You first.
Posted on 04/21/2005 2:56:45 AM PDT by RWR8189
As a prominent advocate for encouraging unconventional energy sources, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) was asked to testify today in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on his efforts to develop fuel from a vast untapped domestic oil reserve in tar sandsand oil shale -- a large part of which sits in eastern Utah.
"Who would have guessed that in just Colorado and Utah, there is more recoverable oil than in the Middle East?" Hatch said. "We just don't count it among our nation's oil reserves because it is not yet being developed commercially. I find it disturbing that Utah imports oil from Canada tar sands, even though we have a larger tar sands resource within our own boundaries that remains undeveloped."
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, recoverable oil shale in the western United States -- located mainly in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming -- exceeds one trillion barrels and is the richest and most geographically concentrated oil shale and tar sands resource in the world. Hatch noted that Canada recognized the potential of the large tar sands deposits in the province of Alberta and developed a government policy to go promote their development -- increasing its oil reserves by more than a factor of 10.
Hatch is working with Senators Bennett (R-Utah), Allard (R-Colo.), and Salazar (D-Colo.) to develop a bill that would encourage development of commercially viable oil from oil shale and tar sands.
"I cannot sit by while gas prices are going through the roof, and while I hear from constituent after constituent about the disastrous effect gas prices are having on their livelihoods and their businesses," Hatch said. "Why has Canada moved forward in leaps and bounds, while the United States has yet to take even a baby step in this direction? I believe the difference has been the government policies of the respective countries. We need to change that."
Bill got most of this land (Book Cliffs) locked up as a National Monument or some such nonsense. The UN has some of it too I believe.
$2 a gallon for gas isn't that expensive.
This is really the point. Any time we start our own development, SA drops the price until our start ups go out of business. Right now, there are scads of new rigs drilling and pumping in Southwest Texas. These wells can only survive at current high prices of SA oil. But it does remind me of a bumper sticker I saw down there in the '80s after the oil fields of Texas were shut down while we bought cheap international oil: "Dear Lord, please let there be another oil boom, I promise not to Piss it all away this time." Well there is another minor oil boom in Texas, but it will die when the members of OPEC decide we have gone too far in development of alternative sources. (Let congress vote to drill in ANWR and oil will be cheap again.)
Well first of all the scuttle but I've read suggests that SA has been fudging their reserves and their pipeline capacity is maxed out at the present rate of production.
The SA oil ministry has also come out and admitted that their is nothing they can do to lower oil prices which is code for "we can't increase production". So $45 to $50 oil is here to stay.
Secondly the SA reserves are sweat crude while the oil sands are heavy oil which is not suited for gasoline refinement.
It's more suited for bunker crude products, home heating oil as well as greases and petrochemicals.
I think that the fundamentals for heavy oil are going to continue to be strong over the long term.
I don't think that SA is in a position to manipulate prices anymore unless they're hiding reserves which I seriously doubt.
Perhaps the sand should be portrayed as the victim of an oil spill that requires cleaning.
Conservative philosophy is all about tradeoffs. Conservatives tend to view environmental issues in terms of costs and benefits.
I don't know any conservative who wants to pave the whole country. I certainly want Arches and Canyonlands preserved as they are now. The benefits we could get from any mining there aren't worth the cost of a loss of a unique landscape.
My problem with environmentalists is when they subsitute Gaia-worship for good analysis. For example, no environmentalist has ever been able to explain to me the environmental harm taking 200 square miles out of the 34,000 thousand square miles in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. The main complaint is that it "spoils a wilderness." Will any species go extinct? No. Will any land of special value be destroyed? No. Will most of the caribou even notice? No.
However, this wasn't a casual bit of radiation. There's enough uranium in the shale deposit to which I'm referring to make it worthwhile mining.
They found it!
How would they pay for it? Except for oil, Arab GDP consists of pushing dirt around with sticks and collecting ransoms.
They can trade us their women.
You first.
Not that one.
We would have to inspect them first, of course.
They would have to pass muster before we give them any oil.
In addition to constructing additional refineries, maybe another solution to tight supplies mostly due to Red China's massive appetite would be to secure the vast reserves of petroleum (profits) which are being used to spread jihadic terrorism via Iran and Saudi Arabia.
all the reasaon to be glad bush is president and not Kerry or Gore, they'd make it a national park on behalf of saudi campaign contributors....
Well, given their huge foreign exchange reserves, we could charge $200/barrel and they wouldn't wince for a long time, after sticking it to us for $30-50 per barrel all this time (much smaller population, fewer cars, better able to weather it...
Unless I'm confused again, in rough numbers this is about 100 years worth of oil at the US rate of use.
The problem, as I understand it, is that marginal production costs in the middle east are very, very low, at most only a few dollars a barrel. It would take enormous capital to recover this oil and that investment could all be wiped out if OPEC lowered their prices below $30 barrel (or whatever). Mobil lost something like five billion dollars developing this technology, only to see the price of oil collapse in the 80's.
I think taxing petroleum with a "security tax" that simply reflected the huge cost of maintaining a U.S. military presence in the Gulf would go a long way to leveling the playing field.
OK, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, you like U.S. protection, pay up or we'll make our own oil.
....We may need it some day. Just not today.....
Absolutely, the country that winds up with the most oil left in the ground, wins the ballgame.
All this talk about hydrogen, solar, wind, wave, and other types of electrical generation is nice, but it's hard to fly a plane or drive a tank with a long extension cord hanging off its butt!
I think what you do is to threaten doing it........you have a deal where the country is backing the tar sands extraction facility....only you just use smoke and mirrors like a chunk of SDI was smoke and mirrors....and they lower the prices again....and that was one of the scenerios that Limbaugh mentioned....
I don't have any insight into the SA reserves, but I suspect they have much more than they are admitting to. Our geologists have been helping them for years, (I don't know whether they have learned enough to eliminate the need for our support) but we used to read about reserves that extended into 10s of years from now. Who knows? I guess we will find out if oil drops down to $20-30 a barrel again?
I agree with you about the light sweet crude vs the heavy stuff we are pumping in Texas and could extract from shale or sand. There is of course more oil coming online in Russia, and SA's market share is dropping, so maybe your scuttle-butt is right. But oil price still will fluctuate and have the result that high priced operations are driven out of business.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.