CDUB98 said:

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I'm not convinced we could be stand alone energy independent, or if we did achieve it, how long it would last. There is only so much in the ground.

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We've been saying that since the 70's and we have more known reserves now than we ever had then. The vast majority of which weren't even discovered yet in the 70's

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The supply won't last forever

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Yes, it will. Fear mongering BS promoted by the same people who tell you that burning fossil fuels is destroying the environment.

Man-made climate change the biggest lie of the last 200 years. Running out of oil and natural gas reserves is right up there with it.

texagbeliever said:

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implement a tax on data center and bitcoin mining energy users. They are driving energy costs up by causing demand to skyrocket.

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There is such an abundance of natural gas in West Texas now with no market. Bitcoin miners are hooking up to natural gas wells and using the gas to generate electricity for portable mining operations. Don't know how widespead it is, but only other option is to flare if you want associated oil. LNG is pretty much at full capacity. Gas is at $2.70 per MMBTU and even if you removed any government restrictions not much incentive to drill more. Upstream business sucks right now. Also limited infrastructure outside of the horizontal basins now.

schmellba99 said:

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CDUB98 said:

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I'm not convinced we could be stand alone energy independent, or if we did achieve it, how long it would last. There is only so much in the ground. Some say we became independent when, during Trump's first admin, we became a net exporter of oil. Semantics, to me.

Sorry, renewables must be in the mix, just not relied upon as option A as they are now. To help augment their use, however, utilize Tesla battery storage to take up excess production and discharge at night.

Up and down the supply chain, everything would need to be significantly increased. More wells. More pipelines. More processing. More storage. Would big time need to increase the offshore production, gathering, and processing.

There is somewhat of a glut of natural gas already, so to take up some of that glut, start converting large fleet trucks like garbage, recycling, other big gov't vehicles from diesel over to nat gas. Fairly simple, and definitely cleaner burning. Of course, would need to increase the infrastructure for this too.

Bring more power plants online that use nat gas and nuclear.

Would need to convert or build more facilities to handle the different lighter crude blends. I don't think it would be too difficult from a pure engineering standpoint, but it would be expensive.

All of these changes would take anywhere from 10-20 years to fully ramp up. Simple matter of material and labor constraints, on a good timeline. On a bad timeline, politics slows down or stops the process completely.

However, I got back to my original thought, how long could we be completely independent? The supply won't last forever at the voracious rate we consume. I would rather use up everyone else's fossil fuels as much as possible first.

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The US has an estimated 264 billion barrels of unapped recoverable oil, almost 700 trillion CF of known recoverable nat gas reserves and an estimated 2,900 trillion CF of recoverable gas reserves.

We aren't hurting.

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Exactly. And that's just what has been discovered and I'm assuming we think can be produced.

Rely on that while supplementing with solar where it makes sense and in the meantime aggressively build out nuclear and batteries (not lithium ion but other types of batteries)

Cheap reliable abundant energy makes life better for its citizens
That being said most of Scandinavia is energy self sufficient and Gasoline is not cheaper there than here
Market forces, government policy , OPEC, foreign wars all affect what consumers pay
Regarding O&G if oil gets to cheap people stop looking for it and with Gas it is already laughably inexpensive which has led to nuclear base load plants not getting built and Coal plants being shuttered
It's still about producing energy at profit or it won't get produced

texagbeliever said:

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implement a tax on data center and bitcoin mining energy users. They are driving energy costs up by causing demand to skyrocket.

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You raise valid points about the increasing demand from data centers and bitcoin mining impacting energy costs. It's interesting how some miners are tapping into natural gas wells. Companies like Plus Power Texas are stepping up to provide more efficient energy solutions, which could help stabilize the market and reduce costs for consumers.

What about coal?

I would think we can burn it cleaner and more efficiently here in the US than anyone else we might sell it to.

It shouldn't be 100%, but should be thrown in the mix when talking about total energy output of the US.

Kool said:

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HollywoodBQ said:

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Kool said:

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I know we produce a ton of energy here and that we have significant reserves, especially when it comes to natural gas. We also have needs to import and export because of specific refining capacities that we lack. "Drill, baby, drill!" is OK, but it's just a political slogan. If we really had the political will to do so, what would this country need to do in order to be able to have complete energy independence (not including renewables), and to be able to help our allies such as European countries so that they would not be beholden to foreign adversaries such as Russia, Iran, etc.? I would love to hear the answer to this from persons in oil and gas exploration, pipeline management, LNG plant manufacturing, and refining points of view.
Gracias por su ayuda.

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We got enough problems of our own we don't need to be trying to solve European problems too.

Especially places like Germany where they've gone full R-word on their forced windmill plan.

I think we've got a few people on this board who have experience with German "green" initiatives.

One of my former co-workers for Germany told me that it cost him something like $10,000 to replace his hot water heater due to forced green rules by their government. I don't remember the specifics but he went on a long rant about how much more expensive things had gotten.

With respect to energy commodities that can be shipped, whomever can produce it the cheapest is going to be the winner. That might be Russia or Iran. Commodities and open markets don't care about sovereignty.

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I brought this up because, within days of the Biden administration starting, he essentially nuked the Keystone XL pipeline and green-lighted the Nordstream 2 pipeline. When Russia invaded Ukraine, there was a degree to which Europe was at their mercy. IF, in the United States, we had the capacity to massively produce and liquefy natural gas and ship it to Europe (and they had massive natural gas utilization capacity), much of the world would have been able to stop funding the invasion of Ukraine. You could say much of the same thing for Europe's reliance on the Middle East ne'er-do-wells, Iran in particular.

