Letters

Letters to the editor, Dec. 28

TBO.com
Published: December 28, 2011

Conspiracy theory?

Regarding Joseph Tomaselli's letter about American oil reserves, here are a couple of points to focus on.

First, since 2008, American proven oil reserves have grown by 1.5 billion barrels. That means that there has been considerable exploration for oil in the United States. Proven oil reserves in the U.S. total 20.68 billion barrels. Saudi Arabia's proven reserves are 262 billion barrels, almost 10 times as much.

The U.S. produces 5.8 million barrels of crude oil per day, and with condensates and natural gas liquids included, U.S. production rises to 9.6 million barrels per day.

The U.S. consumes a little over 19million barrels per day, according to the CIA World Factbook.

In terms of oil production, the U.S. is third in the world, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia.

Nobody is stopping oil companies from exploring and producing oil in the United States. But, our proven reserves equal about three years worth of American consumption. And, except for occasional spurts of discovery, new finds have not kept pace with the decline of old fields.

The information in this letter comes from the Energy Information Agency and the CIA World Factbook. It is easy to find this stuff out.

There is no conspiracy to keep the U.S. from producing oil. And there isn't any gigantic stash of oil wealth hidden away by environmentalists. As long as our economy runs on fossil fuels, energy independence is a hallucination.

Dallas Dunlap

Brooksville