Kahl-ee-fohr-nee-ah Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger managed to get energy policy right and wrong — but mostly wrong — at a climate conference in Miami yesterday.
Most of the media focused on his comment that that anyone suggesting offshore oil drilling could bring down gas prices was “blowing smoke,” interpreting it as a veiled swipe at John McCain’s recent proposal to lift bans on exploring for oil off the coasts of California, Florida and the Eastern Seaboard.ÂÂ
Even a sizable number of Democrats favor lifting the ban, both from the realization that the US will be using oil for some time to come — and from the realization that drilling is a thus a potentially powerful wedge issue like gun rights has been in the past. Indeed, Newt Gingrich’s “Drill Here, Drill Now” petition is getting more web traffic than MoveOn.
Schwarzenegger later said that big science, big technology and smart policies will help America reach its rightful place in the world.” On this point, he is correct, but does not know it. Instead of the Kyoto-esque cap-and-trade boondoggles that he and John McCain support, a smart policy — for someone who fully signs onto the notion that mankind is a significant factor in global warming — would spend a fraction of that money on developing the technologies that may eventually supplant oil or otherwise reduce greenhouse gases (e.g., bioengineering trees to sequester carbon). In the meantime, the problem may solve itself.
We can not drill our way out of this problem.
“In the meantime, the problem may solve itself.”
No commentary is necessary.
We cannot not drill our way out of this problem.
How’s that for counter-assertion, Proggy?
Let’s build a fire. Sing some songs.
But we can drill our way out of some symptoms while we create a solution to the problem. We can’t buy our way out of the problem with billions to Chavez and the House of Saud, nor can we wish our way off of oil in the short term.
Unless you think oil will be obsolete in the foreseeable future, exploiting our own resources is a no brainer. And if you do think oil won’t be needed any time in the next couple of decades, you’re delusional.
So if this opinion is so delusional, why is our next president saying it on the campaign trail? So let me guess you think every Democrat argument is stupid?
When told that windmills and solar panels are insufficient to meet our energy needs, my green friends retort that these measures may not be sufficient, but they are definitely important parts of the solution.
Why, then, is domestic exploration and production of petroleum a no-no? Even if it’s insufficient for our needs, is it not every bit as important as windmills and solar panels?
FUCK THE FACTS! FUCK THE FACTS! FUCK THE FACTS!
WE DON”T NEED NO STEENKIN’ FACTS!
Nationalize the oil refineries. Jail the oil company CEO’s. What’s the other problem solvers PH?
Nationalize the oil refineries. Jail the oil company CEO’s. What’
sre the other problem solvers PH?…nor can we wish our way off of oil in the short term.
“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK,” Obama said.
It’s going to hurt, Pablo, but after a while you’ll get used to the malaise.
And you say my English is bad roboc.
Of course drilling won’t be a short term help. And if we don’t start drilling now, then 5 years from now, they will be able to say that again. But if we had started drilling in ANWAR, when it was voted down, then we would be in the position of saying, it would help us in the short term, as it’s oil would be coming on line real soon.
So start drilling so five years from now we can’t say it won’t solve the problem short term.
Give it a month. The photo of Pelosi, Reid, and Obama dragging a drill rig across a Florida beach will be a keeper.
“We can’t drill our way out of this”
may just</will go down in the books alongside of “But I don’t know anybody who voted for Nixon!”.The conditions concomitant with having no option but to park diesel rigs, SUV’s, airplanes ,and then operate what is left at slower speeds or reduced mileage are indistinguishable from those that indicate economic collapse.
Inventing a better car battery isn’t going to get bread to the grocery store next month; even next week may already be pushing it. These events happen fucking quick when they break bad.
Time to put a well-worn argument back to work:
“Our children and grandchildren are already saddled with billions of dollars of debt that we’ve run up. They’re sent to crumbling schools on rusting buses running over decrepit highways and collapsing bridges because we’ve spent our money (and their money!) on feel-good programs that do nothing. Now, on top of everything else, we’re dooming our children and grandchildren to sit in the dark, because we’ve locked them out of any energy sources. This is unacceptable.
Drill here! Drill now! THINK OF THE CHILDREN!”
Oh geeze. Please forgive me.
“Comment by ProggHero on 6/27 @ 9:20 am #
So if this opinion is so delusional, why is our next president saying it on the campaign trail? So let me guess you think every Democrat argument is stupid?”
