"We, therefore, the undersigned citizens of the United States, petition the U.S. Congress to act immediately to lower gasoline prices (and diesel and other fuel prices)* by authorizing the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries." The 450k e-signatures on this petition at americansolutions.com indicate that a large number of Americans favor punching holes in The Land of the Free to free us from dependency on foreign oil. Chuck Norris, last seen supporting presidential candidate Mike Huckebee, is down with that. He's signed, and sent a far less pithy message to our Texas elected lawmakers: "Congress, get off your gas, and drill!" The bullet points ('natch) list restrictions on domestic oil production and some side effects (e.g. American Airlines going out of business.) "If there isn't a conspiracy going on here, someone needs to make a movie about one!" Norris announces, pimping for work. At least he's conciliatory at the end "Congratulations Congress – you're completely failing us."
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If we drain our oil now, for a slight reduction of prices, we not only continue with “business as usual”, but we threaten our national and economic security in the future.
I cannot believe how short-sighted Americans can be (or just plain selfish).
one wonders of those who signed the this paper, how many would like some drilling across the street from where they live, or in their fav game reserve?
chuck norris is such a idiot, whenever he shows up, its time to run for your life!
There is no way we can drill our way to oil independence. North America is the most explored and pin-cushioned piece of land in the world. 50% of all wells ever drilled in the world are in our territory.
Even if we wanted to drill more….where are you going to get the rigs? There are none available since they are feverishly drilling already.
The reality is in the short, medium and long term is less oil, not more.
Oh and there is that October 2005 Department of Energy Hirsch Report I guess everyone with an interest in oil and oil use decided not to read because it did not say what they wanted.
I concur with the above.
And you know what’s great about globalization? It means that national short-termist crowd-pleasing political solutions have far less effect than they used to, simply because the economics macro-trends are far too big to be modified by the barrels hidden in the ANWR or a summer gas-tax holiday.
We also might as well start drilling in ANWR. Just because the Alaskan pipeline will be rendered useless when the North Slope oil fields production decline to the point soon unable to keep the pipeline filled! Even though ANWR is just a dot of oil production on the world market, it is barely significant.
I thought Chuck Norris could drill some wells with that stare of his.
Chuck is 100% right. Of course it will never happen, as Washington is controlled by the environmental wackos who have figured out they can use “green” laws as the newest form of socialism to control you and your way of life. Suckers fall for it, at least for now.
I’ve been lobbying for a nuclear power plant in my school district. With the property taxes it would pay, we’d have the best school system in the state. It is the safest form of energy around.
Ditto on the oil well – I’d let them drill one in my half acre back yard and collect the royalities, but the homeowners association may have something to say about it.
…and here I thought “American Solutions” involved attacking another country to get their resources.
Run out of oil first. Brilliant plan, Chuck.
I’ve had wells drilled in some of my favorite places, as recently as this month. The rigs are temporary.
We launch space shuttles and missiles from a national wildlife refuge (Merritt Island). We also allow exploration in several of them. If it is done with prudence, then I say let them into Arctic.
There are lots of proven reserves in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico off Florida and in the Pacific off of California that is not allowed to be touched. They do a good job off Texas and Louisiana, I say let drilling commence in these places as well.
We’ve got lots of resources. Let’s develop them to buy some time to perfect electric transportation. While I don’t think much about Chuck Norris as all, it is nice to see a celebrity besides Toby Keith going against Hollywood mainstream thought.
Drilling an oil well takes a tiny amount of land is not even noticed from a few hundred feet. There is a huge amount of oil in the USA that the enviros with their allies in the mainstream press and the Democrat party have put off limits. And them the Dems have the audacity to blame the oil companies for the high prices.
Part of the tight oil supply now isn’t that there aren’t places to drill, but is the result of under investment from ten years ago when oil was cheap. Like a lot of resource extraction industries, there are substantial lag and lead times involved in looking for oil fields to when crude is going to the refineries (and all the crude in the world isn’t going to help you if you don’t have enough refineries anyway). That’s why resource industries tend to move in such clear boom and bust cycles. It will be years before the effect of all of today’s massive investment in the industry will make itself known. Rome wasn’t built in a day.
I HATE that tired “We can’t drill our way to oil independence.” That is such a media cop-out, tired head statement.
