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“Petroleum Industry Calls Interior Secretary’s Oil Claims ‘Fundamentally Absurd’”

Which, I’m pretty sure is racist.

Meanwhile, in yet more racist hate speech, experts at the Institute for Energy Research smear Obama over the President’s very bold public energy claims:

On Saturday, President Barack Obama claimed that under his administration, oil production in America was “at an eight-year high,” that the number of operating oil rigs had quadrupled, and that millions of acres had been opened for drilling, which were assertions that did not present all the facts, said energy experts.

While Obama’s comments were technically accurate, he was leaving out vital information that gives a fuller picture of the situation, according to the Institute for Energy Research (IER). “Of course, he’s right — to a point,” the DC-based energy group told CNSNews.com in an e-mail.

“In classic fashion, he’s using a technicality to skirt the facts and keep the myth of energy scarcity alive,” the IER email said. “The reality is that the U.S. has enough recoverable oil for the next 200 years, despite only having 2 percent of the world’s current proven oil reserves.” (Emphasis added.)

“Declaring that “the U.S. has only 2% of the world’s oil,” which Obama has done, “is akin to saying that the only gasoline we will have is that which is in our tanks,” said IER. “The president should know better, and if he does not, his secretaries of Energy and Interior should tell him.”

What the president leaves out, said the IER, is technically recoverable oil, oil we know about but cannot access due to government regulations.

“Proven oil reserves are not all of our oil resources—not even close,” the group said.

According to statistics provided by the IER, the United States has 1,442 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil.

As CNSNews.com has reported, oil production on federal lands declined in fiscal year 2011 from fiscal year 2010 by 11 percent, and natural gas production on federal lands dropped by 6 percent during the same timeframe.

In contrast, oil production on private and state lands accounted for the entire increase, reported the IER, as production was up 14 percent from 2010 to 2011. Natural gas also was up 12 percent from 2010 to 2011.

Okay. But to borrow from the great Nigel Tufnel, that’s just nitpicking, isn’t it?

25 Replies to ““Petroleum Industry Calls Interior Secretary’s Oil Claims ‘Fundamentally Absurd’””

geoffb says:

March 14, 2012 at 12:44 pm

On a wiki page the have total world “proven” oil reserves at 1,392 billion bbls with the US having 20 or 21 billion of that which gives us 1.5 % or so.

However on another page they go into more detail which shows the US having:

Proven oil reserves in the United States are 21 billion barrels (3.3×109 m3), excluding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The U.S. Department of the Interior estimates the total volume of undiscovered, technically recoverable prospective resources in all areas of the United States, including the Federal Outer Continental Shelf, the 1002 area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska, and the Bakken Formation, total 134 billion barrels (21.3×109 m3) of crude oil.

Then they have these two statements:

This excludes oil shale reserves. However, Shale oil production made up 21 percent of output in the lower 48 states in 2010. By 2035, such production will account for 31 percent of that output.[3]

And:

The United States has the largest known deposits of oil shale in the world, according to the Bureau of Land Management and holds an estimated 2.175 trillion barrels (345.8 km3) of potentially recoverable oil.[16] Oil shale does not actually contain oil, but a waxy oil precursor known as kerogen. There is no significant commercial production of oil from oil shale in the United States.

Interesting that “There is no significant commercial production of oil from oil shale in the United States” and yet “Shale oil production made up 21 percent of output in the lower 48 states in 2010”.

Now if we are producing shale oil economically and it was to be included in our reserves then we would have 2,309 billion bbls of oil and the entire rest of the world would have 1,373 billion bbls which would mean we would have 63% of all the world’s oil reserves.

This is not to even speak of the natural gas reserves where we have about 350 billion bbls, energy equivalent, natural gas.

Our energy problem has one name, Progressive Democrats.
Blake says:

March 14, 2012 at 12:53 pm

Geoff, Geoff, Geoff…none of that math stuff, now. You know that math is hard for progressives. Plus, Geoff, you hurt the sensitive feelings of progressives when you add facts to go with that hard math stuff.

