toldailytopic: Drill baby, drill. Should the US government lift drilling restrictions

[some other dude]

I can quit anytime I want....

....anytime I want to sit shivering in the dark.

 

[GuySmiley]

Yes, but we ought not give out waivers for safety systems like we did in the BP spill.

And we aren't addicted to oil any more than we are addicted to air.

And drilling our own oil has nothing to do with developing alternative power sources. Its not an either/or propostion. We can and should do both.

And . . . I've run out of things.

 

[TomO]

Right, and burning fossil fuels doesn't hurt the environment, nor does spilling all that oily sludge across thousands of miles of American coastline.

:juggle: Hey man....if you wanna make a cake you gotta break a few eggs....etc..etc.

Nor does giving a bunch of tenth century nomads

ITT My my my aren't WE superior. :yawn:

billions of American dollars to go buy fun toys with, like tanks and jet fighters.

Well.....it's not like they can really fly them too well or keep them operational for too long. Stop being such a fussbudget. :nono:

So why would we want to quit?

:idunno: Got me

 

[TomO]

....anytime I want to sit shivering in the dark.

Right....and that's no fun. :nono:

 

[Sherman]

Right, and burning fossil fuels doesn't hurt the environment, nor does spilling all that oily sludge across thousands of miles of American coastline. Nor does giving a bunch of tenth century nomads billions of American dollars to go buy fun toys with, like tanks and jet fighters.

So why would we want to quit?

Many of the alternative energy sources are not much better. Where are we going to put all that nuclear waste? Then there battery acid and other battery waste for electric cars. And look at the wind turbines that generate the electricity. They guillotine birds and take up a lot of real estate. No matter what energy source you choose there is going to be some impact felt.

I would love to see them develop the hydrogen cycle more because it would be a cheap fuel source.

 

[Ted L Glines]

By all means. Drill baby drill! All these environuts are helping drive up the cost of gas and make the US dependent on Arab oil. It would also create jobs for US citizens. Then the Arabs can just pack up and look for someone else to buy their oil.

It is our State Department restricting domestic drilling, and they do not give a hoot about the environuts. They do have a fondness for OPEC, however. Might have something to do with our national debt?

 

[Lighthouse]

Yes.

 

[Alate_One]

The amount of oil we will gain through drilling on our own soil is relatively minuscule. Even ANWR's supply would only get us enough oil for about a year at our current consumption rates. We need to be investing heavily in alternative energy since oil is likely to run out sooner rather than later as worldwide consumption continues to grow.

I am for the pipeline to the Alberta tar sands because if we don't buy Canada's oil, they'll be forced to sell to China. As horrible as it will be for the environment, with current markets *someone* is going to buy the oil.

 

[PureX]

Many of the alternative energy sources are not much better. Where are we going to put all that nuclear waste? Then there battery acid and other battery waste for electric cars. And look at the wind turbines that generate the electricity. They guillotine birds and take up a lot of real estate. No matter what energy source you choose there is going to be some impact felt.

I would love to see them develop the hydrogen cycle more because it would be a cheap fuel source.

The alternatives would only be temporary. Wind is great in specific places for specific applications. Same with geothermal and hydro. Even nuclear has it's place (ships and submarines). Ultimately, though, we need to develop the hydrogen cycle. It's the natural way. And we're already halfway there.

 

[PureX]

Yes, but we ought not give out waivers for safety systems like we did in the BP spill.

And we aren't addicted to oil any more than we are addicted to air.

And drilling our own oil has nothing to do with developing alternative power sources. Its not an either/or propostion. We can and should do both.

And . . . I've run out of things.

As long as we have access to oil, we will not develop any alternatives. That has been proven by our own recent history. How long have we known that we need to develop alternatives, and yet have not done so? Fifty years, now?

 

[Lighthouse]

Oil's going to run out?:rotfl:

 

[eameece]

Stop all drilling baby! Stop all drilling.

Every drop of oil drilled, is another nail in the coffin of the liveability of our Earth. It is amazing so many folks don't see this. The evidence can't be argued with.

 

[eameece]

I am for the pipeline to the Alberta tar sands because if we don't buy Canada's oil, they'll be forced to sell to China. As horrible as it will be for the environment, with current markets *someone* is going to buy the oil.

and we should be the arms merchant to the world too, or else the Soviets would do it.
:sigh:

 

[Lighthouse]

Stop all drilling baby! Stop all drilling.

