If you get enough people wishing for oil independence…
Let’s take a trip into make-believe land where all of the world’s problems can be blamed on scheming liberal hippies and sinister Socialists.
Rovin, a frequent ranter on Common Sense Political Thought, has bought into the “WE CAN SOLVE GAS PRICES BY DRILLING HERE!!!!!!” myth so much that he’s gone ahead and created a blog to start a little movement. And it is classic winger hysteria; no facts but a lot of bluster with the usual list of grievances.
Here’s an EIA study showing that drilling ANWR would reduce the price of a barrel of oil by…..are you ready? 75 cents.
Here’s another EIA study that shows what impact offshore drilling off the continental United States would have on a barrel of oil. Care to guess how much? If you guessed half the production rates of ANWR you would be correct!
-mg
PS> forgot to mention, those projected savings are by the year 2025 and don’t factor in the natural depletion of other sources of liquid hydrocarbons or natural gas.
See what happens when you accept every bit of flatulence that escapes from Limbaugh’s lips as fact?
June 20th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
ouch.
June 20th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
As in the-truth-hurts ouch.
June 21st, 2008 at 9:42 am
First and foremost, the site was put up in haste to combat the single most petulant reaction our Democratic “leaders” are putting out in their “prepared” statements——-all the reasons why we can’t do something today that our grandfathers accomplished with half the tools and know-how. In the days and months ahead I will list the pros and cons of both sides of this argument in detail.
Second, my first advocacy will be the drilling/mining of the oil shale reserves in Colorado and Utah in addition to offshore reserves that can produce a substantial outflow that factors in production levels and yes profitability. I will provide links to show the vast amounts of oil shale reserves in this region that potentially has more resources than the entire Middle East. I for one would love to tell the Saudis, Iranian Mullahs, and the Hugo Chavez’s of the world to take their oil and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine.
Third, the author of this post has conveniently left out the most important declaration made at the site:
“Public Energy Number One will link any and all websites that promote the development of all sources of energy, including the exploration of oil and gas.”
My purpose for the site is to promote any and all sources that seek to advance the cause of this country becoming energy independent from the rest of the world. No where in this new site will I suggest that drilling alone will suffice to reach this goal. I believe that it will take all of the resources and ingenious thinking this nation has to reach our goals. This should be a combination of billions invested in alternative energy sources along with oil and gas exploration that combined could allow us to accelerate the prime goal of energy independence, and eventually phase out the fossil fuels as the primary source.
We did not get to this point overnight and we cannot (ouch, I hate that word) resolve this overnight. The classic rhetoric and battle lines that are getting drawn up between the left and the right are disturbing to say the least. Under the current circumstances in this global economy that is competing for energy sources, (which we are currently losing), will certainly get worse before it gets better. I will admit that my declaration that we can drill our way out of this situation was the direct response to my dear friends on the left and their democratic leaders that are proclaiming that we can’t. Neither side is realistically correct or completely defensible to provide the answers to a complex problem that will certainly haunt us in the years ahead.
I welcome all debate and the sharing of ideas that can provide realistic solutions that confront all of us. This is not a liberal or a “ranting” conservative problem. It’s a problem for all of us that I still believe we can collectively resolve as still the greatest nation on the face of the earth——drawing philosophical lines in the sand and playing spitting games of rhetorical “I’m right and you’re not” will only delay, or worse destroy this economy that is on serious shaky ground. Supply and demand of energy sources must be a collective resolution with out political agendas standing in the way of progress.
Side-note: Rush Limbaugh is a blowhard! If you folks think conservatives sink their teeth into relying on this man’s bloviating, you need to step out of the eighties and get real.
June 21st, 2008 at 9:43 am
Yeah, I read that ANWR would, potentially, reduce the price of gas by $0.02 a gallon, for a brief period of time. We’d get that massive boost in about 20 years.
The mooninites are really panicking lately. They got NOTHIN’
June 21st, 2008 at 9:49 am
Heh…of course, we can really only drill ourselves deeper into the problem, since the problem is oil scarcity and carbon output.
June 21st, 2008 at 10:36 am
Rovin, I’m only addressing what you stated, that “we can drill ourselves out of this” which just so happens to be false.
And oil shale? Are you serious?
June 21st, 2008 at 10:39 am
Wow! Just wow Jeromy—–did it take you all morning to produce this profound statement? This is the very problem I attempted to explain in my post above, (that may have been skipped over by jeromy) that the typical rhetoric and sarcasm that iminates RESOLVES NOTHING.
Don’t tell me, (this nation), what we can’t do or point out obvious problems—–show me inovative SOLUTIONS AND IDEAS that works toward energy indpendence and I will support them to the best of my ability.
