those under my house.
The Bakken is supposed to have 500 billion barrels of oil. Fracking makes about 5% of that "technically recoverable". That makes the Bakken a lot like North Slope in barrels. Y'all remember the North slope/ North America's oil savior in the 1980's? Now producing about 250,000 barrels a day--almost sucked dry. Yep, 2% about right, till Superman starts suckin it out.
Why would the US have 2% of the proven oil resources but some much higher percentage of the total overall resources? Am I missing something here?
The only conceivable explanation is that the author expects us to compare the America's total recoverable oil resources to the worlds proved oil resources, comparing apples to oranges. To me that would be blatantly false and misleading.
"The United States Department of Energy estimates that the ex-situ processing would be economic at sustained average world oil prices above US$$54 per barrel and in-situ processing would be economic at prices above $35 per barrel."
Undiscovered oil? As so many others have pointed out, if it's undiscovered as of yet, don't count it as usable oil. Using that logic, I have undiscovered millions and billions of dollars sitting in a bank account, and I should go ahead and spend as though it's already there! That would just be foolish, just as telling people that the US is gonna be okay when it comes to oil reserves because we have trillions of barrels of undiscovered oil. Give me a break.
Fact..The US uses 23 percent of world oil production 2013
Fact... the US produces about 11 percent world oil equivelant per day
Fact...They just announced a large field in southern CA, a 100 percent increase in Texas reserves, a 110 percent increase in reserves in N. Dakota, and two major oil discuveries in the deep Gulf estimated to be more than 7 billion barrels minimum, a total increase of stated (proven) reserves of more than 35 billion parrels minimum, yet the EIA has not changed the US reserves for years, keeping it at around 21 billion barrels...Talk abot new math sheesh..And yes the president did intentionally give inaccurate information to the American people..