All good information. The fact remains that we as consumers need to be mindful of our use. Solar power wind and oceanic energy are at our fingertips. Lets do our part and not rely on our elected officials. Remember reelect no one.

Yes there exists many alternate energy solutions but so far they are priced so high that it makes it impractical cost wise to use on an individual basis. It takes an average of ten years depending on ones location for example to break even on wind turbine installation for a home. If prices were
more reasonable more people would be able to use wind energy
I don't believe the oil companies will let this happen because they would loose thier market base. Hopefully this will change in the future but we're talking about next generation time frame. The same applies with Solar roofs which are becoming popular in Europe and also cost effective
I for one am totally in favor of alternate energy solutions.
The technology is here let's use it.

No one is talking about what petroleum actually means to our modern way of life. The 'oil shortage' and 'control of oil resources' isn't just about gasoline for cars, power plants etc. Modern civilization is based on petroleum. We use it to make everything from cosmetics to fabric to food and medicine not to mention plastics and nylons and other 'miracle fibers'. There are gallons of oil in an average tire. These are just a few examples.

I, for one, have no idea how much petroleum is left in the world. I can't find reliable data because there's no one out there I can trust...too much money tied up in the results either way...I assume someone out there does know and it looks like they are pretty worried about it. We should be too. It's not just a matter of putting bio gas in your Prius or turning down the heat or shutting off the chargers when your not using them.

There's a reason the US doesn't drill much oil in the states (including Alaska) and it has nothing to do with environmental groups or even big money oil companies. Someone said something earlier in this topic stream about 'if someone wanted our agri-products and they just came and took them' (not a direct quote...I apologize)I think this person hit a hidden nail on the head.
If the petroleum 'runs out' else where who is going to come get ours? What do you think we'll charge for the stuff?
There's the REAL greed
this is just brain vomit. you have been warned.

There now exists a trend to make many of our products many were mentioned in the previous post out of non oil based esters.Perhaps this is not so much that thier exists an oil shortage as much as it is to create new industry growth perhaps,don't really know. Like you say there exists no truth when it comes to money.The USA's biggest export is it's agriculture,excluding technology but things are changing rapidly even in the AG-sector with South America having two growing seasons to our one,that's food for thought.Back to OIL-There exists in the North Western US a huge oil reserve that is larger than what is Arabia. Some think it should be plundered for profit,the Greed people.
I think it should be saved for national security and defense in the event of a world confrontation. The old days of protecting Convoys from harms way no longer exist with the new technology,Keep it Here,don't sell out for Greed.
Climate wise- With the ice sheets of Greenland,Antartica melting and a Sea passage opening in the Northwest thier will be many oil reserves found in the near future. The problem I see is one of massive pollution of carbon based fuels if an attempt is not made to change over to alternative sources that are moe environmentaly friendly.

This is a reply to the firstpost.

The change was not occured only in the Middle East but i think it also happened else where in the world. Such change may be experience globly (eg climate) and not in one part of the circle. If your explaination was true then similar quantity of oil could be found in other parts if the world as well because it was a global change.

Thank you

There is so much oil in the Middle East because the plants that lived there, from the dinosaur age, have died and decayed. Then, the supercontinent Pangea divided into seven sub-supercontinents: Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America. Africa and Asia had what we call the Middle East, and so that's where most of our oil comes from.

I believe, in the centuries back, there were so many huge animals like dinosours and many thick forests with different spices of plants on earth, as supported by science.

Going back to the discussion, yes, when looking from the scientific perspective, oil was formed by remains of plant and animals that have lived millions of years ago.

However, my question is, why don't other countries that are found between continants have similar diposit of natural oil like the Middle East countries. If the concept is true that oil in Middle East formed as a result of the supercontinetal division (pangea) then countries like Caribean nations should have it too (North and South Ameriaca).
It remains me with the question unanswered, why Middle East countries have massive diposit of oil when other parts of the world don't have it.

Joe Wasia

I feel that your comment is quite racist. Think, if you could not afford to feed your family, and if you had hardly any earnings, and lots of crude oil is at your dispense, wouldn't you sell it?
That cold hard cash feeds families in the Middle East warm soft bread.
Response to Amorze's comment. The 2nd one down.

Just a little off subject aren't you? The fact is the average person in the middle east does not benefit from the oil profit.

The poor and uneducated never benefit from the profit of such large things.

poor people in LA don't benefit from the techno-marvels of silicon valley.

the poor people in Detroit don't benefit from GM/Ford profits

these are small examples but if you think about it you can come up with a lot more.

in a perfect world the oil companies that suck profit out of the ground in the mid-east and else where would offer shares at realistic prices to the locals so they could reap the benefits of the treasure they live over

in a perfect world.

the rape of the mid-east is sickening but it isn't the only place it happens and they won't be the people it happens too.

the worst part of this whole process is the marginalization of the only people who live on top of the treasure but can't benefit from the treasure.

that's the real greed.

