Posted on 09/30/2001 5:36:15 PM PDT by aculeus
Why does the United States have to tiptoe so carefully in the Middle East, trying to play one country off against another, careful not to upset certain countries? Why does it even have to get involved in Middle Eastern politics in the first place? One word: Oil. Without the supply of oil that countries such as Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran and others produce, the United States would be in deep trouble. And so, the U.S. government repeatedly finds itself drawn into a volatile morass of shifting allegiances.
Is there any long-term solution? Environmental activists have recommended for some time that the United States pour billions into alternative energy such as wind power, biomass and fuel cells - but there is no way these technologies could handle a fraction of the current demand for energy from fossil fuels, let alone the growth projected for the coming decades. But where else could the U.S. come up with the oil to satisfy its needs?
The U.S. government itself mentioned one possible solution in Vice-President Dick Cheney's recent energy report: Alberta's oil sands, a vast ocean of tar-like goo in the northern part of the province. By most estimates, there is more oil in the so-called "tar sands" than there is in all of Saudi Arabia, or about 300 billion barrels that is recoverable using existing technology. That's enough to supply the United States for more than 40 years — plus there's another 1.5 trillion to two trillion barrels on top of that, which would be harder to extract. That's 10 times what Saudi Arabia has.
Alberta's potential was obvious even before Sept. 11, and those attacks have now added even more fuel to the argument. What if Iraq turns out to be involved in planning the attacks? Even worse, what if Saudi-born terrorist Osama bin Laden decides to turn his wrath against the Saudi royal family, whom he despises for allowing U.S. troops to be stationed in the traditional birthplace of Islam? Saudi Arabia has about one quarter of the world's reserves of conventional oil, and last year it supplied the U.S. with 1.5 million barrels a day, or about 17 per cent of U.S. demand. Almost one-quarter of U.S. demand for oil is supplied by countries in the Persian Gulf.
One of the reasons why the oil sands haven't played a larger role on the public policy stage is that until fairly recently, getting oil out of the ground in northern Alberta was time-consuming and expensive. Until the mid-1990s, producing a barrel of oil cost upwards of $15 (U.S.). That didn't leave much room for things like profits when the price of oil was at $20 — and it seemed especially ridiculous given that some OPEC countries can produce a barrel of oil for about $5 or less.
Then Suncor Energy, thanks to prodding by vice-president Dee Parkinson, cut a huge chunk out of its costs starting in 1995 by moving from the balky and expensive bucketwheels it had been using to giant shovels and trucks. Suncor and Syncrude (which copied the move) have cut their costs to $9 a barrel — and that success, combined with the runup in oil prices over the past couple of years, has spurred dozens of imitators to look at oil-sands projects. Conoco, Exxon-Mobil, Shell and other companies both in the United States and elsewhere have done feasibility studies, and more than $20-billion worth of potential oil sands projects are in the planning stages.
There are also dozens of projects aimed at exploring ways of extracting some of the harder-to-reach oil. The current method is not very different from the Clark hot-water process, which was discovered in the 1920s — and that itself was a refinement of the way early explorers boiled the gooey substance in water over the campfire to produce a tar they could patch their canoes with. Newer methods for extracting the oil involve things such as "steam-assisted gravity drainage," which involves injecting steam into the sand and then forcing the oil to drain out for refining.
In the 1930s, the U.S. government and several business leaders (including Henry Ford) reportedly looked into extracting oil from Alberta to help meet the growing demand in the United States. But then oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia, and the seeds of OPEC and the energy dominance of the Middle East were sown — something the United States may want to reconsider in the light of current events. And then maybe Canada could take the place of Saudi Arabia in the American universe.
In the early 80s the development of alternative energy sources was stymied by OPEC. Once they realized that their artificially high oil prices would stimulate alternative energy sources they lowered their price. Wind mills, coal gasification and other technologies were put on the shelf. Let's hope that VP Cheney can develope a comprehensive energy policy. Then we can tell OPEC what to do with their oil.
You know, the Athabaska Tars in Canada are a tremendous source of crude as are the Orinoco Tars of Venezuela. With a concerted industrial program for this hemisphere we could reshape the world, industrialize our neighbors to the south and solve a multitude of problems that confront us.
We aren't IMPERIALISTS anymore ;)
Converting a gasoline engine to Liquified Natural Gas is a relatively inexpensive process.
LNG burns more cleanly than gasoline.
Why haven't we converted to LNG?
Start asking questions about that of your congresscritter and any oil company exec you can corner.
Besides, why use up our oil now, I say lets use the arabs, and we'll use ours when they run out.
In the early 80s the development of alternative energy sources was stymied by OPEC. Once they realized that their artificially high oil prices would stimulate alternative energy sources they lowered their price. Wind mills, coal gasification and other technologies were put on the shelf. Let's hope that VP Cheney can develope a comprehensive energy policy. Then we can tell OPEC what to do with their oil.
You know, the Athabaska Tars in Canada are a tremendous source of crude as are the Orinoco Tars of Venezuela. With a concerted industrial program for this hemisphere we could reshape the world, industrialize our neighbors to the south and solve a multitude of problems that confront us.
The "economics" are based on Islam's need for your money. Right now they need a lot of your money. It is comforting to them that you are in full support of their "economics".
We wouldn't need a bunch of loser policy geeks to "decide" that we should get the oil. Besides, why use up our oil now, I say lets use the arabs, and we'll use ours when they run
The "loser policy geeks" are the ones that in the 1980's decided it was OK to undo the policy of stemming the money being hemorrhaged to Islam in return for "cheap" oil. Big oil concurred. Lefty Econ profs wearing sandals and tie dyed tee shirts concurred. It was a real love fest.
You are in good company. The next time you fill up your tank so you can burn it up in a traffic jam going to work, think about how much you just contributed to the Iranian and Pakistani atomic bomb programs.
You can bitch about it all you want, but the reason why we buy oil from the middle east is that it is cheaper. When it is cheaper to buy the oil from canada, either because we can extract it more cheaply, or because the price of M.E. oil has gone up, then we will do so.
US crude oil consumption is about 20 million barrels a day or 7.3 billion barrels per year. I would estimate that DoD spending to ensure its flow exceeds $10 / barrel or $73 B per year. So if military costs are figured in, Alberta tar sands would seem to be cheaper that Middle Eastern oil.
The eco-freaks fought it tooth and nail, one of whom (thankfully) was soundly defeated in her run for governor.
Some of the most rock-ribbed patriots you'll find are in those central North Dakota counties. I think even Pat Buchanan came close to double digit support in some of those areas.
The people there want to make a living off their land. The eco-freaks want to move them off and turn it into a giant buffalo and duck preserve. Some of the nastiest confrontations in the country have taken place in this area.
A good share of the settlers of these counties were Germans evicted by Russians from the Ukraine after they were invited to settle it in the 1820's, made it productive by the 1880's and then were driven off their land.
LOL, And you don't have any such folks.........??
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