Within 5 to 10 years, America will be energy independent?

As for your thread title, yeah right! Definitely not in the next 5 years. As for 10, it seems very doubtful.

Where does this article get its stats from? They seem totally wrong. "The US already meets 72pc of its own oil needs, up from around 50pc a decade ago" does NOT jive with Oil: Crude and Petroleum Products - Energy Explained, Your Guide To Understanding Energy. The dependence on net imports is higher when consumption is higher (like when the economy's better). You can click on the the headings in the columns to see the historical values (I just discovered this ).

It seems about the only way to reach it in 10 years is for us to dramatically increasing our domestic oil production while drastically cutting our oil consumption by driving much more efficient vehicles and more use of alternative energy vehicles (e.g. hybrids, EVs, NGVs) and sources. We all know how rapidly that's coming along and dumb American consumers flock back to guzzlers when gas is "cheap"...

If you're ever up in San Jose, I'll have drive you around my area to point out how many monstrosity class SUVs are running around...

 

In 1900 we were energy independent. How did that change? We burned our own oil until we ran out (of the cheap stuff). We can't be become more independent by burning what remains faster, that is insane.

Being energy independent means being on 100% sustainable energy. No strategy which includes oil will ever by either.

As for jobs moving from China back to the US, does anyone think we are the country with the lowest wages? Does anyone want to be? China is just another in a long line of countries using low wages to acquire prosperity and higher wages. There will be others.

 

Ever read this definition of a gold mine? A gold mine is a hole in the ground with a liar sitting on top of it. Pretty much applies to new oil finds as well.

So I'll ditto the comment on 72%. They must be counting North American oil, or something. That's certainly not US oil.

You'll see different definitions of "oil" and "imports", but everybody says we import about half of what we use.

If you look at the stats (http://www.eia.gov/emeu/mer/pdf/pages/sec3_3.pdf), the US produces about 7.5M barrels of oil per day (bpd, including near oils, like natural gas liquids), to which we add under 1M bpd of biofuels and such, and then consumes about 19M bpd.

So, in round numbers, we'd need about 9M bpd to become oil independent. That ignores the ongoing declines in almost all of our large currently-producing fields.

The current production from Bakken is listed here (and elsewhere) at about 0.4M bpd.

There's a lot of hydrocarbons in the ground. How much recoverable oil is there is certainly in dispute. The USGS said 3 to 4 billion barrels, back in 2008. State of North Dakota came in with a modestly lower estimate. Upper bound that you will see cited seems to be 24B, but refer to gold mine quote above.

For some perspective, compare that to Alaska North slope oil. That was thought to have about 20 billion barrels of recoverable oil, of which 12 have already been recovered, and they think they'll get 16B before they shut it down.

So, for a reasonable model of the impact of Bakken, the odds are that it will be less than Alaska north slope oil, and the presumably unbiased estimates of USGS suggest it will be something like one-quarter the size. If you then look at what Alaskan oil did to US oil production, it looks like this: The bump to the right of the peak is the impact of Alaskan oil, the little bumplet at the end of the line is Bakken.



Alaskan oil absolutely made a noticeable difference, but it did not come close to generating oil independence for the US.

One odd thing about Bakken is the short life of individual wells. As I understand it, for the typical well, production falls 80% after two years.




So this is definitely a boon for the drillers. If you think about that, it means a couple of things. First, an ever-increasing rate of oil production out of Bakken requires, not just an ever-increasing number of wells in place, but, to a close approximation, an ever-increasing rate of new well drilling. Because production from older wells drops rapidly. Second, that means a lot of up-front capital costs per eventual barrel of oil recovered, and that means convincing as many investors as possible that this is a really good thing to invest in. Again, refer to gold mine definition above.

So, while it Bakken may grow to fill some part of US oil imports, it's also possible that the maximum rate of extraction may be limited by the fact that the individual wells are so short-lived. Based on the best data currently available, claims that Bakken will make us oil-independent, ever, seem far fetched to me.

 

Oil import tariffs + increasing CAFE standards.
Use tariffs to pay off national debt.

 

This prophecy is correct in one sense, that is, technology advances in the declared "dead" field of fossil fuels - fracking etc - appear to offer the potential for greater energy independence in some time frame. But we cannot get there without a national energy policy. We cannot get a national energy without consensus, and we have gridlock. Needless to observe, demos want to curtail fossil fuels, repubs want to exploit.

Another factor is less nuke potential after Japan quake.

 

Re: Peak Oil
I found this article useful. Note it is writen just before Japan quake, so it is missing some perspective (especially the comments). My belief is we are now more dependent on fossil fuels now since the Japan quake shattered the potential for nukes to save the day. Note that this energy expert feels USA must reduce oil imports due to balance of trade issues. I have been struggling with why oil imports are so bad, other than of course popular condemnation.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703386704576186622682563228.html

Our Man-Made Energy Crisis - WSJ.com

 

This is definitely a bogus statistic. The US imports most of its oil. I don't know if they mean something like north american oil and natural gas, or some other measure. US and Canadian production has increased a great deal in the last decade, but oil now accounts for fully half of the trade deficit since the price of oil has also risen.

 

it is interesting how WSJ changed its overall tone since August 1, 2007 sale to Rupert Murdoch. It is a propaganda platform; unlike it was when it was owned by Dow Jones. IMHO tabloid quotes get more credibility nowdays then WSJ.

 

probably includes Mexico as well

 

Plus, we'd all have to agree on the action plan, and stick with it. Like that'll ever happen. Energy independence could be done, and should be done, but I'm not optimistic that it will ever happen. Heck, even the planet as a whole isn't energy independent yet. We're still living off the 'yolk' of fossil fuels left to us from past millennia - whether humanity will mature enough to stand on its own remains to be seen.

 

Thank you for acknowledging that.

Fracking is a particularly nasty process, bordering on criminal. We need to choose very soon whether we want potable ground water and arable land, or fracked fossil fuels.

 

I think when evaluating the article one must keep in mind the whole article. The title is "World Power Swings Back To America".

In entirety it's an almost blindingly Red White and Blue piece of propaganda.

I love this country, but saying something is so, doesn't make it so. The fact that an article like this exists at all, is a sign of slippage.

 

We certainly have the resources for full energy independence. We've got sunny areas bigger than most other whole nations in our southwest for solar, excellent offshore wind sites along both coasts and throughout the great lakes, and some of the largest fossil fuel resources on Earth. We don't import oil because of a lack of it here - we import oil because the foreign stuff is cheap right now.

What's holding is back from full energy independence isn't lack of technology or lack of resources - it's free-market forces that make imported energy more appealing.

 

This is an editorial in a British publication from a editor that lives in Belgium. Are you saying is a sign of Europe slipping?

 

An inadvertent benefit is that we are using up the other guys oil first. That's not all bad.:cheer2:

 

Free market forces?! Don't be ridiculous. End the oil subsidies, and then we'll see which energy source people choose.

 

No, while being caught not doing all my homework, and also admittedly somewhat suprised that it is an editorial from a British publication and an editor living in Belgium, I'd still say that neither condition precludes the article from being as a whole, I think a overly optimistic bit of Pro-America fantasy.

And I'll also stand by my other point, which is there was a time not that long ago, when no article genesised from anywhere would of refered to world power "returning" to America, as America was generally considered THE world power.