Fill 'Er Up...I think

Brazilian motorists can be forgiven if they get confused at gas stations. They often have five choices when tanking up -- two kinds of unleaded gas, diesel, natural gas and ethanol made from sugar cane. Now Brazilian farmers want to add another choice: diesel fuel made from vegetable oils, known as biodiesel.

Sugar Oil? Biodiesel? How about edible automobiles? That would save on parking.

Joking aside; the US imports more oil from Latin America than the whole Middle East combined! The US, is the largest oil consumer in the world. Wow!

Why then is Latin America in the predicament it is in financially? Why is Latin America not in the lead in the oil market? Blame it on corrupt or insufficient government, blame it on instability.

UPDATE:
Some believe that we are in an oil crisis. Hogwash. Actually, there is much more oil in Central and Latin America than actually drilled. It is because new drilling is just so darn expensive that they do not have the resources to drill new wells. The other challenge is enviornmentalist's concerns because of the rainforest.

More:
So, will the world run out of oil? Not soon, experts say. Since oil was first pumped, 140 years ago, technologies have improved. Once, in a given field, often less than half the oil was pumped out before the energy and equipment costs of extracting it exceeded the benefit. But better pumping techniques have made closed fields cost-effective once again, and the industry is better at pumping oil offshore, in volatile environments and in high winds.

"The amount of oil left in the world has hovered around [a 20-year supply] for maybe the last 80, 90 years," says CERA's Bailey. "If India and China had the same per capita oil consumption [as] the U.S., that would be a huge strain. But at the same time, new technology and new areas to find oil keep bringing in new oil, so we always seem to find new areas to meet demand, even as it grows quickly." -full story