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Related - If you ever get the chance, there is a great Norwegian series called "Occupied" where the premise is that Russia invades Norway to ensure a reliable supply of energy from Norway to Russia. If you're looking for a series to watch, it's a good one.

Germany did the opposite and let itself get run over by Russia.

Here's the trailer for Occupied:

DanielDay said:

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ExxonMobil CEO just announced that the election will have zero impact on drilling, and he refuted drilling baby drill as policy. Didn't this liberal commie get the memo?

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You know he's an Aggie, right?

Nuclear, reduce regulations, quit any incentives for green energy, and drill baby drill until we get there

Oh and build LNG along all the coasts to export and finance our independence

texagbeliever said:

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implement a tax on data center and bitcoin mining energy users. They are driving energy costs up by causing demand to skyrocket.

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I will never ever understand the concept of "mining" for bitcoins…something that isn't physical at all…and using certain machines and massive amounts of energy to do so. It almost seems like witchcraft to me, that's how foreign of a concept it is to me.

Ag83 said:

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DanielDay said:

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ExxonMobil CEO just announced that the election will have zero impact on drilling, and he refuted drilling baby drill as policy. Didn't this liberal commie get the memo?

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You know he's an Aggie, right?

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And?

William Foster said:

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texagbeliever said:

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implement a tax on data center and bitcoin mining energy users. They are driving energy costs up by causing demand to skyrocket.

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I will never ever understand the concept of "mining" for bitcoins…something that isn't physical at all…and using certain machines and massive amounts of energy to do so. It almost seems like witchcraft to me, that's how foreign of a concept it is to me.

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Well... that's a component to it. It's not free to run computers. It's adding a worth to what would be considered a free digital thing that has only one other worth, time.

Ag83 said:

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DanielDay said:

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ExxonMobil CEO just announced that the election will have zero impact on drilling, and he refuted drilling baby drill as policy. Didn't this liberal commie get the memo?

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You know he's an Aggie, right?

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What's your point?

TAMUallen said:

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William Foster said:

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texagbeliever said:

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implement a tax on data center and bitcoin mining energy users. They are driving energy costs up by causing demand to skyrocket.

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I will never ever understand the concept of "mining" for bitcoins…something that isn't physical at all…and using certain machines and massive amounts of energy to do so. It almost seems like witchcraft to me, that's how foreign of a concept it is to me.

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Well... that's a component to it. It's not free to run computers. It's adding a worth to what would be considered a free digital thing that has only one other worth, time.

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Might as well be reading from the Quran, in Arabic. Zero clue what you said. I'm 43 and increasingly feeling like an 80 yr old in this world.

William Foster said:

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texagbeliever said:

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implement a tax on data center and bitcoin mining energy users. They are driving energy costs up by causing demand to skyrocket.

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I will never ever understand the concept of "mining" for bitcoins…something that isn't physical at all…and using certain machines and massive amounts of energy to do so. It almost seems like witchcraft to me, that's how foreign of a concept it is to me.

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Come to think of it, they should be mining bytecoins to increase efficiency 8-fold.

Hoyt Ag said:

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Ag83 said:

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DanielDay said:

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ExxonMobil CEO just announced that the election will have zero impact on drilling, and he refuted drilling baby drill as policy. Didn't this liberal commie get the memo?

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You know he's an Aggie, right?

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And?

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And... I'd say it means he's likely wrong but not a liberal commie. But I suppose he could be that as well but most likely trying to protect his company's interests.

Great post CDUB

Ag83 said:

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Hoyt Ag said:

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Ag83 said:

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DanielDay said:

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ExxonMobil CEO just announced that the election will have zero impact on drilling, and he refuted drilling baby drill as policy. Didn't this liberal commie get the memo?

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You know he's an Aggie, right?

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And?

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And... I'd say it means he's likely wrong but not a liberal commie. But I suppose he could be that as well but most likely trying to protect his company's interests.

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XOM has spent more and done more and positioned itself better than any company in the world to have a CCS business. They are desperate for the 45Q credits available under the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act. They stand to lose more than anyone if those credits were reduced or eliminated.

Cold fusion

Stressboy said:

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Change all of our refineries from heavy to light sweet crude, frack more, and harness the true potential of natural gas.

Nuclear wouldn't hurt but it's not necessary.

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So much this. US refineries were built 60 yrs ago to process heavy crude from Saudi and Venezuela. All those billions of barrels of WTI crude from west Texas end up on tanker ships to foreign lands. We have become a net exporter, but we are not energy independent. Not until we can process what we grow.

Start by getting rid of the terms "renewables" and "green energy". Stop wasting money on wind and solar which are the most environmentally damaging energy sources. Invest in natural gas, nuclear, and hydrogen. Problem solved.

The solution is quite simple. Wind power, but not the way it is done now. Rather than the huge windmills that mar the landscape, use much smaller ones, with blades of 6 or 7 inches. (No birds would be killed and the situation with disposing of the windmill blades becomes less of a problem.)

Have these windmills attached to the top of a baseball cap so that when you drive a vehicle with a sun roof or a convertible, the wind has those babies spinning at like crazy! No convertible or sun roof? No problem. Have everyone in the car or truck stick their heads out of the windows. Little propellers just a going! Of course, the baseball caps would have to have chin straps on them to keep them on your head.

All athletes, football, basketball, and track especially, would mean so many more of these mini-mills (as I call them) spinning like crazy. And these things would work even if the wind itself is not blowing, unlike the windmills of today.

Still working on how to store this generated energy.

Sign on a nuclear physicist office door:

Gone fission.