The US could be economically self-sufficient in oil.

In Round 3 Roy makes a case for the as-yet unproven supplies currently in areas off limits for exploration. Again this relies on estimations and obviously there is a limitation on how well one can outline the amout of material in place in those areas and how much of it actually is technically recoverable at current oil prices. This is part of the point of the debate no doubt. But what do we think we know about these areas?The USGS did a reassment of ANWR and found that an estimated 7.7 billion barrels of oil are in the Federal Lands in the 1002 section of ANWR spread across several potential plays.[1] Considering the time it would take to bring this online, by about 2030 when these wells would be up to speed and producing, this would account for less than 2% of the world consumption of oil. Estimates of peak production indicate it would only supply approximately 0.8 million barrels of oil per day to the U.S. Far below our current needs. The MMS number that Pro discussed in his post ,approximately 86 billion barrels of oil, in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) is a reasonable estimate from the data supplied. And indeed a great deal of this is in the Gulf of Mexico (a mean estimate of 44 billion barrels), and obviously the Gulf of Mexico is a very heavily used area for oil development. Unless pro wishes to develop every square inch of real estate in the Gulf of Mexico OCS it would be difficult to imagine an area more utilized for this purpose. And in point of fact the oil companies themselves would probably balk at over-leasing an area.[2]The BOEM (Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, a follow on organization after the MMS) notes that since June of 2010 in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster and the attendant safety requirements in place, there has been 127 new shallow well permits have been granted, 401 new deepwater permits have been granted since February 2011.[3] The second richest area is the Alaskan OCS at a mean estimate of 26.6 billion barrels of oil. The technical limitations there are obvious and manifest [4] Similarly the offshore activity around Alaska is hardly nonexistent. The activity in terms of offshore minerals management leases in OCS Alaska the data can be found here: http://www.alaska.boemre.gov...Indeed proven reserves are not yet established there. However estimates indicate that it is far from providing us the “out” we would like. Pro’s contention that oil shale failure as a reserve because of some sort of Federal resistance is not an indication of some sort of “arbitrary” resistance. The Federal government needs to be attentive to the collateral damage due to oil shale exploration. As I cited in my earlier rebuttal, water resources are extremely fragile in the Western U.S. and so if we rob Peter to pay Paul we may actually be beating Peter to death in order to pay Paul for a less valuable resource. If we damage and deplete fragile water supplies in the Western U.S. it will be a steep price to pay for oil. We can survive with less oil, but we cannot survive with less water.Also I must point out that the NYTimes citation by Pro includes another explicit comment on the state of the art of oil production from oil shales. It is still “in its infancy” .Again I will caution about drawing too much comfort from a “developmental” ideal as a source of our energy self sufficiency.I must disagree with Pro’s statement that there is no significant economic risk in the method used in surface retorting for oil shale. As an example of this Pro states that this is the method used in tar sands extraction. The cost on the surface of extraction (even at less than $100/barrel) is only the tip of the iceberg. Historically cost modeling for fossil fuels has had to be drug kicking and screaming into an assessment of environmental costs. Now strip mining of coal has to factor in the re-establishment of contours after mining as part of the cost. The costs from the removal of tar sands is still developing. In the case of oil shale I will note that tar sands contain a “lighter” fraction. It is a viscous bitumen whereas oil shale is usually considered to be “kerogen”, a solid organic material. [5] As such the kerogen from oil shales needs to be retorted whereas the bitumen from the tar sands needs hot water to extract it. It is not the same technology, but they do share some similarities. Pro then proceeds to point out that the costs figured for $35 a barrel to produce oil shale oil is economical in light of the current oil price…but pro also uses a key phrase: “if that method is perfected”. Indeed. As we all know who work in any sort of R&D setting, the devil is always in the details. This is still a “what if” scenario placed on top of unproven resources as our “lifeline”. Pro cites the figure that only about 3 barrels of water are needed for each barrel of oil recovered from oil shale. The earlier cited GAO report puts the figure at somewhere between 1 and 12 barrels of water/barrel of oil with an average of 5 barrels of water. That may seem quibbling, but again, in the Western U.S. where many of the current plays are estimated for oil shale this is no small issue.The Western U.S. feeds largely off of one aquifer (the Ogallala) and almost every surface drainage has been dammed. If the unconventional oil plays were not water-intensive this might be another debate. But the cost of water will increase and the cost will be far harder to accept. The current cost of water may be factored in, but the U.S. government also currently provides agricultural water to famers in the West at a lower cost than its “market value” and as such represents a potential for a severe cost increase . This potentially moves the debate from one of “cost of oil production” to a battle between oil production vs food production vs water. That is a far more scary path to contemplate. Pro’s suggestion that: “One way to get water is to pump it from Canada, where there are ample supplies”. Would essentially undercut the concept of self-sufficiency in oil for the U.S. And that is what this entire debate is about.In my last post Pro was correct in that I did not address the issues of CO2 for fear of taking debate off onto a very different path, but I am glad to include this. America’s ability to become self-sustaining by relying on the still “infant” technology of oil shale production carries with it a very well known danger that will probably represent the single biggest and most devastating aspect to this idea of petroleum self-sufficiency, especially in light of the lengths to which we will need to resort to in using unconventional sources such as oil shale.General environmental, CO2 and global climate change will sap our will to exploit this resource. The EU Science Advisory Council in 2007 published a report on oil shale recovery based on the experience in Estonia. In that report the ecological downsides are quite sobering including not only the waste rock and its associated leachate as a threat to water supplies (again, coming back to endangering fragile water supplies such as what we have in the western U.S. as a serious concern), but also CO2 emissions. [6] But the U.S. still thinks only in terms of the more general impact of CO2. CO2 emissions from the generation of power using oil shale fuels is still among the highest of energy sources (ibid). CO2 emissions from oil shale development are as much as 25% to 75% higher than conventional petroleum sources. [7] Without getting into the the politics of global warming, I suspect in the very near term this will be the single biggest contributor to our inability to be “self sufficient” in terms of oil if this is the material we are going to exploit to achieve this goal.Notes1. http://tinyurl.com...2. http://tinyurl.com... 3. http://tinyurl.com...4 http://tinyurl.com...5. http://ostseis.anl.gov...6. http://tinyurl.com...7. http://tinyurl.com...