America Needs More Oil Drilling

[saganista]

Originally Posted by TnHilltopper

Seems the Iraqi desert is a much cheaper alternative to getting rid of nuclear waste. Just turn it into depleted uranium rounds and gun down as many Arabs as it takes to rid ourselves of 50,000 metric tons of waste, which shouldn't take all that long.

That would take care of depleted unranium alright, but I don't know if there will be enough room left for the rest of the stuff, what with Saddam having buried all those WMD there already.

Originally Posted by TnHilltopper

To the topic at hand...
The largest drilled energy reserve in the past 16 years was a find in the north sea that was enough gas to power the total US power generation needs (not cars) for one year. In other words, the days of seas of oil has passed, now we search feverishly for drops.

Yet the right-wing pins its hopes on discoveries of massive new fields that we've so far somehow managed to overlook. Their capacity for self-delusion is wondrous indeed.

Originally Posted by TnHilltopper

All the drilling in the world here in the US is much like trying to squeeze a dry sponge. The fact that they are drilling with renewed vigor here in southern Appalachia where the cost of extraction is quite high tells me that there is an air of desperation at hand.

We've drunk our Diet Coke. We've used the straw to suck up the last bits from the bottom of the cup. Then we think that if only we had a better straw, we could somehow suck up even more...perhaps even as much as was in the cup to start out with. Yup...that'll work...

[saganista]

Originally Posted by rlchurch

Price will cause demand to drop. Some Americans are slow learners but they get it eventually. After the oil price spike in 1979, demand dropped about 2 million bbl/day over a 3-4 year period.

In part because people began buying VW's, Toyota's and Datsun's while Detroit nearly came to a standstill. That lost market share was never regained.

Originally Posted by rlchurch

Suggesting that SUVs don't cause a decline in the fleet average is just silly nonsense. SUVs and minivans were developed to circumvent the CAFE standards for automobiles. The Chevy Suburban gets 15 mpg, The CAFE standard is 27.5 mpg. Do the math. GM just laid off 3500 people from their SUV line. They see fewer SUVs.

Also because they were exempt from the expenses of meeting passenger car safety standards. To achieve a price-point that would compete with the foreign producers that Detroit had basically invited in the door with its short-sighted thinking, they had to sell you a vehicle that was more dangerous. No problem, though...they were happy to do it. Whatever fed the bottom line...

[jimhcom]

Originally Posted by saganista

You seem to be under the impression that these will be different people. What do you think of the idea that BigOil will wring every penny's worth of profit out of the last drops of oil and use those huge sums to acquire a monopoly position in the BigWhatever that comes after?

Of course this is what will happen, but that is infinatly preferable to the situation we have now. At least those technologies will be home grown and not be exporting our wealth to the middle east where it is being used against us. These are also technologies which it is very hard to put a strangle hold on, You may not be able to drill for oil but you can put up a windmill or install solar panels.