Saudi Arabia has screwed over the US – and the world – yet again. Enough is enough
By gouging global oil prices, Saudi Arabia has humiliated Biden and boosted Putin. The US must end this unofficial alliance
‘The Saudi prince has inflicted political damage on the Biden administration a month before the US midterm elections.’Photograph: Saudi Royal Court/Reuters Thu 13 Oct 2022 08.45 EDT
In July, Joe Bidentraveled to Saudi Arabiaand shared a fist bump with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. As a presidential candidate, Biden had promised to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” for its human rights abuses and its seven-year war against Yemen. But a devastating global pandemic and Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine forced him to set these concerns aside in favor of realpolitik. Biden needed the Saudis to increase oil production in order to lower gasoline prices for American consumers, so he swallowed his pride and treated the crown prince as the world leader he aspires to be.
Unfortunately for Biden, that cringe-inducing fist bump photo op has backfired in spectacular fashion.
Earlier this month, the Saudi-led Opec+ energy cartel agreed to cut oil production by 2m barrels a day, which will mean higher fuel prices this fall and winter. In the days leading up to the vote, the Biden administration invested significantpolitical capitalin its efforts to dissuade Saudi Arabia and its allies from cutting production. In the end, Biden’s wooing of Prince Mohammed yielded nothing but a 2% reduction of the world’s oil supply.
In fact, the prince has inflicted political damage on the Biden administration a month before the US midterm elections. After soaring to $5 a gallon in June, US gasoline prices fell for more than three months. Now they are rising once again, increasing by anaverage of 12 centsa gallon over the past week, to $3.92.
Rising prices threaten the Democrats’ hopes of maintaining control over both houses of Congress after the November elections. The prince and his Gulf allies clearly preferred dealing with Donald Trump, whose freewheeling Republican administration gave Prince Mohammed a blank check in exchange for stable oil prices andmultibillion-dollar arms sales.
The Saudis also sided with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who needs higher oil prices to help fund his war against Ukraine. As part of their economic sanctions against Moscow, the US and EU are trying toimpose a capon the price paid to Russia for its oil exports. But that effort could now collapse as global oil prices rise and Europe heads into a winter season when heating costs are expected to soar thanks to the Ukraine war
While Prince Mohammed may believe he outmaneuvered Biden and demonstrated his influence over the global oil market, his power play has upset the foreign policy establishment in Washington. Even so-called foreign policy “realists”, who for years ignored progressive criticisms of the US-Saudi partnership, must confront an uncomfortable question: if Washington can’t count on a steady supply of oil, what does it get in return for its decades of unwavering support for the House of Saud?
Technically, the US and Saudi Arabia are not allies – they’ve never signed a mutual defense agreement or a formal treaty. For decades, the US-Saudi relationship has been largely transactional: the kingdom used its leverage within Opec (and later the larger Opec+ cartel) to keep oil production and prices at levels that satisfy Washington. The US used to import significant amounts of oil from Saudi Arabia, but now that Washington is the world’slargest oil producer, it no longer relies as heavily on Saudi imports. In return for guaranteeing a steady global supply of oil, successive US administrations supported the House of Saud politically, sold it billions of dollars in advanced US weapons, and provided military assistance whenever aggressive neighbors threatened the kingdom
In 1990, after Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invaded neighboring Kuwait, Washington sent half a million troops to Saudi Arabia, which feared it would be Hussein’s next target. The US still deploys hundreds of troops and advisers to train the Saudi military and help it operate American weapons, including advanced warplanes, helicopters, andPatriot antimissile systems, which the kingdom has used to intercept drone and missile attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
This oil-for-security arrangement has lasted through Democratic and Republican administrations, including multiple crises like the Arab-led oil embargo and Opec price increases in the 1970s and the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, where 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals recruited by Al-Qaida.
Yet Prince Mohammed has now upended the decades-old understanding. Worse, he’s timed that decision so as to maximize Biden’s humiliation: a month before pivotal congressional elections, and as Washington and its allies are trying to maintain a united front against Russian aggression.
If Biden doesn’t respond forcefully, he may embolden the crown prince to take more risks. So far, Biden has promised unspecified “consequences” in response to the Saudi maneuvering. But a growing number of Democrats in Congress, including centrists who hesitated to abandon the partnership despite the kingdom’s atrocious human rights record, are now demanding action.
