Topic: Misc.
I was looking at Wikipedia this morning, doing some background reading as I do every day, when I decided to check out estimates of the oil deposits under the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. I'm interested to know how long the US could survive without foreign oil. The estimate I found is that there is enough to supply 100 per cent of the US's needs for between 215 and 590 days.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Refuge_drilling_controversy
Taking one year as a rough mid-range and adding this to the stocks held privately and in the Strategic Petroleum reserve (another five months combined) gives 17 months, excluding production from California and Texas, for which I don't have the figures. That gives America about a year and a half of independent foreign policy.
Of course in reality it's hard to imagine the US not being supplied by Canada, which is already its largest foreign supplier. And there's Mexico too, which is unlikely to cut supplies to the US. I reckon that the US could survive without Middle-Eastern oil longer than the Middle-East could survive without US money.
But it's all irrelevant as it turns out, at least if the British hacker wanted for extradition to the US is correct. He insists that while hacking into the computers of all the US armed forces, plus the Department of Defence and NASA, he uncovered evidence that the US is covering up the discovery of alien technology
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/4977134.stm
So that's it folks. No need to worry about Hubbert's peak, the Chinese in Sudan or any of the other bugbears that bother my most persistent readers. Just get that alien technology in your car!
It would be great if it were true. Alas I fear someone is setting up a great insanity defence.
_ DY
at 9:49 PM BST
Updated: Wednesday, 10 May 2006 10:01 PM BST
