A little reality for a change

A little reality for a change...now all we have to do is go get it.We Can't Drill Our Way Out of This Problem [Edward John Craig]But if we just hear it repeated often enough, maybe the peak-oil factoidwill sink in. IBD yesterday remarked on Obama's repeated use of the "we have 3 percent ofthe world's oil reserves and we use 25 percent of the world's oil" meme ‹one of T. Boone Picken's favorites, it should be noted. (Deroy Murdock hadsomething to say about how you come up with that 3 percent here.)It's disappointing that McCain failed to call out Obama on his figures,because he had an opening big enough to drive an Exxon Mobil tanker truckthrough.The problem isn't Obama's claim about consumption. The U.S. does go throughabout a quarter of the oil used across the globe (it also, by the way,produces 28% of the world's goods and services, but that's another story).No, the real problem is that the oft-repeated claim of the U.S. having 3% orless of world reserves doesn't stand up.Obsolete figures show that the U.S. holds just 20 billion of the 1.3trillion barrels of the world's crude reserves.But that doesn't include the estimated 200 billion barrels of oil trappedbelow two miles of shale in the Bakken Formation, a wildly rich reserve thatstretches through Montana and North Dakota.Neither do Obama's shock data include the more than 130 billion barrels offour coasts that Congress had placed off limits, nor the 1.2 trillion to 1.8trillion barrels of shale oil in the Green River Formation in Colorado, Utahand Wyoming.And we haven't even mentioned Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,where 10 billion to 20 billion barrels of easily tapped oil have beensitting idle for decades because a majority of policymakers are cowed bypressure from environmental groups and won't allow drilling in this remoteand desolate area.At one time, Canada was ranked 21st in global oil reserves. It is nowsecond, behind only Saudi Arabia. Its ranking jumped when the U.S. EnergyDepartment formally recognized that the Canadian tar sands hold about 175billion barrels of oil that is recoverable with current technology underrecent economic conditions.Where will the U.S., currently 11th in the world, land in the rankings whenpoliticians and radical special interests can no longer deny geological andtechnological realities?Given that other countries are also likely to find or recognize newreserves, it's possible America could be perpetually stuck in the 3% rangeas a portion of world reserves. But the percentage would be irrelevant, astotal U.S. reserves will have grown exponentially.Yes, we can drill our way out of the problem. Even at 3%.10/09 08:15 AM