On 10 October, Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat who chairs the powerful Foreign Relations Committee, called foran immediate freezeon “all aspects of our cooperation with Saudi Arabia”, and promised to block future US weapons sales. Senator Dick Durbin, another centrist and the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, was even harsher,writing on Twitterthat the House of Saud “has never been a trustworthy ally of our nation. It’s time for our foreign policy to imagine a world without their alliance”.
Even before the ill-fated fist bump, Biden signaled to Prince Mohammed that he would carry out a business-as-usual relationship with the kingdom. In February 2021, weeks after taking office, Biden did follow through on a campaign promiseto release a summary reportof the US intelligence community’s findings on the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. The reportconcludedthat Prince Mohammed had approved the assassination at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018. But Biden, worried about harming the US-Saudi partnership, decided not to impose sanctions on the crown prince.
By abandoning his promise to hold Khashoggi’s killers accountable, Biden convinced Prince Mohammed that he was too powerful to punish. At the time, Biden aides argued that banning the prince from visiting the US or targeting his personal wealth would accomplish little. But the lack of even symbolic US sanctions or response likely emboldened the prince to overturn the basic premise of the US-Saudi relationship.
Since Prince Mohammed rose to power with his father’s ascension to the Saudi throne in 2015, he has presided over a series of destructive policies, including the Saudi-led invasion of Yemen and the kingdom’scampaign to blockadeits smaller neighbor, Qatar. But the crown prince keeps failing upward, consolidating more control over Saudi Arabia. And he continues to be wooed by foreign leaders and business titans, thanks to the world’s sustained dependence on oil and Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Prince Mohammed had clearly concluded that he can get away with keeping oil prices high and undermining the US and EU campaign to isolate Russia – and still secure US protection and military assistance because Biden can’t get past the decades-old policy of American support for the House of Saud.
This is no longer a case of Biden choosing realpolitik over the stated, but rarely enforced, US ideals of supporting human rights and democracy over autocracy. It’s time for Biden to acknowledge that his supposed realist approach towardSaudi Arabiahas failed – and tear up the oil-for-security deal.
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Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies and a journalism professor at New York University. He is also a non-resident fellow at Democracy for the Arab World Now
- Link to the orginal article. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/13/saudi-arabia-us-oil-prices-opec
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The question is what should we do if anything at all.
Keep your comments as to what your ideas are in dealing with SA. Anything else will be deleted.
I think that our coddling of SA should have ended a long time ago. We have saved their asses in the first Gulf War and protected them for far too long. Now that the US is the largest producer of oil in the world the ground rules have changed.
notify all american citizens they have 24 hours to leave SA. freeze and seize all domestic assets and properties of any SA citizens in the US. give our allies there fair warning to leave. notify all saudi royal family members they have 24 hours to leave the US and then begin deporting all saudi citizens that don't wish to immigrate for political reasons. create an EO to punish all law firms, attorneys, lobbyists, and registered agents of SA that aid them on any way. designate all over-stayed visas held by saudi citizens as wanted enemy agents. park another naval task force in the indian ocean and start the evacuation of all US military personnel. prepare for destruction our base infrastructure there while halting all cooperation with the saudi military. cancel all weapon sales and deliveries to SA. vaporize the iranian presence in yemen. drop a few unarmed cruise missles in the neighborhoods of the SA royal families in the major SA cities. create a no fly zone for all SA royal family aircraft outside of SA airspace. put a price on bonesaw's head and ask the UAE and kuwait if they still want to be friends with us.
I can go with that devan.
24 hours, how generous you are.
it won't leave a lot of time for packing and personal banking, will it?
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Do you have a thought on how to address the situation with SA or is inane comments the limit of your ability?
My reply was appropriate to the nonsense that I replied to.
The ongoing war of words with SA is likely to be counterproductive and builds an expectation in the American public's mind that is likely not to be satisfied by whatever Congress and the President does. The reduction doesn't go into effect until next month, quiet diplomacy might have been smarter. Other options include:
I'm old enough to remember that the 73 oil embargo ultimately failed. I would look at some steps that might increase domestic production while touting long term cuts in oil dependence based on the climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act. While it wouldn't be popular, I would increase the federal tax on gas. That is an incentive to encourage conservation, and puts more into Highway Trust Fund, not OPEC.
