"Estimated U.S. oil shale reserves total an astonishing 1.5 trillion barrels
of oil - or more than five times the
stated reserves of Saudi Arabia."

*Oil Shale Reserveshttp://dailyreckoning.com/oil-shale-reserves/#ixzz1penlmFCg

"Currently, the United States consumes 19.6 million barrels per day, of
oil..."http://maps.unomaha.edu/peterson/funda/sidebar/oilconsumption.html

Now I know that maths is hard, but follow along:

1,500,000,000,000 bbl of shale oil / 20,000,000 bbl/day = 75,000 days
75,000 days / 365 days/yr = 205.479 years

That's just for shale oil.



you need to understand the difference between reserves and
economically recoverable. Reserves are recoverable but not at todays
price. so there is 200 years of oil there, but not recoverable AT
TODAY's PRICE. As the price goes up, more of that oil becomes
economically recoverable.

So the discussion has come full circle, to get more oil, the price
needs to go up.

Mark