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"Peak Oil" or Lots More Oil? In May 2006 I wrote, "I know about the "Peak Oil" theory that says we either have or are about the reach the point of diminishing returns regarding the world’s oil supply, but these recent discoveries suggest there is still plenty of oil to be found." In that commentary I documented nearly a dozen new fields of oil and natural gas discovered since 1995. So I wasn’t surprised when, on September 5, Chevron Corporation announced it had discovered new, huge reserves of oil some five miles below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. The initial estimates were that these reserves "could boost U.S. oil reserves by 50 percent." Good news for Americans and good news as well for other oil companies such as BP, Anadarko Petroleum, and Exxon Mobil that have their own projects in progress. Indeed, two days later, Exxon Mobil announced that its Sakhalin-1 project offshore Russia had begun to export crude oil, the eighth startup within the past year.
Recently, Abdallah Jum’ah, president and CEO of the state-owned Saudi Arabian Oil, better known as Aramco, said the world has the potential of 4.5 trillion barrels in reserves. At current levels of consumption, that’s 140 years worth of oil to power the world. Even at the lowest level of estimated reserves, there’s still enough until 2070 and does anyone believe we will not find more? While the vast Middle Eastern reserves remain an important source of oil for the world, the geopolitical game just changed for the better as far as America is concerned. The Gulf of Mexico discovery insures a new degree independence and security. Think how much more we could achieve now that the twenty-five year old federal ban on offshore exploration has been lifted? The next question is whether, for example, Florida will relent and permit more oil exploration and extraction off its shores instead of sitting around while China, in cooperation with Cuba, drills for oil? Indeed, potentially every state on the east and west coast of America could contribute to our oil independence by permitting this to occur. The Consumer Alliance for Energy Security estimates that "The Outer Continental Shelf has enough natural gas to heat 100 million homes for 60 years and enough oil to drive 85 million cars for 35 years." Meanwhile, the estimated billions of barrels of oil trapped beneath Alaska’s ANWR are still waiting to be tapped! If we can just get the tree-huggers and their politician-pals to get out of way, we can all happily drive to grandma’s house for the next generation or two. In the September 11th edition of U.S. News & World Report, reporter Bay Feng wrote that the map of central Asia is being pored over by governments and oil company executives who call it the hub and spoke. "The hub is the Caspian Sea and the spokes are the multiple pipe lines emanating from it, representing potential export routes for the vast oil and gas resources that lie beneath." Let me repeat "the vast oil and gas resources that lie beneath." So, while Chevron was announcing vast new oil and gas resources in the Gulf of Mexico, one leading news magazine was devoting its pages to yet another area that promises more of the same. In fact, it is believed "to be among the world’s largest untapped fossil fuel resources." We’re talking about resources that are not subject to the threats that exist for those in the Persian Gulf area, the members of OPEC. Even Russia, the world’s second-largest producer and exporter of oil after Saudi Arabia, and the largest producer of natural gas, will feel the competition. The new "Great Game" of central Asia is to wean the nations in the region from their dependency on Russia to export their oil and gas. For that you need pipelines. "That’s why U.S. officials," wrote Feng, "have been pushing the $4 billion Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which opened with much fanfare in July and links Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey." Places most Americans have never heard of and couldn’t find on a map hold tremendous potential to relieve worldwide dependency on Middle Eastern oil and gas. Kazakhstan, the largest nation in central Asia, "has three of the world’s richest hydrocarbon fields." Meanwhile, it’s worth remembering that predictions that the world was running out of oil date back to when it was discovered in 1874 in Pennsylvania. By 1920 geologists calculated the world had at best 60 billion barrels. By 1950, the world’s oil supplies were estimated at 2 trillion barrels. Prior to the discovery of vast new reserves in the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. known reserves were calculated to meet domestic needs for anywhere from 38 to 75 years. Peak oil? A world running out of oil in our lifetimes? I don’t think so. To learn the truth about energy issues, read Alan Caruba’s new book, "Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy." Available from Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and as an autographed copy from this website! Did you know that, from September 6th through the 10th, there was a Latino Congreso in downtown Los Angeles that included major state, national and