Of course we are not going to replace Saudi Arabia, but we could put tens of billions more barrels on the market, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME, building nuclear, wind, clean coal & solar power plants. That is a recipe for energy independence. The increased supply of domestic oil gives you a breathing space while you ramp up your renewables.
Good Lord people, it’s not that hard.
If anyone didn’t notice, it’s oil that is driving our economy and will continue to do so into the forcible future. It isn’t going to go away now or in twenty years, unless you all want no economy. Think of it, where will you drive your feel-good hybrids if you have no job to go to?
The environmental left does love high energy prices and can only dream of even higher prices. Their all for bio fuels that result in higher food prices (but hey there are too many people anyway!), wind farms (but as long as Ted Kennedy doesn’t have to see them on Nantucket!), support regulations on the gas mixtures which force gas companies to make over 40 different types of fuel, and more and more high price “solutions” because it’s all America’s fault anyway. As Obama recently stated, we just need to cut back our lifestyles (while elitists like him don’t worry about energy prices).
Here is a great article and a must read about America’s own energy cartel:
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCommentary.asp?Page=/Commentary/archive/200806/COM20080604c.html
Oh and by the way, if there is oil under my house, I’ll gladly put in an oil well in my own backyard. Then I won’t have to drive my SUV to work and I’ll sell you my oil to heat your home. :)
i agree with comment 1.
better to use up other countries’ oil before your own…
How long would it take to develop steady production of oil from US resources? 2,3,4,5 years???
How is that going to help tomorrow?
i agree that there can be some good from starting more domestic production, but over the next 20 years, does that good out weigh the bad? given the drop in the bucket that can be had, it probably isn’t…
use the money that would be used such domestic production and put it into renewable energy PRODUCTION…
“jerseydevil:
“one wonders of those who signed the this paper, how many would like some drilling across the street from where they live”
Sign me up. The money from the mineral rights would pay for a lot of things in the community. I would like it even better if there was oil found on my property. ‘Come listen to a story about a man named Windswords, a poor IT worker whou could barely could fill his tank, then one day he was digging out some weeds, when up from the ground came some bubling crude…’ Ok so it doesn’t rhyme like the original but I’m down with it.
KixStar:
“Run out of oil first. Brilliant plan, Chuck.”
Somehow Kixstart, I just don’t think that is the enviromentalists plan, to make sure we use up the worlds oil so that we have some left in our own country to burn up in our homes, cars, and factories. But hey were heading for hydrogen heaven, don’t you know, it’s gonna usher in a new dawn of cheap clean evergy. Hallelujah!
Everyone seems to forget that oil is used for many more things than simply gasoline/diesel. Plastics? Power plants?
This whole “drilling in the U.S. will not dent our bottom line” is pretty much hooey. Oil contracts are almost always based on some agreed price, rather than the “world price” of oil. For example, all the oil purchased from Canada comes in at significantly less than $135/barrel. If the U.S. had some rule that domestically-drilled oil could not be exported, then we would have a nice insulated market. If other countries wanted to sell us oil, they would have to agree to contract prices approaching the prices set for our own market.
That would only work, of course, if we had alot of oil. That’s to be seen.
Sooner or later the world economy is going to pop, energy prices are in a bubble inflated by consumption. As soon as that goes, watch what happens to the price of oil.
Even the “peak oil” sirens won’t be able to support 100 a barrel oil, or 40 for that matter.
The funny thing is the United States is sitting on far more oil than exists in all the rest of the world combined, but we just don’t want to drill for it. I THOUGHT it was just the Democrat politicians who prevented that, but our fine commenters here show it really is the will of the people not to drill for our own oil, apparently. Hard to say we’re not getting what we deserve.
Kevin-That’s not true. There are some untapped resources that should be used, but the amount is fairly minimal on a global scale. I’m in favor of additional drilling domestically, but it would not be a cure all.
No flames here – but I’m getting tired of the “drilling domestically won’t help us now” refrain. We’ve heard the same thing for years. If responsible drilling off-shore had been permitted 10 years ago, we might not be energy independent, but would certainly be better off than we are now.
