News That Doesn't Depress You: The U.S.A. Leads World In Undeveloped Fossil Fuel Resources

I bet you didn't know the United States leads the world in undeveloped fossil fuel resources. I didn't. I knew we had a lot of coal. I knew we had new oil and gas finds. I knew our shale oil reserves were huge. I didn't know we lead the world, but that's what a report by the Congressional Research Service stated.

Check out these charts from Human Events...







So how come we import 60% of our energy, with much of it from unfriendly and/or unstable regimes? Part of the answer is economics. Some of our reserves, like the shale oil, is expensive to extract and the technology is not quite in place. However, the technology is rapidly advancing. A few years ago the technology didn't exist to extract a lot of the current natural gas fields.

Part of answer is regulations. The bulk of domestic energy reserves is untouchable due to regulations and restrictions.

While it seems foolish (even suicidal) to me to artificially restrict domestic energy production, I take some comfort from the fact that the reserves aren't evaporating. We'll wake up and utilize them some day, though we will have to endure some self-inflicted pain first. It takes years to ramp up production. It's better to start now, before we need it.