I remember back in the 2008 presidential circus…one of the big deals was what we shall call the ‘drill baby drill’ movement…..and all the accusations that a Dem would make it impossible for the country to reach any self-sufficiency in oil……first, the country has nothing to do with it….oil companies control that…….I heard all sorts of condemnation for programs offered up by the Dems…….and after the election these condemnations did not cease…Palin, McCain, do-dah and strataflop still hung in there with the ‘drill baby drill’ slogan and dog whistle for the uninformed.
We were bombarded by all the resistance to any regulations coming out of the Obama admin…..these programs would kill any chance for America to become self-sufficient. There is still a whisper of all this crap still in the right wing media…..not as pronounced as it once was….but there nonetheless…..
Yesterday there was an announcement by an oil company that got very little coverage….everyone was way too busy following Christie around waiting for a sound bite……but I will pass on what I read……this was disclosed on The Hill…….
Exxon Mobil’s CEO Rex Tillerson says the U.S. will be energy self-sufficient by 2020, CNBC reports.
“I think it is realistic that the U.S. could be energy self-sufficient by the end of this decade,” Tillerson told CNBC on Thursday.
“We’re already the world’s largest natural gas producer [and] last year, crude oil production surpassed levels not seen since the 1980s,” he added.
In November, the International Energy Agency predicted that the U.S. would surpass Saudi Arabia as the world’s top oil producer by 2016.
And in October, U.S. crude oil production exceeded imports for the first time in nearly 20 years, the Energy Information Administration reported.
Of course this does not mean that gas prices will go down…no matter what the dillweeds tell you……
Okay sports fans….may we put all the drill baby drill bullshit to sleep now?
I wouldn’t put any stock in Tillerson’s words. Part of his job is to create a false optimistic climate that allows them to deplete what reserves are there before they go dry and the reality of anthropogenic global warming from fossil fuels becomes so self-evident that even James Inhofe will begin promoting green energy sources.
It is possible that we can become energy self-sufficient within a decade or two without larger amounts of oil and coal if we will simply invest heavily now in the renewables, much like Germany and several other developed countries have.
We already get most our oil domestically….it will depend on the next prez if renewables will stay on the drawing board…..we know how much the right hates anything ‘hippie dippie’……