I’m for getting demand under control before just drilling more. No matter how much oil is off the coast of California or in Alaska, it is limited and isn’t going anywhere. Perhaps our grandchildren are really going to need it in their day. Oh, I forgot, having any concern for other people or the future is passé. Just worrying about getting what you want now and ignore the rest.
ANWR has a total capacity of 18 months of US oil consumption.
Screw saving it. We need that oil NOW. Drill it. Burn it.
I like shaker’s comment above.
“Jam tomorrow and never jam today”.
Like it or not, sustained high gas prices are exactly what we need to make a better future. As I’ve said countless times before, there is considerable benefit that results from the pressures of high prices. Improved efficiency is the way out of this mess. Look at how much effort is going into improving effciency, developing better batteries, lighter weight materials, etc. Is that ultimately not a good thing for all concerned?
Yes, we need to build more nuclear plants. We need to figure out better ways to make coal work as an ultr-low-pollution energy source. We need to make our houses more energy-efficient. We need to install more solar panels and wind farms. We need to move more of our goods by rail. We even need to examine the limits placed on domestic drilling. The list goes on and on. There is no single solution and the pain of the current crisis provides the stimulus and the ultimate reward for efforts to address the problem. Yeah, it really sucks right now. But if the crisis provides the kick needed to make structural changes in the way we function, we will all benefit in the coming years.
ANWR has a total capacity of 18 months of US oil consumption.
That is yet another tired-head, media cop-out line that means nothing. No one is suggesting that we stop importing all oil and go strictly on ANWR oil for 18 months.
#1, ANWR is one of dozens of oil rich areas that are banned from drilling.
#2, no one is trying to drill to energy independence. The goal is put more supply on the market to REDUCE the need for foreign supply, and at the same time ramping up renewable domestic energy. But you can’t have 20 years of energy induced recession to get there. You need plentiful supply.
#3, if ANWR had been opened up early in the decade, that supply would be coming on line now and probably would have prevented a big chunk of the increase in the price of oil.
The US still has more gas than Arabia will ever have
but to problem is getting to it.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/biz/5824026.html“
As an engineer 35 years into a career, I’ve worked on nuke components, gas turbine components, assisted in a small way on a wind turbine project, worked on slant drilling for oil exploration, a few types of Li and NiCad batteries and am looking forward to some tidal energy work, among other non-energy related projects. I am sick and tired of innumerate techno-peasants whining we can’t, we can’t, we can’t. What they really mean is they can’t. Man up or crawl back under the bed and let the rest of us, who can, get on with it.
ps – kerogen is not an insubstantial source for oil
pps – as much as half the oil in old fields is still in the ground waiting for advanced workover techniques
ppps – there is one company in the whole world capable of making single piece forgings of nuke reactor vessels and they are booked until 2013 – you can’t just wave a magic wand and start fixing the problems once you get a clue – bringing capability online is a years long endeavor
bunkie hits the nail right on the head.
We need that oil NOW.
Do we? Last time I checked, cars were still driving, people were still drinking purified tap water out of plastic, and power plants are still working (I wouldn’ be writing on a computer, in an air-conditioned office otherwise).
We ALL agree that oil is a finite resource. Based on that assumption, I really don’t see how curbing our consumption now to maintain reserves longer is bad.
None of the posts bashing “the enviro-greenie-liberal media-Washington conspiration” have answered that very simple question.
Not to mention that higher oil prices create the incentive to exploit harder to reach (and thus more expensive) oil, and the incentive to develop alternative forms of energy.
It’s capitalism at work, and it seems to work pretty well right now.
SUVs and pickup trucks used in a role where they didn’t belong are the casualties. So are inefficient means of transportation.
Not to mention that higher oil prices create the incentive to exploit harder to reach (and thus more expensive) oil, and the incentive to develop alternative forms of energy.
It’s capitalism at work, and it seems to work pretty well right now.
SUVs and pickup trucks used in a role where they didn’t belong are the casualties. So are inefficient means of transportation.
(sorry for the double post, but the edit function seems a bit reluctant this morning)
but ‘WE’ don’t get to make that decision about whether to use or save it. Washington seizes that and usually comes up with decision that is bad for everybody except, of course, Washington (DC)
The government should do like Europe and double the price of gas to 8 dollars. Then all the enviros would be happy and the American peasant would be put in his proper place. Of course the rich enviros like Algore would continue to live like kings.
