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

That's one way to look at it! It does make me glad to know that once OPEC's lies about its oil reserves catch up with it, we won't be caught with our pants down in the ensuing chaos.

 

Unfortunately, as we use up their oil, they are acquiring our wealth. That is bad. Very bad.

On the current course, we will run out first.

 

We live in a corporatocracy, the US oil will go to the high bidder, US or not. The oil companies will be the primary beneficiaries with a little tinkle down to the peons.

Still beats giving it to OPEC though.

 

Tariffs on imported oil would violate NAFTA. Excluding Canada and Mexico from the tarrif, would have them just import, and ship their domestic production here. The windfall profits tax similarly simply shifted oil production while not raising revenue. I think what you mean is a gas, fuel oil, and diesel tax, which might be beneficial although politically unlikely and would raise no where near the money to pay the deficit.

Although the author seems to get some facts wrong, I doubt its fully pro american. Manufacturing in america has been increasing although productivity gains mean employment isn't keeping up. The author was comparing the doom and gloom europeans have with the american economy with oil and china, to the similar tales about oil and Japan taking over in the '80s. I think it was the late 70s that carter said we would be about out of oil by now.

Although I agree with the sentiment, I would be much more concerned with the financial bailouts and tax laws that tell corporations to export jobs than oil company profits. The oil companies are so entrenched in varioius governments that they will profit no matter what. Policy that punishes them, but leaves loop holes typically hurts the people not the corporation.

 

Is there any word on the recoverability of the water that is used to do this process? Does it replace the oil it displaces and is now "locked up".

And they are using fresh water. Water that is needed for drinking, crops, etc.

Water >>> Oil

 

...water? are you asking about hydraulic fracturing for nat gas/oil?

 

...an ethical question for us on PC occured to me yesterday.
If we say it is bad to import oil due to negative balance of trade payments, money going out of USA. If that it is bad, what is worse, paying $6000 bucks to buy import gasoline (life of a Prius) or $26000 to buy a Prius from Japan?

 

Only $6000? Are you planning to throw it away prematurely?

My previous car, built in the U.S (but still with lots of imported content) and still in the driveway, will burn about $43,000 in fuel over its life, at today's price. And I expect fuel prices to rise. The Prius cost under $23,000 out the door, and will burn $19,000 in fuel over the same distance.

I'm also considering who those dollars go to. Unlike the manufactured items, much of the fuel money goes to people who intend to own or destroy us.

 

its a study and like all studies, it was paid for by an entity that wanted to prove a point. so its provide what the entity wants or dont get paid.

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdonlyre...C311E5CB48C/0/HybridReportSeptember302011.pdf

And the last word on studies is a study of studies conducted by the U. S. Department of
Energy and SRA International that concludes that estimates of electric vehicle market penetration
range from 0 to 90% of the market by 2050, The Gazette (Moore, September 27) of Montreal
relays. Even more problematic is that the studies are not really comparable because they all make
different assumptions about things like gas prices and government subsidies. So, any one of the
studies could be correct. Or none of them could be. Regardless of whatever stand you take on
the future of electric vehicles, the only certainty is that there is a study out there that backs your
position

in short; the studies reference combine over 50 different ASSUMPTIONS (which is all a study about the future can really do) to come up with their "slightly" varied conclusions

a great link for this sub forum, maybe not so much for this thread specifically, but worth a gander if you into the technical stuff.

http://info.ornl.gov/sites/publications/files/Pub27187.pdf

 

Canada's got some creative secret weapons ready, just in case, but it's not about to invade any time soon. Nor is Mexico, Nigeria, or Venezeula, to round out the top five. Have a look at this recent list of US oil imports. Saudi Arabia may be questionable, as is Iraq, but most oil imported by the US is from countries who wish you no harm.

 

ok; hyo link states the top 10 importers with 7993 kb (thousand barrels) provide 89% of imported total which means we buy about 8980 kb . so if the study above is correct (heee) then that 8980 kb would be about 28% of our consumption right?

so we use 32 million barrels a day?? i knew them DAMN SUVs would get us!!

 

Like the OP article, this has some bad asumptions

In 2010 the us imported 9.2 million b/day and produced 5.5 million b/day of oil.

Oil is fungable so any total demand creates demand at all oil producing countries. Because opec is a monopoly they set quotas. US demand helps them set those quotas, but in no way would I assume because canada is the largest country the US imports oil from, that the money does not flow to regimes that would do us harm. Anyway I saw the south park movie and I do blame canada

 

The vast majority of oil imported by the US comes from friendly countries.

 

I refuse to include Hugo Chavez's Venezuela on any list of US-friendly countries.

Oil is such a fungible commodity that I'm not so certain it matters where any specific barrel came from. Lists of overall exports or production are more interesting. And less friendly. Here are a few:

Country Comparison :: Oil - exports
Petroleum Exports
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production"]Oil production[/ame]

 

all figures we are looking at is domestic oil production. seems to me i read somewhere the military oil consumption is not counted here. where does it come from?

 

If the economy picks up, we'll once again move further away from energy independence.

 

Yep.

In the other direction, when gas prices get "cheap", Americans will keep flocking back to monstrosity class SUVs and trucks. Even though it's not that cheap compared to say the 1998-2004 period, see http://priuschat.com/forums/other-cars/98585-us-auto-sales-up-in-september-2011-big-trucks.html.

 

It's funny how that works, isn't it? Not ha ha funny, but strange funny.

 

Even if we produce all the oil we consume we won't be energy indepedant.

We still import a lot of "embedded energy" from China.

This so called "energy independance" is just a political rhetoric - not some kind of a real target to aim for. Reduction in oil usage, OTOH, is a real target.

 

I took 200k miles as life of Prius and pro-rated for import fraction. Maybe I should take 300k as life of Prius. But we refine here and tax here, so I could even make an argument that the dollars-to-overseas are even less than I showed. One thing you are saying, I agree buying a Prius is big fuel savings. So that justifies in my mind too.