Posted on 03/12/2010 9:35:39 PM PST by chicken head
As long as they can buy oil cheaper than we can produce it then there will be no drilling. When gas got so high a couple of winters ago you could see drilling going on all over south Texas. There have been a couple of start ups lately and I understand some in other states but for the most part those that work in the oil fields are mostly unemployed at this time. There is more untouched oil and gas here in Texas than could be used in the next several generations. I really think we would be better off paying a little more for OUR GAS than buying from foreign countries. That would put a heck of a lot of folks back on payrolls.
WELL, MOST OF THE BIG OIL FINDS ARE ON GOVERNMENT PROPERTIES, THAT THE GOV. DONT WANT TO DRILL— LIKE ANWR.. I THINK SARAH PALIN WOULD CHANGE ALL THAT—DONT YOU?
Drillers, engineers, constructors, fab yard workers, machine tool factory workers, when they are employed they buy cars, they buy houses, they buy clothes and sporting goods and take their families to restaurants, they vacation, they buy expensive toys, they send their kids to college, and on and on. And they pay income taxes and sales taxes on everything they make and everyething they do.
Take down the barriers and you'll cut the half trillion we send out of the country buying fuel, radically, and you'll put the whole country back to work. All that oil pays royalties into the treasury here, instead of paying royalties into foreign government treasuries elsewhere around the world.
To sit bankrupt with double digit unemployment with your productive workers standing on street corners, home builders hitting the skids, carmakers drying up and blowing away for want of paying customers, while oil comes gurgling up through the ocean floor untapped is crazy stupid. In my opinion.
And to keep electing the people who keep us bankrupt and unemployed and keep electing them, at some point we have to face the fact that we are complicit in our own misery.
Almost all new oil is on government land, in fact very little oil in the world is in private hands. Every barrel of oil produced pays cash into the treasury, not only from taxes but also directly in royalties. It can pay into our treasury, or someone else's. Since our government is bankrupt, you'd think that would be an incentive to drill our own oil, since we have plenty. If we wanted to put our house in order and our people back to work.
For years, we were told that we needed to get off oil; because of the inevitability of “peak oil”. I.e. the stuff is too rare to just use for fuel. Now, we’re told to get off oil because of it’s “carbon footprint”. Two contradictory theories — one common objective.
take a look at these links:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/bakken.asp
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/03/us-offshore-oil-reserves/
I THINK WE SHOULD OPEN UP DRILLING ON ALL GOVERNMENT PROPERTIES, AND ROYALITIES PAYED DIRECTLY TO OUR DEBT., AND A HEATHCARE FOR LOW INCOME WORKERS, BUT MOSTLY FOR JOBS FOR THE PEOPLE. DRILLING HERE AND NOW WOULD STIMULATE ALOT OF THINGS..PEEPS ARE LOOSING THEIR HOMES AND LIVING IN THE STREET.. IF THE GOV TOLD THE OIL COMPANYS TO DRILL ALL THESE PROPERTIES WITH NO MONEY TO PUT UP FOR THE LEASE, THEY WOULD JUMP ON IT.. ALL THE GOV. SHOULD DO IS COLLECT 20% ROYALITIES FROM THE OIL COMPANYS..LET THE OIL COMPANYS PAY OFF OUR DEBT
Just keep a couple of things in mind.
First, when they talk about what is commercially available at current technology, just remember that a few years ago none of the Bakken was commercially available because they hadn’t developed the technology. At the beginning, they said the price would have to get to $50 before they could afford to drill it. Well, it did, but now that the technology exists, the cost of producing it is dropping quickly.
Secondly, you have to consider that oil reserves are not defined the way we may think they are. Brazil has successfuly drilled her way to energy independence, but only a few years ago they didn’t have any oil reserves. They didn’t have them, then they began to drill and find and develop.
Similarly, the reserves in the Bakken will grow as they continue to explore and develop the fields.
Another issue is the oil shale. We sit on a tremendous resource that we can’t use for mostly legal reasons. Other countries are allowed to use oil shale and do. We can’t and don’t. But we could.
bump
FactCheck is Annenberg. (Associations with Domestic Terrorist and Neo-Marxist).
Snopes are two California Liberals.
Kali don’t need no stenkin oil, kali don’t need no stenkin revenue,,,,,Wilson left office with a SURPLUS IN THE KALI BUDGET!! KALI don’t need no stenkin revenue. Believe that?????
