US oil production peaked in the '70s. We've been getting increasingly more oil from overseas since then.
The reason we import oil is basic econ. It is simply cheaper to import oil than to pump it here in the US. The easy oil has been pumped. As of right now, many of the domestic wells need tertiary methods to extract `the oil (water/solvent/surfactant methods, steam injection, carbon dioxide injection with water/surfactant wave front injection to increase well head pressures to extract the oil) When the price of oil reaches a price permissible, the old capped wells can be opened up again for production. If ANWAR plus the rest of the continental shelf can be opened up (including enviormentally sensitive areas) there remains much oil to be extracted in the US.
What I want to know is why everyone sorry not everyone but a lot of people in the US drive such big cars?! Here in Ireland most cars are 2 litre and under, which surely contributes to saving petrol. Plus fuel is much cheaper in the US than it is here or in Britain?!
you also don't have the distances to travel like we do in north america. don't know about ireland but the uk has more developed rail service then we do in canada.
First of all my daughter says to tell u canada rocks cos she's a big avril lavigne fan, we saw her here last week she was great, second, our rail service is pretty crap, they're usually on strike over something stupid or other!
at least you have a rail system. here the provincially run go train goes thru my town with out stopping. have to go to barrie north of me to get that train or go south to bradford to catch it there.
Watched a cool programme last year about the guys doing the ice runs, not sure exactly what they called it, they were driving lorries over the ice and had to drive for hours in freezing conditions, is that your neck of the woods? Actually in some ways Canada are supposed to be great for virgin forests etc and then I heard the oil companies are supposed to be ripping up some native's lands, what's the real story there?
way northwest of me in the northwest territories as i'm in south central ontario about 90km north of toronto. is called an ice highway & i think is around great slave lake. we call them tractor trailers not lorries, lorries to me are straight trucks which are smaller then tractor trailors & carry less cargo.
We wouldn't need tractor trailers here, we only have about 4 and a half million population, country is about 300 miles end to end and 150 miles across, but it's really funny, if we ever get two or three inches of snow the whole country stops!
Multitude of reasons: 1.) Our country, from economics to agriculture, is based on cheap fuel, and the auto industry was no different. Half a century ago, resources were cheap and people were starting to have bigger families. They wanted to travel, and they wanted their daily commutes to be exciting. Small engines weren't developed enough to make the power they can today, and so large engines were placed in cars. Cars were made big because it was convenient and people liked to stretch their legs on the road. 2.) Big vehicles make much more profit than efficient, safe, small cars; as the Big Three, the American Auto makers, are inefficient themselves and are often victim of union strikes and bad economic turns, they make the big cars to maximize profit. 3.) Terrain in much of, but definitely not all of, the US is rugged and fierce. Larger vehicles tend to be better in the snow and ice, and larger motors with more low end torque pull the vehicles up the inclines much better. 4.) Being quite agricultural, among other things, many US citizens work out of their vehicles, hauling loads, towing trailers, and so on; people get used to the size of their work trucks, vans, and SUVS, and they want this in their daily drivers. 5.) Being in a larger vehicle, there is an illusion of safety and separation from the hazards of the road. Even though larger vehicles are often more dangerous, you must remember that people, as a general group, are stupid. 6.) And speaking of stupid, and hence should not be on the road, you have the elderly. This is a growing population of people in the US, people with money and who grew up used to large vehicles. Their senses are dulling, their reaction times slowing...they can't even turn their heads all the way. But in a large vehicle, they think they can drive. This is the one that actually pisses me off more than any. 7.) Media influence is a major factor in modern vehicle choice. All the richies, the rappers, the people that insist on broadcasting that they have some kind of influence to fill that hollow void in their soul, all drive large, fuel-guzzling vehicles. This is the "cool," "popular" thing to do, and as such the (idiotic) masses copy them, giving us the SUV fad of several years back and the return of gas-sucking muscle cars now. You have to remember, the American public is really hurting because many of them were sucked into buying homes they couldn't afford, and lost it all when they interest rates were jacked up, leading me to my next point... 8.) America, as a general unit, has a learning disability. People repeat the mistakes of the past daily. There are still people talking about how, in a few years, gas will be $0.88 a gallon again and we can return to our 9 mpg hogs. People have lost their fear of God, they have been raised by television and lack morals, ethics, or a sense of social responsibility. Americans like to police the world, but feel the same rules don't apply here and they can do whatever they want. They completely ignore that living under a non-oppressive government means that one must be self-regulating, and they complain when they lose their rights like a child who is put in time-out for breaking their expensive toy. 9.) 50% of America is obese. Every time I go to Walmart, I see a fat f*** in his SUV, leaning down on the driver's side btw, idling his vehicle while waiting for Two Ton Tina to load her 40,000 calories of weekend food into her truck over the next half hour and leave, rather than simply parking further out in the lot and walking his tubby load on over to the diet food section. We're getting fatter, lazier, more egotistical, less educated in a manner that will give us attainable jobs, and more of a divide between the rich and poor as the middle class dissipates. 10.) I had more, but I forgot them on the way through. I hope I was able to give a bit of perspective...basically, America is screwed. We're Rome V. 2.0.
