Whoa...hold on...wait a minute, you say...environmentalists here in the States are mostly peace loving tree huggers who would no sooner swat a fly than start a war. How is it they could possibly be responsible for starting a conflict anywhere? Unintended consequences, that's how. You see, environmentalists here in the States, while sipping lattes, texting on their iPhones, and driving their hybrid cars with their knees don't want nary a drop of oil spilled anywhere near their backyard. Or their neighbors backyard. Or anywhere on US soil that isn't already being drilled. They obviously haven't seen the mines the heavy metals for the batteries in their hybrid cars come from, or considered the acid rain caused by sulphur dioxide emissions generated in the production of said hybrid vehicles. They also fail to take into account that the batteries in their hybrids will most likely need replacement at some point during the life of the vehicle, doubling the environmental impact of production of the batteries for that vehicle. Anyhow, I've gone a little off course.
How is it, you wonder, that environmentalists start wars? The fact of the matter is, no matter how many hybrids there are on the street, the US still needs oil. A LOT of it. The United States, in 2012, consumed somewhere on the order of 6.7 BILLION barrels of oil. Of that total, approximately 3.9 billion barrels were imported, with 1.6 billion barrels coming from OPEC countries. And that's just what the United States imports. Worldwide, OPEC member countries export approximately 12.2 billion barrels of oil annually.
Of the twelve current OPEC members, six are Middle Eastern countries....and Libya, which is actually in North Africa but whose politics and culture are intertwined with Israel, Egypt, and the rest of the Mid East. Iran is one of the six Mid East OPEC members, but since we don't import oil from them, their figures are not included in US imports, just in worldwide exports. Their politics, however, figure heavily in the region, and they rank fourth in OPEC exports.
And this has exactly what to do with the price of tea in China? Well, for starters, that means political stability in the region is of paramount importance to the global oil supply. Anything that threatens stability in the region, internal or external, threatens not only our oil supplies but supplies for the rest of the world. That means that any action the US takes in the region is not only in the interest of the United States but in the world's interest. It behooves everyone to ensure tranquility in the region because like it or not, until an alternative is found, the Spice must flow (that's a "Dune" reference, in case you don't know). Unfortunately, the United States seems to be the only country with the balls to stand up and do anything about it, since folks over there have a tendency to behead anyone who disagrees with them.
For those protesters out there, the Iraq war was, in part, a war for oil....just not really for the US. Of the approximately 3.2 million barrels per day produced there, a mere 321,000 per day come our way. So the end result of the war over there, for all the hooting and hollering, helped to secure the rest of the world about 2.9 million barrels of oil a day, removed a crackpot dictator who gassed his own people, and secured the US basically squat in the way of oil.
In understanding why it is so important at this time for the US to help maintain stability in the Mideast region and the role of the environmental movement in keeping the United States involved, it is important to first understand the process by which crude oil is produced and refined, and the various definitions of reserves. According to the United States Energy Information Administration, US proved crude oil reserves stood at 29 billion barrels as of December 31, 2011, not counting the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. There is a difference, though, between proved reserves and technically recoverable resources. Oilindependents.org has more information on these differences, but in a nutshell, proved reserves count only those reserves with a 90% probability of economically viable recovery or existing extraction operations, while technically recoverable covers all the rest to varying degrees. Depending on the source, technically recoverable oil reserves in the United States stands somewhere between 218 billion to 1.4 trillion barrels. Even at the low end of the spectrum, at a 50% recovery rate, that's enough of the gooey black crap to supply our crude oil needs for 12-15 years at the current rate of consumption...plenty of time to supply our fuel needs until moving to a transition fuel like natural gas, then perhaps to an altogether different alternative such as hydrogen fuel cells. Natural gas conversions for automobiles are relatively inexpensive at about $800-$1200 for parts, it burns about 80% cleaner than gas or diesel and much of the infrastructure is already in place...there are propane cylinder exchanges set up at nearly every gas station in this area...a natural gas cylinder exchange would be just as simple, and much of the natural gas produced in the United States is burned off as a waste byproduct of existing drilling operations.
Thing is though, to get at those reserves, we gotta drill. Or frack. Or horizontal bore. Or whatfrackingever. We have to get to it. I'm not exactly sure what logic in environmentalists' minds makes it perfectly ok to drill in the sands of the Saudi Arabian desert but not Utah. These same people claim to be motivated by global climate concerns, yet appear to be under the mistaken impression that Utah or ANWAR does not exist on the same globe as Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. That the Gulf of Mexico is somehow in a dimension separate from the Persian Gulf. Oil extraction technology has grown by leaps and bounds in the last 20 years or so, and has become much safer and environmentally responsible despite the couple of recently sensationalized accidents. And the fact of the matter is...alternative energy sources are closer than most people realize. Development of these sources, given historical advances, should be seen in the next 20-30 years, and the use of cleaner transition fuels such as natural gas and biodiesel combinations(cooking oil) would contribute to reducing our need to drill even further. These conversions are something that can be done with relative ease right now...not in 10 or 15 years.
Yet we still need additional crude oil to meet demand in the meantime. The United States imports approximately 60% of the crude oil it consumes, with over 1/3 of that from the Mideast. More than that, much of the world is dependent on Mideast oil and therefore dependent on their regional stability. As I mentioned before, the United States seems to be, for all the accusations of American imperialism, the only country with the testicular fortitude to go in and bash heads so the rest of the world can drive their Fiats and Saabs. The environmental movement in the States, well intentioned on its face, is the main factor of resistance to US oil independence, necessitating our interference in Mideast politics. I'm fairly certain they don't see it that way; I can well understand their concerns as well. Everyone has been struck by images of oil covered pelicans and sea otters and I want to see this no more than anyone. Yet something must be done. All that remains is to do it.
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