How much imported oil is "safe"?

How much imported oil is too much?

In 1973, following the economic disruption of the Arab Oil Embargo, President Nixon declared Project Independence to make us entirely free of imported oil in seven years; by 1980. In 2006 (33 years later), President George W. Bush stated "America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world" and proposed to reduce our imports from the Middle East by 75% in 19 years; by the year 2025.

Since we get about 20% of our total petroleum from the Middle East, a 75% reduction only lowers our total U.S. oil usage by about 15 percentage points; in 19 years. Today, total imports are 60% of the oil we consume from all around the world.

As Americans, why should we care how we get our oil?

In 1973, the five month Arab Oil Embargo cut off about 1 million barrels/day and hugely devastated our economy. New York Stock Exchange shares lost 97 billion dollars of value in six weeks. Independent truckers were ruined economically, the hotel/travel industry laid off workers and the cost of all goods and services increased hugely, because energy is built into the cost of everything. A period of recession followed.

Former CIA analyst Robert Baer states in his book, Sleeping with the Devil, that Reagan Era disaster planners determined that a terror attack on a single, central Saudi pipeline transmission facility in Abqaiq (population 2,000) would knock out over 5 million barrels/day of oil production for at least 2 months and for as long as 7 months knock out 4 million barrels/day.

Clearly, our economic and perhaps our national security are vulnerable to the disruption of the flow of oil.

So… how much is too much?

If we only imported 1% of our oil, we'd likely be OK in a supply disruption. Following Hurricane Katrina, U.S. oil demand had fallen by 2.3% (about a half million barrels/day) due to higher prices. We know what that was like, it was really starting to hurt the economy. Is 5% imported oil a "safe amount" to shield us from economic disruption? What would be a "safe amount" of imported oil?

That is my question.

America should NOT have to rely on any other country for its oil.

Then we would not have concern ourselves in the politics of countries where quite frankly we are not appreciated. Our young men would not have to die in vain. And all our energies could go on re making America a better place to live.

This is too complex an issue for me to understand, but...

Isn't the first thing how much oil we use rather than where we get it from? If we used less than we produced ourselves, then we COULD free ourselves from imported oil if we CHOSE to do so which apparently isn't the case right now.

Doesn't importing oil put off the day when we will HAVE to rely on our own oil (because no more oil will be available from other countries), which in turn puts off the day when there won't BE any more oil available, period? 'Cause there's only so much (and our atmosphere can take only so many emissions from burning it all...).

I personally can't think of any way to reduce our rate of oil comsumption in a meaningful way other than to raise the cost of it, probably with taxes like Europe does. $6, $8, $10 or more per gallon of gas - with all the attendant reduction in quality of life and hits to the economy that go with it: higher food costs, higher shipping costs, smaller homes, expensive air travel again, major industrial downsizing as we all use less, the kids don't move out of the house becaquse they can't afford do, and so on.

Electric cars (which will burn oil or coal at some generating plant somewhere), solar rooftops, et al might have some slight moderating effect but basically, there's no way around the fact that reducing oil consumption will reduce our material "quality of life". I'm generally for it, but the illusion that it won't be painful undermines what limited chance we have of being successful.

Like losing weight, when we find out that the "miracle diet product" either doesn't take anything off or really makes you hungry, we might just give up and go back to old habits. We need to understand we're talking about a change of life style here where the hunger only goes away when you've lived with it long enough to stop noticing it.

Longer term, the only energy sources with the potential to maintain anything like an industrial economy are coal (lots of investment cost for scrubbers or ecological cost from the emmissions or, more likely, both) or nuclear (have to accept having them in our backyards, build better designs, e.g. pebble bed reactors, and try to avoid nuclear proliferation to more and more crazies). Again, probably all of the above, OR return to a Depression era economy (I imagine something like the first half hour of Cinderalla Man).

If someone sees a better way, I'd love to hear about it.

We wouldn't depend so much on foriegn oil if there weren't so many restrictions on domestic oil. Due to all the environmental laws, it is extremely difficult to drill for oil or create new refineries within the US. Environmental laws are good when they are well thought out, but a lot of them aren't. Like the ones that led to New Orleans being so badly flooded during the hurricane.

nerdgineer wrote:

...there's no way around the fact that reducing oil consumption will reduce our material "quality of life". I'm generally for it, but the illusion that it won't be painful undermines what limited chance we have of being successful.

..the only energy sources with the potential to maintain anything like an industrial economy are coal ... or nuclear... OR return to a Depression era economy...

