How The Current System Has Put Society Over A Barrel

Mankind has experienced an unprecedented expansion of industrialization over the past century. Here is something to consider: It's only been a hundred years since the creation of the automobile, and electricity wasn't around for the majority of the country until about fifty years ago.

Now think about this:

- Industrialization is not just a problem in the U.S., it's a global phenomenon, so energy resources are being depleted at an unprecedented level around the world.
- Japan has the world's second largest economy, and China is becoming a tremendous world power. China consumes resources faster that any country the world has ever seen.
- U.S. depletion of petroleum has steadily risen since 1950, and continues to grow.
- In 2000, the U.S. used more than twenty million barrels of crude oil per day. That's a tremendous amount of crude oil.
- U.S. total fuel imports fell during the 1970s due to the OPEC oil embargo, but have dramatically risen since the mid '80s. Over half of the crude oil consumed in the United States was imported in 2005, and it is projected that this will increase to over 65% by 2025.

Over dependence on fossil fuels

All of the expansion and growth has been mainly carried by fossil fuel energy sources, which creates all sorts of chaos. Politically it makes the U.S. indebted to foreign nations. Economically it causes uncertainty in markets, and the result of that is erratic price fluctuations. In order to thrive, economies need consistency. There is no telling what the fossil fuel fluctuations have cost the United States economy in terms of growth potential.

The declining supplies

The domestic supplies of crude oil in the United states have declined over the last fifty years, but our consumption has sky rocketed. After reviewing the following facts, you will see that the US domestic supply will eventually run dry:

- Presently, the United States production of crude is only 1.9 million barrels per day. Current estimates put US domestic reserves of crude petroleum at 21.3 billion barrels. But current production rates are around 8 percent of the reserves per year. This means the US will run completely out of domestic crude in about 12 years.
- current estimates of us natural gas reserves are 192.5 trillion cubic feet. But production from these reserves is growing at a rate four times that of new discoveries so the situation is only growing worse. At present, production represents around 4 percent of proven reserves per year, which suggests that the US will run out of domestic supplies in 25 years.

Even if offshore dilling platforms are allowed to proliferate around the coastlines; even if ANWR is opened up to drilling; even if future generations of extraction and processing equipment exceed expectations; and even if new domestic reserve discoveries exceed the wildest expectations, the United State will run completely out of domestic supplies for it's most basic forms of raw energy.

The US has two options in the face of declining reserves:

- Seize foreign reserves, by war if necessary. Although this may sound outlandish, when the US economy starts to grind to a halt, things will get truly serious.
- Develop alternative energy sources.