• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Obama Wants Research to Wean Vehicles off Oil.....

clownboy said:
Well since the EIA doesn't keep that stat we'll have to look elsewhere (but what the heck do you think plastics are made from?).
Click to expand...

So you don't have a source to back up your claim that 45% of the oil in the US is used to make plastics? Imagine that!

From the EIA: "Refined petroleum products produced in the U.S. from both domestic and imported crude oil are exported to other countries."
Click to expand...

What's your point?




Start here:

Plastic bags are made from oil: it takes about 430,000 gallons of oil to produce 100 million plastic bags, and the U.S. goes through 380 billion of them a year.

A statistics class at Indiana U did the math: more than 1.6 billion gallons of oil are used each year for plastic bags alone. The more we use plastic bags, the more we waste oil.
Click to expand...


Ok, 1.6 billion gallons of oil are used each year to make plastic bags, and "168 billion gallons of oil consumed in 2010" So what percentage of our total consumption goes to make plastic bags? Less than 1%. A far cry from your earlier claim.

Still many like us have switched to cloth bags which I think is smart.


Then just to show you why the answer can be hard to find.
Click to expand...

Should have thought of that before you made your claim.


Many claim to have a concrete figure, but those figures are all over the map ranging from 2% to 25% of all oil used goes to plastics.

However, you're ducking the point - why not replace oil usage for all non-fuel usage of oil first?
Click to expand...


I'm all for weaning ourselves off a finite resource, and that includes plastics made from oil, but what makes the need for reducing our use of oil for energy is due to the damage to our environment caused in burning it for fuel. You have completely ignored that consequence.
 
Catawba said:
And yet they import more oil than they export to us.

World oil prices (including the US) are determined by the world oil market. And most of the world's oil reserves are in the middle east.
Click to expand...
I will let you in on a few of the dirty secrets of the oil industry. Oil is just like beauty: it is in the eye of the beholder. When someone whizzes up a chart such as above, they choose a cutoff point based on API gravity and what is "proven and producible". If you look at conventional crudes assessed by conventional means, your chart might be representative. however, if you see what is going on in energy, it is irrelevant.

First, consider the Bakken shales. The first wells were drilled in the '50s, but nobody could produce any oil from them, so until a few years ago, it didn't "exist". When the state of North Dakota began promoting the idea of producing from the Bakken, it was just as the state of the art in hydraulic fracturing started to reach a point where these non-reserves became oil wells. ND did new calculations a few times a year, and it became several orders of magnitude larger each time, and it is likely your chart is based on data long before this occurred.
Is Bakken set to rival Saudi supergiant Ghawar oilfield? | Energy | News | Financial Post
BUT: the majority of the Bakken is NOT in ND, it is in SK - where very little exploration and production has been done, so it still does not "exist". So, the non-reservoir Bakken oil looks as big as the biggest Saudi field when looking at an area that is maybe 20% of the entire reservoir (which, BTW, is the largest known single reservoir on earth - to geologists, not petro accountants) but most of it still does not "exist". This is "conventional crude" by anyone's standards. There are many other massive oil shale reserves in Canada, US, Europe, Russia and China (and no doubt several more) that don't "exist" to most of the world.

Same goes for the Niobrara and Mississippi formations - staggering amounts of reserves that "don't exist" because they weren't economically producible with old technology at old prices. Guarantee they are not figured into your chart, because they are potentially LARGER than the Bakken.

Then take a look at the Athabasca Oil Sands. Yes, there is a lot of production there now, but the vast majority of this "unconventional" reserve is still identified only from the areas now being produced, not from geological reality. Part of that is because those deeper areas of the deposit have not been developed yet. Depending on how you do the numbers, it is either about the size of the total reserves of the Persian Gulf or in total, when we find out how to produce all regions, larger than all of the known accumulation of oil on the planet. But, to a petro accountant, most of it doesn't "exist" either. Subtext, though: it ain't cheap stuff!

