more babble on oil drilling~

[Gypsiyee]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/washi ... ef=science

does anyone else find it amusing how Bush is all "omg democratic controlled congress just wants you to spend more money"? last I checked, the "democratic controlled congress" was even steven in the senate and had only 35 or so more dems in the house (correct me if I'm wrong or something has changed) I mean am I just really bad at math or something?

anyhow, back to the topic at hand.. I'm really sick to death of hearing about the drilling, personally. even if I was in favor of it, which I'm not, it's just not the long term answer. it's a band-aid fix for a problem that spans many years, and at what cost on top of the fact that it's a temporary solution? not to mention that there isn't even any quick relief in it, we're talking about years from now that this *might* help us *a little.*

I do hope I live to see the day when big oil and politics no longer go hand in hand, but I don't think that'll be for a long while.

[Harrison]

We stand to gain nothing by keeping a ridiculously huge dependence on foreign imports of oil controlled by twats like OPEC. (they're like 40% of the entire world's production or some shit...)

Open up Alaska, punch a hippie in the face, and open more offshore. It won't be immediate but at least it will give us a BIT more to ourselves.

Edit: P.S. The punch a hippie in the face part is for the pure enjoyment of it. It won't really do much to help but damn it would be awesome.

[brinstar]

and then what happens a year later when it's empty again?

we go back to OPEC on our knees

no, the real answer to our oil crisis is not FINDING MORE, it's NEEDING LESS

[Harrison]

I agree, but one doesn't necessitate the ignoring of the other.

[Reynaldo]

Research for newer fuel sources takes time too though. If more drilling can buy a bit more relief while the development of other sources takes place, then I think it's worth it.

Obviously I'm not blind and know Bush is making a push to fatten the wallet one more time on his way out. But I think the Dems need to meet on the middle on this one. Say something like drilling is fine, so long as 25% of the profits from domestic oil goes straight towards alternate fuel development. Nobody really gives a rats ass about bobo the seal, it's all just posturing.

And the only thing driving up oil prices is the speculation. Joe stock market says "omg oil futures COULD be $5 a gallon by September!" So of course Joe Exxon licks his chops and starts hiking the price 9 cents a day citing Joe stock market saying so. I see these oil execs now and they sound exactly like Ron Artest saying that 5 mil a year isn't enough to feed his family.

[Kramer]

to develop anwr would mean no oil, in some estimations, for around 7-10 years. and with proper r&d i fear that we would wreck an area that can't be rebuilt for something that wasn't as depserately needed a decade later.

i understand that anwr isn't whole enchilada and that it does seem that there needs to be a balance between reducing dependence and an enormous push for R&D.

[Eziekial]

Does anyone here have any idea what type of "footprint" is left by modern drilling techniques or is all this based on what you hear on NPR?

[Tikker]

we have tons of oil wells around here, so yes

[Arlos]

Offshore drilling isn't a short term solution either. Bush tries to make it sound like we could just start pumping tomorrow, and that's absolutely ludicrous. If we STARTED construction tomorrow, the earliest any of them would come on line is 2013, more likely 2015+. Oil rights are big, complex structures and take a long time to build.

Besides which, the amount of oil they would generate is negligible. From the articles I read on this, the consensus seems to be that even if we opened up every square foot of coastline to drilling, the price impact it would have would be about 6 to 10 cents a gallon. 5-10 years from now.

Even if it ere right now, 10cents on $4/gallon is a difference of 2.5%. Do you really feel the risk of mass ecological havoc all over our coasts is worth 2.5%? Accidents ARE inevitable. Just look at what happened a while back in Santa Barbara for one example.

No, we would be far, far better served by sinking every dollar that would have gone into that boondoggle into research and development of non oil based fuels, and thus reducing our NEED for oil. Hell, plant hemp everywhere. The seeds are full of oil, which can be directly processed into biodiesel. The plants can be used for paper, fabric, animal feed, or even treat them like has been discussed with Switchgrass, and ferment it down into ethanol. Far less land/water/etc intensive than corn based ethanol too.

So, in any case, offshore drilling wouldn't help gas prices more than a tiny bit, and that not for going on a decade. All it would really do is further despoil our coasts make the oil companies even more rich.

Edit: From that very NYT article:

a 2007 analysis by the agency concluded that opening up drilling in the moratorium area “would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030.”

Even the guy working as a consultant for the oil companies admitted it would be at LEAST 6-7 years before any appreciable amount was pumped out of the ground, even if we started today. I don't see why anyone should even think of kowtowing to Big Oil on this one. Offshore drilling will not help in the short or even mid term. I would hope that by 22 years from now in 2030, we would have finished our transition away from being so utterly oil dependent and onto new, sustainable technologies, and thus wouldn't need the oil anyway.

Again, not just no, but HELL no.

-Arlos

[10sun]

8 posts for someone to start crying for planting of hemp.

