new offshore drilling?????

[qeuqheeg222]

what so y'all think will it lower prices at the pump and relieve us of ferin oil sources???i dont really think so ..exxon has said a while ago they had no intentions of picking up production levels until 2012 because of the high profit margins they were getiin in this the short term....i had a friend who worked for amoco in the late nineties early 2000's and big oil was all in the gulf but they were just cappin it off until the price got high enuff..i dont buy their bullshit at all....

[DSpar]

We need something different. We gotta use something that is renewable that way the price stays down. Unfortunetly we have a a bunch of crappy alternatives.

[trish]

The barrels U.S. offshore drilling would add to the world market will not be enough to offset the price per barrel by any significant amount. Just because they sucked it out of sediments at the bottom of the U.S. coastline, oil companies will have no incentive to sell it under what they can get on the world market…unless the legislation that opens up the coasts to offshore drilling also requires producers to sell to the U.S. market at reduced prices. I would wager such an addendum to the proposal would not be received so enthusiastically by the supposedly patriotic conservative party.

Given the miniscule savings that might amount from offshore drilling, the near certainty of oil spills and other risks do not outweigh the proffered gains. The republican governors of California and Florida are against offshore drilling for this very reason. Beach front property is way too valuable to put in that kind of danger.

[hippifried]

There's no shortage of oil. The oil pushers are just charging so much because we're oil junkies. Pumping it out faster will do nothing but make it run out faster. The supply is finite. Supply side thinking just encourages burning up the supply of plastics & all the other petrochemicals that we rely on for all kinds of things. It's more than just the cost of filling up the Hummer.

[chefmike]

I've always found the learned Raymond J. Learsy's knowledge and opinions regarding the oil industry to be worth a look.

The Time For a National Oil Trust is Now

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/raymond-j-learsy/president-bush-call-for-o_b_107831.html

[DSpar]

To hippifried:
Exactly why we need an alternative. If we have an alternative the consumers will push the demand down considerably. I am using "demand side thinking", there is no reason for oil companies to drop prices. None whatsoever. The only reason they would drop prices if they had suddenly found the had overpriced their product.

To Trish:
Your right too. People come to Fl. for tourism. Does anyone think is sells the state to see oil dereks in the gulf from the beach or to see animals covered in oil. People go to Ca and Fl for the beauty and I think the people from the middle of country seem to forget about that or do not care as long as they save 5 cents per gallon.

[DSpar]

Chefmike you should post more articles like that one. It is worth discussing.

[BrendaQG]

As into politics as I am I don't usually look at C-Span (now C-Span 2 is a different story!). Today I found myself looking at it. One republican and two democrats gave some really interesting speeches about all of this.

The republican was from a state that exports allot of Corn ethanol so what he said had allot to do with that. But he did show how such fuels along with increased production could meet our energy needs and decrease how much oil we need.

The really interesting facts came from the democrats. One was a rep from upstate NY another was from NH. I forget the names. They pointed out that the oil companies have leased out a HUGE percentage of the federal lands made available for oil exploration and drilling. But they are only exploiting a small fraction of those lands. One chart showed the number of leases granted, number of wells drilled, and the price of gas. The price of gas tracked the number of leases made almost 1:1. They looked strongly correlated.

The conclusion to draw, if those democrats facts were correct, is that opening new federal lands to oil exploration does NOT reduce the price of gasoline but in fact is related to an increase in the price of gasoline.

What did corrleated negatively to the price of gas on that chart was the number of wells drilled... In years where more wells were drilled the price of gas went down. But only a little.

If this data is correct it seems that opening new lands for oil exploration does nothing to lower the price of gasoline, More actual oil wells will make a small difference. Perhaps a few pennies.

I say pennies make dollars I'll take every one of them.

[BrendaQG]

To hippifried:
Exactly why we need an alternative. If we have an alternative the consumers will push the demand down considerably. I am using "demand side thinking", there is no reason for oil companies to drop prices. None whatsoever. The only reason they would drop prices if they had suddenly found the had overpriced their product.

To Trish:
Your right too. People come to Fl. for tourism. Does anyone think is sells the state to see oil dereks in the gulf from the beach or to see animals covered in oil. People go to Ca and Fl for the beauty and I think the people from the middle of country seem to forget about that or do not care as long as they save 5 cents per gallon.
The alternative is Nuclear power. There are all kinds of new reactor designs that are much safer than anything we have now. We as a nation just have to swallow hard and create a couple of places to put the waste. Places that have no other use to any human that has or ever will live. Once that is done we will have enough energy to last the USA hundreds of thousands of years.

