IT IS POSSIBLE NOT TO DEPEND ON FOREIGN OIL!

America’s dependence on foreign oil is ridiculous! Does the public realize the North American Continent has the means of producing oil that is potentially a higher quality than the oil that is drilled underground then extracted for the refinery?

One method is Oil Sands:

Oil sands are a mixture of sand/clays, bitumen and water. Each grain of oil sand has three layers: a layer of water surrounding the grain of sand, with bitumen surrounding the water to form the outer layer. The bitumen is much heavier than other crude oils. Oil sands are often referred to as tar sands or bituminous sands – all these terms are equivalent.

Oil sands exploration incorporates both mining ("conventional" methods) and in-situ (“non-conventional”) production methods. Mining of the oil sands involves excavation of the bitumen-rich sand using open pit mining methods. This is the most efficient method of extraction when there are large deposits of bitumen with little overburden. In-situ methods involve processing the oil sand deposit so that the bitumen is removed while the sand remains in place. These methods are used for oil sands that are too deep to support surface mining operations to an economical degree. (oilsands.infomine.com)

According to Janet Levy America receives 45% of its oil from Middle Eastern nations. Did you read that? That is nearly 50%!

Also According to Janet Levy America receives 21% of its imported oil from Canada. On a per-nation basis Canada is the single largest supplier of oil to the USA. Again Janet Levy claims this percentage more than doubles the second largest supplying nation in Saudi Arabia. (Levy does not write from who in the Middle East we receive oil from to make up the rest of the 45%.)

Check this out: A significant portion of that Canadian oil is developed from Oil Sands.

HELLO! America has both Oil Sands (Canada – North America) and Oil Shale (USA – North America) to effectively NOT depend on one barrel of foreign oil.

JRH 4/7/09

Take the GWOT to the Enemy’s Economy

This story is nearly a year old. I was alerted to it by the blog Report on Arrakis. Here is the story.

Robert Zubrin wrote a book in 2007 entitled “Energy Victory.” The book can be purchased at Zubrin’s promotional website EnergyVictory.net. Here is the promotional paragraph on the book:

“Introducing ‘Energy Victory’: a bold plan for breaking the economic stranglehold that the OPEC oil cartel has on our country and the world by best selling author Robert Zubrin”.

I have to be honest I have never heard of Robert Zubrin; nonetheless Kyros of Report on Arrakis got my attention with this short post:

By mandating Flex Fuel Cars, the US Congress can break the oil cartel’s vertical monopoly on the international fuel supply, protecting consumers worldwide from the threat of future unlimited OPEC prices increases, and taking our fate out of the hand’s of terrorism’s financiers.

You have to know why this grabbed my attention. Yes sirree, the price of gas at the pumps. Just imagine having an actual feasible plan to wean Americans away from the oil dependence from a group of people (even if some of the Mohammedan governments pretend to be American friendly) who hate the very air we breathe.

The book “Energy Victory” is probably more relevant now in 2008 than when it was published in 2007. Zubrin has been giving speeches promoting the plan in his book. CSPAN has been running a November 2007 speech. The most recent speech on CSPAN was in April 2008 and can be viewed online at CSPAN’s website.

On Zubrin’s website there is a link to a November 2007 review of “Energy Victory” which gives a glimpse of Zubrin’s plan to throw a monkey wrench into the domination of foreign dependence on suspect friends and obvious American enemies. The science of oil deliverance is a tad beyond my comprehension; ergo you should go to the book review and let me know what you understand taking a stab in the heart of foreign oil.

JRH