Ethanol is a pipe dream and a dumb one at that.
How many acres of corn does it take to make one barrel of ethanol?
How many acres of hemp?

People will just continue to buy their SUVs that are labeled FlexFuel friendly.
There are societal changes that need to come before we even begin to work on the technology.

How many of you commute to work? I know Tikker has been trying to ride his bike to work lately. Personally I telecommute because the technology exists to permit me a teleconference if I really need to be at a meeting and the rest of my work doesn't matter if I am at my office or at home doing it. I typically use between 3 and 6 gallons of gasoline a week and I've been trying to trim it back even further.

Where are your groceries from? Try eating foods produced within your own state / territory for a month this summer instead of furthering the trend of buying food that has traveled half the world to reach your supermarket. I couldn't do it in April, but I am giving it another go in August.

-Adam

[Arlos]

I dunno how many acres, but that's the thing about hemp: it takes no fertilizer, pesticides or even irrigation (unless you were to try growing it in the center of the Mojave or something). It doesn't use up the nutrients in the soil like something like Corn does.

As a result, it can be planted on marginal or otherwise unused lands, without significant environmental impact. I don't disagree that corn based ethanol is never going to fix our oil dependency, because Corn is so intensive to grow. Literal weeds like hemp or switchgrass, though, may be different kettles of fish entirely, however.

-Arlos

[Naethyn]

The key to our oil dependency is laser beams.

[ClakarEQ]

This drilling thing is all BS, he is trying to get one final hurrah and line his already thick with black gold pockets. I don't think the oil companies have drilled into 50% of the properties they already have, why the fuck would we give them more.

Even more it will make near zero impact to the global supply and demand, all it will do is generate more revenue to the oil mongers.

I don't think hemp is the answer either, while it doesn't need the chemcials and hormones don't kid yourself, if you plant it, you will protect it with chemicals and you will do what it takes to make that yeild as large and as profitable as possible. It isn't like hemp isn't suseptable to many many insect infestations. Not only that, while a cleaner burn it may be, it is a burn all the same, so yeah it will slow some environmental issues down, but it isn't a "fix".

It will take decades to kill our hardcore crack like addiction to oil and the combustion engine.

I did see a cool air based engine from some dude in Aussieland, there was a youtube video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq8aZVLpf-c

Now that there, that is a fix once the tech matures, so we're still looking at a decade or more at best

[Martrae]

You can't have it both ways. Either there isn't enough there to bother with or he only wants to line his pockets with all the fat profits to be gained.

[brinstar]

i own an SUV because good luck fitting a fucking drum set and two amps AND three people in a coupe

but i walk to work and class and i make a tank of gas stretch 6-7 weeks


and for the record, the dems' idea is to tax the shit out of the oil companies' recent ridiculous profits and use that money DIRECTLY to research alternate energy sources. makes pretty good fucking sense to me!


not to mention, wouldn't it be fucking great to give foreign oil cartels the finger and say "hey dickslaps, choke on that shit"


and finally, martrae, he sure as fuck COULD have it both ways. by hoodwinking the country (ONCE AGAIN) he could get us all horny for domestic oil sources, and by the time we realize shit, there's not enough fucking oil here to last a year, he's already cashed the check

[Martrae]

Yeah, cuz the cost of the drilling and refining and all that goes with it won't cost a penny. It'll be all profit.

[brinstar]

no, but being able to tell the general public "LOL LOOK WE'RE HELPIN" will keep them buying gas and guess what----- will keep them in record profits

[Tikker]

Yeah, cuz the cost of the drilling and refining and all that goes with it won't cost a penny. It'll be all profit.

yeah cause politicians never line their own pockets with donations from partisan contract bidders

[Gypsiyee]

You can't have it both ways. Either there isn't enough there to bother with or he only wants to line his pockets with all the fat profits to be gained.

Why can't you have it both ways? both are true - there isn't enough to be effective to the consumers, but there is enough for oil for them to make a hefty profit, and that's especially obvious as ol W's last hurrah.. pretty simple, really.

Adam, as much as I'd love to telecommute, not all of us are lucky enough to have that option. Telecommuting is a luxury afforded for few - while the technology exists, we don't all have supervisors and procedures that allow for that luxury. Most offices still require you to be there in the morning and work until your shift ends. Public transportation isn't even feasible for a LOT of parts of the country, neither is riding a bike. I carpool with my dad, and that's the best I can do on the transportation front (using myself as an example, but for many, if not most, people, there aren't a lot of options here, and I think you're kidding yourself to think that everyone has those choices dangling in their faces.)

Cutting down your use isn't going to be the answer long term, either. Oil is a resource that will run out, period. It may not be in the next 10 years, but it's not an infinite supply. As you mentioned with the technology there to telecommute, the technology is there for better options than oil.. but with the profit money lying with the power of the country, those avenues aren't being fully explored (and won't in the near future) because someone is making too much money off of it to let things change.

