What are people's opinions on offshore drilling to reduce the price of gas? Is this better than developing alternate energy sources and technology for personal transportation?
That may be because Clinton and Gore never promised to control fuel prices while campaigning in 1992. In 2000 when Gore and Bush were debating, Bush criticized the Clinton/Gore Administration for its ineffective energy policy, claiming he could do better. I guess what he meant by "better" was that the oil companies were not making enough money. At least the War on Education is going well!
I agree with Craig that neither President has that much to do with fuel prices. The sad fact is that Bush made promises regarding energy policy that he didn't deliver on.
In case you can't tell, I hated the President way before it was cool.
Offshore drilling is a BAD IDEA!
- oil contributes to global warming
- oil companies don't pay up when there's an oil spill
...(re Exxon-Valdez, 20 years later they still haven't paid, and the Bush-Cheney Supreme Court gutted the fine - it costs less to bribe the politicians)
- it's a lot cheaper to prevent environmental damage than to clean it up afterwards
- won't help anyway: demand is going up much faster than supply. Peak oil production and China/India demand will rule prices.
- offshore oil (and Alaskan oil) are a drop in the bucket compared to US usage.
- 75% of US oil permits are not being used as it is.
- it would be 10 years before offshore and Alaskan oil started to flow anyway
- just delays the inevitable switch to renewable energy resources
- will just add to oil-company obscene profits, at the expense of the climate and environment
Concentrate time and money on developing Hydrogen fuel and vehicles. All off shore drilling will do is increase oil company profits, it will have ZERO impact on price.
Here is another thought. One of the major complaints is about the environmental impact of drilling for domestic oil. We are then essentially outsouring the environmental impact to other countries. These countries are willing to make the tradeoff to utilize the resources we have. It is hypocritical of environmentalists in the US to complain about "envrinmental damage" in our country while continuing to use oil from offshore sources.
Nuclear power contribute basically nothing to greenhouse gases. Good luck getting one of those built!
I certainly did not read all 100 postings. However, I will say that the internal combustion engine is twentieth century technology. Any forward looking person will not drill offshore because they will not continue to use fossil fuels. Stimulate American engineering looking for a clean alternative to fossil fuels and until then acknowledge that any reasonable country has to develop an energy portfolio and cut way back on consumption. Unfortunately, denial is not something this country has had much experience in since WWII.
loves; we are not in an either-or situation here. Without more drilling, US production of oil is constantly dropping! Any oil company has to drill up more production capacity to compenste for the depletion of existing wells. So, with a horrendous $350,000,000,000 annual oil import bill, the US cannot afford NOT to drill in all domestice places possible!
As for snapping your fingers and switching to alternative energy, that only happens in a Walt Disney movie or a sci-fi flick. The transition from steam to diesel locomotives (a known technology) took about 25 years. The only rapid technology change we have witnessed these days is the demise of photo film in favor of digital photography. That required little capital oulay and infrastructure changes.
Bio fuels will supply no more that 10-15% at best. Plug-in hybrids will take 10 years to make a significant consumption impact if they were on sale today! The US car fleet will take 10 years to change over; it's economically hard to scrap a Ford Expedition, a vehicle only a Middle East country would want at any price.
The Norwegians are enjoying a massive trade surplus, but have taken your advice and are paying $8.25 per gallon for gas (and taxing gas guzzlers)as a major oil exporting country!! They hosted the first Green Olympics and heavily subsidize solar technology to kickstart the change. At the same time they are still developing their remaining oil fields and are leaders in carbon sequestration.
I'm all for a crash program in alternative energy, but count on at least 20 years to make a transition even with a very painful cost attached! Sending a man to the moon was simple by comparison.
It would be at least ten years'til we will have oil fron O.S. driklling. BY then , we should(must) have alternate energy sources, and vehicles that use other forms of nrg. There is oil available now, but the US does not have enough refining capacity. Don't take a chance on spoiling our beautiful beaches.
Ellie; every country must pick the options it deems most suitable. Aside from the Iraq war, the US is bleeding $350 billion per year in oil imports. This could be virtually eliminated if YOU and I and all others all drove samll, 4 cylinder cars and took the bus or train more often. In other words, if we used as much gas as the French or Japanese did, we would not have this huge import bill, and we would maybe not have to drill offshore (which every other oil country is doing) for a while. You CAN drill offshore and keep the beaches pristine; the British, who have been producing oil from the North Sea for 40 years, had one major oil spill and that was a leaky Greek transport tanker, carrying Middle East oil, manned by substandard crews. The EXXON Valdez spill had nothing to do with oil production, but everything with poor transportation regs and drinking on the job.
