Question once again ... Drill baby drill or don't drill? (Congress, security, nuclear)
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I'm a DEM who voted for Obama. I don't see Obama putting the kibosh on anything that creates jobs and keeps our money here in the USA, though he will be sensitive to the environmental concerns. I think we can balance both.
I'd like to see an orderly process for drilling for oil and gas; in VA, in AK, in CO, and in most any place where there are reserves. IMO, we CAN drill and NOT kill the wildlife or ruin the environment in the areas we drill. I think we can ALL get along.
I also want to see a major effort to move us to wind, solar and nuclear so we can have our oil and gas reserves for another thousand years, not burn it all up in the next 50 years. Oil is a great lubricant and though synthetics can be found, why not make our oil last for centuries and stop burning things for heat, cooking and motion. Electric cars would be so very cool, in more ways than one.
My dislike for drill-baby-drill came from it being a silly campaign slogan, as if we can say yes today and get new oil next summer. It'll be 10 years before any oil or gas come ashore, and who knows what the need will be then. If the world economy regains momentum, we will see very expensive gasoline again, and see it as fast as we saw it go up (and down) during this past year. We also need to lessen the chance of petro-blackmail by OPEC and Russia.
I couldn't agree more!
By all means, let's not be stupid people who just trash the planet. But let's not go ape nuts, believing that drilling in ANWAR (for instance) will automatically turn the area into a desolate wasteland.
Here's one of my thoughts... I know this would not be feasible in a lot of locations, but how cool could it be if 75% of all American commuters drove electric cars - cars that were plugged in at home, and charged by small wind generators installed on the roof of the house. Then employers could have "plug in banks" in their employee parking lots - using wind power to charge the cars.
I know it's not the whole answer, but if that could cut our consumption of gas by even 25%, that'd be a giant step in the right direction!
My apologies, well at least partially, so many conflate all imported oil as coming from OPEC, which in their minds is synonymous with being but having the Gulf nations. Earlier I offered my partial apologies. You are right about right that 20% of American crude oil imports are from the middle east, but, and here is where I don't apologize, OPEC is more than just the middle east. Numbers 4 & 5 on the import list are Venezuela and Nigeria, both OPEC countries.
Apology accepted, though I really don't think one was at all necessary!
And you're absolutely right. OPEC is more than Persian Gulf ports. But regarding Venezuela, hasn't Chavez been trying to cripple the US by refusing to sell us oil? Or was that all flap and no go?
20% is 4million bbl/day. How much drill baby drill will get us? About 200K bbl/day (1% of our daily consumption) when it is all up and running, years from now.
Conservation, OTOH, can show immediate effects, and if not entire OPEC (and don't hold your breath for it), at the minimum we can take rogue nations out with it.
Absolutely!
No one thing is going to be the whole answer. But a combination of a LOT of things can make a HUGE difference! Personally, I believe that - through serious conservation - we COULD reduce our national oil consumption by 10-20%. Wouldn't that be great?
No one thing is going to be the whole answer. But a combination of a LOT of things can make a HUGE difference! Personally, I believe that - through serious conservation - we COULD reduce our national oil consumption by 10-20%. Wouldn't that be great?
Remember, 200K bbl/day is only 1% of our total consumption/day. If true, we should really sell the idea of starting with a focus on conservation than with drill baby drill.
Remember, 200K bbl/day is only 1% of our total consumption/day. If true, we should really sell the idea of starting with a focus on conservation than with drill baby drill.
Unfortunately, the greatest motivator for conservation is high gas prices. That was proven this past summer.
Personally, I hated the $4+ per gallon gas. But honestly, if $5.00 per gallon gas would force Americans to seriously reduce consumption, it might not be all bad.
Why do people think that the answer has to be EITHER conservation or drilling? Doesn't it make sense that it's BOTH? Should we be exploring options that use less oil? Should we be developing alternative sources of energy, where they are viable & economically feasible? Should we be making use of technologies for conservation & waste reduction. Of course we should. Shouldn't we ALSO recognize the fact that you cannot simply stop using oil overnight, and that we will be burning oil based fuels for at least a few dozen more years? That we will be better off, financially & politically, if & when we are less dependant on imported oil, especially OPEC oil? That the best way to become less dependant is to become more self reliant, by exploiting those many sources of domestic oil we know exist but have so far been prevented from exploiting?
A two pronged approach seems to make th most sense to me; Use less overall. What we do use, produce as much of it as possible ourselves.
Last edited by Bill Keegan; 12-20-2008 at 07:45 PM..
Reason: typos
Why do people think that the answer has to be EITHER conservation or drilling? Doesn't it make sense that it's BOTH? Should we be exploring options that use less oil? Should we be developing alternative sources of energy, where they are viable & econiomically feasible? Should we be making use of technologies for conservation & waste reduction. Of course we should. Shouldn't we ALSO recognize the fact that you cannot simply stop using oil overnight, and that we will be burning oil based fuels for at least a few dozen more years? That we will be better off, financially & politically, if & when we are less dependant on imported oil, especially OPEC oil. That the best way to become less dependant is to become more self reliant, by exploiting those many sources of domestic oil we know exist but have so far been prevented from exploiting?
A two pronged approach seems to make th most sense to me; Use less overall. What we do use, produce as much of it as possible ourselves.
Apology accepted, though I really don't think one was at all necessary!
And you're absolutely right. OPEC is more than Persian Gulf ports. But regarding Venezuela, hasn't Chavez been trying to cripple the US by refusing to sell us oil? Or was that all flap and no go?
Flap, a lot of flap.
Venezuelan imports in 2007 at this time were 1,131 (thousands barrels per day) and according to the figures to date for 2008 the number is 1,037.
Why do people think that the answer has to be EITHER conservation or drilling? Doesn't it make sense that it's BOTH? .
...
It does make sense and many (including me) have (in different threads) said this many times. This approach tackles supply and demand - Economics 101. But, in CD threads, generally Dems love to push conservation and Reps love to push drilling.
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