Hater.
LBascom says:

March 14, 2012 at 2:01 pm

“Petroleum Industry Calls Interior Secretary’s Oil Claims ‘Fundamentally Absurd”

I linked this in an earlier thread:

So the administration’s claims about having made meaningful progress towards fixing America’s oil catastrophe are completely false. That said, it is true that the problem did not originate with Obama, but has been developing for some time. If it is to be understood and corrected, some history is in order. […]

U.S. oil production grew at an average rate of 3.2 percent per year during the 1960s, peaking at 9.6 mpd in 1970. In that year, however, the Environmental Protection Agency was created, and U.S. production has been in decline ever since. As shown, the growth of OPEC production, which had been extremely rapid during the 1960s, came to a screeching halt in 1973, when the OPEC powers replaced the previously dominant Seven Sisters’ policy of expanding production to fuel the world economy with an alternative policy of constricting production to loot the world economy. As a result, OPEC production has not increased at all since 1973. Thus the entirety of the increase of world oil production over the past four decades — during which time the world economy has doubled in size — has come from non-OPEC, non-U.S. sources

Incidentally, the guys on the radio just now were talking about gas being 15 cent/gal in Venezuela.
Squid says:

March 14, 2012 at 2:06 pm

I thought the petroleum industry coined the phrase “black gold.” Surely they can’t be racist!
Ernst Schreiber says:

March 14, 2012 at 2:21 pm

Interesting that “There is no significant commercial production of oil from oil shale in the United States” and yet “Shale oil production made up 21 percent of output in the lower 48 states in 2010?.

I’m pretty sure shale oil and oil shales are two different things. Shale oil being the stuff that you extract from shale by crushing it up and cooking it, oil shales being the geologic formations where petroleum is found sandwiched between layers of shale.
JohnInFirestone says:

March 14, 2012 at 2:35 pm

Hey, there’s a lot of oil shales here in Northeastern Colorado.

See also Baaken Formation in ND and Eagle Ford in Texas.
LBascom says:

March 14, 2012 at 4:40 pm

Hummm, this could get interesting.

After more than two decades of fighting, South Sudan seceded last July and became the world’s newest country. But violence has raged along the border since then, and the two countries have been at odds over oil located in South Sudan but shipped through pipelines in Sudan. Disputes have halted oil shipments, a blow to China, which receives 6 percent of its oil from Sudan and now must find other sources.
palaeomerus says:

March 14, 2012 at 4:51 pm

Rush Limbaugh tells a regretful Sleep Train mattress company requesting the restoration of advertising on his show that his new sleep number is 86. Heh!

http://www.businessinsider.com/which-advertiser-begged-to-resume-advertising-on-rush-limbaughs-show-and-got-rejected-2012-3

” to Sleep Train President Dale Carlsen:

Thank you for your requests last week and this week to restart your voiced endorsement in local markets of The Rush Limbaugh Show, Rush received your requests personally.

Unfortunately, your public comments were not well received by our audience, and did not accurately portray either Rush Limbaugh’s character or the intent of his remarks. Thus, we regret to inform you that Rush will be unable to endorse Sleep Train in the future.

Rush appreciates your long friendship and your past support, and we wish you good luck in the future. “
Car in says:

March 14, 2012 at 5:00 pm

OT – P90X 2, day 2 update.

Plyocide review : oh mama.

It was shorter than the p90x plyo, but my was it hard. None of the moves were too tough to do, but a couple of times I had a pretty hard time catching my breath before the next set.

(And I work out a lot. )

I did do another 20 min of straight forward cardio afterward, but I’m trying to amp up conditioning for my summer running plans.
geoffb says:

March 14, 2012 at 5:18 pm

You are probably right Ernst as long as you reverse the oil shale and shale oil in your statement.
newrouter says:

March 14, 2012 at 5:27 pm

Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum holds a piece of oil-rich shale rock as he speaks during his primary election night party, Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2012, in Grand Rapids, Mich. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

link
newrouter says:

March 14, 2012 at 5:50 pm

ot

Derrick Bell’s options were to be a nobody, living in the shadow of more accomplished legal scholars — or to go off on some wild tangent of his own, and appeal to a radical racial constituency on campus and beyond.

His writings showed clearly that the latter was the path he chose. His previous writings had been those of a sensible man saying sensible things about civil rights issues that he understood from his years of experience as an attorney. But now he wrote all sorts of incoherent speculations and pronouncements, the main drift of which was that white people were the cause of black people’s problems.

Bell even said that he took it as his mission to say things to annoy white people. Perhaps he thought that was better than being insignificant in his academic setting. But it was in fact far worse, because the real damage was to impressionable young blacks who took him seriously, including one who went on to become President of the United States.

link
Ernst Schreiber says:

March 14, 2012 at 6:30 pm

I knew what I meant by shale oil and oil shales.