Pretty much. Yeah.
Dear conservatives, your mistake is in assuming that Democrats care about the same problems as you and are just wrong about the solution.
In fact they have exactly the right solutions if your aim is centralizing political power.
Pull down social institutions and values: increase dependency on the state (clients!)
Ruin our institutions: then tell people they need change.
Pack the courts: get a living (e.g. malleable) constitution.
Protect your allies in the media: bring back the fairness doctrine.
Protect your allies in the eductation establishment: send more kids to college (future clients!)
Use race, class and gender as wedges: split the citizenry into manageable target groups (clients!)
Create welfare programs: create a permanent underclass (clients!)
Allow uncontrolled immigration: clients!
Global warming is good: a permanent sense of crisis and guilt keeps people submissive (clients!)
Wealth creation and guns are bad: citizens are not clients.
Anyone else find it interesting that the very man who popularized the Humvee as a means of personal (rather than military) transport is now the one lecturing us on conservation and oil production?
Arnold just wants to be popular. What do you expect? It was his job to be popular before he became governor. Maybe it is that simple.
I read somewhere that he commutes to Sacramento by private plane every day. Surely that can´t be true?
“I read somewhere that he commutes to Sacramento by private plane every day. Surely that can´t be true?”
.
Yeah, it is. AND he wants people to LIKE him. Lots of promise, no follow through.
Comment by ProggHero on 6/27 @ 9:20 am #
“So if this opinion is so delusional, why is our next president saying it on the campaign trail? So let me guess you think every Democrat argument is stupid?”
No, but that’s an appeal to authority. Just because Obama says it does not mean it is valid or well thought out.
The only low to non carbon tech we have right now to make the electricity we need is nuke. The other technologies are not ready. No amount of money or wishful thinking can change that fact. Also, cheap plentiful electricity could make electric and hydrogen cars viable.. Thus nuclear could take some gasoline vehicles off the road… using current technologies. O! can not wish that away either…
Good question. I expect McCain to ask it in a debate. Stay tuned.
Oh, no. I’m sure the Democrats have some great ideas, like Nancy Pelosi’s commonsense plan to deal with high energy costs. I’m sure she’s going to tell us what it is any minute now, seeing that it’s been over two years since they were offering it as a campaign promise and the prices of crude oil and gasoline have since more than doubled. I’ll bet it’s a real corker and we’ll have this straightened out in oh, five months.
He’s such a pussy. It’s kind of ironic.
Pablo, that´s what I´m telling you: a well off, happy and self-reliant citizenry is not in the Democrats interest. From their point of view they act perfectly rational.
I will post this as often as I need to, until the Lefturds understand the “big lies” won’t work anymore.
– The Candidate that takes the initiative and puts forth a strong direct oil proposal that includes accessing ALL of our home resources will win this election.
– FrogHero, and all of its buds, can go on blocking any sucess and suffer the consequences. Its exactly what they did in Iraq, so its entirely expected and predictable.
– when the American people finally run out of patience, the resulting train wreck hitting the partisans that put winning above their country will pay, and payback is a bitch.
What is really sad is that the House R’s are so weak that they are not likely to show how inept San Fran Nan has been on energy.
Big Bang, does the yo-yoing middle also get what it deserves? And does that middle then take instruction from its losses or does it quickly put those losses behind and carry on in the same fashion in the future?
– Unfortunately Sdferr, the majority of the electorate tends to forget politics as soon as they can get back to their normal day to day lives. If everyone in America took as active of an interest in the goings on in politics as the people who visit blogs typically do, you would never hear a peep out of the soft Marxist movements.
– Their very existence depends on things like a recent poll in NY that showed that 96 out of 100 people interviewed on the street choose “dress designer” when asked what profession Nancy Pelosi was famous for.
– And the Left absolutely depends on that sort of general public disinterest and apathy.
Thus, it seems, to get the necessary and national interest thing done, it behooves to keep the otherwise disinterested middle in a near constant state of having ‘finally run out of patience’, as you put it. That is sort of where they stood as Congress was passing the ‘Authorization to Use Force’ 70+% to 30-%, which the middle then went on to abandon at nearly the inverse as their ‘patience’ grew longer. Why must the middle so easily give up their principles? They don’t, they just never had ’em to begin with!
Well, yikes.
