[quote]Ren wrote:
The only way off-shore drilling will have a serious impact is if our total dependence on oil decreases.
Demand will continue to outpace supply, especially with the steady increase in industrialization in developing countries.
My stance is that an expansion of drilling will not have the magical result people expect, and will be a lot less beneficial without a policy that reduces total oil dependence.
[/quote]
It matters little. Every barrel we don’t end up buying from our enemies is a good barrel. Regardless of whether or not off-shore drilling will lower prices we should get all resources we can from our own soil before we go to foreign sources. This should be law in my opinion.
As long as we do business with our enemies they will seek ways to make us kneel to them. Fuck 'em. Drill here and suck it dry before buying another drop from anywhere else.
[quote]Ren wrote:
The Mage wrote:
Ren wrote:
The only way off-shore drilling will have a serious impact is if our total dependence on oil decreases.
Demand will continue to outpace supply, especially with the steady increase in industrialization in developing countries.
My stance is that an expansion of drilling will not have the magical result people expect, and will be a lot less beneficial without a policy that reduces total oil dependence.
This isn’t magic, this is math.
Demand will out pace supply only if we do not drill.
And why does everything have to be one or the other? If we look at an oil field, why do we suddenly ignore all the others?
Right now there is enough oil being produced to cover supply. I know, you heard we are using more then we are pumping, and while that was temporarily true, that is not true now.
Supplies are coming online fairly fast right now, and that will help push prices down. (And whoever is in the White house will take credit for it.) But there could be a problem if we do not open these places up for drilling.
You want to move off oil, fine. But we are still going to need oil until we find something else that will work.
There really is only one solution. Go New-Q-Ler. Start building plants now.
Once we have the cheap abundant and clean energy of New-Q-Ler, then electric cars will become viable. Right now if we went electric, the grid could not handle it. It is the next step in our technology, and we are 30 years behind because of ignorance and lies.
But until we make the change over, we are going to need oil in abundance.
And people just like you are standing in the way, as always. “Don’t drill here, don’t drill there, no refineries, no nuke plants. Oh gee why are energy prices so high? Must be Bush’s fault.”
Are you actually interested in solutions or just roadblocks?
I’ll be honest and say there was a point when I was adamant against drilling, now I am open to it.
Sell leases at MARKET rate (which I am guessing would be higher now because oil is so profitable?) Let them start their exploration. I prefer just Alaska and the Gulf to be drilled, but that doesn’t mean you can’t explore the pacific and atlantic OCS. We have an estimate of how much oil and natural gas is in each, but we might get lucky and hit a big reserve. If they find anything, and I would hope most of it is economically recoverable (a tricky phrase if there ever was one), get the drilling platform in there, let’s get another refinery or 2 in place. Hold them accountable for environmental issues that might occur (essentially hit them hard if they cause spills and such).
So, now we can increase supply…in say 10 years. good start. The next thing to do is look for ways to MAXIMIZE the impact this will have. And you do this by decreasing total dependence on oil and natural gas.
Promote the production of hybrids (as a start, not an end), encourage alternative energy sources (a very promising one is the solar panels that heat water to steam to drive turbines and is super efficient, cost? damn cheap). Etc.
If we can give tax breaks to ppl buying hummers, we can give it to ppl doing things to reduce our use of fossil fuels.
dhickey wants to talk about how beneficial it is for the oil companies making records profits to increase their stocks (hell, most of their record profits are going into buying dividends and other measures to make their stock price go up in the first place). Even though the vast majority of Americans won’t actually see any benefits from that. I like to consider the MASSIVE market for alternative energy, which the US has a chance to become a world leader in. Now we are talking about some serious job creation and economic benefits.
So now that I have conceded, and said let’s drill. What are your thoughts on the BIG picture? (if drilling is your idea of the big picture then we’re screwed).[/quote]
[quote]pat wrote:
It matters little. Every barrel we don’t end up buying from our enemies is a good barrel. Regardless of whether or not off-shore drilling will lower prices we should get all resources we can from our own soil before we go to foreign sources. This should be law in my opinion.
As long as we do business with our enemies they will seek ways to make us kneel to them. Fuck 'em. Drill here and suck it dry before buying another drop from anywhere else.[/quote]
???
Why would we consider oil producers our enemies? Are you mistaking them for the governments which tries to keep their hands in the cookie jar?
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
pat wrote:
It matters little. Every barrel we don’t end up buying from our enemies is a good barrel. Regardless of whether or not off-shore drilling will lower prices we should get all resources we can from our own soil before we go to foreign sources. This should be law in my opinion.
As long as we do business with our enemies they will seek ways to make us kneel to them. Fuck 'em. Drill here and suck it dry before buying another drop from anywhere else.
???
