O-C-C-U-P-Y OCCUPY, OCCUPY!

For the last little while, I've attempted to stay highly involved in the local Occupy movement for my area, OccupySLC.

I'm very active online, being stuck in an office for most of the day, and spend a lot of time on Facebook's various discussion pages. Most of that time in the recent weeks has been on the discussion forum for Occupy SLC. For the most part, it's the main gathering place for anyone interested in the Occupy movement that is local.

It has hundreds of members, and the official info page has thousands. It's an interesting place to be, that's for sure. Lots of controversial talk, those who aren't able to attend (at least, consistently) wanting to spread their opinions and have a voice, and a way to get to know the community and stay involved.

Unfortunately, these are fairly rampant

I'm a highly nonpartisan person in politics and other similar walks in life. I think about the greater good, with a focus on goals, and a grasp of the end goal but with my focus turned away from it. It helps me keep a level head when things heat up, which they most certainly continue to do so.

I need to get better about keeping this blog updated, but I have a lot to say on many subjects, and hopefully it's in a somewhat entertaining, valuable manner. This is just kind of a general intro I would say into how I view the recent Occupy Together movement.

Let me make a quick distinction that I think would assist many in understanding the recent uprising. The movement is OccupyTogether, and that's getting people educated and excited about making change GLOBALLY. The other side of things, is the steam pushing the movement locomotive, and that's the individual occupations wherever they may be. In most major cities, in those surrounding suburbs, there may be an individual occupation gaining steam.

This, as far as I know, is a very unique and 'fresh' movement as it's a global theme that we are pushing for, and that is ending greed and corruption within corporations, governments, and I think in the end, it will lead to destroying that within ourselves, and that is a beautiful thing and great light to have at the end of a tunnel we've been crawling through for so many years.

I won't be the most precise and accurate with what I say in the moment, admittedly, but the joyous thing is that as I continue on, I will only learn more about the world, economics, government, society, local city, and myself. If I can keep it up, I can track the transformation within myself and others through this current medium.

Now the reason I bring up the online side of things first, is that is where a vast majority will get their jumping off point in deciding how they see the movement and more particularly, the occupation in SLC. It is the most accessible, and most controversial. There is constant, diverse activity both on the info and specifically the discussion page. But the real magic is when you experience it for yourself.

I have been down at the occupation, in person, for much of my time in the last little while. It's a personal conflict to say I'm disappointed I'm currently working, as I would like to dedicate so much more time and energy down there personally but it's hard to work 8 hours, sleep 8 hours, and still join committees, make meetings, and dedicate time to volunteering for the occupation's community.

I'll spare you the details of camp specifics for now, as they are constantly evolving and I'm not up to speed on the most recent advancements, but some general info was needed before I truly break into blogging again as I'm hoping the occupation will live on for a long time, and I myself will be able to chronicle the events in my own way.

I have camped out overnight sleeping in the bitter, piercing cold many nights, woken up to a beautiful day and coffee, with a light breakfast, a meditation, and heading back to work. It has been a very productive, and enlightening schedule on top of how much I learn with the discussions and presentations that are constantly going on at the camp. I do what I can to help out, stay involved and up to date after work and online.

The first few days were the most fresh, beautiful days I've experienced in a very long time. I was instantly embraced into a new community, and felt I had great things to do. I'm still reserved, but vigilant, on what is happening, going on, and my thoughts on all motions. I encourage everyone to check out all aspects of the movement, and especially check out the camp itself. Just do me a favor, and leave your inhibitions at the curb, and view the park and occupation for what it is in that moment, and not the social stigma previously attached to the movement, its participants, locations, cultures, etc.

This is probably enough for now. I have a tendency to quickly and intricately build walls of text that I assume can be intimidating. I won't be spreading the word on this particular article or issue for a little time to come yet, but hopefully something valuable is to come from it. If anyone ever checks this out, has some criticism or additional info to add, be more than happy to contact me about it through whatever means, and that goes for everything that I write.

