Drill or Don't Drill for Oil: Your thoughts?

I say we all keep gardens and a couple of dairy animals, get rid of superstores, and bike to our local small businesses!

Since that is not going to happen... I don't see this as an either/or situation. If we drill for oil, it's not going to put a stop to buying foreign oil altogether. :huh: Right?

[spotty_dog]

Re: Drill or Don't Drill for Oil: Your thoughts?

Drilling for new fields, no matter where in the world they might be, is like putting a bandaid on a hemorrhage. There's almost zero chance of finding a field as big as say Saudi Arabia and that's the only thing that would keep our energy needs afloat for more than a couple of years. Prudhoe Bay was a HUGE discovery and it lasted about 20 years. At our current rates of extraction and consumption, it'd probably be half that (wild guess, no cites.)

When the earth was young, a FINITE amount of oil was created. By all the best scientific estimates, we've burned through HALF of it. As reserves decrease extraction becomes more difficult and supply wanes. At the same time worldwide oil usage is increasing drastically, both due to the consumption patterns of developed countries and the increasing industrialization of developing ones. The gap between supply and demand is increasing exponentially, and no one new oil field is going to fix that.

We need to be finding alternative energy sources NOW. Well, really ten or twenty years ago. Looking for oil is putting our resources in completely the wrong place. Sure there might be oil down there. There might be good timber in the old-growth forests and good water in the deep aquifers and good minerals in locations amenable to strip mining too. It's time, though, to STOP raping and pillaging this earth upon which we depend. It's time to switch gears and come up with sustainable ways to live, because we are borrowing this planet from the future generations and they are not going to look fondly on us if we hand them down a barren wasteland.

[poky]

Re: Drill or Don't Drill for Oil: Your thoughts?

We need to be finding alternative energy sources NOW. Well, really ten or twenty years ago. Looking for oil is putting our resources in completely the wrong place. Sure there might be oil down there. There might be good timber in the old-growth forests and good water in the deep aquifers and good minerals in locations amenable to strip mining too. It's time, though, to STOP raping and pillaging this earth upon which we depend. It's time to switch gears and come up with sustainable ways to live, because we are borrowing this planet from the future generations and they are not going to look fondly on us if we hand them down a barren wasteland.

Hear, hear!

To all of it, really, but this part especially. And I would say that this whole statement was just as true 30 years ago, too.

[JaneDoe]

Re: Drill or Don't Drill for Oil: Your thoughts?

Drilling for new fields, no matter where in the world they might be, is like putting a bandaid on a hemorrhage. There's almost zero chance of finding a field as big as say Saudi Arabia and that's the only thing that would keep our energy needs afloat for more than a couple of years. Prudhoe Bay was a HUGE discovery and it lasted about 20 years. At our current rates of extraction and consumption, it'd probably be half that (wild guess, no cites.)

When the earth was young, a FINITE amount of oil was created. By all the best scientific estimates, we've burned through HALF of it. As reserves decrease extraction becomes more difficult and supply wanes. At the same time worldwide oil usage is increasing drastically, both due to the consumption patterns of developed countries and the increasing industrialization of developing ones. The gap between supply and demand is increasing exponentially, and no one new oil field is going to fix that.

We need to be finding alternative energy sources NOW. Well, really ten or twenty years ago. Looking for oil is putting our resources in completely the wrong place. Sure there might be oil down there. There might be good timber in the old-growth forests and good water in the deep aquifers and good minerals in locations amenable to strip mining too. It's time, though, to STOP raping and pillaging this earth upon which we depend. It's time to switch gears and come up with sustainable ways to live, because we are borrowing this planet from the future generations and they are not going to look fondly on us if we hand them down a barren wasteland.

I couldn't agree more!!!!

[alison]

Re: Drill or Don't Drill for Oil: Your thoughts?

Great post, Alison.

Really, we're all barking up the wrong tree.

Re: Drill or Don't Drill for Oil: Your thoughts?

Yes - I also agree that the real solution is to stop consuming so much oil. I wasn't completely joking about the garden/local business thing. Asking huge numbers of individuals to make inconvenient changes just isn't a realistic solution.

I've been fascinated by all the science-fiction looking windmills I've seen popping up in the western part of the "Kansas rectangle." I wonder if any proposed alternatives have shown potential to help.

Re: Drill or Don't Drill for Oil: Your thoughts?

What Alison said (and Deb too)

We have to get away from the idea that oil is a renewable resource, I have actually heard morons call it that on NPR!

[DCJenn]

Re: Drill or Don't Drill for Oil: Your thoughts?