And we will have to save the “man-made carbon footprint” hallucination for another time. I will even submit that the possibility exist that man is contributing to CO2 emissions, but the “level of contribution” is relative and debatable.
June 21st, 2008 at 10:50 am
srsly how does it make any sense at all to keep pursuing a resource whose most ardent defenders know is finite? ridiculous.
June 21st, 2008 at 11:00 am
Right, and as for oil shale it remains to be seen whether or not its even a net energy producer.
The simple fact is that no combination of alternatives is going to allow us to maintain our drive-in utopia. Wal-Mart’s “warehouse on wheels” will fail in the presence of spot-shortages, Duane and Shawna Clampet are no longer going to be able to afford their Ford F350 (dually!), commercial air travel will become a thing of the past, etc etc.
June 21st, 2008 at 11:07 am
Mike G, Dead serious!
Oil Shale
Part of the solution to our energy problem can be found right here in
America—the development of our vast domestic resources of oil shale.
Oil shale is one of the most abundant and accessible energy sources in the country.
The U.S. geologic survey estimates there are 2.5 to 3 trillion barrels of proven resources of shale oil throughout the world. This is equivalent to one to two times the total world crude oil reserves.
Studies show that 72% of the world’s recoverable shale oil lies within the boundaries of the United States, in comparison to only 5% of the world’s recoverable crude oil. The United States’ largest oil shale reserves are located in the Green River Formation, the area composed of southern Colorado, eastern Utah, and western Wyoming. It is estimated that the Green River Valley contains approximately 1.5 trillion barrels of proven resources from oil shale. That is enough oil to meet the United States’ present energy demands for the next 200 years. LINK
Again, this is only a potential part of the solution. The extraction of oil shale was certainly not economically feasible when a barrel of oil was at $20 or ever $50 dollars per, but some experts think they can maintain production at or below $150. If you think $4.50 for gas is bad, try living with $10 or $15 bucks a gallon.
June 21st, 2008 at 11:19 am
Oh, I don’t doubt its existence. I doubt it’s scalability.
June 21st, 2008 at 11:54 am
“as long as we’ll never see the great-grandchildren to whom we’re bequeathing the problem, who cares?”
June 22nd, 2008 at 3:54 pm
So what’s the alternative to oil?
Our economy, the worldwide economy, our maintenance of technological civilization depends on a cheap, easily portable, easily storable energy source. Oil’s the best choice right now.
As far as the future goes – I’m confident that resources can be found. After all, there was a time when declining supplies of sperm whale oil were causing severe worry – what would be burned in oil lamps across the nation? So we shift short-term (10-40 years) to nuclear power, long term (50+) to fusion. (Although most fusion programs these days seem to be long-term employment for PhDs, not something dedicated to actually finding a workable fusion process…)
You don’t get a technologically advanced civilization without energy, and lots of it. Conservation’s great – but there’s got to be something to conserve.
June 22nd, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Our economy, the worldwide economy, our maintenance of technological civilization depends on a cheap, easily portable, easily storable energy source. Oil’s the best choice right now.
I agree with the first sentence whole-heartedly but the second sentence has a few slight problems. I don’t think oil is the best choice simply because it is finite and just because we’ve erected a system that is almost exclusively dependent upon it does not mean that supply will meet that demand. Especially considering the costs (financial, environmental, etc) associated with securing that finite resource.
I don’t know how many times I need to keep saying this (and I don’t mean to just you, JLawson, we appreciate you stopping by) but I do understand that tangible alternatives exist. The problem is that at this point in time these alternatives are not scalable to meet our demands. At this point in the game we’d need to divert so much capital and man hours to the task (nuclear, wind, solar) we’d never make it past day one because you’d have the hippies on one side invoking the specter of nuclear annihilation and the right wing crazies on the other howling about how diverting money to the Department of Energy and Interior instead of the Pentagon is some sort of Commie conspiracy to resurrect the New Deal.
I personally think that there’s a chance we could do it. That’s not to say that we’re going to experience some substantial hardships in the future because we’re definitely in for some hard times. I think that we’re going to either have to make these decisions now or simple geology (resource scarcity) and economics (systems built on predictable cheap energy inputs) will dictates those decision for us.
June 22nd, 2008 at 6:29 pm
That’s why I say “right now”, Mike G. We exist in the ‘right now’ – and have to cope with it as best we can with what’s realistically available. There’s other things coming down the pike – nanotube batteries that can double current capacities, high-speed printed solar cells (get it down to a dollar or two a watt output, which seems quite feasible, bond it to shingles, and my roof’s getting a makeover…)
There’s also Bussard’s Polywell reactor – the WB-7 prototype’s up and running, and (I believe) doing better than expected at this point in their testing.
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/06/12/1136887.aspx
But they’re not here YET.
