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The 'drill ANWAR' part is just dumb, there's no supply problem (seen any gas lines, have you?). Just be more oil at $110+ a barrel. The current rip-off prices are a function of 1) a weak dollar; and 2) a $40bn inflow into commodity index funds this year, much of it coming from Mid-East sovereign wealth funds. Get it? The Gulf Arabs are double-dipping -- with the money they get from selling us their oil at inflated prices they bid-up oil futures, thus raising the prices even further.
Why is it dumb? You're taking out the OPEC equation or did you miss that part? Everyone screams they want to be free of foreign oil, get off foreign oil, etc. ANWAR would accomplish that. And until there's a viable alternative to oil, I would think you'd rather be dependent on domestic oil rather than foreign.
Explain why losing dependence on foreign oil is dumb. If OPEC is out of the equation and we aren't buying up their oil, yes, other markets will--but our dollar won't be part of the "double-dipping" as you put it.
So, explain yourself.
Actually we should hold back on ANWAR for a while. Keep it as our reserve supply.
And make the Iraqis pay for their liberation. A couple of billion dollars or barrels of oil would do it.
Thanks Beth, just caught this piece.
And when would we decide that Anwar would serve as our reserve??? It takes a while to crank up a drilling operation and all the associated processes. If the field is as large as estimated, we can use it NOW, not when it's too darn late!
And, why not build more nuclear plants? We need to get serious about our energy and get everyone else's hands out of our pockets.
Congress has a lot to answer for and they are sitting around with their collective thumbs up their collecitve a$$es!
Fed up, I agree on the nuclear plants as well--it's not a "new" technology any longer and has been shown to be clean and viable. We will still need oil for a lot of things, but we can certainly start building the nuclear.
Hi, Miss Beth. Yes, I know people (especially politicians) talk a lot about so-called energy independence -- gets the juices flowing. But, economically, there's really no such thing as foreign oil or domestic oil. It's a fungible commodity. Once it's out of the ground it's just oil, and it follows the world oil price. Oil from ANWAR could be--would be--marketed to Japan, Western Europe, or California; the price would be the same, which is what all the fuss is about, isn't it?
Look, we import lots of other strategic commodities (e.g., chromium, manganese, etc), not just oil. There's really nothing wrong with trade, as long as we too have something to sell abroad. Thing is, in the years after WW2 we were pretty much the only store in town. Everything else was rubble. If you wanted steel, machine tools, whatever, you came to us. It was nice while it lasted but now all that's gone, and we're finding we can't really make a living pretending a Web site is worth a billion dollars, or selling each other houses. Reality bites.
Over the longer term maybe we can move to a hydrogen economy, with nuclear power separating the hydrogen from water, and fuel cells using it to power vehicles. As should be clear from the word 'cell,' a fuel cell is essentially a kind of battery, but one that's refillable rather than rechargeable. There is already a 'Hydrogen Highway' program in California the Governator has been pushing, but it's hard to get the ball rolling, and there are non-trivial technical problems involved in transporting and storing hydrogen. Still, the wave of the future, so they say. Happy trails.
You know, Harry, fundamentally I agree with you. I wholeheartedly support trade and we as a country do need to find our backbone again and start producing again. I also understand the problems inherent in transporting and storing hydrogen (daddy was a rather prominent scientist). I do feel we need to get "weaned" off the majority of the oil and we need to find a way to protect our citizens from the whims of the elites (normally those who know me would be fainting that I would even suggest a government solution as I believe in small government).
Personally, I know if I'm not producing something, actively participating in life and my surroundings, I'm not the nicest person to be around. And frankly, Miss Beth is my inner bitch. Think how much worse I'd be.
It is a complex question and I agree there needs to be discussion of it, from all sides, with cool heads. I do like the ideas of people finding different ways, but not the reasons of climate alarmism--my reasons are man's innovation to be and do better, save money and have a better quality of life. If people can get off the climate alarmism and look at it from a purely selfish motivation I feel sure there would be a lot of progress made.
As I already posted elsewhere..
While Savage at times is "Over The TOP" I like his Mexican Barter plan and if we manage it right by rounding up the Illegals and seing them back , we could have an endless supply of oil before the Mexican catch up!!
Regarding Drilling, Sen Nelson of Florida to day has done his usual Whining for the Envioment of Alaska and Florida against oil drillings, but ignored the fact that Russia+China+Cuba are drilling 50 miles off the Fla Keys.. he is the Moron that Florida keeps sending to DC to FLUCK UP THE SYSEM. Over and over and over.....
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