In an above post we state that bringing out new technology and the time required to fully implement it takes 20-30 years, not 10 as you suggest.
The next tenant in the White House will have to discipline US personal consumption with a war measures style control to save the dollar more than the environment. I'm quite happy to make these sacrifices; are YOU?
You and I both Doc, and maybe a few others amounting to about 1 percent of the population...how do you make luxuriousness unfashionable and legislate common sense and morality????
Richard Nixon imposed some draconian wage and price controls, import restriction and other unpopular things. A president, faced with a plummeting dollar, skyrocketing oil prices (if the present trend prevails), and actual shortages will either have to impose rationing (WW II style), or jack up the gas prices futher to choke off demand. He will have to impose a crushing horsepower and weight tax, like most developed countries do and tighten up the CAFE standards to the level of California.
The US is not far from that point; if you had followed our threads on this for the last year there have been predictions that this very thing will happen. The big question is, will a democratic president do the right thing, even if it might mean the possible death of GM, Ford and Chrysler?
Our family has already made most of these changes; changing 2 8 cylinder cars for 2 4 cylinder, upgrading to more efficient appliances, light bulbs, retrofitting the house to be more energy efficient. In all, since we started in 2005, we have reduced energy use by about 42% and green house gasses by 45% from the 1990 level as specified by Kyoto/Gore.
Interestingly, our lifestyle has not changed much; we just take the bus a little more often. But I'm not giving up my 50" high definition TV or 3 computers, and my wife loves her kitchen gadgets.
Why does luxuriousness have to be unfashionable?? I live in a solar-powered house and have a really nice, AFFORDABLE (not hybrid) vehicle that gets about 50 mpg. I have a nice flat-panel TV, hot water that is always exactly the right temperature, the list goes on... Being in my house, you would never know that it is off the grid.
The thing is, look how far we have come in the last 100 years! Who is to say that it will really take another 25 years to develop a new technology? What we know about technology has increased at an exponential rate so why can't a technology change happen quickly too? The biggest hurtle will be convincing people that they CAN have their luxuries without being environmentally amoral.
starsoot; the 20+ years I referred to was not so much the discovery of new technology (we have most of that already), but the commercialization to the point where it actually makes a major impact on oil consumption, and drives out imports.
The government can help speed this up considerably. In the meantime, we should drill up our offshore resources, like every other counrty does, to mitigate our balance of payments crisis.
It's nice to be off the grid, but that is not an option for the majority of citizens at this tme.
In the mean time, my 42% reduction in energy use has had no impact on our quality of life, and with some incentive, we will reduce it further.
I am with you, Doc! The Iraq War is the first war in American history in which we have cut taxes and not been asked to make sacrifices for the good of the country. Any real Americans with a sense of history will be willing to make these sacrifices (and more) for the good of the country.
Kuiama, the answer is not to legislate common sense and morality. That has never worked. We should look to the greatest generation as an example of how sacrificing can make a difference. Back then, if you were not saving cooking grease for munitions, or if you weren't growing your own vegetables, your peers frowned upon you. Peer pressure works better than legislation.
The Iraq war was probably the first in the World's history fought by reducing taxes. If you and I beaved this way by maxing out our credit cards, we would soon find ourselves on the street.
My understanding is that offshore drilling wouldn't make a dent in our consuming habits at all (if the argument is that it would reduce the current price of gas). Then there is the resultant pollution. Just visit the Texas gulf beaches - you're constantly having to watch where you step lest you want "tar-feet." Instead of sprinklers to wash the sand off, hotels have cans of turpentine and rags. High-speed rail and super-efficient cars/trucks are the answer.
While not necessarily better than developing alternate energy sources, offshore drilling and ANWR drilling are certainly necessary to our continued well-being until those alternate sources are developed. Drill here, drill now -- even if we probably won't pay less.
I understand the issue of finding our own sources of oil would be a great improvement on our economy and security both. However, regardless where anyone gets their oil from, there is still a great issue of environmental impact that must be considered at each site. ANWR is a very significant interest to the world and we are the ones in control of it's destiny, in relation to how we use it. If we allowed oil production in ANWR it would definitely impact the environment. Don't be fooled by the hype, the site in question is a tiny fraction of size in comparison to the oil fields already in production throughout Alaska. The ANWR oil is also in small scattered areas that would require multiple pumping stations and numerous pipelines to connect to a few central points. The actual impact of this sprawl would be wide spread throughout the coastal plain. The oil in question is in small deposits along the coast. There are other areas as well but require more difficult mining techniques. The ones along the coast are the easy access wells.
