Could the drying up of Cantarell be the real reason that US politicians are all talking about ‘reliance on foreign oil’?
Shane April 6th, 2008
Image from WikipediaCantarell is Mexico’s largest oil field, and Mexico is the third largest exporter of oil to the US.
Mexico’s oil production will soon drop to where they not only cannot export oil, they have to import it. World oil production cannot cover this, so the US cannot just import oil from somewhere else.
US oil production peaked in the 1970s - we now produce about as much oil as we did in the 1950s. Alaska’s production alone has been cut in half in the last decade.Why haven’t the politicians been talking about reducing our dependence on foreign oil for the past 20 years? Doesn’t it seem odd that the US has been producing less and less of its own oil for the last 30+ years and no one has ever cared, and now suddenly every politician from both sides talks about reducing our dependence on foreign oil.
It don’t think it has nothing to do with foreign oil, it has to do with reducing our dependence on oil altogether. It has nothing to do with Global Warming, because even Bush talks about reducing our oil dependency. Almost every presidential candidate has pushed ethanol, including Gore and Obama. They don’t talk about it now, but they also do not denounce its use either. Why? It seems every week a new article comes out warning that ethanol use is causing food prices to rise all over the world, and will cause more environmental problems than even gasoline does. Shouldn’t the ‘environmental’ candidates be talking about alternatives to ethanol?
Why is every politician lying to us? They talk about China’s increased oil use, but no one talks about the decreased oil supply, Cantarell being one good example. I can accept that some of them might not even know, but any time I see a politician speak of reducing our foreign oil dependency, I wonder why he or she is lying to us. Are we not capable of knowing the truth?
What other answers could there be? Since we have had our own oil production fall for so long, it cannot be that we have to import more oil - we have been importing more and more oil every year for over thirty years. People assume it is the price of oil, but why do they say ‘foreign oil’?
The problem is that many of the countries that we import oil from are producing less oil. Oil is finite, we would be smart to start seriously conserving it.
It bothers me that the politicians are not telling us the truth. Average citizens are not being given information that could let them make good choices for their family.
It appears oil prices can only go up, while wishful, patriotic morons assume technology will always save us. Someone will think up something new, someone will invent some device that will keep us progressing ever upward. Unfortunately it might not work that way. Oil could decline faster than we are able to cope, causing job losses that could spiral into an unthinkable economic crash. How many cash strapped Americans will be going to Applebees when gas not only is $10 a gallon, but there are people being turned away from gas stations because there just isn’t enough to go around? Think of everything that has been replaced with plastic over the last couple of decades because plastic was a cheaper alternative… will we just go back to glass soda and milk bottles, knowing that the heavier glass takes even *more* energy to transport around?
If people were told the truth - wait, I would bet you doubt what I am saying. If so, here is a Department of Energy report warning us of future energy shortages. Don’t trust wikipedia? You can follow the links to the actual report on the doe.gov website. Think it is all a ruse by oil companies to raise oil prices? If so, why have so few people heard of it? You can’t spread propaganda if you don’t spread it.
If people were told the truth, we could all start working together. We could start educating people and make real changes. As long as we are only worried about CO2 in the atmosphere, we have, I fear, little hope.
- Politics , Uncategorized
- Comments(9)
with the world prices per barrel shooting thru the $100 mark, i htink its really a very desperate time for everyone on this planet to think about the energy alternatives. the solar and the wind energy have proven to be the best alternatives so far. but they need a lot of investments and a lot of patience to reap its rewards. coz its high time we all did something for our planet.
agreed. I think we have to face the idea that we will need to conserve energy for awhile, and invest time and resources into solar, wind, and wave/water power.
but a much more important issue right now is that time is running out fast. there will come a time when every damage caused to the environment will be irreversible.
I think people are starting to wake up to it. At least I hope they are. We need to make more noise so the politicians can’t ignore it any longer.
I believe most of the people are aware of this but they are just to laisy to do something.
Well, if nothing else, the high gas prices may spur our government to do something about our reliance on other countries for fuel.
so where is the evidence that gas prices are goin down????
what evidence? I don’t understand what you are asking.
Recent discoveries in the Artic, North Dakota, the shale in the Rockies, etc., illustrates that there is plenty of supply for oil. The problem is that no one is allowed to drill for it. (Well, in the Artic, we can; it’s just a question of getting up there and doing it in those frigid temperatures and icy conditions.)