Don’t forget about domestic oil shale… There’s lots of energy in that stuff and folks figured out how to refine it during the Carter Administration.
While ANWR (and continental shelf) oil won’t help a lot, allowing drilling will send a positive message to the market. And while I find the phrase ‘energy independent’ somewhat of a fantasy, is it so bad to reduce our foreign oil imports?
What I find really ironic is the drilling planned by Cuba (near Florida). Oil money is good for Raul Castro but not for Florida / US Oil firms.
And without a doubt, Cuba’s drilling rigs will adhere to the most stringent environmental standards.
There are over 2 trillion barrels of shale oil in the US, enough for 100,000 days of consumption at current levels. Over 200 years. Most is in Colorado, and was touted as the way to go in the early 1980s.
The US has over 300 years worth of coal as well in reserve.
Environmentalists are all over NOT using the shale oil deposits, so I suggest you look at Wikipedia on shale oil to make up your own minds, but less than $50 a barrel to produce seems good to me.
It seems unreasonable that the matter of extracting this important energy supply has not been investigated thoroughly as a matter of national policy, to minimize environmental impacts and to provide independence from foreign oil producers.
It also is strange that procedures for oil extraction from coal have not been fully investigated. They do so in South Africa. Seems most odd in this day and age that as a matter of national policy, the US would rather rile up the Middle East and argue with nutcase dictators, rather than getting on the road to energy independence.
I see a lot of flailing about, not much action, and no mention of the alternatives noted above. What is going on?
Rush Limbaugh and his ilk have really dumbed down the American populace.
1. Oil is fungible. Every barrel we produce goes on the world market, one way or another. If we increase production by a million barrels per day, the price impact is NOT the same as if we gave ourselves a million barrels for free – but rather, the same as if anybody else increased production by a million barrels (except some US company makes more money in the bargain).
The whole world gets the price benefit; but only we suffer the environmental consequence.
It doesn’t MATTER if we produce 5% or 95% of the oil we consume – the price we PAY is the same, unless we nationalize oil companies and force them to subsidize the price for local buyers (we already do, to an extent; gas taxes are nowhere near where they need to be to pay for even the direct costs of driving). And nationalizing oil companies doesn’t work so well in the long-run.
2. At some point in the future, oil may NOT be fungible. I refer to a national security scenario – let’s say the Saudis are overthrown and people stop selling oil altogether. At that point, we’ll look pretty damn foolish if we pumped all our own (expensive) oil instead of buying it back then to save $0.25/barrel (a ‘savings’ the whole world shared with us as in #1).
3. None of this matters anyways, because for all intents and purposes, all the rigs in the world are being used. Saudi Arabia increased the number of rigs in country by a huge amount just to keep production flat, by the way, for those of you who still believe that pack of liars when they say they could pump more any minute now.
Alex et al,
The reason people are hammering the “don’t drill” mantra is because, like it or not, drilling really isn’t sustainable. It’s not a fad or an attempt to politically correct despite the fact that we need the energy, it’s an acknowledgement that the increase in prices and decrease in supply is very much a good thing, holistically speaking, and poking more holes just puts the problem off for a few more years and makes the necessary changes more problematic.
Think about this: we can either have a gentle market correction now, or keep putting it off until we’re really up against a wall and/or are fighting China and India for a decreasing slice of the pie. Oh, and we’re starting to have trouble feeding and housing people in large numbers, notable in northern latitudes.
If we drill, it gets us a temporary reprieve and takes away a big incentive to develop more sustainable systems (by “system” I mean economies, technologies, lifestyles, etc). Suddenly, fuel prices plummet, development stagnates and we’re back to “business as usual” until the next crisis, which would likely be more dramatic and harder to mitigate.
Saying that we should drill now/develop ethanol/build more nuke plants in the interim, until we develop something better is distraction activity that takes attention away from the real solution: find ways to use less, not alternative ways to use more. There’s also the issue that government and industry (not to mention most consumers) have magpie-level attention spans when it comes to stuff like this, and permanent high prices have done what boondoggles, tax incentives, PR campaigns and porkbarrel programs have utterly failed to do, and that opening up new supplies would effectively reduce the positive progress we’ve made in the past few months.
http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/images/tarsands.jpg
http://www.borealbirds.org/images/tarsands3.jpg
Would you like that in your backyard?