Thanks for your time and I'd appreciate it if you gained anything from this, to check it out as time goes on. I'll try to keep it updated.

Sincerely,

--Bronson

OccupySLC Main Info page
OccupySLC Discussion Page

Oil! Oil! Oil! Huzzah!

Every year, the U.S. will consume ~7,300,000,000 barrels of oil in our country alone.

That's 7.3 BILLION barrels every year. It also breaks down to about 20,000,000 (20 Million) barrels every day.

On a world wide scale, that use jumps up to about 27.375 billion barrels every year that is consumed by the world, and about 75 million barrels every day.

There are a few major players in the oil game, and most of us know who these are. We hear about the wars for oil in the Middle East, protecting our economy's interest and need for oil that our prices skyrocket 150% at the slightest hint of any turmoil, and as that turmoil gains steam our prices are hiked even higher.

But, were you aware that it's actually not the Middle East providing the majority of oil found in the world? There's 5 major producers of oil, the first one being Saudi Arabia and is only one of 2 middle eastern countries found on this list.

Following Saudi Arabia, the formet Soviet Union is the 2nd largest producer in the world. After that, surprise surprise, the USA is the 3rd largest producer, with Iran and China following suit afterwards.


PRODUCTION:

1	Russia	10,120,000	2010
2	Saudi Arabia	9,764,000	2009
3	United States	9,056,000	2009
4	Iran	4,172,000	2009
5	China	3,991,000	2009

The U.S.A. alone hogs up about 33% of the entire world's production to itself. That means that while we have one of the highest production rates, we also buy from other countries at a massive rate as well. We are the world's top oil user by far.

Speaking about the U.S.A., with Libya going up in flames recently we were expected to have gas prices rise by, what, $1.50/gallon at least, and Obama making notions that we may have to tap into our own oil reserves to make it through this tough time... except the USA only gets ~5% of all oil from Libya, and that's being nominal.

We could have easily increased production within our own territories, or taken up Saudi Arabia on their guarantees that they can increase production without a problem, in fact, they'd have liked to. But instead, our concerns and panic will inflate our gas prices above what's comfortable, making everybody in the country struggle as it's harder to travel, food prices increase, etc.

We don't match close to any other country of our *known* and publicly released reserves, but it's definitely enough to keep us running. Based on our current usage, production, and total amount of our own *known* reserves, we could self-sustain our use for many years, until we either got back on track or was able to find an alternative energy source.

The reserves-to-production ratio (R/P) equaled 11.26 years in 2007. Meaning, that given the statistics of usage by the US and its reserves as of 2007, we could self-sustain our oil needs for 11.26 years

Summary of Reserve Data as of 2010

Country	Reserves[16]		Production [17]		Reserve life 1
	109bbl	109m3	106bbl/d	103m3/d	years
Saudi Arabia	267	42.4	9.7	1,540	127.5
Iraq	180	29	3.5	560	142
Canada	179	28.5	2.1	330	188
Iran	138	21.9	4.0	640	95
Kuwait	104	16.5	2.6	410	110
Venezuela	99	15.7	2.7	430	100
United Arab Emirates	98	15.6	2.9	460	93
Russia	60	9.5	9.9	1,570	17
Kazakhstan	47	7.5	1.4	220	93
Libya	41	6.5	1.7	270	66
Nigeria	36	5.7	2.4	380	41
United States	21	3.3	7.5	1,190	8
China	16	2.5	3.9	620	11
Qatar	15	2.4	0.9	140	46
Algeria	12	1.9	2.2	350	15
Brazil	12	1.9	2.3	370	14
Mexico	12	1.9	3.5	560	9
Total of top seventeen reserves	1,243	197.6	63.5	10,100	54

Now given that was as of 2007, and using most recent reserve/ production statistics that drops to about 8.7 years without any conservation or change of habit of what we currently use. And that's probably the lowest in the entire world of all "oil countries".