Well thank you for that Auslander, pretty interesting point of view. I won't comment on most of it because I'm not american and wouldn't like to be accused of being anti american. We've started seeing hummers over here, people have been importing them and it's just ridiculous, they barely fit some of our roads. My husband has a 3 litre double cab (he needs it for work cos he's on building sites a lot) which seems huge to me but I believe it would look small over there.
Part of it, too, is that Europe has had decades to adjust to higher fuel prices. In the past several years, fuel has gone up 50% in Germany, yet in the same time it's gone up 150% here. People, especially Americans, are slow to change, and so this is a shock to our system. We're also infamous for people that say things like, "well, I'll pay what I have to pay...I'm not changing what I drive or my driving style." The original hummers, the H1's that are based on military models, are a solid 7 feet wide, I believe. The H2's (SUVs) and H3's (truck-like hummers) are almost as big and just as bad on fuel. It's really surprising to me that people can get them licensed for the smaller roads over there, or that the people driving them (daily, I assume) aren't outcast by the local society for being so wasteful. SUV owners, especially hummer drivers, tend to be some of the most dangerous people on the road, from what I've seen. Apparently, minivans weren't big enough for soccer moms, so they had to upgrade while talking on the cell phone, eating, drinking, and yelling at their kids while behind the wheel. True, 3 liters is minuscule for construction over here. Most work trucks are 6-8 liters on petrol, and just as large as turbocharged diesel models. My base-model farm truck, a 1996 Dodge Ram 1500 that rarely ever leaves my property except for hay, is 5.2 liters and many people over here scoff at that small of an engine. They're idiots, in my opinion. I've said for years now that the average driver is just too dangerous and stupid for the larger vehicles you can buy and operate with a basic license. Since long before I was born, truckers and commercial drivers had to receive extensive training and license upgrades before they could operate their vehicles, and I feel it should be much the same way for the average citizen here. There should be a new license for every 500 pounds heavier of a vehicle you may drive non-commercially, and different licenses for larger classes of vehicles. But safety that makes sense like that, versus laws that say you have to wear shoes while driving, just don't fly in America. >.<
There are still very few hummers over here, they are being brought in as a novelty and are being used as a limo service, so they would be hired by a group of people celebrating on a night out maybe instead of a stretch limosene. I only know of one or two private ones and they belong to 'pop stars'. A lot of so called yummy mummies are driving suv's the last ten years or so, ever since we've had the celtic tiger, which basically has been the rich people getting richer, the poor people getting told they're richer cos they can borrow cheap money and sky high property prices. You see a lot of it at the schools, driving half a mile or less in a three litre suv that's never been off road and never will, to pick up one child. Anyway, it's all over now (celtic tiger), property prices are going bust and the banks won't give anyone any money unless they're 110% guaranteed to get their money back. So maybe the smaller cars might get more popular again.
Hopefully so. People are just plain stupid, and it's the people in the big cars that kill the people trying to be conservative in little cars.
They've started using wind farms here, and they're looking into harnessing wave energy to generate electricity, cos they're using a lot of fossil fuels at the moment to create electricity for heating, cooking etc. Will be interesting to see what happens. I do believe the oil companies have been supressing research into alternative methods of power for years e.g. brown's gas. It's all messed up anyway, I mean I don't know if you ever hear of the hill of Tara, it's a really ancient site (thousands of years no-one's quite sure how old) going back to the ancient celts, druids, high kings of ireland used to have their seat there, and they want to build a motorway, actually are building a motorway through the valley it's located in. It's like the irish stonehenge (not quite the same). I mean what's the point if we're going to run out of oil anyway? Could they not knock down a few modern houses instead and pay people to relocate? Weird. It's like they have a hidden agenda or something and deliberately want to destroy the place.
Just several years back, Arabs in control of Egypt flooded a valley where lots of pharaohs were buried, and Islamic extremists in power destroyed some of the oldest and largest sculptures known to have ever existed. We lose more of our history every day. We've got lots of problems that people in this world have blamed on cults and men smoking in secret, dark rooms who run the world. I don't really believe in that, but I will say it's rather obvious that wealthy people in power will really screw over the majority of the world to remain on top. It's human nature to be an bumhole, I suppose...part of being human is to supposed to be rising above that.
