Energy independence in 5 years??

[kraft-t]

My son in law that works as a engineer for a company that serves the oil industry and told me today that that is the talk in the oil business. No this is not political as it will not depend on any government involvement.

You do know about the shale oil fields in the Dakotas, Montana and Wyoming where the oil is being released by fracking with startling results. Well guess what? The same fracking will work in the tired and expired oil fields that were pumped in the 40's and the 50's.  Yep they are drilling new wells in those old fields and using fracking to release the untapped reserves. 

I don't know what business decision you would choose to make given that information, but he says it has already started and the results may be stunning!

Remember, you heard it here first! lol

[Palouser]

Another issue is the breakthroughs in basic research on things like various elements and structures added to lithium battery design that will make them multiples more efficient. These will maybe come on to the market fairly quickly. Transportation use of oil may drop more quickly than envisioned. With the use of low emissions NG we may be an overall oil exporter in the future.

However, oil will not drop in price significantly.  Too much demand growth globally. And the reason 'drill baby, drill' was a delusion.

[rusureofit]

The stats already show that we are already energy independant.  We export more oil products than we import.  We produce more fuel than we use.  The reason for any imports is simply to keep the refineries running at full capacity to make more money.  Imported oil is refined in US factories and shipped overseas as gasoline or diesel fuel, etc. and keeps American workers working in the refineries.  As more oil comes from the US due to new methods of recorvery we will import less and less.  Unless foreign oil is lower in price like South American corn is now.   The problem I see is that people tend to think if we stop importing oil the price of gas will drop way down, but that won't happen since the rest of the world is now beginning to cosume gasoline like we did in the past.  We live in a worldwide economy when it comes to food and petroleum products.  Here is an article from last february on Bloomberg:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-29/u-s-was-net-oil-product-exporter-in-2011.html

[Nebrfarmr]

The price may not drop drastically, but the flow of American dollars, will go to Americans, instead of other countries, some of whom could care less about us, except maybe for our money. I feel,we are going to use a certain amount of petroleum anyway, why not put Americans to work producing it? Don't take this to mean I am against conservation, or renewable energy, but rather the point of view, that if we need x barrels of oil, before that happens, lets make it x barrels of oil produced by American workers.

[Palouser]

We import vast quatities of crude. We refine more products than we need and export some products. We do NOT produce more crude than we import.

Check out this chart.  http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_wkly_dc_nus-z00_mbblpd_w.htm

[Jim Meade / Iowa City]

The environmentalists have been gearing up on fracking and we can expect it to increase.

http://www.oilgasmonitor.com/top-environmental-concerns-fracking/1557/

[Palouser]

An explanation of why gas at the pumps is not determined by crude produced here.

http://live.wsj.com/video/us-oil-boom-falls-short-at-the-pump/05DCC3F8-B219-4AEC-861C-808E99EB9256.h...

[Hobbyfarmer]

We'll see

[Palouser]

Thanks for your contribution to a discussion of oil. I think you should engage more with factual information rather than ideological BS. But perhaps your predilection is to just be a button pusher. You belittle yourself when I suspect you could be a lot more constructive. Your choice.

[kraft-t]

Obama's tax rates have been less than GW Bush's rate. You whine like a stuck hog and you never had it so good.