What I find interesting is that the innovation and implementation isn’t coming from the government think tanks – it’s coming in response to what are seen as commercial needs. That’s really, IMHO, the way to go. Government involvement in technology, except in wartime tends to be two to three steps behind the commercial sector. (and I’m going to even limit that about wartime to about 1985 – since then the commercial sector’s outstripped the government/military tech like nobody’s business)
For example – look at the raising of the CAFE standard averages, to be in place by 2020(?). Big whoop – people are buying smaller, more fuel efficient cars NOW, not in 2020. The auto makers are building gas-sippers NOW – not in 2020 – they’re reacting to market forces because if they don’t they’re gonna go under.
As far as nuclear goes – we could DO nukes. France has been supplying 80% or more of their power for decades with nuclear power. Implement one, maybe two solid designs, and mass-produce the components. Test everything, allow no deviations from the standards on anything without retrofitting it throughout the entire run. Fix the control layouts to a standard pattern, as well as the plant design and building layouts. Take an engineer trained on Reactor #1, put him in Reactor #25’s control room, and he should be able to find everything blindfolded from the emergency SCRAM switch to the third toilet on the left in the Men’s room.
But as you point out, the environmentalist crowd would never allow it. We have to do SOMETHING – and the longer we wait the more it will hurt. A lot of the things like wind and tidal power won’t scale to provide everything – but it’ll help some.
And in the mean time – let’s both drill AND work on alternatives. My big fear is that in about three-four months, the Iraqi oil fields will be in full production, Saudi’s gonna bump things up, and there’s going to be a glut – and the price will fall again to about $20-25 a barrel. At which point the alternatives which looked damn good at $100 a barrel will be abandoned…
Sorry to rattle on so long.
June 22nd, 2008 at 7:29 pm
That’s why I say “right nowâ€, Mike G. We exist in the ‘right now’ – and have to cope with it as best we can with what’s realistically available. There’s other things coming down the pike – nanotube batteries that can double current capacities, high-speed printed solar cells (get it down to a dollar or two a watt output, which seems quite feasible, bond it to shingles, and my roof’s getting a makeover…)
There’s also Bussard’s Polywell reactor – the WB-7 prototype’s up and running, and (I believe) doing better than expected at this point in their testing.
All of these technologies are possible in a resource rich environment. Eliminate cheap energy they become infinitely more difficult to manufacture, transport, maintain.
Government involvement in technology, except in wartime tends to be two to three steps behind the commercial sector. (and I’m going to even limit that about wartime to about 1985 – since then the commercial sector’s outstripped the government/military tech like nobody’s business)
Why do you think the Pentagon exists? It’s how the federal government subsidizes high tech industry. Rockwell, Boeing, Lockheed, they all exist due in large part to massive government intervention in the economy via the Pentagon. Computers, the internets, biotech, they all started on the public dime.
Nuclear: agreed.
And in the mean time – let’s both drill AND work on alternatives. My big fear is that in about three-four months, the Iraqi oil fields will be in full production, Saudi’s gonna bump things up, and there’s going to be a glut – and the price will fall again to about $20-25 a barrel. At which point the alternatives which looked damn good at $100 a barrel will be abandoned…
Again I think you fail to understand the concept of scalability and the natural depletion of older sources/fields. Iraq coming online and the Saudis (supposedly) increasing supply aren’t going to be enough to make a dent in the price of oil at all considering the exponential increases in demand.
I also think that you confuse energy with technology….as in you think that technology will free us from our energy dependence. Technology relies on energy. It does not create it. This thinking is quite typical since we’re at the second and/or third stage of loss; bargaining and anger. We think that some hypothetical “they” will “come up with something”. It’s time to make other arrangements and think about other goals besides how we can keep the cars going at all costs.
And don’t you think that it’s this “RIGHT NOW!!” thinking that’s gotten us into this mess? As I’ve stated previously there simply isn’t enough scalable sources of natural resources to sustain our current levels of consumption, let alone expand the economy.
June 22nd, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Mike -
I’m enjoying the dialog, but I think you’re putting the cart before the horse re the Pentagon. The F-22 fighter, for example, was first specced (IIRC) around 1981 and the first prototype flew in 1990. Production finally started It’s just now getting out into the Air Force in sufficient quantities to be a viable weapons system. The tech in it, computers and such, are late 1990s vintage. Not that they aren’t amazing pieces of hardware, but the civilian market’s come a long way. And that was my point – whatever tech the government starts, the civilian market either ignores as being irrelevant (and it just kind of sits there for a couple of decades) or gloms onto in a big way (like the ideas behind the internet) and runs with it, improving it like crazy and making it commercially viable.
And there may well be seed money from DARPA for a lot of stuff that’s coming – but the commercial sector is highly interested in the innovative stuff that the military would find of little or limited utlity.