– the stock market is currently down almost 100 points for the day, mostly on the news of oil rising to 145 bucks a barrel.
– Its going to be interesting watching to see how much longer the Left/Dems can go on obstructing before the dam breaks. The higher the water, the bigger the flood.
– Someone on the Left had better start thinking about damage control soon, and seriously. This issue alone could bury Obama if he gets caught on the losing side.
“Let’s build a fire. Sing some songs.”
What the hell is the matter with you? You are not supposed to publicly reveal the Democrats strategy for an energy policy!
As long as there is a tamborine somewhere by that fire I am down.
“- Someone on the Left had better start thinking about damage control soon, and seriously. This issue alone could bury Obama if he gets caught on the losing side.”
BBH,
Don’t you know yet, that according to the Democrats, increasing the supply of oil will just make the price higher?
Let’s just build a fire, and sing some songs (Kumbaya?). How stupid of us to think that tapping our own reserves would make any difference.
And think of the ecology! Just because the carribou in Alaske LOVE the existing pipeline, why should we think that the (almost non-existent) carribou in ANWR won’t HATE it, and just lay down and DIE?
AAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!
We can not drill our way out of this problem.
Our resident talking points regurgitator is actually accidently, part right, here.
In addition to drilling, we need to nuke our way out, build a few refineries out, and standardize gas formulations out of this problem.
Saying we can’t drill our way out is true, in the same way saying getting out of bed in the morning won’t provide a paycheck. To get a paycheck, you also need to go to work, and do the work, but getting out of bed is kinda necessary too.
– Well Sdferr, weak defense though it might seem, most people just don’t have the time or energy to put toward the sort of critical thinking and analysis that political tracking takes. They are almost totally consumed by the task of working and taking care of their families. They try to trust the powers that be not to screw them over too badly.
– Again, unfortunately. human nature being what it is, and something the Left studiously ignores btw, all to often the powers that be fall prey to the old “absolute power” thing, and unchecked by proper oversight or the electorate go completely off the rails, like the far Left movement coupled with the malaise of the Right in abandoning their own basic tenets.
– Such is life. What can you say. But I fault mostly the young and impressionable that allow their blind faith in “sticking it to the man” to lead them around by the nose and thus, get sold into a plainly anti-American Euro-block movement. Thats shameful, and a sorry statement about the state of our present acadamia.
Sorry. But this one has me smokin’.
The Democrats are doing everything they can to KEEP oil prices where they are, and then trying to shift blame to the oil companies.
They are a bunch of cynical liars who WANT our economy to collapse – the easier to grab the power that they crave. It is sad to see that people like ProggZero and Semanticleo appear to be the future of the rubble that is left of this country after they get done.
I don’t so much give a hoot, but my son is going to have to live in the hell that they are trying to create. I fear for him. I really do.
Funny thing is, everthing I have said on here I have heard while attending college. Well in one form or another. I paid 4 grand a semester too.
But between you and me BBH, this ‘…most people just don’t have the time or energy to put toward the sort of critical thinking and analysis that political tracking takes…’ isn’t what I would fault those people for. Rather, I’d fault them for not remembering where they themselves stood only a few short months before. In other words, they needn’t keep up with anything more complex than themselves and their own personal opinions. If willing to form one (an opinion) in the first place and insist it be given political weight, I don’t think it unreasonable you and I should ask them to follow the consequences said opinions may bring and accept the concommitant burdens accordingly. Or is that just too much to ask?
If only Al Gore had not been screwed by the SC and been able to implement his energy policy. We would be 8 years close to alternative energy.
Funny thing is, everthing I have said on here I have heard while attending college. Well in one form or another. I paid 4 grand a semester too.
Hint: you got ripped off.
ROFLMAO! I smell sulphur. I hope you’re enjoying yourself.
Or is the problem to be found in the passage of the 17th Amendment to the Constitution?
Yeah, parody.
“Funny thing is, everthing I have said on here I have heard while attending college. Well in one form or another. I paid 4 grand a semester too.
– I honestly wish that I could find any humor in that statement PH, I really do. Instead it fills me with a certain dread and sadness. I served two tours of duty for my country, two of my sons served in VietNam. Soon another son will join that fight.
– I spent 45 years of my life working in industry to help design the tools to protect her from our enemies. You can’t imagine what it feels like to hear a fellow American proudly proclaim ideas we worked so hard to prevent from destroying our country and values, and safeguard the bigger part of the world.
