-15, Lows Keep Getting LOWER!
Hi Mike,
My post today was on this topic as well. I used the editorial from Investor's Business Daily, and they made the point exceedingly well: Democrats in congress are the problem, not the oil companies.
I went back and linked your blog as well. This topic really gets my blood going because this is when the incompetency and environmentalism really cost ME, every one else. I don't mind when nut cases like Sherryl Crow tell us to only wipe our back sides with one piece of toilet paper. But when these idiots start doing things that actually cost me money, that is when they have gone too far.
Timothy: I don't know what it takes to reach through the fog of willful ignorance that surrounds this issue.
The saddest part is that while some Democrats campaign against high gas prices while doing everything to keep them higher, the poor who they claim to care most about are hit the hardest.
I wonder how long it will be before they insist we start a new federal program to provide the equivalent of food stamps for gas purchases?
But the real solution, the one that will protect America's economic growth and the prosperity that we all depend on will continue to be undermined as Dems play politics with the price of gas.
ANWR is a drop in the bucket of what we use. Best estimates is 12 (probably 10) billion barrels of oil in ANWR, we use 7 billion barrels per year. It would be 2017 at the earliest before that oil could be accessed and 2025 before we could reach peak potential. It would possibly lower the price of a barrel of oil by a couple of dollars if oil prices remain high.
Exxon is still fighting against paying for the clean up of their Valdez tanker back in 1989. I suppose that is ok too? I know, I am just an environazi who thinks the most profitable corporation in history should clean up after itself and shouldn't concern myself with the fact that they decimated an eco system and I had to pay for it. But I guess it was only 1500 miles of coast line and only one national forest, 4 wildlife refuges, 5 state parks, 4 critical habitat areas and a state game sanctuary and a partridge in a pear tree. It was no big deal. ANWR is certainly worth all that again. Bald Eagles aren't that important to this country.
Should we drill in the Grand Canyon too? What about Yellowstone? What about your back yard? We should probably open up Yosemite national forest to logging while we are at it.
You loose, move on to something else.
This isn't an issue of saving the forest. It's an issue of consumption. Our own government findings which are here:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-0028-.../fs-0028-
01.htm
place a maximum available amount at roughly 31 billion barrels tops. Taking into consideration that we consume over 20 million barrels a day(also government numbers)
http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/quic...s/
quickoil.html
that gives us about a 4 year total supply(based on maximum availability) if we forgo foreign sources of oil. The numbers are probably a lot lower, but even if they aren't it won't mean much to our children and grand children.
As much as it's a problem of supply it is more importantly a problem of demand. Simple economics.
CD: I suggest you click the link to the larger post on oil which precedes this post:
http://mikesamerica.blogspot.com...-
testimony.html
From there you can go to the USGS updated oil resources map:
http://certmapper.cr.usgs.gov/
da...oil_mean_08.pdf
They estimate 48.5 billion barrels of oil available in the United States and offshore. Plenty of oil combined with that of Canadian resources to replace ALL other imports for over a decade or more as we transition to practical alternatives using the royalties and taxes generated by producing our own oil to fund the project.
Conservation is NOT a practical, nor effective solution. And it would impact the poor and minorities hardest as prices would continue to rise and transportation options like automobiles would become more and more a privilege only the wealthy could afford.
No doubt Democrats would rush in to help with a food stamp style big government program to help the poor (and help thousands of bureaucrats.
Not drilling for U.S. oil makes even less sense than a conservation only scheme.
Maybe this will knock the idea into some brain buckets.
By legislating large swathes of the United States off-limits to drilling, what Congress has done is create artificial local scarcity which forces companies trying to make a profit for their stockholders to go overseas. Thus the rise since the 1970s in US dependence on foreign oil.
Lets look at another legislative fiat - affordable housing. First such entities as HUD tells building contractors that if they want to have Federal funding for their project they must set aside a certain number of units for HUD. Then by imposing caps on what the government is willing to pay for housing units they are appropriating, the chances of the contractor making any profit vanish. So housing becomes scarce and the price for a unit rises, thus soaking the non-HUD residents to support the HUD residents.
This is why cavalier government intervention into the free market is a very bad idea. Law of unintended consequences applies.
What did Reagan say were words to be feared? "I am from the government and here to help." He is still right.
Anna: Don't know if you heard Congresswoman Maxine Waters threaten the big oil company executives that she would "nationalize" their companies, but it was further insight into the only path for problem solving many Democrats have.
One oil company exec shot back that it would turn the U.S. into a model similar to Venezuela which under Chavez has seen a decline in oil prodcution even though they have almost double the known reserves the U.S. does.
"There is no problem that is not so bad that it cannot be made worse by Congress fixing it." --REBierce
I agree with you Mike. It's not about Conservation. It's about consumption. Even if we tap all the available oil in our country it won't make a dent until we figure out a way to consume less. I'm not worried about the Elk in Alaska or some protected shrimp in the Gulf of Mexico, but I am worried about how all of this will affect future generations.
The stuff isn't going to last forever. It's nice to thing that it will, but it's not realistic.
Obviously you do NOT agree with me CD.
I never said, suggested or implied "Even if we tap all the available oil in our country it won't make a dent "
Nothing could be further from the truth.
And it's clear you would prefer we not drill at all.
That's not a solution.
Where did I ever say I don't want to drill?
I think it's an important and vital part of the future of this country. But drilling alone will NOT solve the issue of consumption.
And yes, like it or not, even our country's own experts agree that our total reserve won't make much of a difference in the long haul. And by long haul I mean the next 100 or 200 years. If there is anything close to the 48.5 billion barrels available that is only a bit more than a 6 year supply based on current consumption numbers listed by the DOE.
Not much of dent.
Important? Certainly, but not the answer to a much more complicated problem.
CD: Do you really think we will be using crude oil for fuel in 100 years/
Even if we had an unlimited supply, there are better options that are likely to appear in the future.
But that doesn't mean we should kill the Golden Goose that funds the technological progress and research necessary to bring that about.
We are talking about getting through the next 30 years or so and the immediate answer to the current problem is to DRILL, DRILL, DRILL!
Seems as though we agree on this, and just express it differently.
DRILL DRILL DRILL indeed. I just worry about the "then what" part of it.
I'm glad you clarified that CD. I apologize if I suspected you of being a petroleum moonbat.
My idea would be to fund a Manhatten style project to develop and implement an oil free energy economy in 20 years using the taxes and royalties from American oil resources.
But to fund that, we would have to drill NOW and drill EVERYWHERE!
Since no environmentalist will ever permit that, we're stuck importing foreign oil until it runs out or we China goes to war to steal it.
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