Is the ';3% of World's Oil Reserves'; in the T Boone Pickens ad a definitive number, or a conservative estimate?

How can accurately know without an actual exploration....wasn't oil just discovered in North Dakota in a pocket no one even knew about?








I think its wise to keep these numbers conservatives so that expectations never exceed reality, but for people to quote that number as the gospel seems misguided, and leading to terrible policy proposals (i.e. why bother drilling, it only adds 3%).





[ [ Please STAR this question ] ]Is the ';3% of World's Oil Reserves'; in the T Boone Pickens ad a definitive number, or a conservative estimate?
T.Boone Pickens has done this a long time and oil made him a billionaire. It is an estimate though, and I don't know the range of values associated with it. However, he is probably not off an order of magnitude, which is what it would take for the US to become self sufficient for oil as well as changing laws so that oil produced in the US must be sold in the US. We would have to spend an awful lot for extraction- most of the cheap stuff to get has been gotten. Then, we still have the major environmental problems oil leads to. We will have to pay those costs too (one way or another).





Oil is a great resource, but it can't be our only resource. We have to diversify.Is the ';3% of World's Oil Reserves'; in the T Boone Pickens ad a definitive number, or a conservative estimate?
3% is actually a pretty liberal estimate, and the reserves in SD are stuck into an oil shale that makes the very expensive to extract, and it is not a new discovery we have known about ti for 50 years.








Also are you so desperate for affirmation you have to beg for stars? That is pretty damned pathetic.



3% is a reasonable estimate.





A small pocket of oil found in North Dakota is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of oil found in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Russia. Therefore, it will make no statistical difference to the 3% number quoted by Boone.






Pickens conservative number! Many oil producing nations do not reveal their reservoir engineering field data, and instead provide unaudited claims for their oil reserves. The numbers disclosed by national governments are also sometimes manipulated for political reasons
While we don't know where all of the oil is, we have a general idea. The question is what state is it in and how much work and expense will it take to get it out?
the science of geology has progressed a little be beyond sticking holes in the ground and hoping for oil. It's probably a generous estimate at best.