The ongoing war of words with SA is likely to be counterproductive and builds an expectation in the American public's mind that is likely not to be satisfied by whatever Congress and the President does. The reduction doesn't go into effect until next month, quiet diplomacy might have been smarter. Other options include:
I'm old enough to remember that the 73 oil embargo ultimately failed. I would look at some steps that might increase domestic production while touting long term cuts in oil dependence based on the climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act. While it wouldn't be popular, I would increase the federal tax on gas. That is an incentive to encourage conservation, and puts more into Highway Trust Fund, not OPEC.
If it was nonsense why bother to reply to it? Ignore it and post what you believe to be a solution as you finally did.
I actually agree with some of your solutions.
I think that would be a problem, people in the lower income levels would be crushed by it.
I have restored comments that Kavika didn't want to be removed and removed all meta that followed, at the seeder's request.
So.... you want to impose heavy economic and political sanctions on Saudi Arabia because they dare to make their own decisions about their own oil.
Great plan.
There is no easy solution to this. The USA is being held as a mild hostage. To break this, we need to be less reliant on imported crude oil. This can be done by changing our infrastructure to support domestic sweet crude (never gonna happen ... too expensive and the market for fossil fuels is waning) or to continue our migration towards renewable energy sources that are within our domestic control.
Thus, to me, the smart move is to continue to deal with the ugly reality of our foreign oil dependence while moving at a quick but practical pace towards domestic renewable energy.
I agree that your approach merits consideration, but there is one product that scares Americans but could be part of the solution to dependence on oil and that is nuclear power. Not renewable but reusable.
Generally, the first thing many people will say is Three Mile Island, in the US and Chernobyl in the world view many people in the US have no idea there was a much larger radioactive spill in the US than Three Mile Island and that was Church Rock AZ on the Navajo reservation.
Do you think that could be a practical solution? If so, how in the world could Americans be convinced to support it?
Another point besides the danger in people's minds is the cost and time to build a nuclear power plant.
I think that you are right on both counts, not likely that anyone will invest the time and money for new refineries that handle light, sweet crude.
The faster we can reduce oil use without creating a long recession the better. I worry that we don't have the electrical infrastructure or the economic means of generating the future big increase in demand of electricity.
We made a big mistake in abandoning nuclear.
Voters who continue to encourage politicians to resist a sensible move towards renewable energy.
This is not about a single voting cycle but an ongoing position.
Attempt to write thoughtful comments about the content at hand rather than personal crap (and trolling).
Nuclear power is a very good solution but it does face the psychological fear prevalent in society.
Also, nuclear waste eventually could be disposed of by sending it on a one-way trip to the sun. This is not practical today but in the future it should be. Thus we are not necessarily stuck with a never-ending accumulation of nuclear waste. Plus, the sun will be happy to accept the waste.
That certainly is one way of disposing of the waste but the French have found a way to reuse much of it. We could if we haven't already investigated that process.
I lived in Nevada (Henderson) when the plan was to ship the nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain and the residents went ballistic (pun) over it.
they could store it in the water features of those gated retirement communities in phoenix... /s
Has anybody asked Sol how he feels about accepting our waste?
that's a really bad joke, but I think it's an interesting idea. I'm all for nuclear energy
create trump nuke powered forever watches and sell them to his moronic supporters ... /s
Don’t we control like half a dozen military bases in Saudi Arabia? They’re lucky we don’t just annex the whole country. We should take the oil we want and dare them to try and stop us.
(I guess I’m feeling a little imperial today)
We do have troops stationed there, Tacos. You're solution is a tiny bit imperial but I'm tending to present that to the Prince and see what he has to say after he shits his pants.
make the royal family hurt financially and bonesaw will quickly turn into a crude scimitar scabbard...
We have around 3,000 military in their country.
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Perhaps we should just sent em a note that if they don't want to play we'll go home. Then immediately start rolling our troops & assets there to other bases.
remind bonesaw that their oil is deep enough underground that it won't be radioactive...