I'm not opposed to additional drilling (surprised?) but it's not the Be All, End All answer. Even if we drill more, it's been beaten to death that it won't impact anything for 10+ more years anyway.

So, microscopic amounts of additional oil may relieve some pressure in the future but the fact that my car today gets the same MPH as my 1984 Ford Escort is pathetic. We have the brains and the abilities to figure this out. What we need is political fortitude to do it.

We need to look at ALL resources and use ALL of the resources the most efficient way possible. Wind, solar, hydro, fossil fuels, and everything that hasn't yet been invented- now is not the time for in the box thinking. This is not the time for absolutes. It's the time to stop the political panic attacks, put on the Congressional Big Boy and Girl panties and actually develop a coherent energy policy that is not determined by the lobbies and an executive branch run by former oil men.

Jenn

[fluffhead]

Re: Drill or Don't Drill for Oil: Your thoughts?

We have to get away from the idea that oil is a renewable resource, I have actually heard morons call it that on NPR!

Well, strictly speaking, it is of course a renewable resource. Only the time frame is a bit longer than we're used to thinking about.
If you can wait for some more sea creatures to die, become detritus, have geological layers fall on top of them and become very compressed, you'll have a big load of new oil!
So start buying those hummers!

[Laker]

Re: Drill or Don't Drill for Oil: Your thoughts?

we need to drill. it is obvious that other technologies aren't ready to replace oil. by not drilling and trying to increase supply, our economy is suffering. it is annoying that the rich and privileged politicians and hollywood-types bash oil and say that higher prices are so great because it will stop our "addiction" to oil, when the average american is deciding between food and gas. think of truckers, lawncare people, pizza delivery people, college kids, minimum wage workers, low income workers, school buses, post office, police departments...etc.....all are struggling to put gas in their tanks, when we know that we have oil in our country. Why aren't we tapping into it? We need to bridge the gap to this technology because it isn't ready yet.

[spotty_dog]

Re: Drill or Don't Drill for Oil: Your thoughts?

all are struggling to put gas in their tanks, when we know that we have oil in our country. Why aren't we tapping into it? We need to bridge the gap to this technology because it isn't ready yet.

I'll try to find the site where I saw someone who did the calculation. If ANWR really has as much oil as predicted it would improve gas prices by $0.02 per gallon, in ten years. Bandaid. On a hemorrhage. Waste of resources. I stick by my conclusion.

Edit: Not what I saw, but it's from Time magazine.

A 2004 study by the government's Energy Information Administration (EIA) found that drilling in ANWR would trim the price of gas by 3.5 cents a gallon by 2027. (If oil prices continue to skyrocket, the savings would be greater, but not by much.)

http://www.time.com/time/business/artic ... 84,00.html

[Rapunzel]

Re: Drill or Don't Drill for Oil: Your thoughts?

Just wanted to put up a quick link to one of the unexpected consequences of higher oil prices:

When Gas Stations Run Out of Gas

http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/c ... th+readers

[DCJenn]

Re: Drill or Don't Drill for Oil: Your thoughts?

Well, that'll force some behavior change, won't it?

I was reading at article (cnn or msnbc) about how this could be the cause of the death of the suburbs.

Jenn

[spotty_dog]

Re: Drill or Don't Drill for Oil: Your thoughts?

I was reading at article (cnn or msnbc) about how this could be the cause of the death of the suburbs.

I haven't read it (though I see it's on Google books...hm...) but I've heard that the 2005 book The Long Emergency predicts that exact result: that the suburbs will be abandoned as people turn by necessity to communities within bicycling or public transportation distance from their workplace.

[Laker]

Re: Drill or Don't Drill for Oil: Your thoughts?

all are struggling to put gas in their tanks, when we know that we have oil in our country. Why aren't we tapping into it? We need to bridge the gap to this technology because it isn't ready yet.

I'll try to find the site where I saw someone who did the calculation. If ANWR really has as much oil as predicted it would improve gas prices by $0.02 per gallon, in ten years. Bandaid. On a hemorrhage. Waste of resources. I stick by my conclusion.

Edit: Not what I saw, but it's from Time magazine.

A 2004 study by the government's Energy Information Administration (EIA) found that drilling in ANWR would trim the price of gas by 3.5 cents a gallon by 2027. (If oil prices continue to skyrocket, the savings would be greater, but not by much.)

http://www.time.com/time/business/artic ... 84,00.html

you can find slanted math for either side of ANWR. Not only talking about ANWR, gulf, atlantic, Bakken formation.

ANWR is approx. 10 billion barrells...which means 1 million barrells per day for 30 years. That would help. What we really need are refineries as well as more nuke and other green energy sources like windmills...just not obstructing Ted Kennedy's view.