IT IS NOT A SUPPLY ISSUE!
Look at the value of the dollar people. That is what you should be getting upset over.
Don’t forget about domestic oil shale… There’s lots of energy in that stuff and folks figured out how to refine it during the Carter Administration.
But…but…but Carter was one of those enviro whackos who was in on the socialist plot to enslave all hardworking, right wing americans. Fortunately Reagan put a stop to the development of alternate energy sources, keeping us all safe…until reality set in.
I’m with Nathaniel. The real problem is that no one wants to buy US debt. There are trillions of it out there and hundreds of billions more each year are forced onto the open market. This has pushed the value of the dollar down.
That’s right, when you treat the US budget like a credit card with no limit, there are still consequences. All the citizens of the US pay more for everything that comes into the country. And, because oil is denominated in dollars, we pay lots more for oil.
So, unless the good citizens of the US throw out the overspending bums in Washington, DC, we never will have cheap oil. Because, (say it with me), the dollar will keep falling as we throw more debt into the marketplace.
marc provided links to pictures of Alberta tar sands sites, and asked “Would you like that in your backyard?”
My answer: Yes! We’re talking about back yards like Alberta, which is a quarter-million squire miles and contains vast beautiful areas such as Banff National Park. (Note to those passionately opposed to drilling in ANWR: the drilling site is nothing like Banff, contrary to media propaganda.)
The topic of this thread always brings out lots of comments, many of which reflect ignorance of how oil and gas is extracted from the ground. There’s an oil well in front of the Oklahoma State Capitol that used slant-drilling to tap oil directly beneath the building. The derrick remains just as a historical relic. Our state parks have oil wells drilled by environmentally-sensitive companies; many park visitors go down a road within fifty feet of a well and never realize it’s there.
Saying that we should drill now/develop ethanol/build more nuke plants in the interim, until we develop something better is distraction activity that takes attention away from the real solution: find ways to use less, not alternative ways to use more.
Yet another tired head media induced line that has no basis in reality.
I am all for figure out ways to become more efficient. Let’s say we figure out how to become 30% more efficient with our energy usage. That would be monumental and a great thing. Problem is that the efficiency gains would be matched by an virtually equal or greater population gain, and a greater still need for improved technologies, more bandwidth, more shopping, etc, etc.
You cannot “conserve” your way to energy independence, either. Period. It has to be combination of the two. Conservation, YES. Energy Production, YES. Is it really that hard to understand????
There is a simple way to keep the oil companies from drilling on your land without your permission – own the mineral rights.
I am really tired of people buying homes on land they don’t own the rights to and whining when a rig comes in. Why the hell do you think the lot was so frigging cheap? Most of these idiots KNEW it could happen. The screaming now is nothing but extortion.
Guess what, you can have costly gas with no drilling, or cheap gas with oil rigs and refineries. Frankly, I don’t care which one. I just wish people would be honest about their positions.
Those who want cheap gas without any drilling or refineries and who think they can have it by simply stealing it from the oil companies using government fiat ought to simply be shot. There is no right to life or liberty without right to private property. How many times do we have to go through this? These people are nothing but thieves. Thank God for the Bill of Rights.
Problem is that the efficiency gains would be matched by an virtually equal or greater population gain
I don’t see the relationship here. I mean, malthusian thought has been debunked (thankfully) for a long time now.
This said, I agree with the basics that both conservation and production are necessary, simply because production is necessary to research and the society that supports it. However, over the long term, conservation wins, simply because there may be limits to additional production.
Superconductors would help, a lot. Now the problem is just inventing them.
And in regard to “energy independence”, I find funny that we make such a big fuss of buying oil from Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, yet gladly increase our national debt, held by all sorts of investors, such as the Chinese Central Bank, sovereign wealth funds, and so on. I remember a cartoon in The Economist where Uncle Sam was standing in a riverbank, yelling at the Chinese Dragon about the value of the Yuen. The dragon was perched on top of a dam and had its paw on the opening controls, the water behind it labeled “U.S. debt”.
I guess we’re ok with being dependent as long as it means buying cheap stuff…
Nathaniel: Look at the value of the dollar people.
