RESPONSE:

There is an estimated 50 million barrels in the reserve, and approximately 12,000 – 19,000 barrels are spilling every day.

To put these numbers in perspective:

• 50 million divided by 12,000 (low-end estimate) is 4166 days, or a little over 11 years.
• 50 million divided by 19,000 (high-end estimate) is 2631 days, or a little over 7 years.

As of August 31, 2009, the current US Strategic Oil Reserve inventory was 724 million barrels.

This equates to 34 days of oil at current daily US consumption levels of 21 million barrels a day.

That means that this one well has a little over 2 DAYS of oil, at our current level of consumption!

FOLLOW-UP:

If we cannot stomach the amount of oil coming out after only a few weeks, think about how much oil is used PER DAY!

The larger disaster is our overall level of oil consumption.

UNCOVERS:

We must learn from this tragedy, and put out focus on alternative energy sources and technologies.

SIDE POINTS:

The US has 21 billion barrels in proven oil reserves (that is, oil that we are pretty sure we can get).

The current inventory is displayed on the SPR’s website.

One barrel = 42 US gallons, or about 159 liters

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