– You just can’t imagine.
Please Progg, I appreciate you’re trying to lighten the mood with your slapstick humor, but at least try and be relevant!
“Or is that just too much to ask?
– Common men of good will would not suppose so, but who am I to judge others.
– I always fall back on that simple, very old idea, that you get the government you deserve.
Did you notice the ‘Colleges for conservatives Guide’ touted on NRO today? There may be hope yet that a free market will serve interested buyers.
Funny thing is, everthing I have said on here I have heard while attending college. Well in one form or another. I paid 4 grand a semester too.
You’d have been better off spending it on weed and hookers.
If the Dimbulbs in Congress and their sycophants in the media really think obstructionism on energy is a winning strategy, they’re suicidal. Gas prices affect everyone and the poor and middle class are hit the hardest.
I’ve been saying for a couple months now (as other commenters have) that high gas prices are going are going to strangle the Dems and their Messiah. Give this two or three more months. They’re boxed in.
And, I might add, if this issue isn’t resolved this election cycle and oil goes even high, it’ll be an incumbent bloodbath for Congress in ’10 for Dems.
So, to our resident trolls, keep up the good work and make sure your liberal/progressive heroes continue to obstruct energy exploration and production.
Obama says we can’t drill out of our problems, prices are rising too high too fast and we need to “help” those most affected. He’s been a wee bit short on particulars.
Kelly has it right: This isn’t a good issue for Dems just as immigrations hasn’t been a goos issue for ‘thuglicans. even after all of the hype and noise, a small majority of people are still skeptical about AGW. The more they hear Democrats whining about drilling and coal and nuclear, the more angry the guy pumpung $65 into his minivan is going to get. McCain doesn’t get a pass for AGW and ANWAR despite his epiphany on offshore drilling and nuclear and clean coal.
Knowing the Dems, they’ll try to blame it on oil countries and Booooosh and the Saudis but eventuallu the plain fact that he have reserves to tap is going to sink in and the shouting is going to start.
It will be amusing to see both McCain and Obama dance their way around this issue for the next 4 months. Our energy “policy” ressembles an economic suicide pact more and more each day.
Gas prices affect everyone and the poor and middle class are hit the hardest.
I know McCain has been hitting on this, but he needs to do more. He needs to hit it like Keith Moon on methamphetamine.
The Democrats are clearly vulnerable on their long-time energy policy (no drilling, no new refineries, no nukes, higher taxes).
“#Comment by ProggHero on 6/27 @ 9:09 am #
We can not drill our way out of this problem.”
You’re a fucking idiot.
“…The Democrats are clearly vulnerable on their long-time energy policy…”
The sad thing is that this must have been true for the last ten years at least, but as noted above only becomes apparent when the wolf is at the door.
“We can not drill our way out of this problem.”
– Cling to that meme little ProggHorn, and very soon you, you party, and candidate, are going to drill your way out of office.
“#
Comment by ProggHero on 6/27 @ 11:32 am #
Funny thing is, everthing I have said on here I have heard while attending college. Well in one form or another. I paid 4 grand a semester too.”
I thought community college was cheaper than that.
“Comment by ProggHero on 6/27 @ 11:39 am #
If only Al Gore had not been screwed by the SC ”
Liar.
Mr. O’Brain:
Home learnin’.
Prediction: If-IF-the US announces that we are going to start exploration and simultaneously announce we’re going to stop filling SPR, oil futures go limit down for weeks as the trend reverses and speculators (no they’re not the bad guys) scramble to get short.
Oil at $80/bbl? No, it won’t solve the long term mess that Dems and the radical enviros have made but it will give us some breathing room while we forge a non-idiotic energy policy.
The longer the Dems drag this out, the higher the price they will pay. Trouble is (for them) they still don’t get it.
As I mentioned in another thread, proggzero, if you really think giving amnesty to 25 million illegals will usher in your masturbatory fantasy of One Party (Comrade!), think again. The totally fucked up energy policy birthed by the Dems is going to kick you in the face…soon.
I can’t believe you guys are ripping me for my “We can’t drill our way out of this problem” comment. Obama agrees with me, so does Pelosi, so does Harry Reid, and so do the majority of Americans because they are the majority in our congress. One is soon to be President. Keep up the good work guys.
