A Department of Energy report issued last year predicted that it would take two decades for drilling in restricted areas to have a noticeable effect on domestic production, and that, even then, “because oil prices are determined on the international market,” the impact on fuel costs would be “insignificant.”John McCain noted just a few months ago that offshore resources “would take years to develop.” The Oklahoma oilman T. Boone Pickens has stated, “This is one emergency we can’t drill our way out of.” Pickens is a strong advocate of wind power.
The DOE estimates that there are eighteen billion barrels of technically recoverable oil in offshore areas of the continental United States that are now closed to drilling. This sounds like a lot, until you consider that oil is a globally traded commodity and that, at current rates of consumption, eighteen billion barrels would satisfy less than seven months of global demand.
Note: Estimating the amount of technically recoverable oil takes into account the industry's current state of technology for extracting oil, without accounting for the potential cost to accomplish this. An estimate of economically recoverable oil takes into account the quality and market value of oil, the costs of exploration and drilling, the financial costs of extracting and transporting the oil, and the financial rate of return expected at particular oil prices.
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