Offshore drilling will help...in 22 years

Unfortunately, the ONLY thing that will help is reduced consumption. The best way to accomplish that is (unfortunately) higher prices.

As the article says, drilling is no quick fix. Also, we are depending on the people who profit from the higher prices to do the drilling. What's their motive to glut the market with oil to bring the prices down? None at all.

Things are clear to me -- we have to be motivated to conserve and find alternate ways to do things, and the only way to do that is through higher prices.

Not a popular answer, and you won't hear it from any politician, but a reality... That's who we are.

 

reduced consumption will not deliver us from this mess. as our population grows and as the rest of the world modernizes there will be an increasing need for fossil fuel in the short term - the next 50-100 years. The % of US consumption of the worlds oil production has dropped 5% over the past several years - yet demand has increased. Conservation has zero chance of bringing into balance supply and demand - unless you want us to starve as we walk to work in the dark.

here is what should be clear to everyone:

we need to develop alternate sources of energy. they will not be capable of providing us significant % of our energy needs for decades.

we need to build nuclear power plants now - an easy solution to green house gases in you believe in their negative effects on mother earth and the material to run them readily available - 95% of which is recycled!

we need to drill off our coasts and in anywhere there is oil. this is important for several reasons... one is national security (to reduce the chances of having to fight a war for oil and reduce our dependancy on people who hate us), another because - we need it.

we need to develop clean coal technology - coal powers significant numbers of our power plants and is plentiful HERE - hundreds of years of the stuff beneath us. lets make using it clean and safe

we need to develop technology to get oil from shale. we have TWO TRILLION barrels of oil in shale HERE IS THE USA!

we need to maintain a healthy economy so we can maintain a healthy environment - the two go hand in hand. we also need cash flow to fund research and development and give incentives to switch to alternatives.

yes, it might take years to do get the oil up and flowing into our system - but start now - its not going to get better tomorrow - only worse.

we also need to strengthen our dollar.

 

that is why we need to develop ways to get the oil out of the shale.

22 years? some estimates a lot sooner than that - even if it is that far out - start now.

what about nuclear power plants?

where does our offshore oil go now?

what about ANWR - we should start that project today.

conservation is important, it is also important to get more supply.

you ignore the national security issues completely

how do you propose generating the growing needs of electricity production for the US? conserve

 

I disagree. Our economy is based in no small part on natural resource extraction, with no regard whatsoever for the environmental costs. We're liquidating natural capital and calling it income, all the while failing to recognise the real costs.

 

22 years that's just crazy. I have heard we would start seeing some of that oil in as little as 3 years and maybe even quicker..Let the United States come out with a drill here drill now plan and watch how fast crude oil prices start dropping the price is mostly speculation anyways. Don"t get me wrong I think each and every American citizen needs to conserve and new technologies help a lot and IS our long term answer, but I think it is very crucial to drill off shore and in Alaska..I also say lets get started now the quicker we get started the quicker we start seeing some crude. I think it would also add a lot of jobs. I would rather pay Americans to drill than some of the ones we are currently paying...

 

a voice of reason

 

Actually a voice of ignorance. At maximum, we would see drilling within 5 years, and nothing of any real quantity to make any difference, and thats assuming that the oil companies even want to drill now. How dumb do you have to be to believe that drilling will start because you say so? Drilling is not a government decision, the oil companies decide when to drill, and when they want to, and all thats being talked about is selling cheap leases, which is what the oil companies have no problem with, they can afford $1.50 a year on each lease.

2025 would be the expected date for any start of significant flow of oil, with 2030 being around the timeframe for maximum flow, and that comes from oil experts, and they expect it to add no more than 5% to domestic supply at most. So yeah, 22 years sounds about right.

Stop being uneducated, even the moron has admitted that adding more offshore drilling won't dramatically effect imported oil. Also, there is a good chance that a good portion of the new oil would be sold overseas, since by then, there will be a stronger demand in foreign markets, and the oil companies are in business to sell to the highest buyer.

 

The most irrational though regarding this thread is the mindset that since it won't have an immediate impact, lets ignore it....

Two thoughts... If someone would have been forward thinking enough to deal with this 10-22 years ago, we might not have the problems we have today (energy, economy, militarily, etc).

Second... If we don't get our heads out of the sand and start to address these problems today, our children will be having this same conversation 10-22 years from now....

