Bush ok's Gulf of Mexico Drilling

[ReefHound]

well, it's not either or

we can cut back within reason, and bump up production within reason, and change our expectations as to what is possible and desirable ...

Now we're on the same page.

 

[ReefHound]

how are you measuring that?

First, you're right. I was letting it get too personal, I edited that one comment you cited and apologize for any "personal" aspects of my arguments.

Second, the world is a big place and there are all kinds of ways to measure things. You know what they say about statistics. But take the top 20 economies, using 1995 figures (first ones I found easily), and do the math.

1 United States $6,648,013
2 Japan $4,590,971
3 Germany $2,045,991
4 France $1,330,381
5 Italy $1,024,634
6 United Kingdom $1,017,306
7 Brazil $554,587
8 Canada $542,954
9 China $522,172
10 Spain $482,841
11 Mexico $377,115
12 Russian Federation $376,555
13 Korea, Rep. $376,505
14 Australia $331,990
15 Netherlands $329,768
16 India $293,606
17 Argentina $281,922
18 Switzerland $260,352
19 Belgium $227,550
20 Austria $196,546
Total $21,811,759

6,648,000 / 21,811,000 = 30.5%

Actually, I noticed an interesting corollary. The ratios of energy consumption to GNP are very similar between USA, Canada, and Australia. All very large countries with similar systems.

 

[ReefHound]

the bulk of our electricity relies on oil, which we don't have in abbundance and have to import ...

Actually, we are the world's third largest oil producer, more than Iraq, Kuwait, and Venezuela combined.

 

[Bill51]

well, explain to me how the US produces the most nuclear energy in the world, double what France produces, with twice as many reactors, if it has the albatross of the Sierra Club around its neck?

http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/nuclear.html

Now let’s put that into real figures that mean something. France gets 77% of it’s power from nuclear versus the US only getting 20%. Or looking at it another way, the French generate 6.68MW of nuclear power for every million citizens versus the US generating only 2.56MW of nuclear power for every million citizens. Yes Americans consume more energy per capita than many other nations, but energy consumption is more closely tied to per capital income (or percentage of national GDP) and Americans are making $42K per person compared to only $29K for the average Frenchman. There are 18 nations that get a higher percentage of their electrical energy from nuclear than the US, and only 11 that get less from nukes. Or we can point out that from 1993 to 2002, the US ranked 13th in the world in increased nuclear production behind such countries as China, France, Brazil, Pakistan, and even Slovenia. To the best of my knowledge there hasn’t been a new nuclear plant permitted for construction since President Carter was in office and it has plenty to do with the old Energy Act he got passed on behalf of the environmental lobbies.

 

[ReefHound]

I found this CIA Fact Book with estimated 2005 GDP numbers for the world, showing USA at $12 trillion to world total of $60 trillion, or 20%. The difference I suspect is the dramatic rise in China and India as world economic powers.

I found this CIA Fact Book with estimated 2003 Electricity consumption numbers for the world, showing USA at $3.6 trillion kwh to world total of $15.5 trillion kwh, or 23%. Not too far out of line, in my opinion.

 

[Bill51]

.

Responded to those two points above. .

And thanks to Bill51 for his tempered response to me, given, particularly that he apparently is an oil insider.

Thanks but I was a builder of passive solar/energy efficient homes and happened to have 5 little gas wells on my farm until federal regulations of the late 70s forced me to cap the wells or sell them to a big oil company and shut down the home construction business unless I stopped calling my homes energy efficient or passive solar – because they didn’t meet the “new” criteria. Other than helping to draft proposed legislation to save the small oil and gas producers (which by the way would have saved thousands of small farms from take over by the corporate farms), I have never worked or received a penny from any petroleum energy company, and in fact I was a huge thorn in their sides for years. I will still poke them when they screw up, but I’m also willing to give them credit when they do things well and help the American economy.

It was after several meetings with Tom Hayden back in the 70s that I discovered too many of the environmental organizations had political and economic agendas bigger and more insidious than the energy companies did, so I became rather skeptical of everyone.

 

[H2Andy]

To the best of my knowledge there hasn’t been a new nuclear plant permitted for construction since President Carter was in office and it has plenty to do with the old Energy Act he got passed on behalf of the environmental lobbies.

so your beef is basically we need more nuclear plants and less oil/coal plants?

so why didn't you say that before?

(by the way, many nuclear reactors were built in the 80's, including Beaver Valley 2, Braidwood 1 and 2, and Byron Illinois -- and that's just the B's)

 

[H2Andy]

Actually, we are the world's third largest oil producer, more than Iraq, Kuwait, and Venezuela combined.

well, yes... we are close to Saudi Arabia in production

but i was talking about "owning" the resource. our reserves are paltry, and at this rate, will shortly be exausted:

Reserves (in billions of barrels)

1. Saudi Arabia 264.3
2. Canada 178.8
3. Iran 132.5
4. Iraq 115.0
5. Kuwait 101.5
6. United Arab Emirates 97.8
7. Venezuela 79.7
8. Russia 60.0
9. Libya 39.1
10. Nigeria 35.9
11. United States 21.4


Production of Oil
(in millions of barrels per day):

Saudi Arabia: 8.528
United States: 8.091
Russia: 7.014
Iran: 3.775
Mexico: 3.560
Norway: 3.408
China: 3.297
Venezuela: 3.137
Canada: 2.749
United Arab Emirates: 2.550
United Kingdom: 2.540
Iraq: 2.377
Nigeria: 2.223
Kuwait: 1.838
Brazil: 1.589
Algeria: 1.486
Libya: 1.427
Indonesia: 1.384
Oman: .964
Argentina: 825

Consumption of Oil
(millions of barrels per day):

United States: 19.993
Japan: 5.423
China: 4.854
Germany: 2.814
Russia: 2.531
South Korea: 2.126
Brazil: 2.123
Canada: 2.048
France: 2.040
India: 2.011
Mexico: 1.932
Italy: 1.881
United Kingdom: 1.699
Spain: 1.465
SaudiArabia: 1.415
Iran: 1.109
Indonesia: 1.063
Netherlands: .881
Australia: .879
Taiwan: .846

 

[ReefHound]

well, yes... we are close to Saudi Arabia in production

but i was talking about "owning" the resource. our reserves are paltry, and at this rate, will shortly be exausted:

You might be interested in how they calculate "reserves". But I wasn't suggesting that we could produce enough oil to be self sufficient at our current/projected consumption level, but just to point out that we do produce a lot of oil.

 

[Mafiaman]

Just think where pricing and our reserves would be at if we had 75% of our electricity provided by Nuclear reactors

Would it be safe to say we'd be a lot closer to self sufficient if not totally?