Then there is the massive volume of "depleted" reservoirs in the lower 48. When someone stops producing a field, there is often 60-70% of the original oil still in place. Using enhanced recovery techniques (such as CO2 sequestration) another 20+% can be recovered in a very short time - but all of this is oil that doesn't "exist" because the fields are no longer being produced.

Every time you move the technological boundaries or up the price, a LOT more oil becomes available that does not "exist" in assessments made from historical data.

The second little bit: Basic Statistics - Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers Canada produces a LOT more oil than we import and/or consume, but, please, keep that quiet. We don't want to be invaded any time soon.
 
cannuck said:
I will let you in on a few of the dirty secrets of the oil industry. Oil is just like beauty: it is in the eye of the beholder. When someone whizzes up a chart such as above, they choose a cutoff point based on API gravity and what is "proven and producible". If you look at conventional crudes assessed by conventional means, your chart might be representative. however, if you see what is going on in energy, it is irrelevant.

First, consider the Bakken shales. The first wells were drilled in the '50s, but nobody could produce any oil from them, so until a few years ago, it didn't "exist". When the state of North Dakota began promoting the idea of producing from the Bakken, it was just as the state of the art in hydraulic fracturing started to reach a point where these non-reserves became oil wells. ND did new calculations a few times a year, and it became several orders of magnitude larger each time, and it is likely your chart is based on data long before this occurred.
Is Bakken set to rival Saudi supergiant Ghawar oilfield? | Energy | News | Financial Post
BUT: the majority of the Bakken is NOT in ND, it is in SK - where very little exploration and production has been done, so it still does not "exist". So, the non-reservoir Bakken oil looks as big as the biggest Saudi field when looking at an area that is maybe 20% of the entire reservoir (which, BTW, is the largest known single reservoir on earth - to geologists, not petro accountants) but most of it still does not "exist". This is "conventional crude" by anyone's standards. There are many other massive oil shale reserves in Canada, US, Europe, Russia and China (and no doubt several more) that don't "exist" to most of the world.

Same goes for the Niobrara and Mississippi formations - staggering amounts of reserves that "don't exist" because they weren't economically producible with old technology at old prices. Guarantee they are not figured into your chart, because they are potentially LARGER than the Bakken.

Then take a look at the Athabasca Oil Sands. Yes, there is a lot of production there now, but the vast majority of this "unconventional" reserve is still identified only from the areas now being produced, not from geological reality. Part of that is because those deeper areas of the deposit have not been developed yet. Depending on how you do the numbers, it is either about the size of the total reserves of the Persian Gulf or in total, when we find out how to produce all regions, larger than all of the known accumulation of oil on the planet. But, to a petro accountant, most of it doesn't "exist" either. Subtext, though: it ain't cheap stuff!

Then there is the massive volume of "depleted" reservoirs in the lower 48. When someone stops producing a field, there is often 60-70% of the original oil still in place. Using enhanced recovery techniques (such as CO2 sequestration) another 20+% can be recovered in a very short time - but all of this is oil that doesn't "exist" because the fields are no longer being produced.

Every time you move the technological boundaries or up the price, a LOT more oil becomes available that does not "exist" in assessments made from historical data.

The second little bit: Basic Statistics - Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers Canada produces a LOT more oil than we import and/or consume, but, please, keep that quiet. We don't want to be invaded any time soon.
Click to expand...



The reason oil sands are not included, is because they are not really oil reserves. And they are not an affordable replacement for the cheap to recover crude oil in the middle east, which is why most of the world's oil still comes from the Middle East.

It is also why the US, Canada and Mexico still have to import oil to meet the demand for affordable oil.
 
Catawba said:
The US represents about 4% of the worlds population and uses 25% of the world's oil. The last year the US could produce as much oil as it consumed was 1971,



Canada - "Oil - imports: 1.088 million bbl/day (2009 est.)

Definition: This entry is the total oil imported in barrels per day (bbl/day), including both crude oil and oil products.

Source: CIA World Factbook - Unless otherwise noted, information in this page is accurate as of July 26, 2012"

Canada Oil - imports - Economy


Mexico - "Oil - imports: 496,000 bbl/day (2009 est.)

