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Thursday, May 27, 2010

THE SINGLE LARGEST SOURCE OF OIL IMPORTED TO THE US?



It's Canada.Elizabeth Kolbert reports in the New Yorker magazine:

While the point of “peak oil” may or may not have been reached, what Michael Klare, a professor at Hampshire College, has dubbed the Age of Tough Oil has clearly begun. This year, the United States’ largest single source of imported oil is expected to be the Canadian tar sands. Oil from the tar sands comes in what is essentially a solid form: it has to be either strip-mined, a process that leaves behind a devastated landscape, or melted out of the earth using vast quantities of natural gas.

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11 comments:

Unknown said...

Scientist in Russia recently drilled 40,000 feet down and hit oil. What this has proven is oil is not from dead plants and animals. It is being created continually deep in the earth. It is like our blood in that it is constantly replenished when some is removed. There is and never will be peek oil. The refineries are discovering that they are not running out. They may get low, but left alone they refill.

Lou Gold said...

Highly dubious but, if true, does it mean that the plunder of the earth's living resources can continue unabated?

Unknown said...

It just means, unfortunately that there will be no real need to find other sources, unless some other reason arises besides peek oil.

Pedro said...

Jack:
Can you give us your evidence for your statements?
1. Where can we find the report about the Russian drilling?
2. What is the basis for your statements "it is created continually...it is constantly replenished..." Just because it is there doesn't mean what you imply.

Unknown said...

I suggest doing your own research within the sources you find to be credible. I am not going to list every article and video, but here are a few.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/crispin/crispin11.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukW9zveKKwk

There's also a part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO5mu3y_b8A&feature=related

Pedro said...

Jack, thank you for those references:
one from a retired businessman who is also an amateur oil advocate, the other from a chaplain who was enlisted by the oil industry to counsel laborers in Alaska during the construction of the Alaska pipeline in the 1980's and was privy to high level corporate discussions.

If any viewers are interested in a more balanced view about the very minority scientific viewpoint that advocates for "self-replenishing" "abiotoc oil," see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin

and for a very scientific counter-view see

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/011205_no_free_pt2.shtml

-pedro

Pedro said...

Sorry, I didn't mean "abiotoc oil," I meant "abiogenic oil."

Unknown said...

There's always two sides to the story. In general, people will believe and find data to support what they would like to be the case. If you hope oil will go away soon, then you will believe the peak oil theory, and vise versa. The truth is that the peak oil scam has been promoted for decades. It's just one more thing to aspect of the scarcity propaganda.

There's to many people on the planet.

There's not enough water and food.

Time is running out.

2012 and the end is almost here.

All lies. Abundance is the model of nature, and nature supports abundance of everything. It is safe to assume that there is an abundance of oil, and it will not come even close to running out in any of our life times.

Lou Gold said...

Jack,

Sure two (or more sides) exist to every story. That's why offering evidence becomes terribly important. I think you got a pretty tough sell here.

In the absence of reciprocity nature does not offer abundance, it offers depletion. Karma says what goes around comes around. Or, in other words, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

But you are correct in one regard to oil. There's plenty left of the difficult, expensive and risky-to-retrieve kinds, such as from tar sands and deep water drilling. The consequences of being dependent on them should be pretty obvious.

Unknown said...

Ok, all science aside, what is the point of even discussing this. There's nothing anyone can do about it, or it would have been done long ago. You cant pray it away. You cant retaliate. Voting is useless. Talking about it on blogs doesn't changer anything. Not being negative, just realistic.

Lou Gold said...

Yes Jack, I agree. The question is, what is the point of discussing the obvious?

My reason to post about it is to be some small part of amplifying the feeling of it in the hopes that people will at least do whatever they can personally to make change or, more ambitiously, to be build a critical mass toward change. You might call it preparedness training or countering tendencies toward denial and illusion. It's a work we do step-by-step not knowing exactly why or how but only that our hearts command that it be done and because it feels better to be connected rather than isolated in painful times.