Geologists tell us crude oil is the product of prehistoric organic material subjected to compression and heating over geological time. Once produced, crude oil undergoes refining to create such widely-used products as gasoline, diesel, and heating oil.
Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech
Due to its high energy density, easy transportability, and relative abundance, oil has been the world’s leading source of energy since the mid-1950s. Much like coal’s contribution to the Industrial Revolution, oil’s transformation into useful products brought incredible advancements in personal transportation and the portable application of energy to the vastness of America first, and then the world.
Today, oil meets about 40 percent of US energy demand, with about 69 percent directed to fuels used in transportation – gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Another 23 percent is used in industry and manufacturing, and about 8 percent goes to generate electricity for commercial and residential use. Almost all of America’s transportation is dependent upon its concentrated liquid form. It moves our nation’s commerce and its use for transportation has made our world more intimate. It is the transportation fuel, as almost all of our nation’s transportation is dependent upon its concentrated liquid form.
Today, the EIA estimates U.S. proven oil reserves to be about 22 billion barrels. States leading American oil production are, in order of their volume: Texas, Alaska, California, Louisiana, and Oklahoma.
Unfortunately, the U.S. has become increasingly dependent on foreign oil to meet its growing energy needs. Major sources of imported oil include Canada, Mexico, and OPEC, with less than half, coming from OPEC, including 17 percent coming from the Persian Gulf.
Off-Limits. The United States’ dependence on foreign sources of energy is intensified by federal government restrictions on oil and natural gas production in certain energy-rich locations here at home. These policies have closed about half the waters in the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas exploration. Most of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) on the East and West coasts is off limits to energy exploration, and lack of infrastructure and opposition to Alaska’s OCS has forestalled access to the area’s enormous energy potential.
The U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) estimates that more than 16 billion barrels of oil and nearly 60 trillion cubic feet of natural gas are inaccessible as a result of the moratoria. This estimate is considered extremely conservative by most petroleum experts because, historically, oil discoveries are not made until one is allowed to look.
Similarly, an estimated 10.4 billion barrels of oil in a small portion of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) has been placed off limits to energy production until US government policy allows it.
American Energy Potential. Contrary to the notion that we are “running out” of oil, the U.S. continues to be rich in petroleum potential. Certain sources of oil have been too expensive to produce, while others have been made inaccessible by the federal government. Others still can be accessed with new technologies and remain abundant, awaiting only government approval and/or private investment to become additional sources of new domestic energy.
One massive potential American energy resources is known as oil shale. In fact, no other nation in the world is as rich in oil shale as the U.S. The largest deposits of American oil shale are located in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming. And though extraction poses some technical challenges, US oil shale reserves contain the energy equivalent of 2 trillion barrels of oil.
To put this figure in perspective, the world has used 1 trillion barrels of oil since the first oil well was successfully drilled in Pennsylvania in 1859. As such, the United States’ 2 trillion barrels of oil shale is a potentially huge new source of oil, and must be central to any discussion of our continental energy security. Shale and other new sources of oil, like oil sands currently being developed in Canada, offer important new North American energy supply options.
USDA Photo by Ken Hammond
