Does the USA have enough oil all on its own to be self-sustaining petroleum-wise?

Question

Does the USA have enough oil all on its own to be self-sustaining petroleum-wise?

Answer 1

Reality..... Absolutely... There is more oil in the rocky mountains alone then the whole entire Arab oil reserve... We have more then enough oil..

Hope that helped...God bless you !

Answer 2

It would be if we could get to it.

Answer 3

Yes, but the US is the only industrialized country with an oil supply that is not pursued as aggressively as possible due to political agendas between the 2 major parties and lobbying groups.

Answer 4

The question would be self-sustaining for how long, since we all know oil is not a renewable resource.

Answer 5

Temporarily. It is estimated that by 2015-2020, the US, as well as most (if not all) of the world will be out of oil.

Answer 6

The answer, as others have pointed out, is definately yes. The problem is that a significant portion of the oil we have is in the form of oil shale, which is very expensive to mine. Currently it is much cheaper to get our oil from alternative sources, such as Venezuela and Saudi Arabia.

In the event that these places ran out of oil, however, we have plenty of oil in the oil shales out west. We also have plenty of alternative oil sources, such as coal (can be hydrolized to create oil), and biomass (can be used for ethanol or plant oils). These alternatives, however, remain much more expensive then simply pulling it out of the ground in Suadi Arabia and shipping it over here, which is why we don't use them at the moment.