Why would we consider oil producers our enemies? Are you mistaking them for the governments which tries to keep their hands in the cookie jar?[/quote]
Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Russia, etc. Which one of these is our friend?
[quote]pat wrote:
FUCK HYBRIDS! Drive real cars, real fast.
[/quote]
Amen brother. 6.0 denali and looking for a gas slurping 389 pontiac now.
Real one or lemans? My dad is a pontiac nut so I have grown up with an appreciation for them. Would love to find a 64, even a lemans. I love the early ones with the headlights side by side. Love the early (62,63)bonivilles as well.
dhickey wants to talk about how beneficial it is for the oil companies making records profits to increase their stocks (hell, most of their record profits are going into buying dividends and other measures to make their stock price go up in the first place). Even though the vast majority of Americans won’t actually see any benefits from that. I like to consider the MASSIVE market for alternative energy, which the US has a chance to become a world leader in. Now we are talking about some serious job creation and economic benefits.
[/quote]
Dude. Basic economics. Profit are good for us all. How many people do they employ? There shareholder are tax paying americans. more than half of the shares are held by mutual funds, pension funds,etc. When they buy back shares, who do you think they are buying them from? Were do you think the profits go? Not under a matress, back into the market. Try something from :
Charles Murray
Milton Friedman
Adam Smith
Ludwig Von Mises
F.A Hayek
Basiat
Murray Rothbard
Hobbs
Locke
Hume
Jefferson
I don’t know what else to tell other than arbitrarily taking profit from companies is as dangerous as gets. You need to do some reading.
[quote]pat wrote:
Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Russia, etc. Which one of these is our friend?[/quote]
How does government produce oil? Don’t mistake the location of the oil for who supplies it to the market. There are many hard working, honest, good people who actually do the work. The benefit is not zero sum.
The “evil” being committed is through coercion and taxation by these governments (and ours) – not because our governments don’t get along.
I’ll be honest and say there was a point when I was adamant against drilling, now I am open to it. [/quote]
That’s an improvement. I can really see no reason, other then politics, (and nutty groups,) not to drill.
It would be economically recoverable. That is what these companies do, and they know how to do it. And as technology improves, they get better.
And do not be worried about oil spills. As I have said before, 70% of the oil in the oceans are there naturally. The oil pumping platforms actually become barrier reefs, and expand the ecosystem around those platforms.
The damage caused by oil spills has been exaggerated way beyond reality.
[quote]So, now we can increase supply…in say 10 years. good start. The next thing to do is look for ways to MAXIMIZE the impact this will have. And you do this by decreasing total dependence on oil and natural gas.
Promote the production of hybrids (as a start, not an end), encourage alternative energy sources (a very promising one is the solar panels that heat water to steam to drive turbines and is super efficient, cost? damn cheap). Etc.
If we can give tax breaks to ppl buying hummers, we can give it to ppl doing things to reduce our use of fossil fuels.[/quote]
Wait a sec, when did we give tax breaks to people buying Hummers? I believe some Hummers exceed the limit for luxury tax, so should cost more. (There is a hydrogen Hummer in the works.) [quote]
dhickey wants to talk about how beneficial it is for the oil companies making records profits to increase their stocks (hell, most of their record profits are going into buying dividends and other measures to make their stock price go up in the first place). [/quote]
Buying dividends? I assume you mean buying stock. This is the reverse of a stock split.
Anyway they are pumping large amounts into finding and extracting oil right now.
Anyway, why so negative about profits? They made money, what is wrong with that?
Also the raw numbers does not tell us anything. So they made record profits, doesn’t mean shit actually. The profit margin is what matters. For ever dollar they invest, they are getting ~$1.07 back. (7%) It has been pointed out recently that the manufacturing sector is over 9%.
Anyway all this money moving around is good for the economy. That money invested creates jobs. Feeds families. Fills 401k’s and IRA’s. But all people think of are fat cats getting rich, and then they sit around feeling jealous.
You are assuming that oil companies do not benefit a majority of Americans, but assume profits in alternative energy does? Sounds quite illogical to me. Some of the biggest investors in alternative energy is actually the oil companies.
And both actually provide benefits to people. Jobs and profits. It doesn’t matter if that comes from oil or alternative. A job is a job, and profits are profits.
I kind of gave the big picture before. I have no problem with alternative energy, we should do it all.
First we should open up areas for drilling. There are more then enough environmental laws to make sure the oil companies keep areas clean. (In fact because we have laws they do not in other countries, it is cleaner for us to get oil then it is for most other countries to get that oil.)
The 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil from shale should be made available to us.
Fast track refinery building.
This by itself gives us plenty of time to move to the next step in energy:
New-Q-Ler. (Make sure to pronounce that Q.) Another fast track project.