Only if we are willing to do the hard work it will take to get it.

[qeuqheeg222]

and for them to dig up new oil would take a few years at least so the short term relief will be nowhere in sight..and if demand from "india and china" keeps growing exponentially like it seems to have been in the last 6months-it was in the 70 to 80 range...so in 3 to five yrs when all the flerda and california oil comes online the price oil will be about 250 a barrel????...

[BrendaQG]

At that point it will make financial sense to own a horse. But then all the bio-fuel craze will have made corn and oats to feed a horse so expensive anyway! (Many people do not realize but just about every major american city has laws on the books that specify what a person should do with a horse in the city. It would be totally legal to ride around on a horse. Totally legal.

The only city where I have ever seen that in my life was in a little town called Arleta, CA in the San Fernando Valley. The next door neighbors had chickens too. If we were all smart we would do likewise.

[chefmike]

I'm really thinking about buying a Vespa. So what if it looks nerdy as hell.

[trish]

Just bought a Prius about a month ago. Aside from the fact that I average 40MPG in the city, I simply love driving it. What I haven't looked into is the overall footprint the thing makes on the environment. How much energy does it take to produce one. If large numbers of people drive them, will battery disposal become a big ecological problem? (I also ride a bike back and forth to work and my favorite coffee shop.)

Brenda's right in that we need to be open minded about all forms of energy, including nuclear. (Obama isn't dismissing nuclear energy options). But we also need to scrutinize their risks carefully.

[DSpar]

In my opinion the only answer is nuclear. Nuclear poses two problems though: 1) if vehicles were nuclear powered the would be no need for gasoline as it pertains to vehicles (it still has other uses). That event would singlehandedly wipeout most of the top oil companies 2) The safety issue/ home land security. Somebody is bound to drop rhetoric about how you could turn a car into a nuclear bomb (although theoretically they would have valid concern). Or what to do about the radiation.

[trish]

Nuclear powered cars is just waaaaay too problematic. Nuclear power plants, on the other hand, we already have. We just need to seriously review the safety constraints, the waste problem, the proliferation issues and environmental impact.

[thx1138]

Firstly the oil is going to stay where it is because there's a serious shortage of oceanic drilling rigs until 2012 (estimated). Secondly how do we know what's down there is "sweet, light crude" (low sulfur content? There's plenty of high sulfur content crude oil around but very few refineries are able to process it. Why drill it if there are no refineries that can handle the distillation? This is one of those phony solutions to a problem created by the Republicans frienship with big oil. If McCain is elected these offshore drilling proposals will quietly fall into the memory hole.

[qeuqheeg222]

in louisiana the refineries really stank up the whole countryside next to them...cancer alley.....i think we need more refineries in some place like long island or connecticut...god forbid in the investment bankers back yard.....

[thx1138]

There's plenty of open space around 1600 Pennsylvania avenue to set up a refinery. also the proposal to create 45 new nuclear generators is bogus too. Where are they going to get the uranium to power them? Is there enough enrichment capacity to turn raw uranum into enriched uranium suitable to generate enough heat to power up these 45 plants?

[JelenaCD]

When you don't build new oil refining plants or nuclear power plants and don't drill your own oil resources in 30 years and China, India on rapid growth you get higher prices , and all americans flush with real estate gains over the years buy big gas guggling SUV'S , now it all comes down ! The environmentalist should love high gas prices anyway because it saves us from global warming so be happy to pay for global warming ! it's just the begining of gov't taking over our lives to address the global global warming hoax ! high gas prices are the begining of cap and trade , you are evil to have a high carbon footprint and you pay the price you criminal !

[trish]

Actually environmentalists do love seeing gas prices in the U.S. finally reach the level of the world market. It will in force American's to think about their rate of energy consumption. The government does indeed need to regulate oil companies because global climate change is not a hoax. For the first time in millennia the Northwest Passage became navigable. Northern nations are now arguing about who has claim to the Arctic. I not sure if I would characterize a multi-corporate entity with an enormous carbon footprint as evil, but I would say their behavior could be a threat to the survival of our energy intensive, consumerist civilization. Yes, if we continue to fuck up the environment, we all will pay.