Definition: This entry is the total oil imported in barrels per day (bbl/day), including both crude oil and oil products.

Source: CIA World Factbook - Unless otherwise noted, information in this page is accurate as of July 26, 2012"

Mexico Oil - imports - Economy
Click to expand...

Canada and Mexico also consume more oil than they produce.
Click to expand...

Factually incorrect.

U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
 
jonny5 said:
They refute your statement
Click to expand...

Quote where they show different numbers for oil imports for the US, Canada, and Mexico.
 
Catawba said:
The reason oil sands are not included, is because they are not really oil reserves. And they are not an affordable replacement for the cheap to recover crude oil in the middle east, which is why most of the world's oil still comes from the Middle East.

It is also why the US, Canada and Mexico still have to import oil to meet the demand for affordable oil.
Click to expand...
Not quite. The oil from the oil sands comes out in two forms: synthetic crude (phenomenally good feestock) and dilbit (dilluted bitumen). The former is less quantity than the latter, and used up by Big Oil refineries in AB for the most part. The latter is what is mostly being produced in newer sites (requires much simpler, cheaper facility) and feeds anything with upgrading capacity (cokers). The reason we buy crude oil at all has more to do with pipeline capacity than anything else. We produce a LOT of crude oil in the West, but use a lot of product in the East, so Eastern refineries can buy from tankers what the pipelines don't have capacity to send East (don't ever reach some of the big ones at all). Also, there is NO way to get any serious volume Westbound (one tiny pipe to Vancouver, no where near enough to make any difference), so the bulk of the oil goes SOUTH to US - thus the big deal about the Keystone pipeline. The added capacity of the Bakken has filled what little capacity for growth was needed for alberta crudes, and has driven the wellhead price for both conventionals in AB, SK, ND down to nothing, and heavies from AB, WY, etc. into the toilet.

So, a Canadian refiner could buy some nice Rainbow from North Central AB for about half the price of a Brent indexed crude on the water - but there is no way to GET it to the East or West coast, and the way South is constipated. Costs the governments of AB and SK a bundle in lost royalties so badly we can barely run a surplus in our budgets. Meanwhile, AB and SK refineries can make out like bandits on cheap domestic crude.

BTW: that "cheap to recover" oil from the Middle East benefits the Middle East, not Western buyers. Crude still trades internationally pretty close to the Platt's reports, regardless of cost of production. Nor is it all that cheap any more (lifting costs in Saudi make production costs in the mid-$30 range) as many big fields are in the later stage of secondary recovery. Most of my friends over there are coming over here to learn how we do tertiary enhanced oil recovery.
 
Last edited:
cannuck said:
Not quite. The oil from the oil sands comes out in two forms: synthetic crude (phenomenally good feestock) and dilbit (dilluted bitumen). The former is less quantity than the latter, and used up by Big Oil refineries in AB for the most part. The latter is what is mostly being produced in newer sites (requires much simpler, cheaper facility) and feeds anything with upgrading capacity (cokers). The reason we buy crude oil at all has more to do with pipeline capacity than anything else. We produce a LOT of crude oil in the West, but use a lot of product in the East, so Eastern refineries can buy from tankers what the pipelines don't have capacity to send East (don't ever reach some of the big ones at all). Also, there is NO way to get any serious volume Westbound (one tiny pipe to Vancouver, no where near enough to make any difference), so the bulk of the oil goes SOUTH to US - thus the big deal about the Keystone pipeline. The added capacity of the Bakken has filled what little capacity for growth was needed for alberta crudes, and has driven the wellhead price for both conventionals in AB, SK, ND down to nothing, and heavies from AB, WY, etc. into the toilet.

So, a Canadian refiner could buy some nice Rainbow from North Central AB for about half the price of a Brent indexed crude on the water - but there is no way to GET it to the East or West coast, and the way South is constipated. Costs the governments of AB and SK a bundle in lost royalties so badly we can barely run a surplus in our budgets. Meanwhile, AB and SK refineries can make out like bandits on cheap domestic crude.

