ANWR, the last pristine wilderness. Oh really?

Where does the hydrogen come from? And at what cost??

As an example - if you have been following my Refinery discussion - you can get hydrogen from the Catalytic Reformer unit in an oil refinery. The hydrogen is needed in catalyst beds to increase yield.

In theory one could skip the catalyst process and just convert a refinery to produce only hydrogen. That would cost one hell of a lot more than just producing unleaded gasoline for cars to run on

 

Directly I'm not part of it but I'm in full support of it. I agree we need to get rid of our dependence on foreign oil. But we should also have the option to continue to use fossil fuels as a choice.

 

I just hope you don't have any wishful notions that ANWR or shale will magically result in buck a gallon gas. That's over

I have no problem with exploiting resources. Where I get angry is how the resulting effluents - there are *always* resulting effluents - are casually ignored, glossed over, or bullshitted away

The nuclear industry is guilty of this ("Power so cheap we won't meter it."). So is the oil industry, and every other industry

 

Who's we? Which company? I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I would love to know where you are getting this information. It is not quite as easy as just mobilizing rigs (which are in quite short supply up here and elsewhere) and drilling up a field. Exploration, which has not been completed in ANWR, takes years to complete. Then the field must be at least somewhat delineated, and numerous well tests must be completed to achieve parameters for well completion design on up through surface facilities. The notion that ANWR is going to begin being developed any time soon is preposterous. It hasn't even been explored!

 

I know we won't see $1.00 gallon gas anymore but we need to do something temporary to help make it cheaper while other alternatives get developed. I don't think plug in technology is gonna help at all. It basically means more people using more electricity.

 

to be a wilderness does not require a place to "untouched" by humans but if that human habitation has been sympathetic to the environment not abusive to the environment like western cultures are.
Large parts of Australia's outback can be considered a wilderness area, even though Aboriginal people have lived in the area for 40,000+ years because they were in tune with the environment and in a way part of it. This isn't to say man hasn't altered the environment but it hasn't been stripped of resources and polluted.

Western people don't seem to be able to go anywhere without f***ing it up, even Antarctica is littered with rubbish dumps. Even if ANWR is a muddy bog completely devoid of trees and grass it is a natural environment which is unique therefore deserves to be preserved.

 

I love it when non-scientists can still appreciate a place even if it doesn't have trees and/or grass. There is such great diversity and an abundance of life (billions) in a small sample of mud or soil. Imagine that number expanded to cover millions of acres. It is truely staggering.

How in the hell did Australian aboriginals manage to live in one place for over 40,000 yreas without screwing it up? Can we learn something from them that can be applied to our culture and reduce our impact?

 

Cheaper for whom, the wasteful who choose to live in a highly unsustainable manner because it's cheap( I say highly because we all live unsustainably at some level)? With cheap fuel sources those same people will usually choose to not support alternatives and thus the whole alternative fuel industry has no incentive to move forward. No friend, fuel needs to be expensive enough to push people in another direction than the one we've been traveling. If you want to do something to subsidize fuel and make it cheaper for the production of new technologies then make the fuel cheaper for those actually doing the work in those sectors by implementing subsidies or tax breaks.

 

Not so many train stations around in Australia 250+ years ago.

There were not many of them, maybe 200,000, that was the main thing and they only had stone age technology. They spread across the entire country which now has 21 milion people and is as big as the USA. They never lived in dung huts, there was never much dung in Australia but some Americans (starts with A) are full of it.

 

hey milliamp, where'd ya get that pipearty:

 

I believe the answer lies somewhere in the middle... Guess that makes us all correct....

Yes, we all should be looking for ways to use less fossil fuel... Economic conditions are forcing everyone to consider their fuel usage now.

Yes, we should drill for oil in places where it can be done safely. Those that claim it will have no impact for years to come, do not understand the economics of oil. The prices are artificially high because of all the worry about supply and demand. Anything we can do to increase supply or decrease demand will naturally drive the price down. Just the knowledge that the US will be increasing production will drive the market price down.
Also, if something would have been done 10 years ago, we would have seen the benefit today. Lack of any action does not help the situation.

Those that worry about the environmental impact of drilling need to consider the following...

More oil has been released into the environment from ships hauling it from port to port, than from drilling and pipelines (except in places like the middle east where they are being targeted by terrorists).

I'm so sick of the partisan bickering... If everyone would simply try to find some middle ground before it becomes an emergency, we could make progress on all these fronts. As it is now, nothing happens, economics will drive our politicians to make decisions based on knee-jerk reactions. Usually those type of decisions end up being short-sided and destructive in the long-term.

Later,

 

The middle is almost always incorrect. The evidence should lead to one correct answer.

There is no way to drill for oil safely. If it will be drilled, it will be burned and discharged in the atmosphere causing anthropogenic global warming.

 

Are you truely this ignorant? I think it is time to put you on the list.

 

You are not, you lower the intelligence factor too much, Embargo On !

 

Ok. I'm going to try to explain this. Again

A lot of the PROVEN reserves of oil and shale we have in and very near the US and Canada are so expensive to extract, they only break-even at $80-$100 a barrel.

When oil went down especially in the 1990's, a lot of wells in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and along the Sask border in Manitoba were capped off. They were losing money hand over fist. Now with oil north of $100 a barrel, it's profitable to open them up again

In theory, North America is sitting on far more oil and potential oil - shale - than the entire Mid East. There is a damn good reason why it has mostly been untouched, the incredibly high extraction costs.

 

If the price of oil were to drop below $100 a barrel, certainly under $60 a barrel, you'd see the Tar Sands in Alberta close up, the facilities mothballed.

True enough we have *plenty* of proven oil and shale reserves in the US and Canada. Most of that proven reserve is so expensive to extract it makes current oil prices look like a bargain

 

I find those comments remarkably ignorant, racist, and completely unreleated to this discussion. I suppose we should have just rounded up and killed them injuns?

 

What? How much work did we do in that area for the past 70 years when gas WAS cheap? The answer is damn-near nothing. The reason? Because gas was cheap! Just listen to GM. The EV1 didn't make sense back when it was released because gas was just $1.50/gallon. I was crazy to lease one when it would have been WAY cheaper to drive a gas car. Their excuse for again being excited about EVs today is BECAUSE of the expensive gas. Cheap gas gets us more apathy. Gets us commuters in Hummers. That inspires is to develop alternatives? Not a chance. History proves it. Gas was tight in the 70's and we did something about it. The Honda Civic was king! Gas because cheap and easy a few years later, and the SUV boom began.

Yes, it does "basically" mean that. And that means FAR cheaper fuel, cleaner air, cleaner water, less pollution, domestic power, more domestic jobs, less money leaving our economy, greater national security. You have a problem with that? Which part, exactly? I use lots of electricity. I also make it on my roof. I DRIVE on that electricity that I make on my roof from the sun.

Malorn II?