I always thought Hulsoff was sane. Apparently not.
Let’s look at the estimates:
Dunn-Norman said she thinks the state could produce at least 5,000 barrels a day, which would easily top the 1984 production record.
Jim Long is much more optimistic. Long, a mining engineer, has been drilling test wells for a landowner with 4,700 acres in Vernon County.
From his tests, Long thinks the state could be producing 20,000 barrels of oil per day, and he said that’s his conservative estimate.
That much oil production would far surpass anything Missouri has ever produced.
Missouri is 29th in production out of 31 states that have oil production, according to the energy department. But if Long’s estimates are correct, the state could jump to somewhere in the middle, near neighboring states Illinois (11 million barrels per year) and Arkansas (7 million barrels per year).
So at most we could produce 20,000 barrels of oil per day. Okay, the US consumes 20,680,000 barrels a day. That means Missouri could produce a little less than 0.1% of daily US Consumption. If a company wants to drill for the heavy crude and can abide by environmental regs, that’s their business. Same with building a refinery–if a private company wants to build one go ahead. But why in the hell should consumers have any role in subsidizing such activities when the more rational choice would be to conserve gas which could have a far greater impact on the price of oil?
We are now seeing the results of a nation being mathematically illiterate.