BTW: that "cheap to recover" oil from the Middle East benefits the Middle East, not Western buyers. Crude still trades internationally pretty close to the Platt's reports, regardless of cost of production. Nor is it all that cheap any more (lifting costs in Saudi make production costs in the mid-$30 range) as many big fields are in the later stage of secondary recovery. Most of my friends over there are coming over here to learn how we do tertiary enhanced oil recovery.
Click to expand...



Well you be sure and let us know when the US, Canada and Mexico stop importing oil. Also let us know when you have found a way to recover it and burn it that doesn't release CO2.
 
Catawba said:
Well you be sure and let us know when the US, Canada and Mexico stop importing oil. Also let us know when you have found a way to recover it and burn it that doesn't release CO2.
Click to expand...
If we just stop wasting it at such an astounding rate, the US could become energy self sufficient overnight. Canada, as I have pointed out, is already a LONG way past that level. We import because it is easier than trying to ship from the West.

Now, when I learn how to capture CO2 from all of those cars and inject it into the ground - you will be the first to know (I promise). BTW: you will understand why I prefer the Euro concept of limiting carbon emission instead of some goofey CAFE calculation that favours the flavour-of-the-year from the bureaucrats of the day.
 
Last edited:
cannuck said:
If we just stop wasting it at such an astounding rate, the US could become energy self sufficient overnight. Canada, as I have pointed out, is already a LONG way past that level. We import because it is easier than trying to ship from the West.

Now, when I learn how to capture CO2 from all of those cars and inject it into the ground - you will be the first to know (I promise). BTW: you will understand why I prefer the Euro concept of limiting carbon emission instead of some goofey CAFE calculation that favours the flavour-of-the-year from the bureaucrats of the day.
Click to expand...

Exactly what I'm talking about! And one of our most wasteful uses, as well as the most destructive, is burning it for fuel. Currently, 45% of the oil consumed in the US is in the form of gasoline. I'm with you for strict limiting of carbon emissions. And you can thank Reagan and industry for not having set limits for carbon emissions, as they were the ones that came up with the pollution credit trading concept. That is why I applauded the EPA setting strict carbon limits for power plants. I also would be happy to trade the CAFE standards for strict carbon limits for cars and trucks if it could be passed politically.
 
Catawba said:
And yet they import more oil than they export to us.

World oil prices (including the US) are determined by the world oil market. And most of the world's oil reserves are in the middle east.

World_Oil_Reserves_by_Region.PNG


Oil reserves - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Click to expand...

Wow, we're #2 and Obama won't issue licenses.
 
American said:
Wow, we're #2 and Obama won't issue licenses.
Click to expand...

BS! And issuing every license requested won't significantly increase world supply over world demand, and does nothing to reduce the damage to the environment that we all depend upon of our livelihoods.
 
Catawba said:
Exactly what I'm talking about! And one of our most wasteful uses, as well as the most destructive, is burning it for fuel. Currently, 45% of the oil consumed in the US is in the form of gasoline. I'm with you for strict limiting of carbon emissions. And you can thank Reagan and industry for not having set limits for carbon emissions, as they were the ones that came up with the pollution credit trading concept. That is why I applauded the EPA setting strict carbon limits for power plants. I also would be happy to trade the CAFE standards for strict carbon limits for cars and trucks if it could be passed politically.
Click to expand...
It COULD be passed politically, but first you would have to get the Uniparty to pull their collective head out of their proverbial rectum. The topic of this thread is evidence that we are a long way from that right now.

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but other than you and me, there aren't another handful of people on the continent who are thinking of consuming less rather than figuring out how to drop the price to consume more (plug in whatever energy source you wish). Worse yet, 99% of those who would agree with us are not plugged into the partisan machine. I never in my life thought I would have to say this: we need a genuine "green" party (there actually ARE some candidates in Canada) - but one that can stick to reality near the center and present issues as to how they actually damage the economy and society, as well as the environment.
 