Sure!
http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?amt=1&from=USD&to=EUR&submit=Convert
Down 20% in one year.
http://www.wtrg.com/daily/crudeoilprice.html
Up by 100% in one year.
Any other theories?
You know, whale oil is a renewable resource, we should “Drill the Whales” too!
AKM,
Malthus’ theory has proven wrong, but the general concept is not worthless. Most people would intuitively agree that there is a finite limit to the number of people the earth can support. So the real argument is how many.
Even those who disagree on a finite limit would have to agree that there is a limit given a certain level of technology. Anyone silly enough to still disagree would have to admit that at some point it wouldn’t matter because we would all be miserable.
So sure, Malthus was wrong, but that doesn’t mean that everything thought about overpopulation is just crazy talk.
It certainly isn’t foolishness to question the subsidization of more and more children while creating social pyramid schemes making the state dependent on never ending population growth.
M1EK Rush Limbaugh and his ilk have really dumbed down the American populace.
1. Oil is fungible. Every barrel we produce goes on the world market, one way or another.
I must have missed who in this thread thinks that domestic oil is free or thinks that the U.S. is separate from the world oil market. The point of tapping into our enormous domestic reserves isn’t because it is free, but because it is a source of supply (moreover, one we control); and increased world supply should lower world prices, and we’d benefit (as would everyone).
And it wouldn’t take much extra supply at the margins to dramatically reduce the price of oil.
Here’s a prediction for you. No matter what new technologies come along, in 2040 the majority of cars in the U.S. will still be burning gasoline. This will be the case even if wonderful new electric cars are rolled out in the next couple of years, just due to lead times, supply constraints, costs, etc (eg, Hybrids have been here for a DECADE and represent ~ 0.5% of the fleet).
And that’s a LONG time to be paying way too much for gasoline.
@landcrusher: yes, of course.
I just contested the idea that as soon as we conserve energy, population will increase commensurately. That may have been true in the 19th century, but certainly now now, not even in developing countries.
The problem now is not the number of mouths to feed, but how much food (and entertainment, gas, housing,…) they require.
Kevin, the point is that drilling our oil to sell on the open market (when we don’t have a state oil company) gives most of the price benefit to the rest of the world – and costs us all of the national security benefit we had from having untapped oil of our own in case things get a lot worse later and fungbility is no longer in force.
People have this crazy idea that if we increase domestic production so that we produce 60% as much oil as we consume instead of 50%, that prices will shoot way down, because that’s like a fifth more oil, man.
The problem is that compared to the WORLD market, which is where the price is actually set, it’s more like half a percent, if that.
I signed the petition.Start drilling right now.
If the government just mentioned that we would start drilling in these heretofore untouchable areas I would bet that the oil prices would tumble. This is a national crisis. The onus is squarely on the US Congress to do something, and stop the free fall in the value of the Dollar, too.
We won’t need massive quantities of oil 100 years from now, I’m certain that technology will have moved on, but we will need it for the next 40 to 50 years.
By the way, when Hurricane Katrina went thru the Gulf , it did damage a number of oil rigs. I don’t recall there having been a great environmental disaster after that, do you?
Bring on all the energy producing technologies: wind, tidal, solar, nuclear, everything. We need energy. I like living in the 21st Century, I don’t want to go back to the 18th.
I need gas for my car and oil for home heating and that’s not going to change in the near future.
At the rate that gas (Regular gas is $4.29 here, it went up 8 cents overnight) and oil prices have been raising, our whole economy is going to collapse.
Online petitions are teh awesome. I just voted 10 times, each time as a different cartoon character!
M1EK: Those numbers don’t compute. If the U.S. consumes 25% of the world’s energy (as postulated by none other than the great Barack Obama), a 10% increase would translate into a 2.5% increase in world supply. That kind of increase would certainly impact the market price of oil. Hell, a simple announcement that this has been approved would immediately impact the world market price for oil because a percentage of that price is future availability risk premium.
I don’t understand how REDUCING our dependence on foreign oil is a bad thing. We do have a lot of oil here in the U.S., but if it is too expensive to extract, it won’t be extracted. Can’t we at least make it legal for that moment when it becomes a cost-effective proposition? And why is profit for companies locating and extracting this commodity something to be cursed? Profits create jobs and create tax revenue to the government, no?