Trust me i bet if us people had power over a great resource they would squeeze money out of it as well...see? see?

With due respect, i cannot find the word congrue in the dictionary. congruence or congruent, meaning in agreement. correct me if im wrong.

To eddie 7915 Sorry about the word congrue as you pointed out in my text.
Sometimes it is difficult confusing my english when my mind is thinking in French,Spanish and Italian. The word congruo
and sometimes used congrue is Italian for being the same,even or in agreement. I hope this will be of help.
Next post I will edit more before posting to avoid errors.
Thank you for making note of the use of an non-english word

There are these laws so that when every one else is finished then only U.S will be having oil resources, but the think tank forgot what it may lead to. The whole world one side and on the other side only U.S. alone, is it smart? Or should we change our attitude towards fellow humans and instead of muslim, christian,hindu,jew, sikh etc. become human?

Because it was a gift of God.

I do not know of any laws or international mandates that does not allow an particular country to manage it's own resources.If i am mistaken please inform me. What i was referring to in my post concerning a huge oil basin in the North Western USA was simply that we should reserve this resource for national defense if needed. I did not mean that we should Glut this resource for any political or religious leverage only for a crisis concerning national defense.

There must have been a lot of ancient life or whatever a long time ago. Oil is basically just made out of fossils on the ocean floor. There could have been more fossils in the Pacific than anywhere else

Nuclear fusion (not fission). This is the creation of a basic sun by kinetically aggravation of atoms using magnetism. You will be able to make for free when the technology is perfected. they can make it bit on a very small scale now. I'm sure they are much further but the company's are trying to figure out a way for them to make money on it with out the public knowing how easy it is.
Also there is a book by Jeremy Rifken called The Hydrogen crisis. This book explains how you need to take control when this technology come out. So it's not incorporated. Right now they have a hydrogen cell unfortunately it's as big as a refrigerator and separation of hydrogen from water is a bitch. This technology is forever and when you burn hydrogen it mixes with oxygen...Guess what the end result is....H20 water.
The world has ruffly 60 years of oil left. That's why the price of gas is so high. The Arabs no this and are getting all they can. So do panic.

There is an alternate theory put out by the Russians and they have been successful in finding oil with this theory. Basically about 1951, a Russian named Velikovski wrote a world shattering theory to explain the Exodus plagues of Egypt. In 1951, Venus was considered a twin tropical planet similar to Earth. Then Velikovski predicted that Venus was a hell hole with a hydocarbon/sulfuric acid atmosphere at very high temperatures. He predicted a near collision with the Earth at the time of Moses.
To make a long story short, he had the entire academic community up in arms against him. He predicted Venus rained oil all over the planet in biblical times and this oil formed reserves under the surface. Thus any sandy basin of any size should have enormous reserves of oil. The Russians dressed the theory up and have used it to predict huge basins of oil all over our planet. The deserts are prime candidates for this oil.
In favor of this theory is Russian robot ships that have found out much of the predicted Venusian view is true.
Look it up. Venus rotates one day in 266 days(the year is approximately 222 Earth days. Counter to the orbit of every other planet in the system. Very thick hydrocarbon atmosphere(oil) with sulfuric acid. 1000 degree fahrenheit temperatures at the surface.
If the theory is half true I would be surprised. There is enough to predict oil on the moon in huge quantities if it hasn't boiled off. Say about 1000 feet below the surface where the moon is dyed. Look at the moon through binoculars and you will see "mares" or black areas of the surface. If the theory holds true there are huge reserves yet to be found all over the planet.

Due to its rich soil and uniterupped sedimentation, the middle east or Arabian plate region has over 98% oil and gas reserves and are located anlong the NE Arabian shelf margin.

Obama wan't be President 16 to 29 million years from now.

You can not live in the most wonderful country in the world and have what other countries have, Our God did not work it that way

-Chrissy824- I assume the rich soil that you are referring to on the Arabian shelf was eons ago before sedementation and compression produced oil from this once fertile area.
If I may theorise was this before plate tectonics seperated the land into the different continents? Interesting geology.

About 3.8 BYA dry land started to emerge and some areas with water got deeper. The first Super Continent to for is now called Rhodina. That broke up due to Continental drift and came together again in different ways. This process repeated itself till we are where we are now.
Sea water is not salty because a third of the water evaporated, it is because rainwater leached salt from the land mass and simply concentrated in the seawater.

The flood occurred around 10500 BC.it has nothing to do with Oil.

