US #1 in oil reserves in the World

[zero2056]

So three questions:

1) Why aren't we tapping this?
2) Why is this being hidden from the public and not publicized?
3) Why are we not creating useful, meaningful jobs from this resource when we're at a 10% unemployment rate (and that is in the "good" States).


Unacceptable.

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911

Also, reports of nearly 2 trillion barrels of oil in the Rocky Mountain region. Why not recover those assets makes a bit more sense (not sure how you effecitvely drill under a mountain range), but still unacceptable.

Those two reserves combined effectively is more oil than the Middle East combined et al. We'd be able to walk away from that entire mess, be energy independent until we find the next reliable source of energy, so on and so forth.

[zero2056]

I had always heard from a couple ol' timers that used to be in the old industry that for every 10 oil wells that were discovered, they'd cap 9 and pump from one of them.

I always thought they were blowing smoke, but now I think they have some truth behind that and we're really 'sand bagging' our reserve amounts to the rest of the world.

[slam]

"technically" recoverable is not the same as "profitably" recoverable. the oil they talk about is probably dispersed widely, and contained within porous rocks. it's not the same as the giant underground blobs of oil found in the middle east.

it's just environmentally messy and very energy intensive to squeeze oil from a rock. of course, if you were to count all the 'hidden' costs in our foreign oil, such as subsidies to the oil industry, tax breaks, foreign aid to oil producing countries, and wars to protect our oil supply lines...

while we're on the subject, i'm all in favor of obama's push for nuclear energy. i feel that nuclear is by far the most effective, safest, and cleanest energy we can get in large supply.

[mrjohnchimpo]

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