Ask HN: Would mining for oil in the United States again bring down gas prices?

by greatjack613 on 5/13/2022, 1:08:56 PM with 6 comments
I have been wondering what would happen if we would start mining for oil again in the United States, would it bring down gas prices? As for environmental concerns I don’t think we are any worse the having another country mine the oil and then send it over, in fact the transport costs makes it probably twice as worse in terms of the environment. So why don’t we just start mining for oil again here?

  • by PaulHoule on 5/13/2022, 1:31:20 PM

    According to Wikipedia, the U.S. is currently the world's #1 producer

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_produ...

  • by uberman on 5/13/2022, 1:12:11 PM

    The US produces 16.582 million barrels of oil per day. In fact, it exports more than it imports making the US a net exported.

    Can you clarify what do you mean by "start mining for oil again"?

  • by has_cookies on 5/13/2022, 9:03:12 PM

    Great Video on the topic came out about a week ago by Wendover Productions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQbmpecxS2w

    Should Answer your questions and fill the details.

  • by incomingpain on 5/13/2022, 1:30:38 PM

    Would increasing supply of a commodity decrease it's cost?

    Yes, obviously.

    >As for environmental concerns I don’t think we are any worse the having another country mine the oil and then send it over, in fact the transport costs makes it probably twice as worse in terms of the environment. So why don’t we just start mining for oil again here?

    You will notice over the next 5-10 years climate change is going to go away as a subject. It won't go away permanently, but it's going to a non-subject.

    Most climate change graphs start around 1850 because solar activity went into the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Maximum

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_maximum#/media/File:Suns...

    We haven't named the new cycle we entered around 2010. We don't want to mislead science deniers into thinking the sun is involved in climate change at all.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_hiatus

    Yes there has been a hiatus in global warming, it's just coincidence that climate change started during the modern maximum and now that we exited the solar maximum and entered a yet unnamed minimum and global warming stopped. It's pure coincidence.

    What's going to happen is that we just drop the subject for some time. We muddy the subject by saying it was el-nino.