Oil, oil and more oil

In 2010 the USA consumed approximately 15 million barrels of crude oil per day. During one week this amounts to more than 100 million barrels. If the oil industry increases weekly production by 1 million barrels then this is equivalent to 1% of demand. Of course, this is important but when the USA is importing 65 million barrels per week according to the EIA then there is a long way to go before the USA becomes self sufficient in oil production. Up to 2020 the EIA estimates that domestic production will grow to 6.8 Mb/d and consumption will fall to 14.6 Mb/d but this means that the USA will still be importing 60% of its crude oil requirements.

That volume of liquid fuels includes ethanol and the additional ethanol production is regarded as equivalent to oil without considering that it takes oil to produce the ethanol. This means that the description of fuel consumption in the USA is misleading. Without ethanol production, the USA’s total consumption of fuel would be less.

 How are we going to finish with this problem if one of the most powerful states in the world don´t do anything to help solving this problem?