Untapped US Oil Supplies as One Big Strategic Reserve

[Lord MJ]

If this is more appropriate for SLAM rather than N&P feel free to move.

What would be the long term benefits and disadvantages if it was declared that the untapped petroleum reserves of the US shall be treated as a "Strategic Reserve" and therefore not be touched until the day when dwindling oil supplies requires us to tap them?

Was thinking about the long term economy. As well as reading about how Mitt Romney's plan to open the floodgates for drilling in the US, and repealing of environmental regulations and restrictions because they are "Job Killing."

[Lonestar]

If this is more appropriate for SLAM rather than N&P feel free to move.

What would be the long term benefits and disadvantages if it was declared that the untapped petroleum reserves of the US shall be treated as a "Strategic Reserve" and therefore not be touched until the day when dwindling oil supplies requires us to tap them?

Was thinking about the long term economy. As well as reading about how Mitt Romney's plan to open the floodgates for drilling in the US, and repealing of environmental regulations and restrictions because they are "Job Killing."

That hasn't turned out too well in the past

[Sea Skimmer]

So, plan on the basis of powering the US on oil as long as possible? Yeah, no thanks. This is the total opposite of what we should be doing, which is using oil now to power the groundwork for a better future. I've thought of this idea before myself, and it just ends up being a bad one.

As for the direct economic effects, oil prices would go up at once, and since US production only meets around half of US demand now, and US production would rapidly plummet if new wells are not drilled at an expanding rate, as productivity per well keeps dropping except for certain offshore fields, this would get worse and worse rapidly. The US would become more and more vulnerable to another oil crisis then it is already, and in the infrastructure needed to rapidly create new wells would evaporate or move overseas. The fact is we need the oil now, and we need to keep drilling for it now if we are going to use it.

Now interestingly, the US actually did the opposite of this idea in the post WW2 period when it first began to hit the limits of US domestic production. The US deliberately avoided importing crude for a long time as government policy, even as the first Saudi fields ect... came online and were in many cases cheaper then US fields. This was done because US oil companies simply made more money if the crude was America, and kept that money in America, helping the US avoid a trade deficit. It was also seen as a major part of US national defense, avoiding dependence on tankers which could be sunk by communist submersibles as well as foreign political entanglement. This lasted until the 1960s when oil demand got so high it was just impossible to care anymore about limiting imports, low and behold the first oil crisis followed soon after. US domestic production also then flatlined, not because of lack of oil but simple lack of investment. It took until the 1980s for production to being its steady slide that lasted until recently when fracking opened up some hope we might flatline the situation or even restore production.

[Gil Hamilton]

I understand that much of the oil in the United States that remains, which is a substantial amount, is severely uneconomical to actually extract due to geology and NIMBYism (possibly NIMBYism with good reason too).

For example, I think it's called the Green River Formation in Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming that has some absurd amount of oil in it in oil shale that will never be touched. Aside from technical difficulties, the Drill, Baby, Drill crowd tends to dry up when the drilling is in their own backyard.