If someone sees a better way, I'd love to hear about it.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Actually, I hope that is not true. Coal will run out for sure (and hugely increase CO2 along the way) and Nuclear ... will run out too. So, if those are our only solutions, then we will be retreating from where we are today.

I do see other solutions. Here are three:

1. Wind

The Department Of Energy (DOE) says there is enough wind energy resource in the Dakotas to supply all of the electrical needs of the United States.

http://www.nrel.gov/wind/images/wherewind800.jpg

If you look at the map, the pink areas are the ones with good wind energy potential. That includes Washington State, the Dakotas, Iowa, Texas and areas of New England. We'd need to add high capacity transmission facilities from these relatively unpopulated areas to the larger, more populated energy consuming centers. The wind doesn't always blow but if you have wind farms from Texas to the Dakotas from the West coast to the East coast, the dispersion of wind capacity helps to even out the flow of power nationally. Denmark already gets 20% of its electricity from wind. The U.S. is at about 1%.

2. Locally produced solar power

Solar panels are great for producing energy right where the electricity is needed. Plus, they have no moving parts and 20-30 year lives. More R&D is needed to continue to reduce the cost. In the southwest, reflective solar power to power large scale turbines is likely to be cost effective.

3. Biofuels

Today, if every acre of soybeans were made into biodiesel, we'd replace about 7.5% of our diesel fuel. If every acre of corn were turned into ethanol, we'd replace about 12% of our gasoline. So...although soy biodiesel and corn ethanol are good places to start, we clearly need more research on higher yielding biofuels. The University of New Hampshire estimates that if we cultivated algae for fuel, we'd have enough for our entire fuel needs from an area the size of a square that is 123 miles on a side. That area would be spread out all over the U.S. Another promising technology is using enzymes to convert the cellulose from switchgrass to ethanol. The yield from switch grass is expected to be over three times higher with greatly reduced "inputs" for cultivation (switchgrass is a perennial that doesn't need annual plowing or planting and very little by way of fertilizer compared to corn).


So... I think with the right R&D and support from our Government (those transmission lines very likely need to be treated like the Interstate Highway system), we could indeed get to very low levels of imported oil. In fact, I think with real focus, we could be off of imported oil in 10 years once we really decided to try.

My question is... what % of imported oil can we tolerate given the risk it represents to our economy?

You got me. I do know that we buy oil from the middle east, while we sell oil from the Alaska pipe line to China. Go figure! Lets keep our own, and let everyone else go to the middle east.

Oh stupid me, that would require common sense on the part of government!

Bravo25 said:

You got me. I do know that we buy oil from the middle east, while we sell oil from the Alaska pipe line to China. Go figure! Lets keep our own, and let everyone else go to the middle east.

Oh stupid me, that would require common sense on the part of government!

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I didn't realise that our government was buying or selling oil, other then for the military anyway.

I didn't realise that our government was buying or selling oil, other then for the military anyway.

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Thats ok. A lot of people thought we invaded Iraq for WMD's also.
Nothing gets imported, or exported without government approval.

nerdgineer said:

Doesn't importing oil put off the day when we will HAVE to rely on our own oil (because no more oil will be available from other countries), which in turn puts off the day when there won't BE any more oil available, period? 'Cause there's only so much (and our atmosphere can take only so many emissions from burning it all...).

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Exactly. We have to get off oil completely eventually. Even before it runs out, the rising cost will play havoc with the economy if we continue using it. That's why we must get off oil not before it starts to run out, but even before the price starts to rise precipitously. In the end those countries which still rely on oil as it gets costly will be at a huge economic disadvantage. We probably have 5 to 10 years left before oil gets really costly so we need to start getting off it right now.

I personally can't think of any way to reduce our rate of oil comsumption in a meaningful way other than to raise the cost of it, probably with taxes like Europe does. $6, $8, $10 or more per gallon of gas - with all the attendant reduction in quality of life and hits to the economy that go with it: higher food costs, higher shipping costs, smaller homes, expensive air travel again, major industrial downsizing as we all use less, the kids don't move out of the house becaquse they can't afford do, and so on.

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You can make it a lot less painful by phasing in the tax. If you increase the tax $0.50 per year ad infinitum people will have a rough idea what fuel will cost in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, etc., and plan according. They might well put off getting that new SUV and get an economy car instead. They will certainly start demanding cars not using fuel at all to get around the tax completely. Businesses which use fuel will be forced to do similar planning. All the class 1 freight railways would probably electrify within a year or two after the taxes kicked in since diesel oil is a large part of their operating expenses. Airlines would be forced to raise fares and undoubtably lose lots of passengers in the process but the taxes raised from the fuel tax could be used to build high-speed railways to replace much of the air and long-distance auto travel at a far lower cost per mile.