It’s amazing! When oil prices go up, there’s more oil all over the place than we know what to do with. Oh...look! Under that lil’ ol’ salt dome a few miles under the ocean! No...there! In that grey rock! ;-)
Corporates competing for subsidies are always funny. There’s oil in Alberta, but our own politicians and their special interests (high dollar free traitors, all) are trying to make it off-limits (corporates competing for subsidies).
I think it's pretty clear:"This sizable find is now the highest-producing onshore oil field found in the past 56 years," reports The Pittsburgh Post Gazette. It's a formation known as the Williston Basin, but is more commonly referred to as the 'Bakken.' It stretches from Northern Montana, through North Dakota and into Canada.. For years, U. S. oil exploration has been considered a dead end. Even the 'Big Oil' companies gave up searching for major oil wells decades ago. However, a recent technological breakthrough has opened up the Bakken's massive reserves.... and we now have access of up to 500 billion barrels. And because this is light, sweet oil, those billions of barrels will cost Americans just $16 PER BARREL!
From my "Sticker Shock- $3 a gallon gas?" file...
I have covered, ( Or, as Seamole puts it...
-backhoe's pseudoblog--... ) pseudo-blogged, these issues for years, so allow me to drop out of Lurk and Link mode for a rare bit of commentary-- we all need to get serious about our dependency on foreign sources of energy, and use our own resources.
Our consumer-based economy is driven by and dependent upon readily-available, reliable energy-- choke that off, and we'll all be back to using one rotary dial phone in the dining room, watching one TV in the living room, and driving one car per family-- probably a Hudson Hornet or a Nash Metropolitan...
We need to
1) end the nonsensical ban on offshore drilling off California and Florida--read and weep:
Castro Plans to Drill 45 Miles from US Shores, But We Can't
2) build a lot of next-generation nuclear power plants, not just for electricity, but for any process requiring heat, power, or steam.
And if we replaced our existing nuclear plants with this one there would be significant benefits.
3) end Jimmy Carter's idiotic ban on recycling nuclear waste, and reprocess the stuff rather than fighting over where to bury it. Europe has done this for decades.-- what to do with spent nuclear fuel? Answer here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1468321/posts?page=50#50
hattip: Mike (former Navy Nuclear Engineer)
4) use the 300-500 years worth of coal we have on our own land, using the new clean-coal technology.
-Clean Coal Centre--
5) and finally, there's nothing wrong with conservation, we should all practice it- but you can't conserve your way out of a shortage. Nor is there anything wrong with "alternative" energy sources- except they don't supply the vast ( not to mention readily-available ) amounts of power we need at a price competitive to more conventional sources. Then again, there is this to ponder:
Energy From the Gulf Stream
http://www.energy.gatech.edu/presentations/mhoover.pdf
Irish Ready To Harness Tidal Power
We do need to get serious about this before we get strangled by a bunch of petty thieves and dictators who don't like us much.
My collection of energy-related links:
Sticker Shock-$3 a gallon gas? Click the picture:
And kindly note, and note well-- the first reply to this post ( when gas was $1.45 a gallon ) was derisive... so, who's laughing now?
( And, to honk my own horn, here is a comment from another board on this subject: )
I happened to be going through a post by "backhoe" and followed his link to a thread he posted on 3-17-04. Pretty good thread titled "Sticker Shock-$3 a gallon gas? Some links" that was prophetic, and what do you know, the first reply was Why don't you stop panicking and solve problems that exist posted by "TopQuark." Backhoe has some very good posts, he mostly lurks and when he does post it is worth the read. From the reply that"TopQuark" made he appears to be something of a corn-fed kneejerker, even more so with two years to prove how right "backhoe" was.
Addenda:
Search string for micro nuclear power plants:
http://tinyurl.com/ye7q4au
"Safe shed-size reactors..."
According to what I've read ( admittedly by the manufacturers ) there are substantial reduction in the price of power, using these units.
They say the old slogan from the fifties- "power almost too cheap to meter"-- while not literally true, will be approachable.
Vest-Pocket Summary:
1- drill for gas and oil like crazy- onshore, offshore, and in Alaska
2- go nuclear for power
3- convert stationary plants to clean coal technology or Next-Gen Nuclear
4- slash taxes and regulations like crazy...
BTTT!
The Bakken isn't shale. And the number of large (and I mean HUGE) pumps going in from Dickinson to Bowman ND is astounding.
so, What’s your point?
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