Get your foot in the door, then balls to the wall on the rest! I gather thats the idea.
This is strictly my own opinion:
They (oil industry and it's supporters) just want to get in on a refuge that is remotely located to set a presidence to greater increase chances of doing the same anywhere they choose down the road.
Current production in Alaska is already causing environmental problems. Is it OK to ruin a land just because the area in question is sparsely populated by humans? What about the long term effects? What is the point of a wildlife refuge? Just more freaking politics, I guess!!
The "1002 Area" is 1.6 million acres between the Beaufort Sea and the foothills of the Brooks Range at the northern edge of the 19 million-acre Arctic refuge. 95% of Alaska’s coastal plain is already open to oil and gas exploration. Refuge coastal plain (Area 1002) represents the last 5% of Alaska’s coastal plain that remains inaccessible and Undevelopable.
40 USGS scientists spent 3 years preparing a 1998 report. Alaska agencies, federal agencies and several universities were involved. 1400 miles of seismic data collected by the petroleum industry were reanalyzed. Here are the USGS numbers for the entire 1002 area, including native lands and the offshore areas.
ANWR oil is not another Prudhoe Bay. There is less oil and it is distributed in a large number of small fields dispersed over a large area. The oil is under the coastal plane.
Since "technically recoverable oil" means "recovery without regard to cost," it is not a good metric. The USGS should have provided numbers for economically recoverable oil.
The outside chance of technically recoverable oil with exclusion of offshore and native lands @ 11.8 billion barrels is less or equal to the remaining volume at Prudhoe Bay. I have had no luck finding the actual current volume for Prudhoe. The original volume was 35 billion (mean estimate) and in 2004 we had used up about 13 billion over a period of approximately 27 years. The condition of the TAPS system would need a major overhaul and upgrading to speed up production if we wanted to increase daily pumping from that region. That is a task that would take many years and yet another huge increase in oil price to pay for it. With the savings for domestic versus import at the end we would be in the same boat as we are now once you added the cost for rebuilding the TAPS system.
Prudhoe Bay has also caused environmental impacts in Alaska. Why would this site not see the same? Why would it not be worse, seeing that in ANWR the fields are small but wide spread on a coast that is a major habitat for migratory birds? Hosts feeding for many other animals as well. Many sources are speculating the ANWR oil, if allowed, would be pumped to the TAPS pipeline which is a reasonable conclusion. The TAPS system is already greatly degraded and some parts have been shut down. It is just a matter of time before the whole system will be shut down even if only temporary for rebuilding!$$$$$$$$$$$ Recent trends in the price of oil going up has caused decreased budgets for maintaining the TAPS system. Will this trend continue? I for one think it will!
What we need is an increased investment in sustainable energy such as wind, solar, and geothermal. Many people know the basics of solar and wind, though there are a lot of misconceptions of them, but not many understand what geothermal is. Well here is an interactive explanation: http://www...outus4.asp
The biggest issue with these technologies is cost, but oil prices are only going to continue to go up and out price these technologies in the end. Plus the oil will run out eventually. Costs are dropping with these technologies as more and more people are starting to use them. One of the big boosts to the solar energy has been the evolution of selling excess production to the power company at your peak during the day. This allows you to delete several thousand dollars from your solar installation due to no need of storing the energy in a massive bank of batteries. The peak production is typicaly in the day when the power company would be at peak demand. It's a win win situation. An integrated system of wind/solar is also an option. Many are concerned about loosing production during bad weather. Usually when a storm comes along and reduces solar energy there is an increase in wind velocity due to thermal air mass changes. So integrated systems are a good match in that situation. Also when tied to the grid you always have access to energy even if your solar or wind system is down.
I am not one that supports this trend of using these current bio-fuel products. We are growing a huge population and can't afford to continue forfeiting food for fuel. Methanol may burn cleaner but the efficiency is less than that of the standard gasoline so what good does that do in the long run?
My bottom line point is we need to look els where for energy! Oil will not last forever and will continue to rise in monetary costs as well as continue to escalate conflicts as it becomes more scarce!
07/01/2008 3:42:57 PM