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I have been thinking about this since I heard the news, and I have been following the various opinions on it. I feel that we should not be selling the Saudis any new weapons but I don't believe we should pull out our troops. That would leave a vacuum for bad actors to fill. The Saudis will get the hint.
But I do hope that Biden will not stand for this betrayal.
I agree I would not sell them any more weapons. At this point if we did leave our troops there I would charge the Saudis one billion per man per month.
They won't do that, and despite the fact that they are two-faced, I am more worried about a power vacuum and we can't afford that. I am pissed as hell at them, but no one can expect any different, from their past dealings.
I was being a bit factious, but I do belive that we should not have any troops in SA
OK, we can agree to disagree. But at least we are on the same page regarding selling them weapons.
Neither did Osama bin Laden.
You are right about that.
And look how he ended up.
Look how he started out.
My understanding of OBL's motivations are that he came from a wealthy but not royal Saudi family and resented the way the USA was propping up the royal family. He had supposedly religious objections to the USA being in the holy lands and he imagined that after a religious revolt he and his crew would wind up in control of the Saudi oil wealth.
Although I have no soft spot in my heart for OBL, I do think there is some merit in the observation that chickens came home to roost on 911.
When the British divested themselves of their empire they cleverly left client regimes in power across the world. The USA in many case stepped up to be the sugar daddies for those client regimes.
Which is just a long way of getting to the point of asking the obvious question: Why on earth do we continue to support this regime? Are we simply afraid that they could wind up a Russian client state? Do we support them to keep Israel up and Iran down?
I think we need to seriously rethink our approach to the whole region.
What the world needs right now is a whole lot more love and peace instead the same old bullshit.
In early 1945, FDR met with Saudi King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud on an American cruiser, in the Suez Canal. That was the start of our relationship with this Arab country. It followed a 1943 meeting between FDR and the two senior sons of the king, Faisal and Khaled, an a trip they made to the USA. FDR FDR held this meeting on his return from meeting Stalin and Churchill in Potsdam. He was very ill and died a month or two later but he held the meeting because he knew that Saudi Arabia would be crucial to America and the world recovering from WWII due to its oil.
Should Britain have taken the King down? He had united the various tribes, fought the Ottomans and created the nation.
We guaranteed the security of Saudi Arabia and they guaranteed access to affordable oil. It was and remains a transactional relationship.
Why on earth do we continue to support this regime? Are we simply afraid that they could wind up a Russian client state? Do we support them to keep Israel up and Iran down?
I think that it past time to rethink our relationship. The war in Yemen has been unnecessarily brutal due to SA. I would ban from the US and ask our allies to do the same with anyone that we suspect was involved in Khashoggi murder.
We are essentially oil independant now but as we see, the world price is still very dependant on SA oil. The hard part is getting Iran and the Arab countries to seriously negotiate for regional stability, the samed with Israel and Palestinians. Sending military power usually seems easier but we tried that and added to the regional instability. Also it didn't stop Iran from attacking SA oil capability last year.
Are you referencing the Iraq war?
You didn't touch on our interest in denationalizing their oil.
A big part of our interest in invading Iraq was in privatizing their oil. I seem to remember there were documents in existence before we even invaded Iraq showing which multinational oil companies had dibs on this or that site. Likewise with Iran, we set about toppling their government and installing a puppet regime similarly motivated by the fact that Iran had nationalized their oil.
It almost makes one wonder why we don't invade Alaska...
How much of their oil did we privatize?
As in, did the war and its outcome go according to plan?
LOL
This link is from 2016:
And it reads like, not for lack of trying, none.
Why do you think it's a betrayal?
The Saudis like many have long memories ...
They should also remember that if it wasn't for the US they would not have the oil revenue that they have today.
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Being the largest oil producing nation, then why is Biden pleading with Saudi Arabia for oil and for OPEC to cut oil prices?
In my opening comment, I specifically asked that commentators give their solution or how they would deal with SA (OPEC).
I will answer your question, yes the US is now the largest producer of oil in the world but oil is a world market not a local US market. By asking SA-OPEC to increase or not cut back on production, which means all of OPEC- plus including Russia by them following through is going to drive up the price of oil worldwide and give benefit Russia.