Clean abundant energy, low cost, very little waste. And I mean shockingly small amounts of waste. (Especially after reprocessing, i.e. recycling the waste.)
It should be noted that coal plants produce 50 times the radioactive emissions that a Nuke plant does.
We also need to upgrade the grid. Experts say that upgrading the technology of the grid itself could reduce the increase in electricity production by as much as 50% by 2025. (Assuming their projections of electricity use, not mine.)
This would easily keep us running until we develop fusion reactors. Every day we get closer, but it is still half a century away.
Now I don’t know if anyone else has thought of this, but I could see houses being built with batteries that draw energy during off peak times, and then use that energy during peak hours. Connected to a smart grid, it could control which systems are collecting electricity, and which systems are using so that everyone is not using at the same time could have a significant impact. As energy use drops, more systems come online, and as energy use goes up, these systems could be turned on to produce off the grid.
Now I don’t know if anyone else has thought of this, but I could see houses being built with batteries that draw energy during off peak times, and then use that energy during peak hours. Connected to a smart grid, it could control which systems are collecting electricity, and which systems are using so that everyone is not using at the same time could have a significant impact. As energy use drops, more systems come online, and as energy use goes up, these systems could be turned on to produce off the grid.[/quote]
I beleive this technology already exists. A pc, a trickle charger, and some batteries. UPSs already run off of batteries with the trickle charge only coming when available or needed. You simply agree to cut power at particular times or until the batteries reach a particular threshold. All power companies would have to do is agree to decrease rates at off peak and this would be easily doable. There are also smart reader that send info over an IP connection real time. It would take very little to do this.
[quote]The Mage wrote:
pat wrote:
FUCK HYBRIDS! Drive real cars, real fast.
Not a hybrid, but the Tesla Roadster shows what can be done with electric.
0-60 in 3.9 seconds
2 cents a mile
220 miles per charge
[/quote]
So what your doing is shifting the environmental burden else where. Where do you think the electricity to charge the car comes from? All your are doing is putting a bigger burden on the electrical grid. Which means, if everybody does it, you’ll need more power plants. What kind of power plant do you prefer, nuclear, coal fired, gassifed coal, water powered, solar, wind? All have environmental impacts. Nuclear produces hot water and eventual nuclear waste, coal fired is obvious, gassfied coal has to be gassifed, water requires to damming of a river, solar and wind required ginormous swaths of land.
So what your doing is shifting the environmental burden else where. Where do you think the electricity to charge the car comes from? All your are doing is putting a bigger burden on the electrical grid.
Which means, if everybody does it, you’ll need more power plants. What kind of power plant do you prefer, nuclear, coal fired, gassifed coal, water powered, solar, wind? All have environmental impacts.
Nuclear produces hot water and eventual nuclear waste, coal fired is obvious, gassfied coal has to be gassifed, water requires to damming of a river, solar and wind required ginormous swaths of land.
Electric sure solves a lot of problems.[/quote]
Nu-Q-Ler, I said this in my last post. It solves all of them, and yes it produces hot water, so does my hot water heater.
And do not be worried about the waste. This is the biggest hoax perpetrated by the Anti-Nuke crowd.
The waste produced by a Nuke plant is reduced by a factor of 10,000,000. That means the power you would use in a year would produce waste about the size of an aspirin. And no it won’t be dangerous in 1,000 years. (Or even 100.)
Right now China is planning on building 40 of these plants.
So what your doing is shifting the environmental burden else where. Where do you think the electricity to charge the car comes from? All your are doing is putting a bigger burden on the electrical grid.
Which means, if everybody does it, you’ll need more power plants. What kind of power plant do you prefer, nuclear, coal fired, gassifed coal, water powered, solar, wind? All have environmental impacts.
Nuclear produces hot water and eventual nuclear waste, coal fired is obvious, gassfied coal has to be gassifed, water requires to damming of a river, solar and wind required ginormous swaths of land.
Electric sure solves a lot of problems.
Nu-Q-Ler, I said this in my last post. It solves all of them, and yes it produces hot water, so does my hot water heater.
And do not be worried about the waste. This is the biggest hoax perpetrated by the Anti-Nuke crowd.
The waste produced by a Nuke plant is reduced by a factor of 10,000,000. That means the power you would use in a year would produce waste about the size of an aspirin. And no it won’t be dangerous in 1,000 years. (Or even 100.)
Right now China is planning on building 40 of these plants.[/quote]
Oh I think nuclear power is the way to go, but if you are a staunch environmentalist, the hot water is a problem be cause it destroys the local ecosystem.
I don’t give a shit the fish can move if they like colder water.
The environmentalists also killed off re enrichment which would of eliminated the need to store used Uranium. So by being concerned about the environement, they essentially created a much larger environmental problem…Idiots.
