Morford: You’re right - let’s not punch holes in Alaska or the coasts. Give them all up. Yes, I’m serious - we don’t need them! No drilling at all in Alaska. Or off the coast of California. Or Florida. Or the Gulf Coast. Bahamas. None of that.
Rather, we have 280 YEARS of our TOTAL oil consumption - 20 million barrels of day - sitting as proven reserves in our oil-shale. We should develop that. It is over a large enough geographic area we could realistically extract 20 million barrels a day.
We can have first production in 3 years, and full production within 10. All located in geographically stable, central locations in Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado.
Add that to the 7 million barrels a day we make right now, not only could we be 100% self-sufficient in terms of oil, we could be a net exporter of oil. At $100 a barrel, that is $700 MILLION a day in exports. At the 25% tax rate the oil companies pay, that would also be another $64 BILLION in tax revenue for the government.
So by all means, let’s not punch more holes in Alaska or the coast. But we’ll go after the shale oil with a vengance and never have to buy another drop of oil, ever again.
Not to Mention the Bakken reserves.