On Tuesday, the Institute for Energy Research issued its North American Energy Inventory (.pdf link), a report which documents the government’s own estimates of oil, natural gas and coal resources for the U.S., Canada and Mexico. (The IER is a non-profit, non-partisan 501(c)3 organization that is dedicated to advancing America’s supply using free market principles.)
In a nutshell, North America contains a vast bounty of energy sources in the form of oil, natural gas and coal. Reports that we are “running out” of energy sources use semantics and terminology to play with the facts. Simply put, we have chosen not to exploit potential sources close to home, finding it more expedient or convenient to depend on faraway sources for our energy.
Based on the ongoing tangible successes in North Dakota and Pennsylvania, one would think that the jobs/growth potential presented by aggressive energy development would tantalize any politician who is truly interested in helping the economy. One would think.
The following video will give you a quick run-down of the key points of the report, but I would encourage anyone interested to download and read the full report. It is extremely well-documented and although it is chock-full of facts and figures, I found it to be an easy read.
Excerpt from the report’s executive summary:
The amount of oil that is technically recoverable in the United States is more than 1.4 trillion barrels, with the largest deposits located offshore, in portions of Alaska, and in shale in the Rocky Mountain West. When combined with resources from Canada and Mexico, total recoverable oil in North America exceeds 1.7 trillion barrels.
That is more than the world has used since the first oil well was drilled over 150 years ago in Titusville, Pennsylvania. To put this in context, Saudi Arabia has about 260 billion barrels of oil in proved reserves. For comparative purposes, the technically recoverable oil in North America could fuel the present needs in the United States of seven billion barrels per year for around 250 years.
Moreover, it is important to note that that “reserves” estimates are constantly in flux. For example, in 1980, the U.S. had oil reserves of roughly 30 billion barrels. Yet from 1980 through 2010, we produced over 77 billion barrels of oil. In other words, over the last 30 years, we produced over 150 percent of our proved reserves. …
Proved reserves of natural gas in the United States and throughout North America are enormous, and the total amount of recoverable natural gas is even more impressive. The EIA estimates that the United States has 272.5 trillion cubic feet of proved reserves of natural gas. The total amount of natural gas that is recoverable in North America is approximately 4.2 quadrillion (4,244 trillion) cubic feet.
Given that U.S. consumption is currently about 24 trillion cubic feet per year, there is enough natural gas in North America to last the United States for over 175 years at current rates of consumption.
A key point of the IER report: We have been told repeatedly by our President, liberal members of Congress and our environmental community that the U.S. consumes 24% (or somesuch) of the world’s energy, but we have only 2% (or somesuch) of the world’s proved reserves. It’s just not fair!
However, IER explains how lying liars lie:
RESOURCES AND RESERVES: WHY TERMS MATTER WHEN JUDGING ENERGY POTENTIAL
A frequent source of confusion about America’s energy potential is the terminology used, primarily the enormous yet poorly understood difference between “resources” and “reserves.” The term “reserves” typically refers to a country’s known, proved and presently economic energy supplies, but a country’s resources are much larger, representing a nation’s total potential energy. The debate over whether a country has only a few years’ supply of a particular energy source or centuries’ worth can hinge upon the terms employed. It is merely semantics—not a scientific assessment of what America has the capacity to produce—that allows critics to claim repeatedly that America is running out of energy.
Hmmmm…. Sounds familiar….
Cross-posted at RedState.com.
Maley's Energy Blog 
I constantly hear energy, energy, energy, but never hear feedstock feedstock feedstock. Why is that?
During the 1990’s there was a concentration on making natural gas as the source of “clean” “energy” and the building of electric power generating plants as the only (except for a few new wind and solar plants) source of fuel. Sure, it helped exploration, development and pipeline bottom lines. What it also did is cause a massive removal of basic petrochemical manufacturing due the government forced increase demand for natural gas a fuel source for boiler and gas turbines and the resulting increase in price. We lost ALL of our methanol manufacturing by 2006 (as in dismantled and either scrapped or shipped overseas for re-erection). We lost olefins cracking units (which produce ethylene, propylene and sometime acetylene). We lost a LOT of our ammonia manufacturing, and nitric acid as well. We now import 50% of our ammonia, mostly for fertilizer, and all of our methanol (except for a subsidized pig feces to methane operation in Idaho).
What the new “energy” boom actually means, if asinine and nefarious regulations are put at bay, is NEW world scale basic petrochemical plants, many of which will be built in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania & West Virginia. BTW, NGL’s (Natural Gas Liquids) are great as feedstock for olefins units and inexpensive natural gas for the huge furnaces required in the cracking process. Ammonia and Methanol use methane both as the raw material feedstock and as fuel, since they also require very large furnaces for steam methane reforming.
We already have a lower cost than China for production of basic and downstream petrochemicals, and lowering it knocks them out in any competition.
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