international personalities? Did you know that you would have been hard pressed to find any coverage in the Los Angeles Times on the event? In a comparable fashion, there was no word on national television news, nor was I able to find anything anywhere except Hispanic Business, and leftist website, One World.net, and, finally, on the last day of the "Congreso", an Associated Press story found in the Sioux City Journal, Iowa! In fact, that AP story was about a failed Los Angeles rally to demand amnesty for the millions of illegal aliens in the nation. Expecting 5,000 participants, only about 200 people showed up "most of them organizers and journalists." As to the Congreso, the AP story noted that "Sessions included speeches and workshops on registering Hispanic voters, running Hispanic political candidates, wage gaps between Hispanics and whites, environmental issues, and a lack of access to health care in immigrant communities." Well, when a parade of illegal aliens show up to use medical facilities and cannot pay for their services, a lot of them end up shutting their doors. As for Hispanics registering to vote, the AP review of data in Chicago, Denver, Houston, Atlanta, Los Angeles and other major urban areas "that saw large rallies showed no sign of a historic new voter boom that could sway elections." The GOP can stop knocking itself out to get Hispanic votes. It ain’t gonna happen. They aren’t even registering to vote for Democrats. Where were the journalists during the Congreso? Among the scheduled speakers were the Venezuelan Ambassador to the United States, a Justice from the Brazilian supreme court, the State Treasurer and Lieutenant Governor of California, and Teresa Heinz, the wife of the former Democrat candidate for President, John Kerry. Antonio Villaraigosa, the Mayor of Los Angeles was there. The other speakers included members of the U.S. House of Representatives as well as a member of the Mexican House of Representatives. Yet no major news coverage was extended this remarkable gathering. Why? Consider, too, some of the conveners of the Congreso. Foremost was the William C. Velasquez Institute, described as "a nonpartisan think tank" by Hispanic Business. Its president, Antonio Gonzalez, wanted to do something about "the yawning socioeconomic gap between Hispanics and Anglos." One explanation might be the failure of many Hispanics to learn English; the language of the nation they think stole California and the Southwest from them. Other conveners included the Earth Day Network. What is an extremist environmental organization doing on the dais? They were joined by the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities, and—surprise—the National Hispanic Environmental Council. Sponsors of the Congress included The Heinz Family Foundation, General Motors Corporation, the LA Audubon Society, the Resource Legacy Fund Foundation, advocates of the environmental extremist Wildlands Protection Program, Wells Fargo, and the Turner Foundation. From September 6 through 10 I kept looking for news of the Latino Congreso. I checked Google.com. I checked Lexis-Nexis.com. I searched the website of the Los Angeles Times. As they say in Spanish, "nada." If 2,000 people showed up to attend and take part in the Congreso, held in the Los Angeles Sheraton, the only people who knew about it were the participants. It was not granted any coverage by the media that serves Anglos, i.e., white, Americans of European heritage. So why was it one of best-kept secrets in America? If you ask Pat Buchanan, author of the bestselling book, "A State of Emergency", he would tell you that, "America’s media is morally intimidated by a minority that can make out credentials as a victim of past discrimination." But who’s the real victim here? America is being invaded daily. Taxpayers must cover the costs of increased crime, pressures on our medical and educational systems. These people compete with native-born Americans for jobs. At a very minimum, an estimated eleven million people are living among us illegally and Congress is having an extraordinarily difficult time even deciding to build a fence somewhere along the two thousand miles of common border with Mexico. It is said that great nations do not so much die as they commit suicide. The failure to mind the border, the failure to report on what the Latino Congreso has in mind for the United States, the failure to realize that, while we fight a war on terror in far-off places, America is being invaded will lead inevitably to all these illegal millions becoming a nation within our nation. Don’t keep "Warning Signs" a secret! Share it with your friends. Use the remarkable "Referral Blast" feature to get the word out. To increase traffic to your website, consider using "Referral Blast
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Suffice it to say that the new Gulf of Mexico discovery rivals that of Alaska’s giant Prudhoe Bay oil field in 1968. President Bush may think we’re "addicted" to oil and, along with other politicians, call for oil "independency", but the fact is we, like every other modern nation require oil for transportation, plastics, heating homes, and the countless other uses to which we put petroleum.