US to be energy self-sufficient by 2030 -China hosed

[Imperial]

According to this British Petroleum report, China will have to deal with Middle East oil problems in the near future.

BP Boosts 2030 Energy-Use Estimate, Cuts 2015 Renewable Forecast


By Mathew Carr and Lananh Nguyen - Jan 18, 2012 8:03 AM PT


..........World energy demand will jump 39 percent in the next 20 years, with the expansion coming almost entirely from developing nations, to 16.63 billion metric tons of oil equivalent, the London-based company said in its Energy Outlook 2030 report. That’s 1.2 percent higher than last year’s estimate of 16.43 billion tons............

...............The growth of so-called unconventional energy supply, including U.S. shale fuel, Canadian oil sands and Brazilian deep-water fields, will help rich nations become almost totally energy self-sufficient by 2030, BP said. The rest of the world, particularly Asia, will depend increasingly on the Middle East for its growing oil requirements, it said..............

.............By 2030, nations buying energy from other countries will need to import 40 percent more than they do today, the oil producer said. “In North America, efforts to reduce dependence on foreign supplies should show impressive results in the next couple of decades,” it said.

Supply growth from biofuels as well as unconventional oil and gas will reverse North America’s energy deficit and turn it into a “small surplus” by 2030, it said.

In contrast, Europe’s energy deficit will remain at current levels for oil and coal, but will increase by some two thirds for natural gas, supplied by liquefied natural gas and pipelines from the former Soviet Union, BP said.

China’s energy deficit across all fuels will widen by more than a factor of five and India’s, mainly of oil and coal, will more than double in the period to 2030, it said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...-forecast.html

Do you believe the report is accurate?

[mrmouth]

It is a perfectly reputable site, but also nothing new. Ive been saying this since early last year when I began reading it. We are largely energy independent right now. For as much as our govt talks, they actually did this. They pledged energy independence, and they delivered.

Aside from that, the US is in a phenomenal situation going forward with massive reserves of just about everything related to energy. The issue is getting to them. 100 years from now they could be tapping the trillion barrels of oil under the rocky mountains alone, in order to sell to people who are still driving anything with an internal combustion engine.

[Stívarðr Reynitré]

It smacks a little of BP placating the US after the Louisiana debacle.

It might be based in reality, but you get the feeling that they might be "enhancing" a truth to win friends.

[Imperial]

It smacks a little of BP placating the US after the Louisiana debacle.

Meh... you're grasping at straws.

You could at least try and disprove it rather than label everything as a conspiracy.

[Stívarðr Reynitré]

Meh... you're grasping at straws.

You could at least try and disprove it rather than label everything as a conspiracy.

I never said it didn't exist, nor am I one for conspiracy theories in the main. I simply see an opportunity for BP to repair some ties between the two and it seems they have exploited an opportunity. It's truth, but it's favourable truth.

[Imperial]

I never said it didn't exist, nor am I one for conspiracy theories in the main.

That's my bad then, I misread your post.

[Mr. Scott]

Its not placating. The US is sitting on a massive pool of shale oil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_shale_reserves

Puts Saudi Arabia to shame.

And now with fracking becoming more cost-efficient, shale oil is booming.

Its like 1890 all over again

[Dr. Oza]

Wait I knew about the Dakota shale reserves, but do we also have oil under the rockies?

[Mr. Scott]

Wait I knew about the Dakota shale reserves, but do we also have oil under the rockies?

Dakota's the most active one in usage, but in now way is it the largest (as massive as it is).

The Green River formation is a whopping 1.466 trillion barrels!
Dakota's was the most active cause it was easier to extract. But now with advances in shale oil extraction, the US is starting to see production in the Green River ocean of oil too.

They also found one underneath Ohio recently
http://oilindependents.org/utica-the...oming-to-ohio/

[s.rwitt]

Hope you all enjoy a world where China is your "world policeman"...

But we wouldn't do that to you....would we?

[Heinz Guderian]

Hope you all enjoy a world where China is your "world policeman"...

But we wouldn't do that to you....would we?

China with its abductions, secret prisons, torture, capital punishment and indefinate imprisonment without trial? We will resist their hegemony.

[Rolling Thunder]

China with its abductions, secret prisons, torture, capital punishment and indefinate imprisonment without trial? We will resist their hegemony.

Time to join the T.A, looks like my country may well be needing my special branch of sociopathic intellect.