There may be something new/great/interesting coming from DARPA, but I think there’s an awful lot of blue-sky stuff there that’ll not come to anything commercially useful. (For example, take a look at the list at http://www.darpa.mil/dso/programsexp.htm – the Z-Man program sounds like a good idea – basically using gear to emulate a gecko’s ability to wall-climb, but UC Berkeley scientists have already done it… with no mention of DARPA. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/11/BUTPUU7DH.DTL)
So – it may be started on the public dime, but it’ll be private sector funding that makes it useful and affordable. (See Goretex as an example…)
“All of these technologies are possible in a resource rich environment. Eliminate cheap energy they become infinitely more difficult to manufacture, transport, maintain.”
I fully, definitely, completely agree with you there. I think where we’re clashing is what you define as a resource rich environment. Right now, we’re relatively resource rich. Five years ago, even more so. Ten years from now, following our current path – much less so.
Again I think you fail to understand the concept of scalability and the natural depletion of older sources/fields. Iraq coming online and the Saudis (supposedly) increasing supply aren’t going to be enough to make a dent in the price of oil at all considering the exponential increases in demand.
Yeah, supposedly is the word there for Saudi oil. I’ll believe it when it happens. But shifting off oil, to electricity perhaps? I think that’s the best course. As far as scalability goes – according to the EIA (at http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat2p2.html) in 2006 there were 16,924 electrical generating plants in the US.
1,823 fall under the catagory of ‘other’ with 26,470 megawatts combined capacity. (You can check what all ‘other’ is, but it includes geothermal, solar thermal, photovoltaic energy, and wind. There were some things I’d have never thought of trying to run a generator on…)
There’s 104 reactors, putting out a combined total of 105,585 megawatts, roughly a tenth of the US total. I’d say THEY scale up well.
Re solar and wind – I don’t see solar as adding a lot to the national power grid immediately, though http://www.nanosolar.com/ has some ideas about that. I don’t see mass-buys by power companies – it’ll be individuals and businesses that will most likely use them in immediate-use settings – cover the roof of a 200,000 square foot Wal-Mart with solar panels that get 200 watts/sq yard, and that’s about 4 megawatts in full sun. (Hmmm. Let me recheck the math there. 200k sq ft is about 22,222 sq yards, round down to 22k sq yd for mounting, ventilators, whatever – times 200 watts/yd – yeah, I get 4400kw. Well, that’ll help with the air conditioning some…)
That’s a bit more than I expected.
I don’t think I’m confusing energy with technology. Our technology has allowed us to have an energy infrastructure that’s robust and pretty much trouble-free. As far as technology not creating energy – I beg to disagree, as would Mr. Edison, Mr. Steinmetz and Mr. Tesla.
“And don’t you think that it’s this “RIGHT NOW!!†thinking that’s gotten us into this mess?”
Yes. Oil prices in the late ’70s sparked a large boom in alternatives – which petered out when oil prices dropped. “Right Now” the price of oil is high. It’s happening again, we’re working on alternatives. We’re looking hard and there’s some good stuff coming on line that’ll help us to maintain the electrical usage we’ve got going, and even supply sufficient excess so we can shift off oil. So what if the shift to electric cars happens over the next 20 years – that’s fine with me. In the mean time, we still need oil. I believe the best course of action would be to drill, AND work to shift off the oil-based economy we’ve got going. I’m certainly not going to throw my hands up and say “It can’t be done”, especially when there’s people working hard to make it happen.
But given past history in the ME – I fully expect oil to plummet to a point where it’s just barely less expensive to stay on oil as a prime mover for our economy than continuing the shift off it. (Barring some catastrophic change in the ME.
Anyway – it’s been fun and you’ve given me a lot to think about (as I hope I have you) but I’ve got work tomorrow. Chat at you later!
June 23rd, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Here’s that first link I botched:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/anwr/results.html
June 23rd, 2008 at 11:50 pm
Thanks, Mike! I’ve taken a brief look – don’t have time to do more than that tonight. Table 2 is almost unreadable… but one thing that seems odd to me is that for 2006 the output for the lower 48 is 4.4 mil/bbl/day, and in 2020 it’s projected to be only up to 5.5?
Yet imports are forecase down for 2020 between .6 and .9 mil/bbl/day. Total crude needed seems to be about 16 mil/bbl/day up from 15.2 in 2006… I wonder what they were basing their forcast need on? According to the chart here – http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_sum_sndw_dcus_nus_w.htm – it’s already up to 15.4…
Hmm. More food for thought. Thank you!
December 17th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
ooOOOOOoo look at me i use links to sites with graphs and charts! I know stuff! I argue on the internet becuase i have no friends and no life, Im’a re re!!!