By the way if you didn’t know Obama was the first one that said “We can’t drill our way out of this problem”.
Any bets that on or near the 4th, Obama will announce plans for 100 new nuke plants?
Maybe the 4th of Feb, 2009, lee. Maybe.
“Comment by ProggressiveHero on 6/27 @ 1:56 pm #
I can’t believe you guys are ripping me for my “We can’t drill our way out of this problem†comment.”
That’s because you’re a fucking idiot.
New Girl who a lot hearted Hillary and is a native California person thinks it’s retarded that we can’t drill off the freaking coasts. She said she’d vote for whoever had a plan to get gas prices lower. I explained how McCain was the only candidate who had proposed new drilling. She looked thoughtful. And then I explained thermogenic foods. She thought those were cool but I don’t think she really believed me.
“By the way if you didn’t know Obama was the first one that said “We can’t drill our way out of this problemâ€Â.”
And he’s a fucking idiot, too.
I can’t believe you guys are ripping me for my “We can’t drill our way out of this problem†comment.
I can’t tell if you’re being facetious. An appeal to authority, Gracie? Especially an appeal to Pelosi and Reid? In these here parts, the fact that those clowns said it renders it false.
Obama agrees with me, so does Pelosi, so does Harry Reid, and so do the majority of Americans because they are the majority in our congress. One is soon to be President. Keep up the good work guys.
By the way if you didn’t know Obama was the first one that said “We can’t drill our way out of this problemâ€Â.
***********************
This should concern you, but alas, it gives you confidence. Sad, that.
c’mon guys! everyone who’s anyone is jumping off this cliff!
Breathtaking. Simply breathtaking.
It is sad that you guys call anyone who thinks differently than you an idiot.
so do the majority of Americans because they are the majority in our congress
HAHAHAHAHAHAH!
I love SEK bunches really. And Lisa. Just not you.
Froggie – You do realize that the Congresscritters you are referencing are the lowest rated Congresscritters on record, no?
No, it’s said that you think Pelosi or Reid represent some kind of authority. Well, not so sad as pathetic.
Poor Arnold, that 180 day trek from Sacramento by mule train must have been agonizing. What’s that? He flew? In a private jet? Get outta here!
I don’t call anyone who thinks differently than I an idiot. I call idiots idiots.
An appeal to authority, Gracie? Especially an appeal to Pelosi and Reid? In these here parts, the fact that those clowns said it renders it false.
um…Wasn’t Reid the guy who declared that we had already lost the war in Iraq?
I wish Witheld would grace us with his presence again. He really knew how to lay it on thick and dumb.
“By the way if you didn’t know Obama was the first one that said “We can’t drill our way out of this problemâ€Â.
– Well ProgHorn, you’d better check your emails because Obamaeama just changed his mind again at the phony Hillery/Obama love fest. Hes starting his s-l-o-w slide sideways. He included the words “…and develop ALL of our homeland resources along with yada yada yada…”. So drop your weenie and grab your squeegee sport, Changiness, it is a’comin.
um…Wasn’t Reid the guy who declared that we had already lost the war in Iraq?
Yes, he was.
Nothing like prematurely declaring defeat for your country in a war to establish ones credibility on all issues.
Also this whole drilling thing is as much a jobs issue as it is an energy issue. It’s really fucktarded of that dumbass governator person that he can’t understand that. It’s a shitty immigrant what doesn’t understand the importance of jobs.
“Also this whole drilling thing is as much a jobs issue as it is an energy issue.”
– Yes, well someone must have whispered that little factoid to him offstage, because he hesitated a moment, and then included “….and provide jobs to the unemployed…” in his “welcome back Hillery (you bitch” love fest rant.
– HAHAHAHA – The Governor of Alaska is on FOX ripping the Dems aa new ass. Shes asking why the hell the Dim bulbs in Congre4ss are voting against America. She says “Drill now, and Drill often”.
– One of life’s little joys, watching the fuck-tarded ideas of Progressives crash and burn, one after the other.
– First they lose their asses over Iraq, now they’re going to bite the big one over oil. Next it will be immigration, and their cockeyed ideas of turning healthcare over to a bunch of idiots that can’t find the Capital building restrooms without a guide.
– Love it.
“Comment by ProggressiveHero on 6/27 @ 2:36 pm #
It is sad that you guys call anyone who thinks differently than you an idiot.”
