Can U.S. oil reserves keep us out of more wars?

Oil has always played a pivotal role in wars from the B-24 raids on Hitler's refineries in Ploiești, Romania, the Imperial Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) to Dick Cheney's contention that the invasion of Iraq could be paid for with oilfield proceeds.

Oil keeps modern industrial economies going, and giants like the United States have traditionally depended on places like Saudi Arabia to provide their needs -- even if it helps finance terrorists like Osama bin Laden.

Now, thanks to our ability to economically recover oil from shale fields like the Bakken Formation in North Dakota and the Permian Basin in Texas, we have more oil reserves than Saudia Arabia or Russia.

The United States has 264 billion barrels of oil in reserve, 8 billion more than Russia and 52 billion more than Saudi Arabia, according to Norwegian consulting firm Rystad Energy.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Rystad found overall global reserves of 2.1 trillion barrels in 60,000 oil fields across the globe, more than half of the remaining U.S. reserves in shale oil.

Texas alone as more than 60 billion barrels of shale oil, about the same as all of Mexico.

California is a leader in "green" energy, but it's also the third-largest oil producing state, behind Texas and North Dakota and just ahead of Alaska.

Of course, oil reserves are a function of economics; much is not as economically feasible to recover at $27 a barrel compared to $100.

Today's price of $46.60 lies near the bottom of feasibility.

The Keystone XL pipeline has been derailed for the time being, thanks to worries about potential spills and Obama administration concerns that it would send the wrong message about renewable energy.

But any potential spills are definitely preferable to more wars fought over the oil supplies.