There are many ways to address the problem... We should be looking at ALL of them....

 

But this administration would never take advantage of a bad situation (911 anyone?) to promote their own agenda!

... Brad

 

Ahh, but I have no problem with drilling, I have a problem with giving the oil companies MY OIL, the entire reason this is being talked about now, is this is just another chance for the oil companies to make more money from American owned leases at cheap rates. Its all smoke and mirrors, we need to sell leases at higher rates, they need to be sold by thinking of the long term needs of the country, and using much of the profit for alternative energy research.

The way I see it is to raise lease rates, why give the oil companies a break, and only opening up fields in stages instead of all right now, that way long term planning of current resources, and promotion of alternative energy is still encouraged.

 

With the nationalization of a lot of countries oil fields, (don't want this to sound like a rant or diatribe) I think some of the hype over Peak Oil is just a way for us (the US) to foot the bill for some of these countries developement.

Sino Pec has become the worlds largest and Gazprom is trying to get into the pipe line business in Alaska.

For %$$T^ Sake, the Russians can't even clean up their own nuclear mess with out the Wests money and now they want to build our pipelines?

Something smells!

 

What we really need is a return to more emphasis on nuclear fuel--which got side-tracked by safety issues and a negative, fear-oriented media a while back. Plus maybe that big oil lobby, which has kept this country hooked on cheap oil for too long.

Oil has always been more expensive in Europe, which is why nuclear power has been used more extensively there. And they have shown it can be used safely. The key is safely. It can be done.

Most Americans don't realize that Europe is ahead of the us in a number of technology-related areas. And has been for some time. They are more innovative in adopting new engineering materials in the marketplace, have better developed health care systems (our paper medical record keeping is still in the 1950s, for example, which contributes to high medical costs.), and are much further along in nuclear power for peaceful uses (while we have spent most of our nuclear efforts building WMDs.) Their science is also ahead of us--they have always had bigger particle colliders, for example, to investigate the fundamental forces. And did I mention cars? The Japanese copied the Germans, not the Americans.

 

I noticed to-day oil has been dropping do to countries not subsidizing.

As far as Med records, every one is afraid of insurace companies controling who gets what.

Agree with you on the nuclear part to a point. We share a lot of tech stuff, and the particle cruncher was given to them because we didn't want it in our back yard.

 

Voice of reason. If we keep putting it off it isn't going to get better. We need a comprehensive energy policy as dbermanmd talks about. We do not need people calling people names because they don't agree with their ideas. That is probably the reason nothing ever gets done in this country! Ignore the naysayers and do something to make this country better! We need to act now or we will be in the same place in 22 years and our children will be wondering why we couldn't getoff the fence. do something right or wrong it doesn't matter but get off your butt and DO something.

 

blamy, is that a set of twins?

I agree!

 

And exactly how is selling leases going to accomplish anything? There is 68 Million acres of already leased land for the oil companies that hasn't been drilled on, this would just add more low cost leased acres.

A comprehensive plan wouldn't include pretending that opening up the offshore and preserve acres is going to solve all our problems, money from the acres should be used to push and fund alternative energy research, which means higher lease rates, instead of the $1.50 a year, 10 year lease currently. And it should also include using the acres for the future, not drain them as soon as possible, so that there won't be anything for future needs.

Nuclear is not a problem, never was, oil was too cheap to justify the expense of Nuclear plants, now its not, so there are a bunch of plans in the works, cleaner plans, exactly what is needed, only now they want the taxpayers to substidize the building, the only question I would have with that, are they going to offer pricing for the energy produced, to compensate for that, I bet they don't .

 

My ideas include:

1. start something now, don't wait for perfection
2. Provide first for oil supply in case of Middle East catastrophe
3. Develop North American oil sources that can be reserved for our own use in case of emergency, rather than being sold in the global market. Think broadly. Instead of "leasing" tracts to oil companies, how about we (the government) declare the oil government property and hire the oil companies to find and extract OUR oil?
4. Start work on more nuclear plants, and finally figure out what to do with the waste
5. Subsidize or incentivize development of cheaper silicon refinement and energy generation from the sun. Wind and hydro too.

And overall, take a long-range view of the whole problem. Everyone is unwilling to start any project that's not guaranteed. Well, duh. Let's start two or three, share the risk and reward, and come up with some results instead of leaving this problem too to our granchildren.