The 3rd Presidential Debate

[NJ5]

halogamer1989 said:

NJ5 said:

Retrasado said:

48 ok, what does the fact that we have 3-4% of the world's oil reserves have to do with the fact we use 25% of the world's oil? obama fail

It's relevant when they're talking about energy independence. You can't be independent if you're using more than your share of the pie.

By the way, here is a fact check on energy independence:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4647

 

North America has more oil than the entire Middle East---oil sands anyone?

 

1- That's not true. The estimated recoverable amount is 173 billion barrels. That's less than Saudi Arabia, let alone the whole Middle East.

2- Those oil sands are not in USA, they're in Canada. They don't  count towards USA's energy independence.

3- Production of oil from oil sands is extremely dirty (CO2 emissions and waste water dumping), energy intensive (using a lot of natural gas to boil the sands) and water intensive (about 2-4.5 units of water per oil unit). Production is feasible, but has a lot of drawbacks which conventional oil doesn't.