I hope that you've noticed that oil prices and prices for gas/diesel/heating oil have skyrocketed across the globe. Our neighbor to the north one of the largest producers of oil in the world prices for gas is higher than ours.
The misconception that we, the US are not part of a global market of oil based on supply and demand is simply not logical.
You may want to question the oil producers in the US as to why they are not ramping up more and producing more. The CEOs of a couple of the producers made it quite plain, ''it's Wall Street stupid''....The higher the price the larger the profit which is good for stock prices and the shareholders. As a side benefit, it allows the oil company to buy back their stock which each share worth more.
Now, do you have a comment or an opinion on how the US should approach SA and OPEC over this?
We should celebrate the reduction in burning this filthy carbon fuel and thank OPEC for their efforts to address climate change.
It seems that you don't. Would you like to try again to give us something worth contemplating?
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I asked a question simply because I did not know. Sorry if that was a problem. My feeling is the US should revamp the few existing US oil refineries and build more. Seems like that would cause the Saudi's and other OPEC countries to sit up and take us more seriously.
Not a problem, Doc that is why I took the time to answer it.
The US has closed a few of the processing plants in the last few years and we have not built any new ones for decades if I remember correctly. The process for getting one build is long and costly but, IMO, well worth the time.
Agreed.
US domestic refineries are set up to process what is known as sour crude. The USA produces sweet crude. So what happens, in general, is that we export much of our sweet crude and import the sour crude which predominantly is used to refine into fuel and byproducts.
What we should do (if we were to stick with fossil fuels) is change our infrastructure to predominantly process sweet crude. I do not see that level of investment ever taking place.
Perhaps we should place greater emphasis on the pursuit and research of fusion power reactors.
Yes, but right now we do not have the science to apply. Fusion remains a theoretical plausibility that is not yet within our reach. We are decades away.
Keep an eye on the ITER in France. Before the pandemic, they were shooting for startup in 2025 and positive sustained full-power output from their demo fusion reactor by 2035. Commercially though, probably not ready for prime time widespread application until 2050.
In the meantime, SMR's small nuclear fission reactors are making huge strides and expect full commercial deployment in the late 2020's and early 2030s.
My solution woudl be this. Stop all arms sales to SA and any other OPEC country that are purchsing from the US which would also include any weapon sales that have been approved and not delivered. They stop all parts shipments that are required to keep them operating. After that has been accomplished I would let the ''Prince'' know that we are thinking of pulling our troops out of SA. That should get his attention since one of the reasons that they purchase weapons from us, other than they are the best in the world, is that they are scared shitless of Iran and there possible ability to become the dominant player in the ME. Also, their genocidal war in Yemen will come home to roost.
Those first steps should get the Prince's attention.
Step two would depend on their response to step one.
In other words , treat them like we did iran after Reagan became president , thats really worked well for the US over the last 40 odd years ....
saud royalty is holding on by the skin of their teeth and the fact they pay for just about everything for those citizens , but , not all is well inside the country as has been seen .
I can see Russia even with inferior equipment stepping in and saying thats ok we got your back.... they have been doing that for years now going back to soviet times even little dinks with bad weapons can be effective .
But we all know that .
If the US hadn't interfered in Iran's internal affairs (Overthrowing their government and installing the Shah) we wouldn't have had the hostage situation and Regan wouldn't have been involved. Some of our actions due come back to bite us in the ass.
That would create a huge problem for Russia since they are in Syria and allowing Iran proxies to run with impunity from Russia's involvement and Iran being the enemy of SA the possible scenarios are most interesting.
My solution? simple , since the US has proven oil reserves that dwarf those in saud and in any number of the other OPEC countries combined , let development and production take its natural course .
last time opec pulled a stunt like this the US had ramped production down , just as today because of cheap oil from over seas , and it took 10 to 15 years after the embargo of the 70s , for US production to recover from the ramping down , seems they do this everytime the US goes against domestic production . in oil there is always a boom or bust , it generally takes a decade to recover from a bust cycle , and by then all the "old " hands that know a thing or two have retired or are dead.
hense why i said let it follow its natural course , they cut we increase ,they increase we cut . but dont let them get ahead of the curve like the 70s and now .
definitely will be interesting , but it wont be the first time a country played both ends against one another .