I am not worried about running out of oil. The entire world could self-sustain on current usage for easily 100 years without any emphasis of conservation, advance in technology, efficiency, etc.

We produce a LOT of oil though as you can see from the above table. Only behind Russia and Saudi Arabia. yet still, in 2009 we ended up importing over 51% of all of our petroleum from other countries. So stepping back real quick, we consume about 20 million barrels a day, and produce about 7.5 million barrels a day for our own use. We are probably the most oil hungry country in the world, again, consuming about 33% of all oil produced in our own country.

Russia produces more than any other, but it is also one of their primary exports. Their total GDP is about $1 trillion. Compared to the USA, where it's $14 trillion. Just thought I'd put that here for a little perspective on things.

OIL SHALE

One last thing I want to go over, is alternative sources for oil and how we're nowhere close to being concerned about running out. We have a mineral in the United States that is in far higher concentration than anywhere else in the world, but we don't tap into it at all. This mineral is mined from the Earth, and with a good amount of processing can produce a product very similar to oil in the form of a synthetic oil. Again, it takes extra processing but it can be used primarily just the same.

The USA has the largest reserves of the mineral in the world. The USA shale oil reserves contribute to ~62% of all the world's know shale oil reserves. 70% of that is land owned and accessible by the federal government, but won't be accessed as it's considered mainly a resource for developing countries due to its inefficiencies.

It's estimated as of 2005 that there's enough shale oil in the world to provide 2.8 - 3.3 trillion barrels of shale oil that can be used similarly to standard petroleum.

FURTHER DISCOVERY OF U.S. RESERVES


This is not even on top of the actual crude oil we could discover and tap into still in the United States. The OCS (Outer Continental Shelf) is land in the Gulf of Mexico, off the East and West coasts, and surrounding the submerged lands of Alaska that are owned by the federal USA government, but not by any states. And this area is rich with oil.

The Minerals Management Service (MMS) estimates the Federal Outer Continental Shelf(OCS) contains between 66.6 and 115.1 billion barrels of undiscovered technically recoverable crude oil, with a mean estimate of 85.9 billion barrels

So we have say 80 billion barrels undiscovered and recoverable, and that's just in the OCS. It's estimated, total, that in all of the U.S.A. we have about 134 billion barrels undiscovered. Plus an extra 2 trillion barrels of shale oil we could recover as well.

Given a consumption rate of even an outrageous 10 billion barrels a year (25% more than we currently use), we could self-sustain our use with no changes for over 25 years. Given cooperation with the rest of the world, conservation, advances in efficiency, and alternative fuels the world can EASILY sustain its dependence on oil for 100 years. Canada, and southern America have some of the largest concentrations of oil reserves as well, so I don't think that our dependance on oil is going anywhere quick nor do I believe that we will ever run out before an alternative energy source is found.

Why haven't we brought out new technologies that don't require oil?

Between 2004 and 2007, the profits of the six supermajors totaled $494.8 billion

I, for one, am not concerned in the least that we will ever run out of oil. I am in the belief that there are alternative fuel sources that are ready to go, but why use those when you can still make profit and function just fine with the oil dependence we have now? Why would Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Canada ever give up one of their major exports that helps them keep an eye and some level of control over the world?

But also, why are we letting our officials create this panic about oil reserves, production, imports, yadda yadda yadda when it is NOT a problem. Why aren't we focusing more on the cleaner burning or more efficiently using the oil we have, so everybody wins? Why don't we invest some of that 400 Billion in profits in fail safe drilling methods so we don't have situations similar to the BP disasters or the Chevron pipe leak we had here in Utah not too long ago?

Because of the allowance and leniency allowed on corporations by our governments. We need to be stricter, we need to worry about advancement in technology and protecting the environment because it will always sustain us as long as we sustain it. Even if we do run out of oil before free energy, cold fusion, or the next big break through in nuclear energy comes through, we still have MASSIVE amounts of shale oil to use where the same players will come out on top! We need to always strive to change, adapt, and grow. Always.