[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 30 (Monday, March 14, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H1408-H1409]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             OIL PRODUCTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Gilchrest) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, in just a few minutes, the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Bartlett) will address the House for some period of time 
talking about energy sources, oil in particular, and the fact that many 
experts say that oil production, especially in the United States, but 
actually throughout the world, oil production of conventional oil under 
current patterns is expected to grow at a rate much faster, that means 
the use of oil by the world community is supposed to grow much faster 
than oil discovery production.

                              {time}  1945

  What is clear, because we are not sure exactly when that peak will 
come in oil production, some say it is peaking right now, some say it 
will peak in 10 years, the amount of oil we get out of the ground will 
exceed the demand; but what is clear is that at some point in this 
century, world oil production will peak and then begin to decline. 
There is uncertainty about the date because many countries that produce 
oil do not provide credible data on how big their reserves are.
  But more uncertainty calls for more caution, not less; and caution in 
this case means working to develop alternatives. When production of 
conventional oil peaks, we can expect a large increase in the price up 
to the price of the substitutes, whether so-called unconventional oil 
or renewable fuels. Although increasing domestic production may ease 
oil dependence slightly, the United States is only 3 percent of the 
world's estimated oil reserves and uses 25 percent of the world's oil.
  I want to explain just from the perspective of the United States the 
huge increase in energy demand in the last century. I am going to use 
the word ``quadrillion.'' Quadrillion is a number. If I put 1 followed 
by 15 zeroes, I have the number quadrillion. To measure energy use in a 
country, we use BTUs, British thermal units. A new furnace, whether oil 
or natural gas, you see the BTU to determine how much energy it is 
going to use. When you use BTUs to determine how much energy a country 
uses, you use a short term for quadrillion called ``quads.''
  In 1910, the United States used 7 quads of BTUs. That is 7 
quadrillion BTUs. In 1950, the United States used 35 quadrillion BTUs. 
In 2005, the United States uses 100 quadrillion BTUs, and we are 
accelerating that. We are increasing demand for oil for our energy 
needs. The world right now, 2005, uses 345 quadrillion BTUs, an 
enormous amount of energy.
  We know today that our appliances, whether a washing machine, a 
refrigerator or dishwasher, we know they are much more efficient than 
they ever were, certainly 20, 30, 40 years ago; and yet we are using 
more electricity, not less. We know that automobiles and trucks and our 
transportation is much more efficient than it was 20 years ago, and yet 
the demand is increasing. We burn more coal, more natural gas. Each 
home, as efficient as each home is today, burns much more oil and 
electricity because of the demand on energy needs. We are not 
decreasing by getting efficient. Because our demand is greater, we are 
using more and more.
  The question is if we are increasing demand and production is going 
to peak now or in the next decade or two and our production goes down 
while the demand goes up, especially with oil reserves, are we at the 
early stages of the twilight for oil as an energy source? And if we 
are, what do we do?
  Well, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett) will speak on a 
number of aspects of oil production decline. We will talk much further 
about the details of the solution to the problems of

[[Page H1409]]

our energy decline, but I want to close with two last things: How do we 
harness a new alternative energy source and make it replace what we 
have been using for more than 2 centuries? How do we do that? We do it 
with initiative, ingenuity, intellect, vision, and leadership. Remember 
when I said quadrillion was one with 15 zeroes and talked about how 
much energy we use, and right now it is 100 quadrillion BTUs, we are 
not too far away from understanding how to separate hydrogen and 
oxygen; that is heavy hydrogen from oxygen in seawater.
  If we can slow light down 186,000 miles a second to zero, we can stop 
light, we can put information in a molecule, we understand the human 
genome, we will be able to use our ingenuity to tap 10 trillion 
quadrillion quads of BTUs in seawater. Our energy demand is increasing; 
oil production is decreasing. With intellect and leadership, we can 
transition to a new fuel source.

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