True. But when Exxon invests
$600M into something, there might be something true about it.
There is a different company researching things and even if 75% wrong,
100,000 gallons per acre (sounds too optimistic to me) it should be looked at compared to 30 gallons for corn ethanol and 50 gallons for soybean biodiesel. It DOES work but at what cost? You can get oil from the tar sands (Canada has more reserves by that calculation than Saudi Arabia) you can get oil from oil shale (all over the place in UT, WY, CO). The problem is can you get it extracted and processed cheap enough for mass consumption. "Peak Oil" is a kind of bad label, it really should be Peak Cheap Oil. And cheap oil is the kind you drill a hole and there's a gusher that pops up by it's own pressure. Oil will be here for a looong time, although there might be heads exploding looking at the prices.
The problem with oil's value today is that OPEC is a cartel that bases a countries output on their reserves. In 1986 all the countries started doubling their "proven reserves" even though there weren't major discoveries of oil fields or advances in extraction. Those reserves haven't been independently audited and never will be, it's about politics. The more reserves, the more that countries allocation. In 2006 a
report surfaced that Kuwait only had half the stated reserves. Which puts them back to pre-86 levels. It has been
denied. But why would a trade magazine around for decades make shit like that up? Here's a simple exercise in how to prove something is fishy. A country has X proven reserves and a country pumps X amount per year, therefore if no major discoveries, reserves should drop. Fact, look at official state estimates of reserves for the OPEC major producers. They don't drop, ever!
So if
300Billion barrels of oil are "missing", according to a World Bank consultant, then we are underpaying A LOT for oil. And everything that depends on cheap oil is over valued.
There was one study that said plug-in hybrid vehicles using overnight off-peak energy could supply 75% of all transportation needs. Wonderful! Now just need to come up with a battery capable of 30-50mile range that doesn't cost $10-15k. The US only has 30-50years of coal at current
growth rates so coal wouldn't be a good candidate for making that electricity. So that leaves solar, wind, waves, nuke, etc. And based on power
density and least amount of resources to extract it, nuclear is the way to go. Err Green nuke, LFTR, not standard nuke plants. And can burn up current waste from 10,000 yr down to 300year half life. An American's lifetime of waste would take up the space of about 1/4th of a computer mouse (or less). Acceptable tradeoff to use current junk to make treasure.
As of now though oil runs nearly all transportation, and to me drilling in the USA doesn't make a lot of sense unless you like drilling in swiss cheese.
At some pricepoint nearly
anything is possible.