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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
You are not real smart on the facts of this issue. Drilling is only part of the solution. Your doom and gloom on oil spills and oil soaking up on the beaches is all politically motivated garbage. How much oil spilled during the last hurricane in the gulf? Fools like you the main reason we have not constructed an oil refinery in 30 years. Drill now, build Nuc plants now, build refinerys now, while, at the same time expand the use of solar power. And wind farms off of Nantucket (oops, Kennedy shot that down), well San Fransico then (oops, Nancy shot that down), then Florida (oops Nelson shot that down).
No one listens to the libs anymore because they are a bunch of fools who will lead this country into the abyss.
Even Fox News, the Pravda of the airwaves is willing to admit that: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,366249,00.html
I think every conservative letter in this forum has mentioned this little lie. Certainly makes one a little bit leery of all of their other claims, doesn't it?
If it's that big of a deal......then perhaps Obama should swallow hard and choose the VP candidate that most Democrats want and who is most likely to win us the Presidency ...
There's something to that, but I think Al Gore will be more useful in the Obama administration in some role other than VP -- maybe an expanded version of the Secretary of Energy post.
Let's suppose that we do indeed want to drill all that oil. Is now the best time to be doing it?
Say it costs X dollars to build out an oil drilling, transporting, and refining infrastructure that can take advantage of the North American continent's untapped oil reserves.
If we instead spent those X dollars on building manufacturing capacity for renewable energy plants and high-efficiency cars, the supply-demand dynamic of the American energy market would be altered at least as much — and far more favorably for consumers. The oil would still be there, and we would need it less.
The only people for whom that sounds like a bad deal are oil companies that would rather throw a tantrum and cry "don' wanna, don' wanna" than accept that it's their bedtime. So are we going to spoil them some more, or send them upstairs without their dinner?
Perhaps nothing better illustrates the current American experience than the juxtaposition of story about the Bush-McCain-GOP rallying cry to open new areas to drilling with Honda's press release regarding its new hydrogen powered car. Honda reports that it will be set to release the car, which gets approximately 280 miles on one fill-up, on a trial basis shortly, and will likely be in mass production within the next 10 years. In fact, the biggest impediment to Honda's car going into mass production now seems to be the lack of a hydrogen fueling infrastructure, which is just beginning to develop in Southern California. While America and its current ruling administration and CEOs are still pursuing old and inadequate solutions, a Japanese car company is preparing for the future. Don't believe anything can take down the mighty US economy? Well, how many US car buyers bought Hondas or Toyotas (or even heard of either brand) before the gas crisis of the early 1970's? This is simply the next step in the process. The US car and oil powers will continue to try to hang on to their outmoded way of doing things, and the rest of the world will invent its way farther and farther into the lead, leaving us in the dust (although hopefully with still enough money so that we can at least afford to buy their products).
In Colorado, Utah and Wyoming there are huge deposits of oil shale which can be economically converted to oil at $80 per barrel. There are estimated reserves of up to two trillion barrels of oil in this reserve which could supply all of our oil needs (at current usage rates) for 200 years.
The sky is not falling. We only need the political will and pragmatism to solve the "energy crises."
1- Nothing stops us from drilling and developing alternative energy at the same time, so that's a false dichotomy.
2- While it's true that conservatives might be susceptible to sacrifice long-term financial for the short term, at the very least there's no question that conservatives are concerned about financial impact primarily. They really do want to reduce the price of gas.
Liberals, on the other hand, also have environmentalism and redistribution as part of their decision-making process. It's disingenuous to pretend both parties have economic interests as their highest priority. There's no reason to think liberals would be for drilling under any circumstances, just like many conservatives would never be for withdrawal from Iraq.
The people getting hurt by high gas prices won't let either party slide by, and good for them. It's elitist to act as if this is part of an American "do something, anything" mentality; people are really getting hammered by this.
Which is why drilling will be a reality soon, no matter how many liberals write articles pretending that short-term or long-term economy are their primary concerns. And of course the drilling won't bring any oil to market immediately; it'll be the impact on the speculators and OPEC of a demonstrative effort by their largest consumer to wean themselves off the teat that will put downward pressure on the price of oil.
More than a little over the top and one-sided.
Is anyone other than me getting tired of hearing that drilling will not immediately solve our gasoline supply problem? This argument is a total red-herring. No solution (nuclear, drilling, clean coal, bio-fuel, solar, tidal, expanded refining capacity, etc.) will immediately solve our supply problem. All of them require development/implementation time. Some of them are not yet technologically feasible. However, for decades the arguments cited in this article have been advanced to stymie any action and look at the result - $140/barrel oil. Due to the complexity of our energy use needs (e.g.., it is very hard to run an airliner on electricity) we need a multi-pronged approach that explores and exploits all viable options.
My personal opinion is that a greatly expanded nuclear program (with fuel re-processing like the French do), some use of wind power and electric cars is the most promising option. This approach will hugely reduce the amount of dollars sent overseas and has the added advantage of simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution.
However, we must start drilling. Currently the overwhelming majority of our energy comes from hydrocarbons. Until other economically viable energy sources come on line, there is no other realistic alternative. The impact of even just 1,000,000 barrels of oil a day is huge. Especially at $140/barrel. As an added benefit the money spent on new domestic oil is money that will remain in the US and will have a multiplier effect when you factor in the money to be spent to develop and produce the new reserves. Think jobs - think purchases of equipment.
Please reject the canard that drilling will not have an immediate impact and we can rely on as yet unproven energy sources.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
