McOops:McCain claims U.S. has 'the world's largest oil reserves'

[maddezmom]

Posted by Kate Sheppard at 1:15 PM on 30 Sep 2008

John McCain did an interview via satellite yesterday with WSYX ABC News in Columbus, Ohio, in which he claimed that the United States has the world's largest oil reserves. You can watch the video, or here's a transcript of the relevant section:

Reporter: Now, some say it would be health care, some say it's the war. To you, what is the single biggest issue for America if you become president?

McCain: I think the single biggest issue is to get our economy going, and a key element of that is creation of jobs, with alternate energy, clean coal, wind, tide, solar, automobiles that run on flex-fuel, hydrogen, and batteries. Making use of the coal reserves in Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. The world's largest oil reserves are in the United States of America. And nuclear power. Nuclear power -- we can build 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030 and create 700,000 new jobs. We've got to put Americans back to work.
According to the Energy Information Administration, the countries with the largest oil reserves in the world are Saudi Arabia, Canada, Iran, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Venezuela, Russia, Libya, Nigeria, and Kazakhstan, followed by the United States (other rankings put the U.S. even further down the list).

more:http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/9/30/8502/93952

[grantcart]

1. wow that is amazing BTW new discoveries put Brazil way up

Here is the video you may want to edit that link into your thread

http://www.wsyx6.com/shared/newsroom/raw_news/wsyx_vid_29.shtml

Man he sounds like he is about check into the home.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

2. He has the world's largest bullshit reserves.

And as we all know, bullshit is a renewable resource.

[niyad]

3. uhhh, wrinkles? if we have the world's largest reserves, WHY do we need to start offshore drilling

NOW? just wondering?

[lynnertic]

16. Because all our reserves happen to be beneath other countries' soil?

[jtrockville]

4. He's a BUFFOON.

Hasn't the country suffered enough already by having a BUFFOON in charge?

[whosinpower]

5. He is including Iraq

You know - that little war you guys did and McCain doesn't want any troops to leave for a million years....yeah, that one. Yeah - see - you own Iraq now. (sarcasm)

[Ilsa]

9. Wow. I hadn't heard that we made Iraq the 51st state! nt

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

6. Referring to oil shales, obviously.

[Finishline42]

7. I think he's including shale oil

But the costs to get that oil is very high. Lots of energy and lots of water are typically needed and since most of the shale oil reserves are in the West, water is not exactly plentiful.

If you would extract shale oil like they are extracting oil sands in Canada, strip mines on a vast scale.

[hatrack]

10. Which is to say, he's not talking about oil

Kerogen - not the same thing. Not even remotely close in terms of how we exploit and use energy.

Absolutely pathetic.

[NickB79]

12. You know we're desperate if we're even considering cooking oil out of rocks

Oil has to stay WELL over $100/barrel for oil shale to be economical, and even then it won't produce more than a few percent of annual US consumption. It's actually even less economical than the Alberta tar sands, because oil shale is actually kerogen, an oil precursor. With Alberta oil sands, it actually is finished oil. Not only do we have to work to extract the kerogen from oil shale, but we then have to work to convert it (through extensive chemical and thermal reactions) into usable oil.

Oh, and we have to strip-mine most of the western United States to get that paltry few percent.

If they are pinning our hopes of energy independence on oil shales, they are admitting that gasoline will stay at $4/gal or more from here on out. Energy independence in this case would actually guarantee high gasoline costs at the pump. I don't think the Republicans have really thought this through all that well.

[Iwasthere]

8. If Obama or Biden made this blunder it would HUGH!!!!!!!!

But you will NOT see this out there (or excused away quickly). FUCKERS!!!!! WAKE UP MSM!!! There will blood on your hands, AGAIN! If they steal another because you sneekily kept the numbers or polls close. They are hiding the theft inadvertantly. Many of them don't even know they are doing it (electing McSame). Go to michaelmoore.com and watch the slackers DVD. It is scary how we are in the same boat in many ways as we were in 2004.

[Stellabella]

11. 45 nuclear power plants for 700,000 jobs?

Let's see, each plant costs, let's be conservative, $6,000,000,000 (According to WikiAnswers, in April 2008 Southern Nuclear Company signed an engineering and procurement contract with Westinghouse and Shaw Group for two AP1000s to be built at Vogtle in Georgia. These units will generate 1100 MWe each. This is the first construction contract for a new nuclear power plant in the US since 1978. A UK newspaper carried the story and said the contract was for $13 billion dollars). That's $270,000,000,000 for 700,000 jobs. That works out to $385,000 per job. Pretty pricey. Where, exactly, is McCain going to get that money?

Meanwhile, green energy, "will create some 12 million new jobs by 2030 in biofuels-related agriculture and industry. Manufacturing, installing, and maintaining solar panels should add 6.3 million jobs by 2030 while wind power should add more than 2 million jobs. Even more jobs could be created in the building, recycling, clean vehicle manufacturing sectors, the report said." (http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE48N48O20080924)

Without the nuclear waste problem.

# Since its beginning, nuclear power has cost this country over $492,000,000,000 -- nearly twice the cost of the Viet Nam War and the Apollo Moon Missions combined. In return for this investment, we have an energy source that, until the mid-1980's, gave us less energy in this country than did the burning of firewood! In the U.S., nuclear power contributes only 20-22% of our electricity, and only 8-10% of our total energy consumption. In Illinois these percentages are much greater due to Commonwealth Edison's over-reliance on nuclear power.
# Since 1950, nuclear power has received over $97,000,000,000 in direct and indirect subsidies from the federal government, such as deferred taxes, artificially low limits on liability in case of nuclear accidents, and fuel fabrication write-offs. No other industry has enjoyed such privilege.
# According to a recent study conducted by the Citizens Utility Board, Commonwealth Edison's customers now pay the highest electric bills in the Midwest, due primarily to the over-reliance on nuclear power plants.
# Many costs for nuclear power have been deliberately underestimated by government and industry such as the costs for the permanent disposal of nuclear wastes, the "decommissioning" (shutting-down and cleaning-up) of retired nuclear power plants, and nuclear accident consequences. In January, 1994, Commonwealth Edison acknowledged that it had to nearly double its estimate for reactor decommissioning -- from $2.3 billion to as much as $4.1 billion!

http://www.neis.org/literature/Brochures/npfacts.htm

[Cattledog]

13. US has 3.3% of the World's Reserves

Listed in order

Saudi Arabia
Canada
Iran
Iraq
Kuwait
United Arab Emirates
Venezuela
Russia
Libya
Nigeria
United States
Mexico

[Subdivisions]

14. He also said that Palin is the most popular governor in the country. n/t

[Rincewind]

15. We do

We do have the world's largest oil reserves, it's just that because oil is so dirty, and messy, we keep our oil reserves under other countries. We are even generous enough to sometimes pay the people who live in those countries a small pittance when we come and get our oil. If they object, we just smile, pat them kindly on their heads, and kill them. For their own good of course.