Alex,
You cannot “conserve” your way to energy independence, either. Period. It has to be combination of the two. Conservation, YES. Energy Production, YES. Is it really that hard to understand????
The problem is that, as we’ve seen, increasing production eliminates the pressure to develop conservation strategies because there’s no penalty for doing otherwise. The phrase “necessity is the mother of invention” is apt here, even though it’s not just invention that’s being driven by scarcity (or at least cost), but also the shift in usage patterns.
And yes, to some degree, consumption will increase with population–right to the point when we collectively hit the wall (Peak Oil, Carrying Capacity, etc). And then, things get very bad, very quickly, for a lot of people. By constraining supply and increasing the cost of resources slowly, we can decrease the speed at which we hit that barrier.
It’s nice to hope that innovation will continue in the absence of cost- and/or supply-based pressure, but it just ain’t so. Innovation needs incubation, and cost pressure is one of the best ways to do that. If General Motors et al, as well as the modern American economy have taught us anything, it’s that we’ll happily forsake planning and innovation for short-term gain.
I don’t want to discount what individual people or organizations may achieve through innovation, but on a macroscopic level, people are shallow and lacking in foresight, and hoping innovation will solve problems while steaming full ahead won’t address that.
Six to eight dollars a gallon, though, certainly will.
What a red herring. I doubt there are many places where drilling is forbidden, outside national parks and ANWAR. Come here to Colorado, we’re drilling ourselves crazy on the Western Slope, mostly for natural gas. North of Denver, I can show you oil pumping stations right smack in front of churches, and surrounded by suburban cul-de-sacs. Most of them are pumping very slowly, because they’ve been working for years and most of the easy-to-get oil is already gone.
Any new oil we add to market is added into the world supply, and is likely to get claimed, at the world price, by the growing car populations of China and other developing nations. North America has been scrutinized again and again by five generations of petroleum geologists. I trust their diligence. I don’t think there’s much left to find.
And there are many more productive uses for the oil that remains than burning it into your gas guzzlers. It’s a key ingredient in plastics and many other materials. Just today I read that tire prices are rising sharply because of the rising cost of oil. Wouldn’t it be sadly ironic if future generations perfect cars that don’t need petroleum products for fuel, but they can’t be built because we lack the oil-based materials to construct them?
Get real, people, and think beyond your next vacation (or staycation). Petroleum is a vital resource for many purposes, and not all of it is destined for your personal use, here and now.
Wheatridger,
There are many times more oil reserves off the east coast, west coast, and Florida gulf coast that are off limits to US producers. Strangely, much of it is not off limits to foreign oil companies so you get a situation like the chinese drilling where the state of Florida won’t let Exxon drill.
Everyone,
One of the things people don’t understand (because it’s really complex) is that the price of a barrel of oil is more closely based on the value of the LAST barrel than the average barrel.
It’s not as much like a lot of other commodities in that way.
What that means is that increasing supply by a small amount can have a big effect on the price.
Would you be willing to allow drilling in ANWR if it brought down the price of gasoline by half a dollar? I am not saying it would, but that is closer to the truth than the argument of the leftists who claim it’s a drop in the bucket.
According to the Energy Information Administration (eia.gov), the U.S.consumes and/or imports about 20.7 million barrels per day. U.S. production for January, 2008 was 9.043 million bbl/day. Most of the rest comes from 15 countries. The top ten, listed in order of supply volume to us are: CANADA 2.5 million- SAUDI ARABIA 1.55 million- MEXICO 1.33 million-NIGERIA 1.1 million-VENEZUELA 1.1 million-IRAQ .7 million-ANGOLA .4 million-ALGERIA .270 million-ECUADOR .2 million-KUWAIT .2 million. ‘Under U.S. Net Imports by Country’, the following summary is provided: TOTAL IMPORTS 10.728 million bbl/day. OPEC 5.881 million-NON OPEC 4.847 million. QUESTIONS. Who owns that 9 million plus bbl/day supply of oil produced from reserves in our country? Is it sold to us market rates? Lastly, will politicians and pundits stop whining about about the evil OPEC? About 60% of our oil comes from North America.
Wikipedia says there are about 7.7 billion barrels of oil in ANWR. At $139 a barrel, that’s over a TRILLION DOLLARS worth of oil.