Last edited:
cannuck said:
It COULD be passed politically, but first you would have to get the Uniparty to pull their collective head out of their proverbial rectum. The topic of this thread is evidence that we are a long way from that right now.

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but other than you and me, there aren't another handful of people on the continent who are thinking of consuming less rather than figuring out how to drop the price to consume more (plug in whatever energy source you wish).
Click to expand...


"As noted in the report, solar power has been expanding rapidly in the past eight years, growing at an average pace of 40% per year. The cost per kilowatt-hour of solar photovoltaic systems has also been dropping, while electricity generated from fossil fuels is becoming more expensive. As a result, the report projects that solar power will reach cost parity with conventional power sources in many U.S. markets by 2015."

Solar power in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Catawba said:
"As noted in the report, solar power has been expanding rapidly in the past eight years, growing at an average pace of 40% per year. The cost per kilowatt-hour of solar photovoltaic systems has also been dropping, while electricity generated from fossil fuels is becoming more expensive. As a result, the report projects that solar power will reach cost parity with conventional power sources in many U.S. markets by 2015."

Solar power in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Click to expand...
As I mentioned earlier, for some applications, that day is here now. I could show you 10 - 15 MW projects on 300 acres that are being built for costs equivalent to thermal plants - and those are genuine base load facilities. The key is in the ability to store a lot of energy at very high temperatures - enough for WEEKS with no sun. The people who developed the technology have built an entire community at 51deg North on the cold side of the Rockies that is solar heated (cost competitive with gas).

There are a lot of good things happening out there.
 
cannuck said:
As I mentioned earlier, for some applications, that day is here now. I could show you 10 - 15 MW projects on 300 acres that are being built for costs equivalent to thermal plants - and those are genuine base load facilities. The key is in the ability to store a lot of energy at very high temperatures - enough for WEEKS with no sun. The people who developed the technology have built an entire community at 51deg North on the cold side of the Rockies that is solar heated (cost competitive with gas).

There are a lot of good things happening out there.
Click to expand...


Yep, and with hybrid electrical systems like mine, people can use on-site solar power when the sun is shining and use grid power when its not, cutting the usage of grid power significantly.

Additionally, with the use of electric cars we have the potential to cut our gasoline usage by 1/3 of the 45% of oil used in the US for gasoline! And, we have the added benefit of reducing the CO2 that is damaging the environment. That is why I support the research to make it even more feasible to wean vehicles off oil.
 
Catawba said:
Yep, and with hybrid electrical systems like mine, people can use on-site solar power when the sun is shining and use grid power when its not, cutting the usage of grid power significantly.

Additionally, with the use of electric cars we have the potential to cut our gasoline usage by 1/3 of the 45% of oil used in the US for gasoline! And, we have the added benefit of reducing the CO2 that is damaging the environment. That is why I support the research to make it even more feasible to wean vehicles off oil.
Click to expand...

How long would my 400 mile trip to visit my grandchild take?
 
AlabamaPaul said:
How long would my 400 mile trip to visit my grandchild take?
Click to expand...

Depends on how many stops you choose to make when driving a rental hybrid car 400 miles to where your grandchild lives.
 
Catawba said:
Depends on how many stops you choose to make when driving a rental hybrid car 400 miles to where your grandchild lives.
Click to expand...

I don't stop, and can now generally make the trip in less than seven hours...
 
straykatz said:
It is not in the oil companies best interest to have an alternative fuel source available, especially if it is cheaper. There is not way oil companies will go down without kicking and screaming. You can be sure they already do everything in their power and financially to prevent any competition with alternative fuels.
Click to expand...

Why not? Please explain to us why it's not in the interest of the oil companies to make money?

It's the oil companies that are pushing natural gas as auto fuel. Currently, it's half the price per unit of gasoline and it costs just as much for the oil companies to get it out of the ground.

Your notion is erroneous and ill informed.
 
AlabamaPaul said:
How long would my 400 mile trip to visit my grandchild take?
Click to expand...

You can't go 400 miles in an electric car. That's the whole point. It's another step in the process of breaking down the independence of the average American citizen.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom