The US: Net Fuel Exporter

[rowyn]

Whoa. I had no idea the US was currently producing anywhere near as much fuel as it consumed, much less actually producing more. All my life I've heard people worrying about our dependence on foreign fuel. Wow.

Comments

[octantis.livejournal.com]

I think it's still worthy of concern, since I think the net change is at least in part because of our downturn. China's industrial frenzy might also be contributing. No idea how long that's going to last.

[rowyn]

Yeah, I was just thinking "And here I thought there was no way we'd ever achieve energy independence, but it turned out all we needed to do was trash our economy and there we are! .... Wait."

At least we haven't trashed it to Mad Max levels yet. :)

[octantis.livejournal.com]

And here I've gone and already torn the arms off my leather jacket!

[the-vulture.livejournal.com]

I wasn't able to read the whole article, but it does it say whether or not there's a difference between what is exported and what is imported? It seemed to me, from what was available for me to read, that what the US was exporting was processed goods, as opposed to crude oil.

[rowyn]

Yep, the US is importing crude and exporting processed goods; we're not producing as much crude oil as we are processing. OTOH, we're also not using as much processed fuel as we're creating, so it's getting exported out. If I understand correctly, this means we're energy-interdependent instead of just energy dependent. :)

[the-vulture.livejournal.com]

That's what I figured. Thanks for the clarification!

[rowyn]

I think it also means that, if we stopped importing oil, we'd still have enough for domestic consumption. It would still be horrible for the economy, mind -- you don't want to lose all those refinery jobs. But a different sort of horrible from the net-importer scenario.

Check the Magnitudes

[telnar.livejournal.com]

According to the article, the US is currently importing 9 million barrels of crude oil per day and exporting 919,000 barrels of refined petroleum products per day. I don't know how much volume is lost during refining, but I find it hard to believe that it's anywhere near 90%. That doesn't sound like we would have close to enough refined products for domestic consumption if we stopped importing crude.

Re: Check the Magnitudes

[rowyn]

Ah, yeah, I see what you mean. We're exporting more processed oil than we're importing, but still consuming more processed crude than we're exporting. I knew there was a reason I didn't want to make that comment, but I couldn't work out what was wrong with my line of reasoning (for some reason, I thought the article was including crude as a fuel, which of course it doesn't.)

Random WikiAnswers found via Google suggests about 5-10% of crude oil doesn't become fuel of some kind.

[rowyn]

Oops, ignore my last comment. The gap between imported/exported oil is still a much larger deficit than the surplus between imported/exported fuel.

[the-vulture.livejournal.com]

Okay, thanks for the clarification. :)

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

I've heard a lot about this in threads mocking Chavez. "They *do* know we're the only people in the world with refineries that can handle their crappy sludge that they call oil, right?"

Of course, this was from FARK which is not known for valuing nuance or, you know, accuracy.

[rowyn]

Hee! Apparently they scooped the Wall Street Journal on it, though. n.n