Based on Coasian economics, the people who really want that oil pumped should offer half of that to the environmentalists. Think what they could do with a half-trillion smackers.
I just signed up. I urge everyone to sign the petition. You can’t have oil without getting it from somewhere. Oil is not the environmental evil so many say it is. It is California silly to demand lower energy costs without allowing the energy companies to take the steps necessary to lower the costs.
Landcrusher, you’re still misunderstanding the point. Essentially all rigs in the world are currently in use – nobody can increase production in the short-term; and in the long-term, we’d have to come up with more rigs (a LOT more; we’re going to need more rigs just to keep production steady as fields deplete).
Sorry M1EK, but I really don’t understand what you mean by that at all.
Are you talking about offshore platforms, derricks, what?
Whatever it is you are talking about, it makes no sense.
First, there are tens of thousands of people employeed around here to do nothing other than create this equipment. Second, the equipment used to run a well is easy to produce. The drilling rigs are only needed long enough to tap the well, and then are replaced with a pump jack on land or a platform for offshore. In any case, I just got got an email from a guy this morning who was laid off. He works for an oil service provider. They are being laid off because there really isn’t that much exploration possible right now in the US due to government restrictions.
I don’t know who sold you this idea about an equipment shortage, but either they are blowing smoke, or you really misunderstood them.
M1EK, Landcrusher
Deep water rigs are all tied up, IIRC. These are the babies that can drill in thousands of feet of water. Land rigs shouldn’t be a problem. But even if we don’t have enough of them, their technology is as old as dirt. Diesel electric drive, big ol’ mud pumps, tower, racks and swivel, shakers and so forth. And with slant drilling you can cover a lot of ground with a single stationary rig. The jobs are dangerous and lonely, but the pay is great. Rather than giving bazillions in windfall profit taxes to the gov’t to squander, lets allow the majors to drill here and spread that money around in gainful employment with the aim of moderating oil prices and propping up our supply side somewhat.
chuck,
It may be possible that we have a short term situation with deep water rigs, but we can always build more. There could be high demand for the existing ones, but that is no reason to say that we should not open more areas to exploration at all. As soon as those wells are drilled, those rigs are again free, so we need places to drill. Also, we need certainty in the market that if you build one, it will get used instead of being parked down in Beaumont. I used to fly over several of them everytime I went east out of Houston. Just sitting there, waiting to be used and costing huge $.
The really stupid thing is preventing drilling in places that we don’t really control, so foreign powers can still drill there.
All that being said, much of the off limits areas are NOT deep water.
‘crusher
When you have a moratorium for long enough, your chances of catching up quickly without economic dislocation at the end of the catch up period go way down. You’ll have a lot of suddenly surplus gear.
Wasn’t there a bumper sticker in the early ’80s that went
Dear Lord, Please send another oil boom. I promise I won’t screw it up next time.
Chuckr,
You are correct. Though I don’t remember that sticker, I remember the sentiment.
It takes two years for a deepwater drilling platform to be built. There are many in the pipeline. The correct answer to this is for the US to free up all international waters for our domestics right away. Otherwise, in 2 years we will be in the same place, only 2 years farther down the hole. There is a surplus of shallow rigs, but the oil companies refuse to suggest shallow drilling off Florida due to the likely S__t storm it would cause.
Part of the problem is the anti drilling congressional types. I love the latest crap they put out today. Oldie but goodie – It will take 7 years for ANWR to come online, it’s no solution. Of course, they have been saying that for what, 20 years?
A really nasty one from another Rep. Idiot(D) from Slumville, USA. Near quote – there are over 69 million acres that are under lease that the oil companies aren’t drilling now. Why don’t they drill there? The truth – Expensive, eco-friendly drilling techniques allow the drilling of large areas from a single pad. Those acres are being drilled, they are just using horizontal drilling to reduce the footprint. IOW, the oil companies do something good for the environment, but the Demogogue of the hour uses that against them. That crap may fly when they want to shout about each other, but if I were an oil exec I wouldn’t stand for it.
Overall, I can tell you that the pendulum has swung the other way in Houston. Oil companies are now REALLY cautious about over investing in exploration. They seem to have finally learned their lessons. The late nineties glut was much easier for them to deal with, and wasn’t as much self caused as the eighties problems.