Actually, I said ‘fucking idiot’.
That’s, like, orders of magnitude more idiotic than a mere idiot.
It’s so idiotic it’s as if you traveled here through a crack in the space-time continuum from the Idiot Universe.
“Also this whole drilling thing is as much a jobs issue as it is an energy issue”
Dumbocrats- Outsourcing energy jobs since 1971.
It seems as though energy has given Republicans (x Ahr-nuld) new energy.
Proggie? Not so much…
“It is sad that you guys call anyone who thinks differently than you an idiot.â€Â
– No. Whats sad ProgHorn, is that there are people like yourself that just don’t “think” at all, but let others do your thinking for you by handing you a talking points memo and saying, “There you go, now get out there and do “Teh Narrativeâ„¢”, and all will be well.
– That, by any reasonable standard, is a full metal jacket idiot.
PH: “Funny thing is, everthing I have said on here I have heard while attending college. Well in one form or another. I paid 4 grand a semester too.”
And how many economics classes did you take? How many classes dealing with the petroleum industry? I heard a great many damn-fool things whilst attending college. Doesn’t mean any of the damn fool things were accurate, correct or even entertaining.
PH: “I can’t believe you guys are ripping me for my “We can’t drill our way out of this problem†comment. Obama agrees with me, so does Pelosi, so does Harry Reid, and so do the majority of Americans because they are the majority in our congress.”
Three out of four ain’t bad… too bad you were wrong on the last… the percentage of polled American citizens who have expressed a preference for domestic drilling exceeds the number who are against it…
Per Reuters/Zobgy polling data: “Some 59.6 percent of Americans surveyed in the poll released on Wednesday said they would favor government efforts to boost domestic drilling and refinery construction to cool record prices.”
Also, we don’t think everyone who disagrees with us is an idiot — reasonable people can disagree.
However, seeing as you’re just chanting the talking points and drinking the kool-aid, we’re free to disregard you as just another barking dog.
That, by any reasonable standard, is a full metal jacket idiot.
Which suggests proggiezonohero.
It’s sad that PH managed to get to college — and perhaps through it — without ever learning about the fallacy of mass appeal. I even did a post this week titled “The Fallacy of Mass Appeal” to explain it to PH. I even put the link to that post in a comment directed specifically to PH. But someone apparently is determined to make illogical statements and pretend they are arguments.
“the percentage of polled American citizens who have expressed a preference for domestic drilling exceeds the number who are against it…”
– Gallop pinned it at 79% “for” just yesterday. Give it another week and it will be up a lot higher.
– Look ProgHorn. I don’t really think you’re an idiot. My guess is you’re one of the Left that is easily led into things, and the Socialists just seem so “inclutionary”, and “caring”, and cool. But at best that says you’re naive.
– You said the other day you joined the campus SDS, and all you did was sit around and talk politics. Did you ever once challenge any of the premises their anti-American “hegemony imperialism” bullshit is based on? Have you even wondered where all that oil we went to invade Iraq over ended up?
– Did you ever ask them what long term effects just constantly propping people up artificially does to the persons self esteem or their ability to learn to take care of themselves. Charity can be a great tool for societal good, and it can be the worst thing you can do to people.
– No one is asking you to throw away all your ideas of compassion. Think. Look beyond the talking points for the substance, the common sense, the long term effects, the unexpected consequences.
– You do that, throw away the fucking talking points, someone else’s agenda, and start thinking critically for yourself, challenging glib and easy slogoneering, and no one will call you an idiot, except maybe the people on your side that never do those things and refuse to listen to opposing views.
We have no choice but to drill our way out of this in the near term. A large component of our deficit is overseas oil. Not only that but we are importing finished product- petro, fuel oil, and jet fuel. That’s just plain stupid.
With new cheap nuclear power extracting oil from shale and coal begin to look economocal. The US is sitting on a lot of coal and oil shale.
Back in the day it took 6 to 10 years to build an oil refinery. About the same amount of time to bring an oil field on line. We should have started yesterday.
Opening up the Arctic and the coasts for exploration and drilling may or may not result in finding as much as predicted. But I don’t see any built-in incentive for the resulting drilling rights to result in drilling. In fact, with peak oil predictions, the current infrastructure for making new drilling platforms (which ports will build them? aren’t our shipyards mostly mothballed? will this be a boon for Dutch rather than American workers? isn’t Brazil leasing all the spare platforms?) and the fact that the profits for sitting on the oil rights are quite certainly going to increase the longer whatever company waits, I don’t see much hope that this supply will make much of a difference in the consumer price.