IF the situation arose where russia supplied both sides divided by religious ideology , it would basically be a stalemate since both sides have the same arms , the wild card would be the nationalist proxys you speak of that neither side will really control .
the old saying of follow the money says a lot in that situation . As for US interference , that happened back during the"cold War" and the domino theory was in play , the US government of 50-60 and 70 years ago is not the government of today , but todays pols still have to deal with the actions of past governments actions .
Told my boss today i had the feeling someone was trying to "ratfuck "me today while hauling sugar beets , just a hunch .
told him what my dad told me a long time ago about that , one should likely NOT ratfuck someone who will ratfuck you back at the earliest and most opertune chance ., the hunch and feeling went away in an hr and things ran smooth .
I believe that it is much more than religious ideology. SA wants to be seen as the leader/power broker in the ME and Iran stands in the way at the moment Iran is supporting the Hutties in Yemen that are attacking SA on a regular basis and sometimes inside of SA. Additionally, SA is scared shitless that Iran will get the bomb and that would put SA in a really bad position.
Also, Iran has large oil reserves.
According to the experts, Venezuela has the largest reserves in the world more than SA or the US.
Well certainly Iran is rat fucking us because of our actions in the 1950s,
Thing i look at is , look at the economy in both places and see where all that oil money is being spent .
Iran has its own internal issues with its people and the hard line of the muhlahs , SA isnt as hard line , but isnt as comperable to the west for some people . and as i said , there are some in SA that are fed up with the royal line of control .
Bakers dozen as to whats going to go down .
best the US do its own developement and production domestically , that will piss off the climate people and the green weinies , but hey reality is reality . .
Actually, with the development of an alternate type of energy, we lean less on oil, which is a good thing. As far really moving away from oil, the fuel would be nuclear. That would fuck the SA, Russians, Iran, China, et al.
And what the hell do we do in the meantime?
I spelled it out for you did you bother to read the entire comment?
And what solution to SA do you have?
Aaaand , they are likely in the same position as the US right now , how much of it can be gotten too, feasably and affordably .
the green river formation ( just one proven reserve ) has 4 times the oil that SA has , problem is how to extract it affordably . we have all heard of the baaken fields of SD ND and wyo , thats was just a recent find , read last month that another field , like the baaken was found in wyo, issue is , permits to produce and develope , which the fed government control at the moment and OPEC is using that against us , the administration is the one that rat fucked themselves .
AMERICAN ENERGY!!!
The reserves that they were discussing were ''easily available'' whatever that means.
I don't believe that if you own the property and the mineral rights you need permission to drill from the government.
Three mile island , chernobyl, the movie china syndrome , and some that got very little press we may or may not have heard about , no matter how "clean " it is , its still "dirty ".
Brilliant, Vic we are the largest producer of oil in the world, and the oil market is not for the US only it's a world commodity and traded that way on the market.
Would your ''solution'' include nuclear, since that would reduce much of the need for oil.
Jed clampett, one day was out shooting at some food , and up from the ground came a bubblin crude , oil that is , black gold , texas tea ..
admit it you started singing that ear worm .....
Ah, yes most Americans are concerned about that. Actually, the largest radioactive accident in the US was in Church Rock AZ on the Navajo res. Much larger than Three Mile Island.
If I remember correctly isn't there an experiment in Wyoming on ''small nuclear'' facilities that supply just the local area?
Jeb, not so much but his daughter was pretty hot and could sing in my ear anytime she felt like it.
Bill gates and his sodium thingamajig .over in lincoln county in kemerer, was suppose to be built in an old coal pit , but the sodium comes from russia .. a specila type of sodium element ..they are the ones that developed the process., suppose to be cleaner than conventional nuke plants .... wont hold my breath though .
where i live out here on the rez , i live both up stream and up wind of an old urainium processing plant that they turned into a sulfuric acid plant . they are talking about reopening a few of the old uranium mines out in the gas hills east of me , again , wont hold my breath ....
still need the permits and EPA approval at both the state and federal level, some call it " the red tape end "
Clean energy technology.
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I made it quite clear in my intro the rules and subject matter. Either you didn't read it, don't care or don't have the vaguest idea of what you're talking about or just felt the need to have a pointless rant.