The revenue stream from the gas tax would follow a bell-curve shape. In the beginning you'll have a low tax but lots of fuel usage so you won't have much revenue. As the tax gets higher, fuel usage will drop but the higher tax will mean revenue will continue to go up, eventually reaching a peak. As the tax gets still higher, fuel use will drop enough so that tax revenue will finally start to drop. Eventually you'll have very little fuel usage, and very little tax revenue. At that point you can just prohibit use and sale of fossil fuels completely. Since the tax revenue will essentially be a one-shot deal, it can be used to construct the infrastructure needed to replace our current fossil-fuel based infrastructure. This would include the aforementioned high-speed railways, nuclear power plants to power them and the ever more common BEVs, solar and wind farms, more public transportation everywhere, etc. You can temporarily exempt certain industries from the fuel tax if they are essential and there is no immediate replacement for fossil fuels. Cargo ships come to mind here. Sure, they can all eventually be converted to nuclear power plants, but not all at once. We should also spend whatever it take to make fusion viable since that is ultimately a better power source than fission. You can also exempt non-fuel uses of crude oil such as plastics and pharmaceuticals.

Longer term, the only energy sources with the potential to maintain anything like an industrial economy are coal (lots of investment cost for scrubbers or ecological cost from the emmissions or, more likely, both) or nuclear (have to accept having them in our backyards, build better designs, e.g. pebble bed reactors, and try to avoid nuclear proliferation to more and more crazies). Again, probably all of the above, OR return to a Depression era economy (I imagine something like the first half hour of Cinderalla Man).

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Nuclear is a good short and mid-term solution but eventually I think if we are to survive as a species we'll need fusion. I'm not thrilled about coal burning plants. Yes, you can scrub most of the emissions but we have yet to implement carbon sequestration on that scale. Global warming may or may not be real but I see no sense tempting fate by pouring trillions of tons of CO2 into the air from new coal plants. Another part of nuclear power's allure is that you're not transporting billions of tons of fuel as you would be with coal or oil. A few tons of uranium will run a power plant for literally years. Additionally, from a purely academic viewpoint it strikes me as rather primitive to still be burning stuff for power in the 21st century. I really don't think that's something any futurists ever envisioned.

The problem with alternative sources of energy is that they are still much more expensive than oil. Until they are more economical, we won't switch.

Oil is only part of our much - much - much larger balance of trade challenge. The really big challenge, IMHO, is this.

What is the definition of a 1st world county - it imports lower value materials, and exports higher value products.

What is the definition of a 3rd world county - it exports low value matrials, and imports high value materials.

What is the US largest import from the far east - high value consumer goods, electroncs, and services.

What are the most common exports from the west coast ports - scrap iron, crude oil, recycled newpaper, and raw timber logs.

That makes the US, by a very common economic standard, a 3rd world country.

HarryN said:

That makes the US, by a very common economic standard, a 3rd world country.

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And by our education system plus the 79 mph maximum running speeds of most of Amtrak we're strictly Third World as well.

HarryN said:

That makes the US, by a very common economic standard, a 3rd world country.

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That would make most of Europe 3rd world contries as well...excpet they don't export much of anything anymore last time I checked.

From a European's point of view (UK actually) and someone who is very pro- American I believe that you guys need to view things a little differently?

Whether you like it or not oil is running out. Fossil fuels are unable to sustain our western way of life and we are heading for catastrophe if we don't do something urgently to redress the situation. I won't dwell on the environmental issues as quite frankly unless there is a world consenses on how to reduce greenhouse gasses it won't matter a damn to our decendents as there probably wont be too many of them to worry about it?

Rather I see the economic consequences of failing to redress the energy needs facing us as the one which is most likely to affect our economies possibly with dire consequences in the very near future. In Europe natural gas and oil prices particularly for domestic heating are begining to see ever larger rises. This year saw the very real fears of a natural gas shortage to the UK with the possible rationing of supplies to industry having been considered.

As some of you have already noted gasolene prices in Europe are already very high due primarliy due to the various government taxes which are added.
However, the fact that Opec sees increasing demand and is able to use the laws of supply and demand to push prices up continually is a trend that is not going to be reversed. The emerging Far Eastern economies of China and India will further push demand and cause even more price hikes.

What can be done? In the short term very little, we are all energy consumers and our societies require the abundant use of energy to function. Our own needs to keep consumer goods at low prices has seen us shift a considerable amount of manufacturing capability to our competitors who will now require oil to drive their own economies. A subtle but bitter twist of irony that we are actually driving the problem forward but now at an accelerated pace?

