Edison did not complain about the darkness, he did something about it.
Ford did not complain about the lack of affordable cars, he did something about it.
Newt Gingrich is not complaining about the high cost of gas, he is telling us how to lower it.
It is currently illegal, per Congress, to get oil from the oil shale in Montana. There is THREE times the amount of oil in the shale of Montana than there is in Saudi Arabia. But Congress says we can't use it.
Brazil just found 80 BILLION barrels of oil off their coast--but it is illegal, per Congress, to get oil from the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic or Pacific--though Cuba is now getting oil off of Florida--where they can drill, but U.S. companies are outlawed from drilling.
See this YouTube showing how gas prices can be lowered, almost over night.
There's so much oil off the coast of Santa Barbara that it is constantly oozing up through the fissures of the ocean floor. That's why all of the hotels in town have foot cleaning stations to allow their guests to clean off the tar (dried oil) that they pick up on the beaches before they enter their rooms.
Do you think Lois Capps and Pedro Nava will allow drilling though? Not on your life...
Again....it's put out there that more drilling will fix our gas price problems...pronto!
Whether these areas should be opened up or not, and frankly I'm really not sure whether or not...for SURE this will not lower prices at the pump anytime soon.
I would take years to develop and bring this oil to shore, much less to your gas tank. Any reasonable person should be able to understand this.
Then, there is this "suspension of belief" that anyone who did drill in these areas would deliberately sell oil so far under market rates as to undercut competitors enough to bring back cheap gas for American consumers. Not even wishful thinking, this is more self-delusional.
The reasoning that this drilling will have any impact on prices is like ss, SO Never-Never Land!
It's worse than dumb, it is totally misleading, and intentional at that. Oil companies aren't drilling where they can drill...why should they drill in waters even more difficult?
Drill way offshore? "Frankly", I don't really care, but please, don't even try to fool me into thinking this will bring back cheap gas!
Again....it's put out there that more drilling will fix our gas price problems...pronto!
Whether these areas should be opened up or not, and frankly I'm really not sure whether or not...for SURE this will not lower prices at the pump anytime soon.
I would take years to develop and bring this oil to shore, much less to your gas tank. Any reasonable person should be able to understand this.
Then, there is this "suspension of belief" that anyone who did drill in these areas would deliberately sell oil so far under market rates as to undercut competitors enough to bring back cheap gas for American consumers. Not even wishful thinking, this is more self-delusional.
The reasoning that this drilling will have any impact on prices is like ss, SO Never-Never Land!
It's worse than dumb, it is totally misleading, and intentional at that. Oil companies aren't drilling where they can drill...why should they drill in waters even more difficult?
Drill way offshore? "Frankly", I don't really care, but please, don't even try to fool me into thinking this will bring back cheap gas!
TJ,
The reason oil companies aren't drilling in areas they can drill is simple - because there is no oil there! Duh!
There is tons of oil off the California coast waiting to be drilled and sent to market. It is foolhardy to prohibit this from happening.
You say this will do nothing to lower oil prices, which is absolutely untrue. It will reduce oil prices because it will increase the supply of oil in the market, which will necessarily drive prices downward.
Economics: Whether there is oil out there or not, it won't come on market anytime soon, even assuming they start drilling tomorrow.
This potential increase of drilling would have to factor in wtih refiing capacity, international markets and most importantly the way that oil futures are now currently traded on the market.
Bottom line, even starting drilling today won't reduce gas prices much, if at all, any time soon.
Sorry Economics...it is the dismal science.
TJ,
But, don't you agree, there has to be some sort of a "transition plan" to move from fossil fuel to other energy technologies? It seems to me it will take many years, if not decades, to bring these new renewable energy sources (be they wind, solar, electricity, etc.) to market.
TJ,
But, don't you agree, there has to be some sort of a "transition plan" to move from fossil fuel to other energy technologies? It seems to me it will take many years, if not decades, to bring these new renewable energy sources (be they wind, solar, electricity, etc.) to market?
Yes, Economics, I would agree there needs to be a "transition plan", and I would put it to you that there isn't one so far.
It's pure hindsight to say that higher CAFE standards would be helping now (proposed since the Carter admin), and that more investment in solar, wind, and yes...even nuclear would have benefitted us by now.
We should have started a long time ago...
The problem with current chest thumping about "DRILLING NOW!" is that first, that oil is YEARS away. Again, there is no guaranntee that producers of this oil would seek to undercut the market. Second, even if, and especially if this oil came on line now and dropped pump prices...what pressure is there on any "transistion plan" of any kind? Why would anyone want to fix something that, in the short sight, isn't obviously broken?
The past has shown us that...the easiese course of action is to put it off, especially if we are not inconvienced now.
I've heard it said that one defintion of "stupidity" is to repeat the past, expecting the outcome to be different.
no more drilling! why do you continue to insist on exploiting an energy source that is finite? we need to use alternative, renewable energy. period.
"Hmmm's" attitude is exactly why there is such a reluctance from the private sector to exploring "alternative, renewable energy. period." (as he puts it, so diplomatically).
It shouldn't be an either/or argument. There has to be some sort of a transition plan that allows for us to migrate from fossil fuels to alternative sources of energy. This isn't going to happen overnight.
In the real world (where the rest of us live), this will most likely be a slow, gradual process, whereby renewable energy technologies are developed and perfected over a period of time and, eventually, when there is a reasonable market established for them, will be rolled out to the consumer.
This will not come from a government mandate, bureaucratic fiat, or political gamesmanship. It will come from the ingenuity and practical economics of the free market, the same as where all other worthwhile and useable consumer products emanate.
In the meantime, we will need to have adequate access to fossil fuel (domestic and imported) to meet the needs of an industrial nation.
Dear MF (love that acronymn BTW),
Hard to have 20/20 vision about energy when you've got blinders on. Oil is dead already. Neo-cons would love to slow progress on technology that's already there.
Hmmm,
Sorry to break the news to you, but if the technology was already here we would be using it.