Only 4 days ago Michelle Malkin called FactCheck.org’s output “pure garbage.” I’m here to corroborate. On September 24, FC posted an article supposedly fact-checking BornAliveTruth.org’s Gianna ad as well as Barack Obama’s retaliatory attack ad. …

When McCain is right on something Obama lies about, the explanation line is pretty tame and vanilla. When Obama is right on something, red hot chili peppers is the spice of the day.

Palin should change her line to something like “17% of US oil production”

it’s actually 16.5% to be precise. If you look at the Gibson interview she said, “Nearly 20%.” That’s taking liberty on the facts but still OK.

So Palin’s statement is apparently based on an old Alaska RDC statement that it no longer stands behind.

Palin should change her line to something like “17% of US oil production” (based on 2005).

US domestic supply is an aggregate of all forms of energy.

So getting to 16% that way does not make sense.

But here is a paragraph from the Alaska RDC:

With the discovery of Prudhoe Bay and the construction of the trans-Alaska Pipeline, the oil and gas industry has become Alaska’s economic lifeline and a major secure source of domestic energy. North Slope oil fields account for an average (1980 – 2000) of 20 percent of the nation’s domestic production. Currrently, Alaska accounts for nearly 15% of U.S. production.

http://www.akrdc.org/issues/oilgas/overview.html

So Alaska says oil & gas share = 15%, but WaPo says around 7%.

I went to the link that the WaPo referenced as a source and did some calculations myself.

According to those 2005 stats, Alaska produced 16.68% of all domestically produced oil.

But for natural gas the number is 2.6%.

Now both numbers are in BTU’s so they can be summed and averaged.

Because there are twice as many natural gas BTUs than oil BUTs produced in the US, this weights down the total which is where I think WaPo came up with the 7.4%.

If you exclude natural gas, Alaska produces almost 17% of the BTUs created by oil. It’s the natural gas that drops it to 7.4%.

So it seems to me that based on BTUs the Washington Post is correct.

However, the Alaska RDC seems to have applied a different methodolgy.

Ask any accountant and there’s a hundred ways to count the same thing. It seems the worst Palin can be accused of is quoting states from the Alaksa RDC which uses a different measuring stick than the EIA.

That being said I thnk BTU’s are a better measure. If Palin had said “17% of all oil produced in the US”, the Washington Post would not be able to argue with her based on BTUs — they’d have to find a different article/measuring stick to disagree with her.

bluesoc said:

You’re too smart for me pal. You’ve articulated the chart perfectly. Good night.

(is this a joke?)

I’m reading the chart:
21,033 thousand barrels (oil) – 13.7%
444,724 million cu ft (natural gas) – 2.3%

It does not follow that Alaska produces 16% of the nations oil and gas.

What if the numbers were different and Alaska produced 70% of the nation’s oil and 70% of the nation’s natural gas. Does that mean that they produce 140% of the nation’s oil and natural gas?

Also, you can’t just add the percentages.

What the hell are you talking about? Have you ever taken a course in thermodynamics?
Read the damn chart. Percent of US production is what it means. Sorry man I don’t jive with that fuzzy math crap.

Political discourse about oil is done in terms of barrels of crude. It would be impossible to talk about our total domestic energy supply in terms of barrels (how many barrels is one cubic foot of natural gas? [technically you could do this if you converted everything to BTUs first and then into barrels, but I don't think we do that]).

Also, you can’t just add the percentages. Please see post 70. If you got the number from the energy secretary, he was using different numbers than the ones you provided.