Oil and the Unites States’ Love-Hate Relationship with it

Right before I started writing this blog, I thought that one in three gallons of gas in the US came from Saudi Arabia. I was going to write this blog and basically show how we don’t need to buy a drop of oil from them. Instead I'll take a different approach.

As I did some research, I found that only about 11% of the oil used in the United States comes from Arab countries! I was probably even more surprised to find that the so-called “oil reserves” in the United States (22,000 million barrels) pale in comparison to Saudi Arabia’s 260,000 million barrels. The United States ranks 12th worldwide for the largest oil reserves, and the top 11 countries have 40 times more oil stashed up than we do. Pathetic.

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I mean really, the United States has only 4 times more reserves than Kazakhstan. Does that sound right?

I’m no global oil economist, but these numbers are alarming, even shocking. This reminds me of the massive blackouts the country experienced last year. Just a tiny kink in the electrical network was all it took to cause massive shockwaves that put millions of people back into the Stone Age (or pre-electricity age anyway).

Sure, the system works alright for the time being, and so did our power grid. However, hat’s only when everything is running smoothly. It seems to me that if a tiny wrench was thrown into the oil network the United States would be brought to its knees (if it’s not there already).

According to this article on Time, the United States is at the mercy of every oil producing country because they need every drop of it they can get. Why do I feel the country isn’t doing a thing to rid itself of this awful dependence?

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I do realize that like 99% of the energy conservation efforts out there are complete BS. I can usually see right thru them. However, I think there's a lot that can be done even if you've gotta weed out the BS. It seems like virtually everyone in the federal government is fine that the United States in pimped any country with oil. The President and VP are no doubt the worst offenders. But even more depressing is the lack of people in power than are willing to lead the country in a more independent direction.