billions and billions

A co-worker recently pointed out to me Cuba's recent discovery of an oil field with 100 million barrels. He then wanted to know if that was a sufficient amount for us to invade Cuba. Ha! What a cynic. When we invade Cuba, it will be to spread democracy.

The world uses 65-80 million barrels a day; a substantial fraction of that is used by the US military. The Pentagon could probably save 100 million barrels of oil over the next year by not invading anybody. Jes' stay home and drink beer. Wax the missiles.

One of the problems with proselytizing peak oil is the huge numbers involved. All those millions and billions can get confusing.

Take this quote, from the Jan 2nd edition of the New York Times, Libya Is Enticing U.S. Executives With Its Abundant Oil Reserves.

(...) holds oil reserves estimated at over 36 billion barrels. That is enough to meet the daily imports of the United States for eight years.

Wow! More than thirty six BILLION! You could almost skip right over "eight years", as in the amount of oil we use therein.

Number seems a little high though. Let's check ASPO.

Uh oh - looks like only enough oil to run the US for seven years!

That's if you can trust those rascally retired oil geologists. I for one go to sleep with the sonorous tones of Lawrence Kudlow whispering sweet nothings in my ear.

Update:
Funny, this.