mpdsnowman

On a separate issue...do u guys think we should drill domestically vs deal with foreign sources?? I mean do u really think it will hurt the environment??

It seems like it cant be a bad thing to drill domestcially. I beleive we have the oil...

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M P D S N O W M A N

PaoloSmythe

Gop Rools! Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee - Haw!

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Snowolf

Certainly some domestic production could act as a stop gap to help us through a transition to real, alternate and renewable energy. There are several problems in my book with this "drill our way out of dependency" mental that has gripped the GOP and their followers. First, the math simply does not work. U.S. Dept of Energy reports indicate that America uses about 25% of the world`s petroleum and geologists state that all domestic extraction, including areas now off limits, make up about 3% of of that. Where will we come up with the other 24% to truly "get off foreign oil"?

Another problem is the truth. As it stands, about 89% of all the known domestic oil is under area already approved for drilling, yet tens of thousands of issued drilling permits remain unused. The conclusion here is that if the demand were high enough, we would already be tapping this. It is all a sham

As for environmental concerns I think that in some locations, oil can be extracted with little damage to the environment. In other places, the ecosystems are too fragile to recover from operations of this magnitude.

Bottom line to me is that we need to get serious (all humans, not just America) about finding true, renewable and clean alternative energy and petroleum should be though of as only a stop gap measure to get us from a to b.

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gibbous

Your question infers that domestic drilling is somehow an alternative to purchasing large quantities of foreign oil, which it is not. We don't have enough in the ground to nationalize it all and just use it for ourselves (which would never happen in this country anyway), and as long as our paltry amount of product is traded on the free market alongside the massive quantities from OPEC, we have next to zero economic leverage.

OPEC has already shown that they're ready to cut down production to keep crude from dropping too far from its recent record costs, so what good is an extra little trickle from us going to do when the valve on the other side of the world will just tighten a little bit to keep prices the same and ensure everyone keeps making a shit load of money?

The only thing that will enable us to get away from everything bad about Middle East oil dependency in our free market system will be our own ability to produce equally effective energy in quantities that can make a difference in the global energy market as a whole. Unfortunately our own oil just isn't going to get that done, and the time, money and effort would be much better spent on alternative energy sources that someday could.

Until someone can convince me I'm wrong about any of that stuff, I will continue to see no point in putting more oil rigs in places where it seems like a hurricane is coming ashore every week (Yes, I think there is appreciable risk of environmental damage in many places). Also particularly when the prices we pay at the pump would surely be affected by the cost of the "exploration" it takes to get to the oil before we even see any of the marginal benefits. I could be wrong about that last part, but I've heard that used often enough as a justification for previous price increases that I see no reason it wouldn't work the same way.

Bones

Amen to that.

My hope is that the fairly widespread concern about recent oil prices will actually translate into some change at the North American consumer's level. The energy crisis of the 70's brought about some significant changes in our buying habits, but the change just wasn't sustained. Frankly, the only thing we've ever listened to is our wallets.

PaoloSmythe

well the 'credit crunch' (self fulfilling prophecy) has realised a reduction in fuel consumption, which caused a decline in oil costs, which saw a reduction in production, directly to maintain the current astronomical costs of oil.

of course, once the financial concerns and constraints ease up a bit, we will recommence buying fuel like we always have and of course, winter is coming!

i can see that domestic resources are a nice suggestion with regard to self sufficiency. but such endeavours are expensive economically and doubtlessly because of such a financial viability, it will ultimately become disasterous environmentally.

i suggest hydro, solar and tidal powers generation projects.

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