Here’s the press release. (H/T Canada Free Press)
Abstract:
Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Ranking Member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, today released an updated government report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) showing America’s combined recoverable oil, natural gas, and coal endowment is the largest on Earth. America’s recoverable resources are far larger than those of Saudi Arabia (3rd), China (4th), and Canada (6th) combined. And that’s not including America’s immense oil shale and methane hydrates deposits.
Details:
Oil
CRS offers a more accurate reflection of America’s substantial oil resources. While America is often depicted as possessing just 2 or 3 percent of the world’s oil – a figure which narrowly relies on America’s proven reserves of just 28 billion barrels – CRS has compiled US government estimates which show that America, the world’s third-largest oil producer, is endowed with 163 billion barrels of recoverable oil. That’s enough oil to maintain America’s current rates of production and replace imports from the Persian Gulf for more than 50 years.
Natural Gas
Further, CRS notes the 2009 assessment from the Potential Gas Committee, which estimates America’s future supply of natural gas is 2,047 trillion cubic feet (TCF) – an increase of more than 25 percent just since the Committee’s 2006 estimate. At today’s rate of use, this is enough natural gas to meet American demand for 90 years.
Coal
The report also shows that America is number one in coal resources, accounting for more than 28 percent of the world’s coal. Russia, China, and India are in a distant 2nd, 3rd, and 5th, respectively. In fact, CRS cites America’s recoverable coal reserves to be 262 billion short tons. For perspective, the US consumes just 1.2 billion short tons of coal per year. And though portions of this resource may not be accessible or economically recoverable today, these estimates could ultimately prove to be conservative. As CRS states: “…U.S. coal resource estimates do not include some potentially massive deposits of coal that exist in northwestern Alaska. These currently inaccessible coal deposits have been estimated to be more than 3,200 billion short tons of coal.”
Oil Shale
While several pilot projects are underway to prove oil shale’s future commercial viability, the Green River Formation located within Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah contains the equivalent of 6 trillion barrels of oil. The Department of Energy estimates that, of this 6 trillion, approximately 1.38 trillion barrels are potentially recoverable. That’s equivalent to more than five times the conventional oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.
Methane Hydrates
Although not yet commercially feasible, methane hydrates, according to the Department of Energy, possess energy content that is “immense … possibly exceeding the combined energy content of all other known fossil fuels.” While estimates vary significantly, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) recently testified that: “the mean in-place gas hydrate resource for the entire United States is estimated to be 320,000 TCF of gas.” For perspective, if just 3% of this resource can be commercialized in the years ahead, at current rates of consumption, that level of supply would be enough to provide America’s natural gas for more than 400 years.
The press release has lots of informative graphs.
The PDF of the full report is here.
Obama keeps blocking energy production at home, and sending taxpayer money (and jobs) to countries in the Middle East, some of who don’t like us very much. What would possess a president to undermine the national security and economy of his own country that way? Why does he want to raise the cost of living for his fellow citizens and send jobs overseas to the Middle East?
WINTERY KNIGHT 
This is great news! I do question though, why are you reporting this on your blog – it’s quite different from your normal topic…are you insuating that we should not consider changing anything in the areas of our energy use and consumption patterns?
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I’m saying that there is no reason why we should be buying oil from countries that fund Muslim extremism and terrorism. And we REALLY should not be shipping our jobs to other countries.
Also, there no reason to impose a moratorium on drilling, and artificially inflate gas prices – imposing a de facto tax on American families.
More:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/146615/Oil-Drilling-Gains-Favor-Americans.aspx
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I can agree with all of that
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I come away with some different conclusions to this data. I read it like this…so if we were depend on ourselves alone we only have about 100 years of fuel left. To me, that makes the case that we should be (from a protectionist point of view) 1) using up the rest of the world’s resources, 2) diminish local consumption and dependence(which higher prices help to do), and 3) invest resources in viable alternative fuels.
As far as foreign sources, especially if they have less than the US on an individual basis, the rest of the growing and developing world will compete with us heavily for those resources. We shouldn’t plan on always having easy or at least cheap access to them. Another reason to conserve our own resources while they are still realtively cheap ($4/gallon is relatively cheap).
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What you have to understand is that we almost never use the same energy sources for such long periods of time. We always move on technologically, like from horses to cars. Secondly, prices will rise as resources become scarce as a signal to entrepreneurs to create more energy or to create alternative energy. Right now, there are people working on that, but there is no need to fret about it because we have 100 years to solve the problem.
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