However, if the peak oil pessimists and I mean the really pessimistic peak oil pessimists like James H. Kunstler (look him up: he’s like the anti-Obama since he’s cornered the market on No Hope) are correct, there’s a chance we’d be better off with our government still owning those rights since the oil (which will barely offset the seven-eighths of our oil which we import from other countries) will be needed for things such as agriculture and food distribution rather than have mass starvation within two decades.
I say let the companies explore, but keep nationalization of our resources as an option. That way we can guarantee supply, the companies will still profit, and we’ll avoid starving to death in the dark.
I’m sorry, but I’m blanking on when this has ever worked.
I say let the companies explore, but keep nationalization of our resources as an option. That way we can guarantee supply
Sure, because I know I’d be falling all over myself in a rush to invest billions of dollars in something that the government might confiscate at any time.
– All that is true Rusty, but tomorrow morning if Congress, as a unified bipartisan body, announced that we were going to pass a bill immediately opening up the Colorado shale oil, 800 billion barrels of future production, would be added to the mix. Domestic barrels. American oil. Money stays here. Jobs stay here.
– What do you think would happen to world oil prices in a short time if we added a quadrupling of the entire ME oil reserves to the pile, along with essentially freeing us completely from foreign oil in the next decade, and giving us conservatively, another 70 years to find a real alternative, or set of alternatives.
– You know what would happen, and anyone with a working brain cell and a high school education knows what would happen.
– Ask the Dems why they don’t seem to know that. But you don’t have to. The anger level is building exponentially at this point. Good for them. They’ve earned it.
– BTW, along those lines on a positive note, some Democratic Senators are starting to show signs of cracking, with a low level whispering campaign today, with a few beginning to talk about forming a “gang of 12” to break the partisan logjam. Maybe they’re finally starting to see the light at the end of the rocket launch tube.
I got an idea for a windmill powered car. You see, you just make sure you always park it on top of a hill, then when it starts rolling down, the wind starts turning a windmill hooked to the wheels and it powers you down the road. How much you think McCain or Obama and them will give me for it?
– Does it come with at least two cup holders?
I have an idea for an electric car that never needs to be charged. All you do is place a generator on each wheel, and use one electric motor to power it. As you move down the road, the generators provide the power for the motor and for the accessories. Since you use four generators, but only one motor, you have three additional generators to provide that extra power.
I’m thinking of applying for a research grant from some Democrat-controlled organization. Preferably one made up of lawmakers, with nary an engineer of any kind in the bunch.
Jon.
Just our oil shale recoverable reserves are something on the order of 1.5 trillion barrels. Canada’s oil sands are second only to Saudi Arabia in recoverable reserves. About 2.5 million barrels a day for the next 200 years. What we have now is a wakeup call. We don’t dare ignore it.
A guaranteed supply is a joke, at least if you read the pessimistic projections (really, look at http://www.kunstler.com some time for some joyful predictions of a post-oil future.) But I really do think that if we, the people of the US, want to give away the rights to drill oil on the people’s land, we should have some guarantee that it will happen when we need it and not when some bean-counter at an oil company decides that. Otherwise, I say let the oil sit there and we can drill it later and distribute it according to central planning. Sure, it’s socialist to the core, but if (and it really isn’t certain,) if things are as bad as some predict (does Saudi Arabia have as much as they say? are you sure?) the capitalist plan is to think we’ll have an affordable supply by giving our last oil reserves away to companies to sell it back to us then I’d rather have things screwed up by Congress. Is it a good option? No, but it’s less-bad than some. Most of the world’s oil reserves are held by nationalized corporations anyhow, and it’s uncertain that they’ll sell to us in a world of shortages. Dollars don’t buy as much as they used to thanks to our out-of-control spending and borrowing on both the personal and national level. We’re fucked, and the rest of the world is willing to shun us if just for spite while selling to the French or Chinese or whoever has a decent currency.
