Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less.

American Solutions ^ | May, 2008 | Newt Gingrich

[Signalman]

Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less

[Mamzelle]

Here's more discussion, with link to youtube--

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2020454/posts

[Cousin Eddie]

a buddy has a bumper sticker which reads:

EARTH FIRST!!!!
we’ll drill the rest of the galaxy later.

[jnsun]

Even if the price did not go down in constant currency, keeping all those millions of dollars in the US would help the real cost and produce a lot of US jobs and economic growth.

Bingo.

The "fungible" argument, that any oil is the same price across the world market, annoys me no end; like so many pseudo-intellectuals wanting to use a new word.

Any additional oil produced within the geoconstitutional boundary of the United States of America is that much more wealth remaining in, or flowing to, the closed economic boundary of that island nation, and ITS TAXPAYERS.

Globalism is a phony, and world socialistic, concept, which actually destroys the empowerment, and human dignity, of the individual citizen. No different than a bunch of mindless idiots rooting for the NFL "home" team, when in fact the vacuous mercenary free agents couldn't care less.

We can thank the Council on Foreign Relations, and the arrogant yuppie Rockefeller/Soros crowd, for the spin.

Can we present that to the Brookings a**holes, and the "Harvard" School of Government and Politics?

[gidget7]

Done, and glad to see it posted here for others to do the same!

[roamer_1]

But drilling alone is a temporary bandaid and doesn’t solve the real problem, which is that we need to find something besides oil [...]

Utter nonsense. At $60/barrel we can effectively open all of our reserves to drilling, to include shale oils, of which we have trillions of barrels of supply. The Bakken oil formation contains 500 billion barrels, Off shore drilling can easily equal (or even triple) that number. There is no shortage of oil in the ground.

Bush talked about transitioning to a hydrogen economy [...]

A total waste of time and investment until we can find a way to make hydrogen cheaply and effectively. As of now, it costs more in natural gas and electricity to make the hydrogen than the hydrogen is worth at the pump, and that isn't even considering the infrastructure needed to properly distribute it.

The same can be said for electric cars, which basically trade burning relatively clean gas for the extra coal needed to run the generators to make the electricity. One can also predict that the demand for electricity will invariably increase the cost once such vehicles become commonplace.

Equally disastrous is the current method for making ethanol from corn and etc, as can certainly be demonstrated right now in the increased costs in cattle feed.

I agree that environmental concerns need to be addressed, as the old adage says: "You don't sh*t where you eat". But at this present time, the single and only cheap source of power and heat IS also the cleanest- That being petroleum products.

[aruanan]

But drilling alone is a temporary bandaid and doesn’t solve the real problem, which is that we need to find something besides oil [...]

This is utter nonsense because if there were discovered something other than oil that was as competitive as oil, it would become the new oil and exactly the same thing would be said about it.

[businessprofessor]

Great, and I agree. But drilling alone is a temporary bandaid and doesn’t solve the real problem, which is that we need to find something besides oil to fuel our economy, and nobody’s serious about that that I can see. Bush talked about transitioning to a hydrogen economy in one of his SOTU speeches, but like so much else from this administration, it was all talk and little action. The Republicans want to drill but have little in the way of any other plans. The Democrats don’t even want to do that. We’re basically screwed.

There are too many plans now. The government should have much less involvement, not more involvement in the energy industry. The energy industry will find solutions if not stopped by rat politicians, rinos, and enviroMarxists.

[roamer_1]

if there were discovered something other than oil that was as competitive as oil, it would become the new oil and exactly the same thing would be said about it.

Exactly right. This is all about corrupt power and filthy lucre.

[stockpirate]

Our problem is the oil industry gas already been nationalized.

search nazi here on fr, the article is National Socialism

[rob777]

"But drilling alone is a temporary bandaid and doesn’t solve the real problem, which is that we need to find something besides oil to fuel our economy, and nobody’s serious about that that I can see."


It is already happening quietly as a result of normal market forces. In relative terms, our economy depends far less on oil then we did in the '70s. As energy conversion technologies develop, such as the power chip, more and more of our economy becomes "ëelectrified". Electrical power is what our economy is increasingly more dependent on. The transportation sector is only slowly moving in that direction. This is happening because of a market demand for more efficient forms of energy. The LAST thing we need is for those incompetents in the government to mess things up by trying to "guide" the process. I highly recommend reading "The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy" by Peter W. Huber and Mark P. Mills.

Like I said, it is coming. In the meantime DRILL DRILL DRILL!!!

[Nuc1]

But drilling alone is a temporary bandaid and doesn’t solve the real problem, which is that we need to find something besides oil to fuel our economy...

Not to be mean or insulting, but why? Get the stinking congress out of the way and we will have plenty of oil. From all kinds of sources including drilling.

