The United States alone consumes more than 20 million barrels a day — more than China, Japan, Russia, Germany, and India combined.

Yes, the USA sucks in 20 millon barrels a day of oil, or over 7 billion barrels a year. The world uses 28 billions a year, give or take a billion.

America' Appetite for Oil
The United States consumes 20 million barrels daily. That's more than the next-five-largest consumers - China, Japan, Russia, Germany, and India - combined. Of those 20 million barrels, 56% are imported. The imports alone represent more oil than Saudi Arabia produces in a day; in fact, it accounts for nearly 20% of the world's entire production.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions_by_the_United_States
Greenhouse gas emissions by the United States
Until 2006, the United States was the largest emitter of carbon dioxide emissions. China has been the top emitter since 2006.

The US anti-oilsands protestors and companies better take the log out of their own eye first becuase it is a big hypocritical double standard when they criticize the oilsands in Alberta when the USA has many times more, carbon foot print than all of Canada combined many, many times over polluting the world.

Also just for one example the very massive open pit mines in Nevada and Utah with huge tailing piles.

There are several models which have been used to compare sources of fuel and which have been used by some governments to shape their low carbon fuel standards and other legislation. This mix of models has created a fair bit of confusion and, as you point out, has led people to believe, wrongly in my view, that bio-diesel has less net energy impact than other fuels and is a “greener” alternative to fuels created from oil sands crude. I intend to make this the subject of a blog post very shortly.

Your point about the simple, and unfortunately misguided, assertion that we, as a society, don’t need energy from fossil fuels because we have wind, solar, etc. is also valid. We are, for the foreseeable future going to be reliant on oil and natural gas and, given the shrinking supplies of conventional oil, increasingly energy from oil is going to be coming from heavy oil, including that produced in the oil sands.

As to your final question…about OSDG going public with the facts, I can tell you we’re working hard at it. I made almost 100 presentations last year, and OSDG information appeared in more than 300 media articles. I know we’ve got more to do and we’ve already completed or are planning dozens of additional appearances for this year. Stay tuned here for updates.

Steven C Davidson - Pursuit Placement Group