If you guys are not to face a catastrophic hike in gas prices with the attendant risks to your economy then you need to look at how you can reduce demand quickly without impinging on your existing freedoms. A good start would be to switch to more efficient use of domestic gas use. ie, downsize your vehicle engine capacities by making smaller and more efficient use of fuel. Although not an answer it will immediately assist the aims of conserving gas supplies. You must look at alternative energy sources as a national priority. Compared to Europe the States does have an advantage in what natural resources you can tap. ie, wind, solar, geothermal and biofuels etc etc.

Nuclear power does have large risks associated with it but then so does economic meltdown?

Finally The US has the scientific capacity to find alternative energy sources but perhaps,until recently,not the will? It remains to be seen how your government will finance the alternatives and provide resources for scientific research. The options to do nothing are no longer there, action must be rapid or you will all (along with the western world) suffer the economic consequences.

Doug

So... after some discussion, it looks like the only ideas advanced so far on how much is safe to import are my original idea of 5% (which was only an example) and "none".

And yet here we sit at 60% imports.

Sheesh. Looks like most people simply haven't given any thought to the issue.

This confirms something I've begun to think about. After Katrina, the fuel prices started up into the territory that would really make people think. Now that they've dropped again... it is off our radar. As a species (human beings) we don't like to think ahead too much (it hurts too much apparently).

I suppose it will go this way until we have a serious fuel disruption and then... it will be pretty late.

Ikendo

This is precisely what I was alluding to in my post. Only when the American economy starts to hurt will folks finally see the folly of putting their heads in the sand. If it is of any interest since my original post a couple of hours ago I've seen in the local papers that natural gas prices may rise as much as 25% in the UK due to higher demand forcing up wholsale prices.

There is no doubt that if the government dont intervene (and I hope they dont) that many people on pensions and benefits will suffer. Unfortunately it sometimes takes suffering to focus politicians to take these problems seriously?

I wonder if our soft western lifestyle means we as citizens don't like to hear that we will have to change our lifstyles? I mean look how many people are overweight with the ensuing risks to their health. How many of those stop overeating until they have had a brush with death? I think it's the same with oil. Only when we are hurting in our pockets will we do something about it?

Doug

Probably very little imported oil is "safe".

Well, at least the president stated the obvious: we are addicted to oil. It is, unfortunately, a necessary evil (at this time). But, I have faith that things will change.

He also is encouraging the development of new energy sources, which is definitely a step in the right direction. I am all for it, and I think that America is also ready. I think it will take time, and will have problems like any other big change. But, with new technologies, and the combination of multiple technologies, I truly believe we can greatly diminish our need for oil.
It seems there isn't ONE solution (only electric cars), but multi-part solutions (electric cars, solar, wind, hydro-electric, fuel cells, nuclear, coal, etc) which will add up quickly.
If we all do our part by decreasing energy use, it will also add up.

What is interesting is that I now hear advertisements about biodeisel on local radio stations (NPR, WJR, AM 1270--Red Wings hockey), and they state it is widely supported by our farming communities.

Pretty cool, really.

Bob

While I agree that no imported oil would be good (safe is an odd term for me). I have to point out the top three places we get oil.

Mexico, Canada and the Middle East (united Arab Emirates'?). Those three are all pretty close in gallons of imported oil, and those three make up the majority of the oil we do import.

It is funny to me that we talk about the Middle East all the time but never mention Mexico or Canada. Heck if they ramped up production we could likely at least get our oil from this hemisphere at least. Or heck if we ramped up production we could reduce our imported oil by a good number.

I wonder who is making all that money in Canada and Mexico and why it is that they don't seem to be "rich" nations to me at least, I mean Canada has seemed on par with the US, but Mexico seems to be a mess financially.

In any case I think something needs to or will change big time. I am doing my part and running as much bio-D as I can and 10% ethanol in the van, and most importantly driving wisely and reducing unnecessary fuel usage. Although I admit when I am running 100% soy I floor it once in a while and I am not afraid to use it

I'm a little frustrated that we don't use Brazil as a model.

Brazil's population is similar to the US, (actually a little higher if I remember correctly).

They started the switch to Ethanol more than 20 years ago, and now, as I understand it, ALL private vehicles must run on Ethanol or be dual fuel compatible.

But it took the government mandating it. The technology is available, it should be used.

Bill

But it took the government mandating it. The technology is available, it should be used

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The politicians have to have stock options first!