Those hydrogen powered cars exhaust water vapor which is really a green house gas. Not that I care. I like hydrogen as a fuel but switching to it will cost us a pretty penny. I like electric and diesel. But most of all, I like cheap high octane gasoline so I can fuel my big inch high compression V-8s and drive them wherever I want. Whenever I want.

[trane250]

At $60/barrel we can effectively open all of our reserves to drilling, to include shale oils, of which we have trillions of barrels of supply. The Bakken oil formation contains 500 billion barrels, Off shore drilling can easily equal (or even triple) that.

Shale formations can't be drilled. They must be mined and then processed. This processing will require huge quantities of fresh water, a commodity in short supply in the west.

I read that the Bakken shale may contain 4 billion recoverable barrels, where do you get 500 billion?

There is indubitably a huge reserve of undiscovered oil and gas offshore. No one can know how much. It will take years to find and develop and it won't be cheap.

[RightWhale]

Cargo cult bump

[Teacher317]

clearly the animals in Alaska hate having these pipelines...

[HardStarboard]

Off topic, but who is the quote from that you use as your tag line?

On topic - drilling helps caribou. It seems the pipeline has become the preferred place for the caribou cows to have their calves. The pipeline is heated so the oil will flow and 10 yards either side of the pipeline is free of snow because of the warmth.

Consequently, the survival rate of caribou has skyrocketed since the pipeline went in. And yet the environmentalists don't seem happy....

[HardStarboard]

>>>I read that the Bakken shale may contain 4 billion recoverable barrels, where do you get 500 billion?<<<

The 4 billion is a USGS or DOE released estimate. I have read that there are many that feel this is a very very conservative number.

Why keep the estimate low? I speculate one reason might be to not excite the environmentalists that we might actually produce oil on American soil. But probably, it is just government caution and/or incompetence.

[wolf78]

If you think $135/barrel oil is expensive wait ‘till you see what the alternatives cost!!!

The cost of alternatives is no secret. A barrel of fuel from coal costs approx. $60-70 to produce, kerogen from oil shales is more or less in the same range ($70-95). Both are viable alternatives today, if oil prices remain above $100. There are two reasons why adoption of these alternatives is slow:

1.) They require upfront investment, that's why investors still wait and see if oil prices stabilize at a lower level again. You don't want to build a Fischer-Tropsch plant for hundreds of millions only to see oil prices drop to a level just slightly below what you need to operate profitably.

2.) And this one's a biggie: CTL (Coal to liquid) and oil shale extraction are both dirty and inefficient. You have to waste energy to produce energy, just like ethanol from corn.

The US will not run out of energy, given its enormous coal reserves, tar sands and oil shale. The economy will not collapse for the next 100 years. Period. However, tapping coal or oil shale is not a desirable option. With these you will hit the NIMBY barrier big time.

That's why biodiesel e.g. from algae or synthetic gas from cellulosic waste should be fervently researched. Every state from Arizona to Nevada would want algae bioreactors. They're are clean and CO2-neutral. Cost is a risk factor here, but once you can get in the vincinity of CTL or oil shale, there's no question what's the preferable alternative.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

People have no idea how stringent the environmental regulations are for these developments. It’s no accident that the wildlife aren’t bothered by the pipelines.

[marron]

The "fungible" argument, that any oil is the same price across the world market, annoys me no end; like so many pseudo-intellectuals wanting to use a new word.

I wouldn't discard it entirely. It is the reason I laugh when Chavez threatens to cut us off. It wouldn't make much difference. There would be a delay while the refineries fine-tune to another source petroleum, but he would mostly damage himself. He would eat the additional transportation costs. And he owns the Citgo refineries in the US which are tuned to Venezuelan oil and so he would be the one paying to fine-tune to another source petroleum. But because its more-or-less "fungible" he wouldn't hurt us at all. Its a laughable threat.

But otherwise I agree. While price-wise it makes little difference in where we drill, in terms of value there is a big difference. A 100$ for foreign oil puts ten bucks in American pockets. A 100$ in US drilled oil puts the whole hundred dollars in American pockets in terms of salaries, equipment, taxes, all the way up and down the line.

And there is a lot to be said for developing the expertise among your own people. When you offshore everything it isn't just dollars you lose, over time its native know-how.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

“2.) And this one's a biggie: CTL (Coal to liquid) and oil shale extraction are both dirty and inefficient. You have to waste energy to produce energy, just like ethanol from corn.”

Not quite. Ethanol from corn is, at best, a wash. It takes about 1 unit of energy to yield a unit of energy. That's why corn ethanol requires massive subsidies.

Even using your figures — it's clear that oil shales would yield more energy output than energy input. (Energy isn't the only cost of extraction and processing — so, the cost of the energy input to produce the equivalent of a barrel of oil must be well below $75.00.)

The same “inefficiency” myth is spread about the Alberta oil sands. In fact, the oil sands yield 9 barrels of oil for the energy equivalent of 1 barrel of oil input. Oil shales would probably yield about 4 units of energy for every unit of input.