TOWSE, DONALD, Consultant, San Jose, CA

ABSTRACT: Ensuring Energy Security for the North American Nations in the 21st Century

Increasing interdependence and the future free trade zone among the countries of North America require that energy planners consider the continent as a whole.

The United States is dangerously dependent on foreign sources of oil; based on recent experience and prognoses for the United States and for Canada and Mexico, the situation will not improve. Conventional petroleum will provide little more than half of the continent's requirements far liquid fuels.

Proponents of visionary exotic technologies, e.g., fusion power based onsea-water fuel, do not expect commercial deployment before the middle of the century; providing for North America's near-term energy supply depends on development of North American resources based on presently achievable technology. These resources include uranium ores in the United States and Canada and vast identified resources of oil sands in Canada, supplemented by major deposits in the United States. North America's 1400 billion bbl of oil contained in known oil sands dwarfs by almost 4 times its ultimate conventional oil resource is 1.6 times that of the Middle East, and is over two-thirds of the world's total.

Conversion of transportation to nuclear-generated electric power and development of the region's oil sand resources are key energy developments to provide the bridge to an exotic energy future.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90987©1993 AAPG Annual Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana, April 25-28, 1993.