And the shale oil will take too much energy to get out of the ground. It would be nice if that wasn’t the case, but really it only becomes economically feasible at a much higher cost than present. Our future is in not wasting as much as we currently do, coal, nuclear, solar, wind, and what little oil is left on the world market. Saying the American way of life is not up for negotiation will require genocidal war, huge worldwide plagues, or putting the rest of the world’s economic advancement on a slower path. I don’t think we’ll offset the seven-eighths of our current oil usage with shale oil in time. Sure, it would be nice. But technology isn’t going to be our savior in the face of our current usage. We’re screwed, and a six-month supply here or there isn’t going to change that.
Our future is in not wasting as much as we currently do, coal, nuclear, solar, wind, and what little oil is left on the world market.
Jon, so you’re saying we could make America energy independent by not wasting coal, nuclear, solar, etc. Great Idea!
jon, your points are valid, but they don’t lead where you think they do.
It’s quite true that we can’t drill our way out of this. It’s also true that we can’t not drill our way out, either.
We are already the most efficient nation in the world in terms of $GDP per unit of energy. And we’ve gotten better in the last few years, while the Kyoto signatories have gotten worse. Oil prices are causing us a lot of pain, but we’re surviving it — we’re gonna be pinched as all Hell, but people are driving (just less), people are going places, factories are running. The reason for that is that SUVs and all, we use energy more efficiently than anywhere else in the world. Part of that is climate — we don’t have to heat the Arctic circle — but most of it is because we’re just better, and most of that is because everybody in the system pays for the energy they use. We’ll get by.
It’s not us that’s screwed. It’s the Europeans, particularly the Scandinavians, and the poor broke bastards around the world, the Bangladeshis and Indians and South Americans who are looking disaster in the face. There’s going to be people freezing to death this winter if something isn’t done, and it’s up to us to do it.
The nasty little secret nobody talks about is that the price of oil is fairly reasonable, somewhere around $50 a barrel. The rest of it is a world tax on Nancy Pelosi, taken as an avatar of our <sneer>legislature</sneer>. And every time you and they seriously propose some counterproductive dumbassery, the price goes up. Crack down on the speculators? Suuuuure. They’ll just all move to Dubai, or set up the new oil bourse the Iranians have been trying to promote, and charge $10 a mile for the inconvenience. Nationalizing the refineries will be good for another $20-30 increase all by itself.
What we have got to do is convince the world that we’re serious about this shit, and drilling is part of it; in fact, drilling is the most important part right now, because drilling is something we can start doing right now. No, the oil won’t be getting to market right away, but we can start building rigs and brag about it, there are places we can drill using current resources. Parallel to that we have got to unlock the Colorado shales and at least restart the pilot plant in Potemkin mode. And parallel to that we need to announce that nuclear reactors will be built in numbers, shooting Sierra Club lawyers as the need arises. You’re right: the oil shales, and the Canadian tar sands, require a lot of energy input to get the oil out. But we need oil because we’re a mobile society, and we can’t become a sessile society and keep a quarter of our living standard; the right mode is to use nuclear energy to extract oil from the shales and sands (and to convert coal) to power our vehicles and transport.
And we have to convince people we’ve started doing all that, and more, and we have to find a way to convince them immediately. If we do not, it all comes apart — and by that I mean apart in particles, a substantial number of them radioactive. Again, we’ll survive, or at least some of us will, substantially poorer, but if you think we can sit back and eat lotus, even wilted lotus, while the Chinese and the Russians argue over who’s going to freeze to death, you’re going to be badly disappointed.
Regards,
Ric
We should do what Ric says I think.
Proggie bleated:
Oh, not just anyone. Only the special people. Hope that makes you feel better, moron.
Well said Ric!!
I think that if you were out shooting at some food, up from the ground would come a bubblin’ credibility.
But how to make the “big city dwellers” realize that the timber, stone, espresso machine, special coffee bean blends, etc. was not walked over to the Starbucks from all points elsewhere?
or were, as it were.
[…] proposals like lifting the ban on offshore drilling are overwhelmingly popular, even attracting substantial numbers of Democrats. But Democrats blocking popular legislation on important economic issues does not fit The […]
Jon. In 1974 when oil was going for 25 dollars a barrel the best estimate of the cost of getting a barrel of oil out of shale was 35 dollars. Even if that cost doubled today, it is still cheaper than ME oil. What it will take is time to develop a large scale system of recovery. The problems aren’t insurmountable, but I think if we want usable solutions we need to get the government out of the way.