Topic #1:
Originally in August, 2005 a policy to extract oil from the Bakken Oil Reserve (having an estimated volume of two [b]illion barrels was federally mandated. However none has been extracted to date. Why are we still dependent on Middle East oil?
- Government cannot mandate production of oil. Oil was created over eons.
- Even if completely extracted, there's not a lot there. See my calc below.
- Bakken is solid rock. Requires lots of energy to extract oil from rock. See below.
- We're dependent on Middle East oil, because the Middle East has most of the earth's remaining oil and we're utterly dependent on oil, period.
barrels used in U.S. each day : ~20 million
days of U.S. supply in Bakken : ~150
See also my 'peak oil' blog entry on the Bakken.
From a recent NY Times article: New School of Thought Brings Energy to 'the Dismal Science'
Through analyzing historical production data, experts say the petroleum sector's EROI (energy return on energy invested) in this country was about 100-to-1 in 1930, meaning one had to burn approximately 1 barrel of oil's worth of energy to get 100 barrels out of the ground. By the 1990s, it is thought, that number slid to less than 36-to-1, and further down to 19-to-1 by 2006."If you go from using a 20-to-1 energy return fuel down to a 3-to-1 fuel, economic collapse is guaranteed," as nothing is left for other economic activity, said Nate Hagens, editor of the popular peak oil blog "The Oil Drum".
A comment I made during the meeting, I think, sums it up:
The crunch will happen very soon when there's the realization that (the physical) supply can't match demand.
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