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86 Billion

The energy equivalent of the “stabbed-in-the-back” meme is the emerging notion that if we only drilled in ANWAR/offshore/shale etc. our energy problems would be solved. You can see it in the ravings of Larry Kudlow. “There is no finite supply, or if there is we are 100 years away from it. . . Look, we […]

The energy equivalent of the “stabbed-in-the-back” meme is the emerging notion that if we only drilled in ANWAR/offshore/shale etc. our energy problems would be solved. You can see it in the ravings of Larry Kudlow. “There is no finite supply, or if there is we are 100 years away from it. . . Look, we have the Bakken fields, the outer continental shelf and all the offshore drilling opportunities, ANWR, and so forth. There’s probably over a trillion barrels worth of reserves out there.”
If Kudlow’s guesstimates aren’t good enough for you, George Will writes about the 86 billion barrels off our coasts, and how China is drilling a few miles away from Florida. “The U.S. Minerals Management Service says that restricted area contains perhaps 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas — 10 times the oil and 20 times the natural gas Americans use in a year. Drilling is under way 60 miles off Florida. The drilling is being done by China, in cooperation with Cuba . . .”
More domestic drilling may be worthwhile, although we should be wary of the stress on the oceans (dead zones, commercial fishing collapse, etc.) from other sources before adding to it; and should not delude ourselves about the results. Even if Will’s 86 billion barrel number is meaningful, in that it even remotely approaches what we could get from our coasts; he should know that the world uses 86 million barrels per day (as of two years ago) which translates into about 31 billion per year. Something to consider when contemplating the huge numbers supposedly off our shores.

The number isn’t meaningful, of course. It will take energy and money–perhaps a lots of it–to claim would almost certainly be a much smaller recoverable amount than the number that Will gives. Also, as it turns out, the Chinese are not (via John Cole) drilling off the Florida coast.

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