Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Peak Oil Will Be Fully Discredited When Peak Government Is Realized

President Obama recently nominated Sally Jewell to head the Department of Interior. Her bona fides include growing a business — Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI) — to nearly $2 billion in revenue last year. But in her new job, the question is whether Secretary Jewell will grow America’s vast, untapped domestic energy resources. Jewell is now at the gulf between what is and what could be. The Interior Department is responsible for oil and natural gas drilling off the U.S. coast – which is to say, the agency is wholly responsible for the complete absence of new drilling off the U.S. coast. Consider ExxonMobil’s $14 billion plan to develop one of the largest oil fields in the North Atlantic. That drilling will be off Canada’s Newfoundland. But the Hebron oil field is believed to extend southward into U.S. waters with its billion-barrel potential. Unfortunately, the United States won’t see a drop of it — unless Secretary Jewell and others in the Obama hierarchy open our coast. Simple permission, not taxpayer funds or new regulations, is all that is required. From offshore oil to previously inaccessible gas deep in the earth, the federal domain is poised for an energy renaissance. The United States could become the world’s largest producer of oil by 2017, surpassing Saudi Arabia and Russia, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). By 2035, the United States will be nearly energy self-sufficient. The prospect of U.S. self-sufficiency overturns a half-century of conventional wisdom. Oil and gas critics have long warned of “peak” supply – the point at which extraction is at its highest possible rate. At this “peak,” the wells will start running dry for good. But this theory is being revealed as nothing more than a myth—and scare tactic by those favoring politically correct, market incorrect energies such as ethanol, wind, and solar...more

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It would be great to be energy independent....but do you really think that means you and I will pay less for gas at the pump?!

Food for thought.