Really geoff, if you didn’t want the NaCl, why’d you send boy over to fetch you back the pepper?
ccs says:

March 14, 2012 at 6:42 pm

OT

Jeff, do you think in honor of today you might throw a bit of pie our way? It’s been a while.
geoffb says:

March 14, 2012 at 7:16 pm

Nice little trick with that linky looking non-link there.

I did know what you meant but it was going to be a confuse-ed mess to make sense of later unless some liquor is applied first.
Ernst Schreiber says:

March 14, 2012 at 7:23 pm

It was supposed to go to the wikipedia entry for Tight Oil.

Don’t ask me what went wrong though.
Swen says:

March 14, 2012 at 7:23 pm

For what it’s worth, there’s a big difference between ‘shale that contains oil’ such as the Bakken Fm., and ‘oil shale’ that contains kerogen. As geoffb links, there is no significant commercial production of kerogen oil from oil shale in the United States. However, Shell just produced their first 1700 barrels of kerogen-based oil from the Piceance Basin in NW Colorado, so commercial production is just around the corner.

Bottom line: What constitutes “technically recoverable oil” is changing rapidly as our technology improves. Oil from the Bakken — and from the Niobrara Fm. in NE Colorado/SE Wyoming — is conventional oil, but wasn’t technically recoverable until directional drilling was developed, now it’s a major boom. Give ’em a few years to iron out the bugs and all that kerogen-containing oil shale in NW Colorado/SW Wyoming will be “technically recoverable”. One thing’s certain, we’re not going to see “peak oil” in our lifetimes despite to constant drumbeat of doom.
Swen says:

March 14, 2012 at 7:24 pm

the
Pellegri says:

March 14, 2012 at 7:33 pm

Man, oil-containing shale is really pretty rock.

That’s all I’ve got right now.
newrouter says:

March 14, 2012 at 7:38 pm

the commies have it you don’t get it

Mitchell Leverette, division chief of solid minerals in the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s Washington office, told attendees that Colorado, Wyoming and Utah are home to the world’s largest deposits of oil shale, and much of that lies below land managed by the BLM. The agency also oversees considerable tar sands acreage in Utah, he said.

“That fact alone gives the BLM a tremendous stewardship responsibility, and it is not one that we take lightly,” Leverette said.

The George W. Bush administration made almost 2 million acres available for potential oil shale development and 431,000 acres for tar sands development.

Federal officials took a new look after conservation groups filed a lawsuit in 2009 alleging the government hadn’t fully reviewed possible environmental impacts.

link
newrouter says:

March 14, 2012 at 8:07 pm

For five years before law school, Obama took on that task in Chicago. As the director of a program that tried to bring South Side churches, unions and block associations together on projects, Obama was not trying to solve local problems, he said. Instead he sought to construct something more lasting — a forum for the community, “I’m interested in organizations, not movements, because movements dissipate and organizations don’t,” Obama said.

America suffered when the movements of the 1960s dissipated, he said. Those movements succeeded in raising doubts about harmful traditions of sexism and racism, but failed to offer a viable alternative.

“Hopefully, more and more people will begin to feel their story is somehow part of this larger story of how we’re going to reshape America in a way that is less mean-spirited and more generous,” Obama said.

link
geoffb says:

March 15, 2012 at 12:12 am

Legal at last.

The decision also clarifies that a common practice on the Internet – excerpting a few sentences and linking to interesting articles elsewhere – is a fair use, not an infringement of copyright.
Squid says:

March 15, 2012 at 7:26 am

Plyocide review

Sounds like a pre-trial hearing for someone what murdered a sheet of plywood. Or a lasagna.
richard mcenroe says:

March 15, 2012 at 9:32 am

You want to know why we have problems producing oil in the country? We have a Department of the Interior, AND an Energy Department AND the EPA, all empowered to enact,enforce, impede and conflict with each other on sensible energy production requirements, under three separate Presidential appointees with all the guaranteed partisan baggage that entails.

Energy and EPA should be at best seconday bureaus under Interior, not cabinet level seats in their own right.
geoffb says:

March 15, 2012 at 10:22 am

For the added info.

“Scarce Oil? U.S. Has 60 Times More Than Obama Claims“