If you read, for example "Gods of the New Millennium" by Allan A Alford you will find another version of history. It seems as if there were two Edens, (E.Din) according to the Sumerian clay tablets.
The second one was in Southern Africa where Man was created to toil for the Gods.

Oil was formed due to the Carboniferous period about 350 Million years ago and lasted for about 60 Million years.
That is long before some people in the Middle east, about 600 years AD were converted into the Monotheism known as Islam.
Before that Mekka had a god for every day. Mohammad eventually destroyed all Idols except that of the Rock God, the Black Rock that they still kiss today in Mekka.
Dont belelieve in this "trust in the existence of God".
Mohammad was almost killed in his effort.

Arabs are not taking advantage.americans are just rulling in the world

Maybe it has to do with gravity.

yes obviously but it will take immense pressure and heat to convert the organic material to oil.Then it is certain that no one will buy that very oil with very high price tag.

Exactly my point--World created hot, froze over, heating event 2 bya,stayed liquid temporarily, then iced over & then heating event again 600 mya. And it appears to have been trying to ice over ever since. Icing over is way to save water and is ephemeral world we live in/on.
Never seen site by surely must be calculable how much H2O demolecularizes every day from UV. How long would it take to make this surface H2O gone if not iced over?
Consider that not only oil but salt is miles (miles!) deep on Earth.
The question of how much oil where should be: how old is the oil from each deposit! Is the oil closer to surface (Iraq) younger than oil under Florida gulf?

Another thought here:
We used to be (10 years ago) the biggest importer of beef ( from Argentina, where else) and the 2nd biggest exporter of beef. No if that isn't a conundrum I don't know what is!

This is how it went: We are US, US is good, all-powerful, envied, etc. which translates to a brand name. As we know from economics it is a marketing ploy which makes huge amounts of money. We buy grass-fed beef from Argentina for cheap which we sell (happens to be good deal as is grass fed) to US franchises & schools and turn around and sell our branded beef (remember US is good!) to the world hungry to have just a part of the US of A. The explanation for success of capitalism: buy low, sell high. Just takes a bit of finesse.

I learned the generally favored theory of oil formation, i.e from fossils. This theory makes it difficult to account for some things such as the methane hydrates in the ocean, and so much oil in the Middle East.
I favor a newer theory. This theory states that oil is formed from methane upwelling from deep within the earth (top 200 miles) through cracks. This methane was here when the earth formed from comets and meteors long ago. Methane is very common in the solar system. Anyway this methane seeps upwards due to its light weight. It encounters a deep hot (very warm) biosphere (bacteria that eat the methane (methanotrophic bacteria). These bacteria produce the heavy hydrocarbons. This theory also accounts for formation of high grade coal. Without going into all the evidence, the reason oil is so common in the middle east is because it is near plate boundaries that have collided numerous times and fractured under this theory. There are very good petroleum traps with very porous and permeable sands located here. Under this theory, oil is more common than previously suspected.

I don't think it so easy...if it was the we wouldn't have an oil problem like we do now...

The problem is that with the country..very little of the wealth actually reach the poor...most o it fills the royal treasury and th pockets of the american corporate giants!

It can be made but it is cheaper to extract.

I sense that the question is politically motivated. It sounds more like "Why, for Gods sake, all the oil wealth is under the Muslims feet?" I will try to give a political honest answer: The resources of earth are a common good commissioned by the "who ever" political entity sitting on it with the obligation of making it available, in coordination with the dominant powers of the given era, to everybody at a "fair price". As humanity walks the inevitable path of unification, we will experience, peu- a- peu, the lesser importance of "where" the commodities are, and increasing importance of a fair global distribution.

The only oil problem we have in America is that fact that we can't drill for our own oil....we have gobs of oil all over the place, but for some strange reason the environmental crowd has more say over our oil than the rest of us...did ya hear the term "drill baby drill"... that's because we are sitting on the largest deposits of oil in the entire world....wake the bleep up....we have our own oil and natural gas just waiting to be used, but we can't because of policies not the fact the we don't have any oil....and why is everyone still on this "fossil fuel" trip? Has it every been proven that oil comes from dead animals and plants? If so, then why aren't we all stepping over lakes of oil everywhere? People, plants, and animals are dying everyday...I'll tell you why not...because oil is produced by the planet itself, and is constantly being replenished....oil wells that were dried up in the 60's and 70's are once again forming oil in them....please, please, stay home in November.....forget about voting...its too hard for you....you have better things to do like wash your Prius....speaking of Prius, have you seen the mines where the batteries components come from.....there's a 2-mile dead zone around these mines....think about that when you see that smug Prius driver who somehow believes he or she is better than you...peace

I totally agree with you if we can stand on our own why arnt we?

Please don't bring your political views into a scientific discussion.Go to Yahoo and rant if you must.

