Just how much of a difference could efficiency gains make on oil imports? A lot

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Sometimes you have to step away from the daily updates and take a peek at the larger "domestic and global fuels supply situation.' If you're the DOE Task Force on Strategic Unconventional Fuel that just released a three-volume report on exactly that matter, you'll discover that the "outlook is urgent." The good news is that efficiency gains and other "alternatives" will help reduce the need for oil imports in the coming decades. The task force's "alternatives" to importing oil include: shale oil, heavy crude, tar sands, coal-to-liquids and enhanced oil recovery (EOR) using captured carbon dioxide. Remember, this is a military-based "strategic" fuel document here.

And, as The Energy Blog points out, the report says: "Aggressive development by private industry, and encouraged by government, could supply all of the Department of Defense's domestic fuels demand by 2016, and supply upwards of 7 million barrels per day of domestically produced liquid fuels to domestic markets by 2035." My question, what about the DoD's foreign fuel demand? The U.S. military uses around 312 million barrels of petroleum a day (2006 figure). [UPDATE: that's what the EV World post says, but as you've pointed out in the comments, it can't be right. Daily world petroleum consumption is "just" 84.5 million barrels a day.]

The details, with graphs and analysis, can be found at EV World.

[Source: EV World via The Energy Blog]

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