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2008-05-30 Home Front: Politix

Drilling our way out of rising oil prices

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Posted by gorb 2008-05-30 04:10|| || Front Page|| [2 views ] Top

#1 We need to get from here (oil) to there (nukes, green), and the only way to do it without crippling our economy is to DRILL HERE DRILL NOW while we are building the nukes and developing and deploying a hyrdogen/electric economy.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-05-30 11:23|| 2008-05-30 11:23|| Front Page Top

#2 Sign the petition

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2008-05-30 11:25|| 2008-05-30 11:25|| Front Page Top

#3 By 2025, world consumption, currently at about 85 million barrels a day, is expected to swell to well over 100 million barrels a day. That makes 2 million barrels a day look pretty small.
That is a silly statement. World consumption of petro (as of other products) will closely parallel world production, which I doubt will ever get close to 100 million barrels/day.
Since it takes so many years to increase domestic oil production, perhaps other methods should be stressed, such as nuclear power. How long does it take to bring a new reactor on line, once the trial lawyers have been muzzled & leashed?
--- Also, railroads still have an inherent energy advantage compared to diesel trucks, but are currently in the USA limited by track capacity & overhead limitations. Locomotives can run on nuke-electricity or on anything that burns hot enough to generate steam. A major push to increase the capacity of railroads to carry freight & so decrease the need for diesel fuel is decades overdue.
What the American electorate still wants is cheap motor fuel and a continuation of Happy Motoring for the indefinite future. There is neither the discipline on their part nor the leadership by the political class to deal with the issue of ever-increasing petro prices and the transfer of the national wealth to terrorist states.
Perhaps when spot shortages of fuel develop and grocery store shelves go bare, the electorate will wake up.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2008-05-30 11:58|| 2008-05-30 11:58|| Front Page Top

#4 a big oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara, Calif., in 1969.
It was horrible, the area still hasn't recovered. School childrens were drafted to clean up greasy baby ducks and the resulting homeless population is present on every American corner. It was a geniune American Holocaust. Also teh beach was closered for a couple of weeks.

Posted by George Smiley 2008-05-30 19:22|| 2008-05-30 19:22|| Front Page Top

#5 a big oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara, Calif., in 1969.

Tarballs are normal on California beaches and have been forever. The pre-Spanish Indians used to gather them to line their baskets to make them waterproof.

At some point after this 1969 spill Arco (IIRC) reached an agreement with the Santa Barbarians to install what was basically an inverted funnel over a natural oil seep in Santa Barbara Bay in return for being allowed to drill further offshore, with the 'risk' of oil spills. Arco thought they'd lose money on the 'public service' part of the deal, but found they collected enough natural seep oil to actually pay for their costs. I think (I have heard the story 'in the business' for many years but do not have documentation.)

Posted by Glenmore 2008-05-30 19:42|| 2008-05-30 19:42|| Front Page Top

#6 If the U.S. switched to plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, the country would save 3.8 million barrels of oil a day

And the ressulting brown and blackouts would bring the power distribution system crashing down, there's simply NOT that much generating capacity.
Nuke plants "Sometime" will NOT fix the shortage NOW.

Posted by Redneck Jim">Redneck Jim 2008-05-30 19:42|| 2008-05-30 19:42|| Front Page Top

#7 Sounds nice, RJ, but who's going to pay for one for me to replace the perfectly good Honda suv I have that's paid for (and yes, I need an suv for my business)?

And where are we going to get them all? There aren't enough made to meet the demand we have now.

I freely admit I don't know much about electric cars, but unless I can drive from here to Charlotte - and have some way to "fill up" at the other end for the drive back, it won't do me much good.

Of course, if we'd started drilling in ANWR 10 years ago (and in the Gulf and off both coasts), maybe we wouldn't be in such a pickle right now. Thanks, Congress. ~~You self-centered pandering assholes.~~

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2008-05-30 20:23|| http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/]">[http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/] 2008-05-30 20:23|| Front Page Top

#8 Actually, some of the figures I've heard from my friends still in the oil business is that the US could expand its oil production by up to 3.2 million barrels of oil a day within the next 30 years, if the barriers to drilling were eliminated. That includes oil pumped from platforms in the Gulf of Mexico (that part of it stretching from south of Mobile to Cuba, east), oil from off the Atlantic coast, drilling in several areas of the midwest that are currently off limits, drilling off the coast of California, drilling in both the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve and the Naval Oil Reserve, and oil from new fields currently being tested off the western coast of Alaska, north of the Aleutians. One thing that's been discovered recently is that you can't pump all the oil out of a reservoir, and that over time, some reservoirs will re-stock from oil migrating from elsewhere, mostly below current drilling depths.

As much as we need oil, it won't do us any good if we don't expand and modernize refining efforts, which are at near-peak production constantly. We need to build an additional 20 petroleum refineries NOW, then slowly upgrade existing refineries to where they can better produce results at lower costs and less of a chance for polluting the planet.

We also need to follow the lead of France and begin building nuclear power stations where they're feasible. Nuke power stations need LOTS of water for cooling, and there isn't much in desert country. There's no reason we can't build them close to rivers - say within 10 to 20 miles. France generates 25% of their electricity from nuclear plants. We should at least match that here in the US.

One thing that would happen almost immediately with the oil market if the US announced drilling in any of the major, untapped fields within our nation is that the speculators would begin unloading the oil futures they hold as fast as they can, knowing that the price is going to drop. The last guy out is REALLY going to get shafted, so most of them will act as soon as they hear the news.

Posted by Old Patriot">Old Patriot 2008-05-30 23:11|| http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/]">[http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/] 2008-05-30 23:11|| Front Page Top

#9 Nimble Spemble - thanks for the petition link - signed it and mailed the congress critters...

Posted by 3dc 2008-05-30 23:40|| 2008-05-30 23:40|| Front Page Top

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