Im not ranting, im agreeing

Here are some recent facts that few know.Recently a vast oil reserve has been found in the NorthWest region of the USA.The reserve is so vast it extends through Montana and most of the Dakotas.It was said that it surpasses the reservse of Arabia.So you may question as to why it has not been tapped.One reason is that oil is cheap at this time and in the future it would be perhaps ten times it's value.Then one must consider another option and that is a vast oil reserve for National Defence in the case of a real War.The days of escorting giant tanker half way across the world is no longer feasible in a state of War with the advancements in submarine and missile MIRV technolgy.It is not my choice or yours but here are two scenarios-
1. We can blow it out our hummers,V8 Hemi's etc and go down a brief path of Happy Days. OR
2. We can use up Arabia,OPEC or others oil supplies while they are cheap and at the same time seek out alternate energy sources with the time allowed.Plus the Biggest Reason is that of National Defense in a time of War or National Disaster.
--The Scenarios I admit are those that I see as possibilties
--The Facts are that These Oil Reserves are Real and Vast.

Now that you point that out it makes sense thank you.

CRAZY, WACKO environmental people who have more lobbyist in Washington donating money to this campaign or that campaign...they love mice and bugs more than people, and some how they have convinced themselves along with millions of others that we are terrible, horrible creatures who shouldn't be allowed to exist....that's why there's so much talk about OVERPOPULATION...they want us gone..

However it goes Politically there should be an ample supply of oil reserve if we are Diligent.

It is time to think about alternate fuels. The technology exists to gain an understanding to use our industries with cleaner fuels without compromising our environment. The U.S. (the West) has enough brain power to do the necessary research and the available technology to alter our lifestile.

Your post is spot on....the recent oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico was, in point of fact, abiotic oil, The drilling depth was approximately 40,000 feet. The wellhead pressure exceeded 150,000 p.s.i.. Its not generally advertized, but, the seabed floor was raised almost 30 feet by the resultant release of gas pressure. Had the gas been released suddenly, two possible scenarios could of resulted:
1. a large extremely powerful tsunami would have been formed,
2. a truly horrific natural gas explosion.

Very little of this was shared with the public.

I have often wondered about the "standard" theory that oil is "fossil" in origin, i.e., from a process that took decayed remnants of plants, etc., and through time and pressure turned it into oil. I believe, however, that it is well understood that the composition of many asteroids (in the belt between Mars and Jupiter) is that of hydrocarbons (oil in a similar state). Is there support for a theory (other than Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision) that our oil deposits are extraterrestrial in origin? I remember hearing about NASA engineers in the early 1970s who were working on theoretical missions out to the asteroid belt where they would mine the asteroids for all sorts of raw materials that would support an ongoing presence and further exploration of the solar system. Wondering if others who are following this discussion have some input...?

There is plenty of supporting evidence for extraterrestrial origin for oil.
Velikovsky was not part of the established astronomy groups. His specialty was actually group psychology and ancient languages. His theory was not acceptable to main stream astronomy. The scientists of his day actually tried to censor his writings by boycotting the book company that published Velikovsky's books.
Venus is all the evidence you need to know it was fairly close to the truth. Before the Russians landed Robot probes on the planet we knew very little about it.
How can you explain a rotation counter to every other planet in the solar system? An atmosphere 15 times heavier than the Earth's with a heavy hydrocarbon(oil) base. A day that is 268 days long and an orbit of 222 days long. (It takes longer to rotate one day than it has days in a year.)
Little suspicious if it is not a new planet to the Solar System.
I predict that the mares on the moon(dark areas originally thought to be seas by early astronomers) are actually beds underneath which are huge oil deposits. That would be one of the things that Velikovsky's theory would predict if it is true. The near collision with Earth predicted by his books would have been a near collision also with the Moon.
As for the Earth's waters, there is no known explanation for us having huge oceans, way out of proportion to the size of our planet.
By the way, Methane is trapped beneath the oceans and in frozen wastelands all over the north side of the planet. A valid fear is this methane could be released into the Canadian countryside if the permafrost melts. No one really knows why we have such large amounts of methane. But if we do, then why not use it as a fuel instead of oil? I think the difficulty might be putting it in a stable form such as a liquid that would be easy to use in pumps already available.
Velikovsky is fringe science. He never fit the mold. Tenure dictates that you conform to the mold of other scientists. It is a terrible system.

For the purpose of this article, the term “Middle East” focuses on the oil-rich countries in southwest Asia including Iran, Iraq, Syria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman, and Yemen. These ten countries together have an area of 5.1 million square kilometers or about 3.4% of Earth’s land surface, but they possess 60% of world’s known oil reserves and 41% of natural gas reserves.