How do you people know exactly how much oil is under US property when it hasn't been discovered?

Liberals are always saying there's only *this much* oil in * fill in the blank* which will only last *fill in the blank* years. How do you they know this if the oil has not been discovered?How do you people know exactly how much oil is under US property when it hasn't been discovered?
I'm not a liberal by any means. Peak oil is a real crisis we should be worried about. That does NOT mean we should stop drilling. It means we should drill, drill, drill as we actively develop %26amp; change out country's infrastructure to accommodate alternative energy sources. Conservation alone is NOT an answer to this crisis.





';Historically, U.S. oil production peaked around 1970 at close to 10 million barrels per day and has been generally declining ever since, to about 5 million barrels per day in 2005. While recent discoveries raise the prospect of some increases in U.S. oil production, significant reductions in world oil production could still have important consequences for the nation鈥檚 welfare. The United States imported about 66 percent of its oil and petroleum products in 2005, and the U.S. economy鈥攑articularly the transportation sector鈥攄epends heavily on oil. Overall, transportation accounts for approximately 65 percent of U.S. oil consumption. New technologies have been introduced that displace some oil consumption within the sector, but oil consumption for transportation has continued to increase in recent years. According to a 2005 report prepared for DOE, without timely preparation, a reduction in world oil production could cause transportation fuel shortages that would translate into significant economic hardship.';





http://certmapper.cr.usgs.gov/data/noga0鈥?/a>





USGS National Assessment of Oil and Gas Resources Update (December, 2007) Conventional Oil and Gas Resources





TOTALS


Conventional Oil


(billions of barrels) 42.09





Conventional Gas*


(trillions of cubic feet) 293.62





Natural Gas Liquids


(billions of barrels) 7.44





USGS National Assessment Of Oil and Gas Resources Update (November, 2007) Continuous Oil and Gas Resources, Inclusive of Coal-bed Gas Resources


Comprehensive Resource Summary





TOTALS


Continuous Oil


(millions of barrels) 2642.39





Continuous Gas (incl. CBG)


(trillions of cubic feet) 361.04





Natural Gas Liquids


(millions of barrels) 4619.84





USGS National Assessment of Oil and Gas Resources Update (November, 2007) Total Oil and Gas Resources (Sum Of Conventional and Continuous Resources)





TOTALS


Total Oil


(billions of barrels) 44.74





Total Gas1


(trillions of cubic feet) 654.90





Total Natural Gas Liquids


(billions of barrels) 12.04





USGS National Assessment of Oil and Gas Resources Update (November, 2007) Coal-bed Gas Resources





Coal-bed Gas


(trillions of cubic feet)


TOTAL


88.25





This explains a little bit about how they came up with these figures and you can see maps and more information on the webpage.





';2007-2008 Assessment Updates


The main objective of the National Assessment of Oil and Gas Project is to assess the potential for undiscovered oil and natural gas resources of the onshore United States. The last comprehensive National Assessment was completed by the USGS in 1995, and since 2000 the USGS has been re-assessing basins of the U.S. that are considered to be priorities for oil and gas resources rather than assessing all of the basins of the U.S. The maps ands tables accompanying this introduction represent the update to the National Assessment as of the end of December, 2006. Since 2000, the USGS has re-assessed 22 priority basins, and has plans to re-assess 10 more basins. These 32 basins represent about 97% of the discovered and undiscovered oil and gas resources of the United States. As each basin is re-assessed the assessment results are added to the tables, and these new values replace the assessment results from 1995. New assessments completed in 2006 include Alaska North Slope coalbed methane, the Sacramento Basin, the Eastern Oregon-Washington Province, and the conventional


oil and gas resources of the Powder River Basin.';








';No one knows precisely when peaking will occur because much of the data


needed for an accurate forecast fall into one or more of the following categories:


1) Proprietary to companies,


2) State secrets in the major oil exporting countries, and/or


3) Politically/economically biased.


However, even large differences in estimated remaining world oil reserves will not significantly change the date of world peaking, when viewed from the perspective of mitigation. According to EIA, 鈥?Our) results (related to oil peaking) are remarkably insensitive to the assumption of alternative resource base estimates. For example, adding 900 Bbbl (billion barrels) 鈥?more oil than had been produced at the time the estimates were made 鈥?to the mean USGS


resource estimate in the two percent growth case only delays the estimated production peak by 10 years. Similarly, subtracting 850 Bbbl in the same scenario accelerates the estimated production peak by only 11 years.';





As far as global peak oil forcasts go some people say 2012, some say well beyond 2022. These are government estimates. This is the point that the price of oil is expected to have an extreme spike up as production enters terminal decline.





These estimates are from government sources.





By the way,How do you people know exactly how much oil is under US property when it hasn't been discovered?
I think there is plenty of oil to be had in the US not including offshore drilling areas. It's there. Most areas haven't even be drill tested. The US has a lot of other resources which could be developed as well if companies are given tax incentives to do it. I would like to see a cleaner planet myself.








Less people is the solution to all problems.






http://www.seed.slb.com/qa2/FAQView.cfm?鈥?/a>








We have enough oil under the Us for 200yrs of use, they have been saving it as a last resort in case of oil embargo's or wartime situation.
This should be a pretty good estimate%26gt;


http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-980381鈥?/a>





(3 trillion barrels)
At this point, virtually every drop of oil in this country has been discovered.
The liberals try and say there is not much oil because they dont want us to drill anywhere.
Are you a geophysicist or something?
As I understand it, those numbers are a combination of sampling and mathematical modeling