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No matter what they do, we’re scraping the bottom. • Natural gas: The U.S. has 2.744 quadrillion cubic feet of natural gas that is technically recoverable.10 In 2009, the U.S. consumed 22.8 TCF of natural gas.11 That is 120 years of natural gas at our current rate of consumption. • Oil: The U.S. has 1.44 trillion barrels of technically recoverable oil.12 The U.S. consumes 19,148.146 barrels a day (or 7 billion barrels a year).13 That is enough oil for 206 years at our current rate of consumption. U.S. In‐Place Resources (Total Resources) • Natural Gas: The United States has 14.021 quadrillion cubic feet of natural gas. 16 The U.S. consumes 24.088 TCF a year.17 That is 586 years of proven reserves at our current rate of consumption. This is a conservative estimate because it does not include America’s vast methane hydrate resources. According to a USGS report, the United States has between 112,765 – 676,110 TCF of natural gas resources in methane hydrates with a mean estimate of 320,222 TCF.18 If we learn to tap methane hydrate resources, we have enough natural gas for literally thousands of years at current rate of consumption. • Oil: The United States has 3.75 trillion barrels of total oil resources—1.065 trillion barrels of conventional crude oil, 80 billion barrels is oil sands, and 2.6 trillion in oil shale.19 The U.S. consumes 19,148.146 barrels a day (or 7 billion barrels a year).20 That is enough oil for 536 years at our current rate of consumption.

You completely ignore the energy required to extract those “recoverable” resources. Oil used to provide 100 barrels for one barrel of energy consumed in extraction. Tar sands and shale take that to 3:1 to start at best after fracing, heating, forcing it up, roasting in the case of shale, and refining thick gunky low quality crude. When you get down to that, you have to devote 1/3 of your entire industrial capacity to extraction to keep the other 2/3 going. When you get lower than 2:1, you can atill extract it, but the effort requires more than half of your economy. You can theoretically keep extracting until your energy input to output is 1:1 but the result will supply almost no one.

But an industrial economy implodes long before that. In fact, ours is close to imploding now.

It is better to import it from a cheap producer who can at least buy your stuff with the proceeds rather than sinking it in the ground in extraction costs.

Ask anyone with responsibility besides oil company share price self-promotion.