1st off 75% (sometimes more sometimes less) of US oil is sent overseas and never comes into our market, legislate that to be illegal for now. (oddly enough the Exon valsleeze was going to a foreign refinery, imagine if that were illegal, it would have probably never happened)
Also, Something few here or anywhere seem to remember was the massive shutdowns of the small oilmen starting with Nixon and ending with Reagan.
My great Uncle worked for a small producer in Kentucky during the 70's and they were forced to shutdown at 100% production because Nixon helped to change the deed system at a federal level. I forget the specifics but most small owners especially in Oklahoma through Kentucky who owned their land under whole or full deeds (which generally included mineral rights) were forced to close after their mineral/oil rights were removed or invalidated by the government. To add insult to injury many times the wells were never reopened and if a large interest did want to do so, it would almost always drill a new well whereever it pleased on their land stating fair access to mineral/oil rights. It was estimated that 25% of our capacity went down the drain with these closures and many of the wells are still there and could potentially be reopened. My Great Uncles family also had a natural gas well on their farm that they used to heat their home which they were forced to close, I guess there are still a few with private wells of this type but most were forced out of the free heat.
There are many estimates that about 2/3's of the total liquid continental oil in the lower 48 is still there and we could be oil independant for a time if we were to open the dozens of oil refineries that have been mothballed and unused within the US. We would also have to pump sea water to do so but it still is easier than waiting 8-25yrs to develope offshore assets and disrupt greenhouse causing methane in the process.
As opposed to drilling new wells, why not uncap existing ones that were producing at closure? It doesn't take much to uncap as compared to drill new.
If we were to take the time to make ourselfs oil dependant for a period (before we use it up) we should take the effort and money saved to develope as many alternatives as we can and develope a way to IR (heat)and vacuum the methane off the gulf and pacific as 100 billion metric tons might take a while to use. Not to mention it is replenished at a rate of 33 million tons a year in the gulf alone, no small resource.
Use the methane to power cars by converting them to CNG, if we could reduce the US conversion cost from $14k down to the mexican conversion cost of $800 installed we could easily become independant of foreign oil.
Contrary to popular belief the methane is actually too easy to disrupt, I don't think it would be that hard to suck up once unfrozen.
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Originally Posted by bikin' Ed
I kinda like the idea of drilling, with the mandate that all of our oil stays here in the US. I believe it would bring the price of gasoline down and create many new jobs. Most of us have always been "hypermilers" of some sort most of our lives--we just didn't know it or have a name for it. We are, by nature the appointed stewards of the land and it is our lot to conserve and teach others to do the same. It is just as important to conserve $2/gal fuel as it is $4 fuel, as there is a limited quantity. Unfortunately, it is a sign of our times that the general public doesn't care about anything until it directly affects them personally. If we could bring about a change of attitude all of the rest would work itself out.
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I agree with this to a point but the truth is Americans are not taught to save or to value any of the things our great grandparents would have assumed common sense, it is sad that we have become a country of consumers as opposed to citizens and stewards. Perhaps this is one case where a more structured school environment to teach things other than math, reading, rithmatic might help to teach children to do differently since their parents obviously viemently fight any attempts at change.