Every drop of oil drilled, is another nail in the coffin of the liveability of our Earth. It is amazing so many folks don't see this. The evidence can't be argued with.

:rotfl:

 

[Krsto]

As long as we have access to oil, we will not develop any alternatives. That has been proven by our own recent history. How long have we known that we need to develop alternatives, and yet have not done so? Fifty years, now?

This is true and as oil supplies dry up and oil becomes scarcer the price goes up more and alternatives become viable competition. So I really don't know what we are all so worried about. Alternative energy will eventually replace oil if it does run out which will bring the production costs down due to economy of scale. Alternative energy will become economical in the end as a matter of course. Our government doesn't have to do a thing about it.

The energy crisis is all a lot of hot air.

 

[Krsto]

Stop all drilling baby! Stop all drilling.

Every drop of oil drilled, is another nail in the coffin of the liveability of our Earth. It is amazing so many folks don't see this. The evidence can't be argued with.

Are you referring to global warming? Don't you think burning coal has more impact?

 

[some other dude]

eemee thinks we should all switch over to rainbows and unicorn flatulence.

That and Obama's empty rhetoric.

 

[Tambora]

Drill

 

[Flipper]

Oil's going to run out?:rotfl:

Not exactly. What is happening that global demand is outstripping our ability to extract it. As the big 'low-hanging fruit' oil fields start to tap out, there won't be anything like enough in the known extractable reserves to meet increasing global demand. It's very risky to pin hopes on reserves that haven't yet been discovered, or on fields where known reserves are low quality fractions that require a lot of processing, and are highly energy-inefficient to mine. When the easily extracted stuff has mostly gone, the price inevitably will go sky-high (i.e. it will make 2008 look like a walk in the park), and who knows what will happen then?

Is increasing global demand driving up prices at a rate faster than we are able to extract and refine? What do you think?

Also, the global market being what it is, a lot of foreign interests are (and will be) involved in the extraction and export of American oil, including the Chinese and Indians, who have a rapidly increasing requirement for the stuff.

Sitting in his downtown Denver office, wearing a suit and tie that would look at home on a Houston oil executive, Matthews says that China and India, with their huge populations and economies growing at rates not seen since the Industrial Revolution, are ravenous for natural resources. Handing me graphs and charts to prove it, he says that their hunger is already washing across the West, driving up the pressure to develop natural resources. He talks about a Chinese businesswoman he knows in Denver who frequently asks him how her relatives and clients can get hold of a Colorado mine or mineral deposit. And he reminisces about a visit to the Los Angeles port at Long Beach, where he saw ship after ship loaded down with scrap metal, headed for China.

Most exports from Western states go to Canada or Mexico, but over the last decade, China has emerged as one of the West's biggest customers; U.S. exports to China have increased 460 percent since 2000. Compared to British, Canadian or Australian multinational corporations, Asian companies still have a minuscule investment in Western resources. But over the last year, as much of Asia scrambles out of the global recession unscathed and the U.S. continues to wallow, Chinese, Indian and even former Soviet-bloc companies have bought into American oil and gas fields, molybdenum mines and more.

Source....

There is a lot of increasing competition for a number of finite and dwindling resources - oil is just one of them. It is a source of concern (or should be).

I guess that's good for regional jobs, but oil isn't an infinite resource and we do require a lot of it.

 

[PureX]

This is true and as oil supplies dry up and oil becomes scarcer the price goes up more and alternatives become viable competition. So I really don't know what we are all so worried about. Alternative energy will eventually replace oil if it does run out which will bring the production costs down due to economy of scale. Alternative energy will become economical in the end as a matter of course. Our government doesn't have to do a thing about it.

The energy crisis is all a lot of hot air.

But, as the price of oil goes up, it becomes a serious drag on our economy. It's a big reason for the stagnation we are experiencing in our economic recovery, right now. We could have avoided this if we were willing to begin developing alternatives BEFORE it came to this. But sadly, we didn't do so. The oil companies owned G.W. Bush and he let them set our energy policy, so we didn't do anything at all to advance alternative fuels in the last decade. Now these same people want to drill for more oil, because that's how they make money. But as a nation we have needed to be developing a hydrogen energy cycle and the longer we put it off the more we'll suffer for it as the price of oil goes up and up and up. If we had invested in new energy ten years ago, we'd be getting clear of these high oil prices, now.

The longer we wait, the worse it'll get.