None of which contributed to the subject matter.
That said go somewhere else to spew nonsense.
There is a Church Rock, AZ and a Church Rock, NM. Both on Navaho lands. Said nuclear incident occurred at Church Rock, NM.
My suggested solution, get more oil piped in from Canada - more could be sent via the XL pipeline, Oh, wait a sec, that can't happen.
You best speak to the producers in Canada since they stated a few weeks ago that to ramp up that size production would take a considerable amount of time.
Yes, it can happen since the existing XL pipeline that has been in existence for years is not running at full capacity. For your information Buzz the XL pipeline that your talking about is simply a so-called shortcut to add to the EXISTING pipeline.
There is also another pipeline from Canada carrying the tar sands oil that crosses into the US in ND then crosses the Red River in MN goes across MN crossing the Mississippi twice, once within spitting distance of the pristine headwaters of the US's greatest river then on to Lake Superior. That was completed in the last year.
The other part of that fucking pipeline caused one of the worse oil spills in US history into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan.
I guess there's going to be a little pain if you want to gain.
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The article is now open.
It's hilarious that people are ignoring that Biden begged for an increase of OPEC oil production for a short time and OPEC obliged. That time has expired and they dropped production to levels pre-Biden begging levels and you all are freaking out.
There is a solution to all this. Lift the suspension on oil leases in the US so we can produce our own oil again. I know that won't happen. It would mean returning to pre-Human Fuck Up policies that actually worked.
FYI the US is currently the largest oil producer in the world. There is no suspension on oil leases (three were canceled all off shore) and there are over 9,000 active leases that are not being used.
New Data: Biden’s First Year Drilling Permitting Stomps Trump’s By 34%
That was true right up until 20 January 2021 when Biden suspended oil leases via EO. Or did you forget bout that. And, no matter how you spin it, it still doesn't change what I said.
But lets play your fictitious game and say your right. If we are the largest oil producer in the world why is Biden begging for oil?
You ignored Kavika's comment.
US refineries predominately work with sour crude oil. US oil production predominantly produces sweet crude oil. Our oil situation is complex but in very simple terms, we import sour oil because that is what our refineries are setup to refine and we export our sweet oil for revenue.
Add to that the fact that oil companies have made the business decision to not expand production. They have the means (and natural resources) to do so at any time but they do not see the business climate that would justify the long term expense and commitment.
[Deleted]
Apparently you did not read my comment either.
Being informed requires considering information provided to you.
[Deleted] With that being said....have a nice day.
What is the point of being on a social media forum if all you can offer is deflection and snark when faced with inconvenient facts? You asked a question and were provided factual replies. Instead of engaging in an adult fashion you make snide remarks and run away.
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Facts below, try reading them for a change.
Top 10 Oil-Producing Countries (barrels per day):
More backup on 2021 oil production.....
LOL facts state that it isn't fictitious at all. Try dealing with them for a change.
I've explained the ''begging'' for oil and the world market as have others in a comment in this article. Read it.
The EO is currently in the courts and on appeal meantime leases will continue to be issued.
The US should be the world leader in alternative energy. Then Saudi Arabia can drink their nasty oil (burp).
For example can use water instead of gasoline for fuel.
The water molecule contains 2 hydrogen atoms and 1 oxygen atom. Water molecules can be split using various methods Usually involving electrolysis of water (sea water can be used) . If the electricity used for electrolysis is produced using solar or wind power it's called "green hydrogen".
The hydrogen and oxygen molecules can easily be collected and used as fuel. Hydrogen cars use fuel cells to recombine the two gasses. Distilled water is the only "emission". You can drink the exhaust.
It's a win-win. Hydrogen cars produce NO pollution and provide us with clean water. E lectrolysis of water doesn't pollute (if solar or wind energy is used).
Before the people who are addicted to oil attack this idea, they should read this short article:
Hydrogen-powered car breaks new world record.
Would love to see this as a reality on the streets sooner than later.
They are stuck trying to find an efficient way to compress hydrogen into liquid form. That process currently requires too much energy for this to be practical. But if we can crack that nut, what could be better than fuel offering hundreds of miles of travel on a single tank and producing only water vapor as a byproduct?