[Nevins]

China with its abductions, secret prisons, torture, capital punishment and indefinate imprisonment without trial? We will resist their hegemony.

And you think that the Chinese will not be even worse about all of this?

This is why China has been scrambling to invest in so called "green" technologies over the last decade or so. If they do not figure out how to power their economy outside of traditional fossil fuels they will have to curtail growth because of the physical limitations of certain hydrocarbons (supply, but the climbing prices far more so) all the while they are destroying their environment due to their primitive tech. Without being able to meet their mammoth energy needs they will never be able to keep up this growth, and without this growth the people are going to start getting frustrated with the ChiCom regime. This is why I laugh whenever people project this doom and gloom about the "Chinese Century" as absolute certainty.

[mrmouth]

China with its abductions, secret prisons, torture, capital punishment and indefinate imprisonment without trial? We will resist their hegemony.

Pack a lunch. The idea that Europe isn't going to reach back to its thoroughly colonial ways when it hits home as to just how bad the energy outlook is for the continent, is wishful thinking.

Cracking first go, with Libya 'n all. You guys do own that, and the small battlefields cropping up. It wont be US guns do all the killing for a change. But I'm sure the soapbox wont be too far...

[Kitsunegari]

Pack a lunch. The idea that Europe isn't going to reach back to its thoroughly colonial ways when it hits home as to just how bad the energy outlook is for the continent, is wishful thinking.

They have neither the will or the means to do that.

[Jaketh]

They have neither the will or the means to do that.

You underestimate Germany

[Roboute Guilliman]

Pack a lunch. The idea that Europe isn't going to reach back to its thoroughly colonial ways when it hits home as to just how bad the energy outlook is for the continent, is wishful thinking.

Cracking first go, with Libya 'n all. You guys do own that, and the small battlefields cropping up. It wont be US guns do all the killing for a change. But I'm sure the soapbox wont be too far...

Dont worry dude, we europeans will invade Iran to get the ressources we need.

[motiv-8]

Sorry to say but the US will never be energy independent until it divests itself from fossil fuels. The new exploration is only buying time, and very little of it at that.

[Mr. Scott]

Sorry to say but the US will never be energy independent until it divests itself from fossil fuels. The new exploration is only buying time, and very little of it at that.

Yes, because 2 trillion barrels of oil (8 times the amount of Saudi Arabia's total reserves and 2/3 of global shale oil) will just disappear right?

Oh and the same for those massive, largely untapped coal reserves across West Virginia and Ohio (28% of global total)

Green tech is great and all, but there's so many more cost-efficient alternatives available to the US whose supply will last for centuries.

[motiv-8]

Yes, because 2 trillion barrels of oil (8 times the amount of Saudi Arabia's total reserves and 2/3 of global shale oil) will just disappear right?

This does not address the issue at large. In your haste to be bedazzled by the numbers you haven't even stopped to think about the economics of extracting, refining, and using that amount. And that's without even verifying the number you put out. And also assuming energy consumption not just in the United States, but the world as a whole, stays static, which is absurd to even think about. Our consumption and needs will increase whether we like it or not simply because of population growth, to say nothing of the obsessive need to constantly grow the economy and by extension consume more energy. Every fossil fuel discovery is merely buying a fraction of time in the grand scheme of things, delaying the inevitable. Eventually you will realize the law of diminishing returns here.

Oh and the same for those massive, largely untapped coal reserves across West Virginia and Ohio (28% of global total)

Relative to energy consumption all those reserves totaled together is not that much. Maybe a few decades worth of very dirty burning. This is also not getting into the ecological, logistical, and labor ramifications of what would be necessary to extract those reserves.

Green tech is great and all, but there's so many more cost-efficient alternatives available to the US whose supply will last for centuries.

To get that supply is neither cost-effective nor a long-term solution. Renewable resources are literally the only way to guarantee long-term, near permanent energy efficiency and independence. Are they expensive, yes. The technology still in its infancy, yes. But that's why you have to make tough decisions in the short-term to secure yourself in the long-term. America unfortunately is not prepared to do that either socially or politically, unable to see past a decade or two at most.

Just watch this: It's not a hippy pushing green technology by any means, just a demonstration of the problems facing our current energy scheme and why the notion espoused by your post is both misguided (not stupid, mind, only misguided) and yet all too common:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY