Actually, Canada is the top importer of oil to the United States at 1.9 MMBD. Mexico is the third largest importer at 1.5 MMBD. Canada also has the largest oil reserves in the world in the Alberta Tar Sands.
I guess it pays to have an SUV.
Yes, I have a fairly economical vehicle, I also have a small SUV. Unless they put in rationing, I’m going to drive as I like, when I like, and how I like. I pay for my gas and I’ll use it as I see fit.
How many SUVs actually end up rolling over, in practice? Of all of the accidencts I’ve seen (and driving 600 miles / week, I see a few) I’ve seen exactly 1 rolled over SUV. I’ve seen a number of SUV-vs-passenger car accidents. Do you read? Try this apparently anti-SUV site
There are a lot of SUVs on the road, and a lot of lunatics driving them. I feel a lot better in a Jeep than I did in an Escort.
I don’t want to hijack the thread any further, so let me end with: Damn, gas is expensive!! Oh, for the good ole days of $0.97 / gallon.
You’re missing my point. The gross national product of the U.S. in 1998 was just over 8 trillion dollars; the world total was just under 29 trillion. Link. Therefore, one could make this statement: The United States produced 27.6% of the world’s production, while only using 25% of the world’s oil.
California has apparently passed a law that highly efficient hybrids (40+ mpg) can use the carpool lanes even when driving solo.
I understand they need to go to DMV for a decal and the Prius and 2 Honda’s qualify.
I’d be surprised. We actually have almost double the proven reserves now that we did back in the 80s when people were predicting the exhaustion of said reserves within a few tens of years. This is a result of both new discoveries and improvements in both exploration and recovery technology, meaning we can extract more now from a given field than we used to be able to. Those arguing the case that oil will run out imminently tend to assume that we have both found pretty much all the oil we’re going to find, and that we’re never going to get any better at extracting it. Both assumptions aren’t really borne out in practice.
I would link to a graph, but I’m worried for the effect it might have on your nipples.
I won’t argue with that, but if we mandated fuel effiecient cars, and other fuel saving measures, and cut our oil consumption by even 5% be more fair for all of humanity?
If that 25% of oil used was all for industry, and production those numbers would make sense, but since we use most of the oil in our vehicles there lies the problem.
Not to worry though, in our lifetime, we can change it, or something else will.
Certainly we can and should cut back on our usage, but to imply that we use 25% of the world’s supply because we’re just pissing it away is overly simplistic.
The only "new" discovery worth anything is the tar sands, but as is shown here, that is not a good source , its a hope, but not a reality.
That may be all well and good except the natural gas we need to do that is in decline as well. Not to mention the enviromental damage this would cause.
Well, I can only link to the subscription-only Economist article I’ve got my figures from, but here’s some fair-use snippets (mods, this is less than 5% of the article):
The chart, which I can’t link to, shows proven reserves thus:
The Guardian cites no firm figures for reserves. It is, however, impossible for us to have been consuming faster than our reserves are increasing, if the total reserves have gone up, and gone up they apparently have. I suspect that (if its basic statistic is even correct) the Guardian is making the same mistake pointed out above, i.e. ignoring improvements in recovery. The PDF cited is, well, interesting to say the least. I confess I’ve not seen research papers before that consisted of photocopied graphs with the enormous word “NO!” written across them, but it doesn’t bode awfully well for the authors’ even-handed outlook, I have to say. Pretty much everything in the paper appears geared towards reaching a specific conclusion, and the authors appear to allow for pretty much no further discoveries whatsoever, and give a highly pessimistic outlook for improved recovery effects. Another Economist article (subs only again, I’m afraid) shows a quite radically different projected graph from the IEA, an inter-governmental agency “committed to advancing security of energy supply, economic growth and environmental sustainability through energy policy co-operation”, excerpted from their annual World Energy Outlook report.
Clearly oil is a finite resource, but the prophecies of doom that have been so common since the late fifties are based on some really dubious assumptions that have repeatedly been proven wrong, yet are still lovingly adhered to in some circles.
Thats the problem everyone has a stake in this, both the USGS, the OPEC nations, the oil companies, and the Economist.
There is no even-handed outlook, some want you to believe there is more then enough oil, others want you to believe there is not enough oil.
But until OPEC and the oil companies allow independent audits of there reserves, no one can be sure.
Go read what Chevron says at WillYouJoinUs.com, they seem to be a tad worried about it.
Then there are the infamous over-stating of reserves, by companies and countries that need to be explained. As well as why economists tend to be the optimists, and the geologists tend to be the pessimists.
The best take on this I saw lately was that we are running out of cheap oil. That is an extremely important distinction. The Alberta Tar Sands have tonnes of oil in it, of course - it costs one barrel of energy to extract four barrels from it at this point, and the process is extremely dirty environmentally, producing all kinds of waste products, including greenhouse gases.
Nobody knows when the easily-accessed oil reserves are going to run out, but everyone running out and buying the largest, highest consuming vehicle they can find definitely isn’t helping. And that’s not even taking into account the lack of environmental controls on large vehicles.
hah! I’m only seeing retrenchment and resistance by the bosses on this one. From what I’ve been able to observe its mainly government workers who get to do this.
Because soon someone will realize that they can find an Indian or Chinese web guru who will do it for a pittance. The brutal, sad fact of telecommuting is that it works just as well from Bangalore and Beijing as it does from your cozy couch. Consequently one of the arguments for keeping highly paid jobs on these shores is such intangibles as the benefit of staff being onsite and available.
Whoops, didn’t see that one coming, did we??? God dammit.
Okay- so what happens to us marginal folks during that period of time between A) tax is implemented and B) alternatives are finished?
Everyone can be smug all you want regarding your brand-new top-line save-the-world hybrid car, but some of us aren’t making the kind of money necessary to buy or lease a brand new car. My car isn’t as bad as an SUV, but at 23 MPG, it’s not much better. But gas prices would have to double before it became worthwhile to buy a new hybrid car for the increased efficiency.
Once this tax gets implemented, what alternatives do I have? I can’t commute any more than I already do- no one else at my workplace lives near me and no one who lives near me works near where I do. I can’t move closer to where I work, because that would double or triple my rent, which kind of undoes any benefit of lower gas use. And public transportation is so expensive around here that gas prices would have to hit $4 a gallon (and public transportation not have any increase in price) for it to equal my current commute costs.
So, really, all a gas tax does is fuck me hard for the three to four years before this hypothetical solution I’m paying for materializes. Or possibly for longer; the Wilson Bridge project is almost done after nearly a decade of work on it.