[Eziekial]

I hope a windfall profit tax passes just to see the look on peoples faces when those taxes are passed down to the consumer. Maybe we should just nationalize the oil companies like Hugo Chavez and be done with it. Look how well it's working out for Columbia. Hugo is even taking over cemet and steel now. Think about it, the Federal Government could take over Chevron, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, and Shell (America) and take ALL the profits and put them into research! Think of all the wonderful things we could do with all that money! I wonder how much increase that would add to our nations current tax revenue? I bet it's significant. Really! I can't contain my excitement over this wonderful idea. Think of the possibilities! I'm going to call my congressmen right now and tell him how great an idea this is! I urge you all to do so as well. Let's put a stick in the eye of those greedy big oil companies once and for all!

[Gypsiyee]

Without the sarcasm, Ziek, what's your solution? Clearly you're in favor of the drilling, and that's fine - we can agree to disagree. but when that runs out (and it will), then what do you suggest?

[Eziekial]

Ok, in all seriousness; it's not a simple answer because it depends on what are you looking to solve. That's why all this talk of taxing oil companies, opening ANWR, pumping money in to research, lowering greenhouse gases, etc.. is just political rhetoric.

IF I was supreme leader of America I would do a couple things at the same time. First, I would revoke all subsides for ethanol and other "bio-fuels" as that is one of the leading causes of food shortages in the world (yes, the world) and remove all tariffs and taxes on imported agricultural products. That would open the door for Brazil to bring in excess ethanol at or below current market price to be used as an additive for fuel. I would remove all tax breaks and incentives for oil companies and treat them like any other American company. I would order a systematic sale of 20% of all Federal land (that includes offshore plots) to their respective states and allow each state to control that land as they see fit as an experiment. If Alaskans want to open the 20% of ANWR then they should be able to do so. I would give a 10-20yr period before making a decision on the other 80%. I would use a portion of the revenue from the 20% land sale to commission an non-political, independent evaluation organization to monitor the development of the state owned land and the impact on economic and environmental issues of their choosing.
I would restructure the Department of Energy and change it from a regulatory agency to a clearinghouse of information. It would have no authority to approve nor deny energy policy in any way shape or form. It would solely act as a seal of approval in terms of national energy interests. (Like the good-housekeeping seal of approval but publicly funded and focused on Energy) Every state would be open to craft their own energy policy (which many of them already do but are subservient to Federal Policy) and regulations. This would clear the way for power companies to build power plants best suited to meet the energy needs of the nation and maximize the available resources. So if power companies in FL wanted to build nuclear power plants as well as solar power panels then they would be free to do so. However they would compete with WV coal generated power. However coal would no longer be subsidized as to make it cheaper than renewable resources so as it gets harder and harder to mine coal the costs go up and the profits decrease making it less desirable to use.

I truly believe "green" energy will be a more profitable enterprise than fossil fuels in the near future. The key is to remove the road blocks to these sources and stop propping up fossil fuels and allow the markets to naturally shift over. I'm not a fan of "incentives" like tax breaks on solar panels because those lead to what we have now where we pay oil companies to drill in low-yield fields. It was a great idea back in the day when it was proposed to build up oil production in response to OPECs sanctions but now it's an example of pork-barrel spending. The government can't keep up with private ingenuity and invention. The reason we have super computers in laptop form is because the industry was free to develop without government interference. I had a Zenith laptop in college. Why? Because Zenith was an American company that won a US government contract to provide IT to the Academy I attended. Zenith never made a laptop before and it was junk. I wish I had pictures of the it, I can't describe the stupidity of the thing. Anyway, imagine if Zenith had won a national contract and Dell, Apple, and HP couldn't compete with them. What if Intel was shut out of the market due to government regulation? Those principles apply to energy as well. I honestly feel if we allow anyone and everyone to make and sell energy we would solve our crisis within a decade. Arlos could be the Bill Gates of hemp biofuel. I expect a pretty sizable contribution to my campaign fund from you if that happens

[Evermore]

I would remove all tax breaks and incentives for oil companies and treat them like any other American company.

Zeek, gas prices will shoot thru the roof if you do something like this. not like they havent already but this would make it worse.

[Tikker]

so?

maybe it'll actually wake up the public and give them a real incentive to use less oil/gas

[10sun]

Public transportation isn't even feasible for a LOT of parts of the country, neither is riding a bike. I carpool with my dad, and that's the best I can do on the transportation front (using myself as an example, but for many, if not most, people, there aren't a lot of options here, and I think you're kidding yourself to think that everyone has those choices dangling in their faces).

You can choose to live too far from work. I realize that your particular economic situation has placed you living with your father and you can't really tell him where to live. However if you were to move into a new place and still place yourself at a great distance from your place of employment, that is your choice and in the end it sucks for your wallet.

I did not mean to make it sound as though telecommuting was an obvious answer for people right now, but it is a growing trend and will rise in popularity as time goes on.