Peak Oil? Yeah, RIIIGHT!

What would you say if someone told you that 100 miles off the East and Gulf coasts of  the continental United States lying quietly on the bottom in  ~800 ft deep water was 64 times more clean natural gas as the entire proven planetary natural gas reserves?

How can this be?  We are constantly being told that we are running out of easily accessible energy in this country, and that is why we must get it from unstable countries and dictatorships half way around the planet, or tear up the fragile arctic areas.  

That is the Bushco-BigOil PEAK OIL Story being told to the public.

What they are not talking about is something called methane (natural gas) hydrates.

Bushco and Big Oil never have never explained to  you about methane (natural gas) hydrates?  

Never heard of the stuff?  See this to find out about Methane Hydrate

And even while BigOil has been keeping methane hydrate a pretty good secret, we US taxpayers (you didn't even know it did you) are  subsidizing the extremely promising methane hydrate exploratory and developmental research, which has found and evaluated huge domestic reserves of  methane hydrate.  BigOil did not need to risk any of their own private money on finding this energy resource.

In other words, the US Department of Energy has foot the bill and is still paying for methane hydrate development research, and this work shows enormous quantities of natural gas  literally at our fingertips off the US coasts:

From National Ocean Industries Association on Department of Energy  studies of domestic methane hydrate deposits:

2. Are you worried that Japan, India, German and perhaps Russia are outspending us on gas hydrate research?

In terms of public sector funding, the United States actually leads the world in gas hydrate research. According to the Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy, the U.S. has invested $17 million in gas hydrate research in FY 2001 alone, as compared to approximately $5 million in Germany and $10 million in Japan. India has committed to spend $56 million over the next five years on gas hydrate research, and Japan has committed $50 million -- sure indications that two nations without our ready access to abundant hydrocarbons recognize the potential of this as-yet untapped resource.

It is difficult for NOIA to say how much is enough. However we steadfastly support research and development on this important issue. While the world's currently known natural gas reserves are estimated at approximately 5,000 trillion cubic feet,

a 1995 U.S. Geological Survey appraisal of the onshore and offshore natural gas hydrate resources of the United States found that the mean (expected value) is estimated to be 320,000 trillion cubic feet of gas. This is in the United States alone!

Let's make that very clear once again: The mean estimated value of Methane (natural gas)  hydrates in the domestic territorial [continental shelf below ~800 ft] waters of the UNITED STATES to be 64 TIMES more than the entire world's currently known natural gas reserves

Meanwhile Big oil is buying up the domestic offshore oil/gas leases and is holding them for a Rainy Day(like when?). Also google to get some appreciation of quiet BigOil activity/interest in east coast methane:

The incentives to drill in North Carolina are great. "The last test wells in the East were drilled off the coasts of Virginia and New Jersey in the mid-1980's. Since then, all oil company drilling leases on the  East Coast have expired, except for those in North Carolina (Richissin A-1)."

There are currently twenty-four natural gas and oil leases active off the shores of North
Carolina. The area of concern is located in what is called the "Manteo Exploration Unit". It islocated approximately forty-five miles northeast of Cape Hatteras, in federal OCS water (Map 1). It is compiled of twenty-one lease blocks, each measuring three square miles in dimension(Holing 2).

Block 510 is currently leased by Chevron USA, at a cost of $26 million (NCDCM 3). This is the same area where the Mobile Oil Corporation proposed to drill in 1988.
.....
Chevron USA is a worldwide petroleum and chemical company that controls every aspect of the petroleum industry from exploration to marketing. Chevron has spent a total of 350 million for the lease rights to this area. On September 18 of 1997, Chevron announced it's plans to drill an exploratory oil and natural gas well in the year 2000 ("Current Issues Offshore North Carolina" MMS 1998). In February of 1999, these plans were delayed for at least one year because Chevron missed filing deadlines. It is currently uncertain whether any further action will be taken by Chevron, they should have a decision by summer 1999.

So why is Bushco blowing smoke about ANWR and a far-off hydrogen economy with enormous remaining technical hurdles, while poo-pooing domestic methane development as environmentally unsafe and economically costly [yah? Like Iraq isn't]?

Why is BigOil spending big money building LNG plants in unstable foreign countries instead of here at home?

Why are they hiding/snowjobbing  the enormous untapped reserves of clean methane 50-200 miles off shore from  NJ to Texas, with all this PEAK OIL marketing BS?

Ask your Congresscritter why.