Drill, Drill, Drill Part II
A follow up to my post “Drill, Drill, Drill”: it is not only the GOP that is repeating the slogan time and again. Newspapers are following suit. See, for instance, the Chicago Tribune. Its latest editorial is called “Drill for more oil,” which basically says it all.
The editorial is once again an indication that Democrats are making a profound mistake when they think that this issue will go away and that it will not be a ‘winner’ this fall. It will be one of the major issues this year, and - at this moment - it are the Republicans that own it.
For Republicans this is great news; finally they have found a subject about which they can connect with American voters. When it comes to this issue, almost 66% of American voters agree with the GOP and, thus, with Senator John McCain.
As for the subject itself; it sounds strange to me that this is even a debate. If you want to reduce your dependency on foreign oil, the very first thing you have to do is to producing oil yourself. Additionally, it does not make any sense whatsoever to buy oil from other countries, if you have oil yourself.
The debate does seem strange until one considers that the environmentalist wing of the Dem Party has disproportionate intra-party clout.
"Exploration in these areas for domestic energy would help to reduce reliance on foreign oil."
It’s a lie. A ridiculous lie. Any article that uses gas prices or ‘domestic production’ as a reason to drill is either lying or incompetent. It is a global market, a HUGE global market. This is not a supply side problem. Here’s a podcast that gives some actual facts behind things.
I understand that this may still be a looser for dems, and that even in the finally analysis you might think drilling was better than not drilling.
The trade deficit is a decent reason to drill for oil, the price of gas is not.
It actually IS a supply problem. Because of underinvestment in infrastructure, major oil producers like Saudi Arabia and Russia are not ABLE to produce much faster than they already are. They have massive reserves, but a huge bottleneck in the production and (in the case of Russia) transportation infrastructure necessary to bring the oil on to the global market.
You are right that new drilling in the United States is not a total solution, but it is better than the Democrats’ policy of doing absolutely nothing and opposing some forms of alternative energy (e.g. nuclear power, wind farms) also. Democrats and their environmentalist supporters have also been key to producing another bottleneck that has contributed substantially to increases in gas prices by putting a 30-year ban on the construction of new refineries. In light of the fact that many of the few places that CAN increase production (e.g. Venezuela) produce a form of oil that requires extensive additional refining, this is relevant to increasing the supply-side problem as well.
The idea that "it won’t do anything for a decade anyway" is proffered out of the hope that no one will remember that they were saying exactly the same thing a decade ago. Well, I remember. The true agenda of the environmentalists is to intentionally cause maximum economic pain in the hopes that doing so will (in the words of a radical I have been talking to recently on another forum) “force us to fundamentally reexamine our entire society and way of living”. Their true agenda with regards to energy issues is baldly authoritarian and impervious to little things like “practicality” and “pragmatism”.
Exactly, Jason. Doing nothing is a loser- not only politically but for the country. The argument that drilling won’t yield results for a decade is always followed by an acknowledgment that alternative energy will take a decade or two to come online. Let’s act on both now.
A decade ago (1995), President Clinton vetoed ANWR drilling. It would be online right now. Delay has real world economic consequences and opportunity costs.
all producing more does is shorten oil depletion curves. It could be $2-3/gallon today, but then in 20years it would be more than it would be if we have $5/gallon with lower production today. It is a finite resource, you can’t just ‘make more’ you can only use what you have as efficiently as possible. The oil fields we are talking about are a drop in the bucket of world oil.
If you are really concerned about oil prices, stop using oil. It’s ugly, but it’s the only truly viable option. It’s not that drilling won’t do anything for a decade, it’s that it won’t do much of anything, period.
ANWAR is expected, at peak, to produce something like 2% of the world’s crude oil on any given day. that’s a lot, but what would it do to prices? A 2% drop in crude prices actually only means a 1.46% drop in gas prices. So we are talking about roughly 6 cents/gallon. That’s it. Less than the gas tax holiday.
Again, we are talking about a demand problem here. We have a high demand for a finite resource. We can’t strongly change how finite the resource is, all we can effect is what we use. We need to use something other than gasoline within 50 years. Which path we take to get from A to B is small change.
Again, I think there is a decent argument to made on the grounds of trade deficit. But this talk of gas prices is insane, and shows very little rational economic thought.
Fission has it’s own problems, but it would be orders of magnitude better if politicians were debating those rather than
kreiz, the alternative energy proposals have (hopeful) outcomes of something more like producing %20-50 of the worlds energy in a decade or two, instead of %2-5. That’s the difference.
Another thing lost in the debate about drilling is that bringing the price of gasoline down will free up more disposable income that will then be spent on other things that have taxes associated with them.
Lower gas prices mean more taxes. Higher gasoline prices mean less taxes.
However truly the anti drilling people do seem to believe that simply not using oil will solve the problem. Perhaps it will. The democrats are gambling that it will.
And now on to ‘oil independence’. First off what does that really mean? The only things I can think of is that actually give that statement meaning are:
1) Insulation from world oil price fluctuation
2) Preventing oil being used as a ‘weapon’ by other nations.
I’ll tackle the 2nd first. In a highly interconnected model like the world oil market, it is impossible for any one country to stop oil from getting to any other one country. If we don’t buy from Iran, we’ll buy from Nigeria. Oil already has many intermediate trading steps, it’s not as if ships baring the Iranian flag dock in NYC every day and give us our oil. The only recourse countries like Iran have is do things like shut down the straight of hormuz. This would indeed be devastating, but it would effect everyone, everywhere, so that brings us back to #1.
In the US, we currently produce something like 30% of what we use. ANWAR would add another 10% to that or so, so we could theoretically control 40% of our own oil consumption. So, lets go with a hypothetical scenario. Oil is at $5/gallon, then it shoots up to $10/gallson. What could we do to protect American consumers. Basically we would have to nationalize the oil companies. We would have to tell them who they could sell to, how much they could sell it for, how much they had to sell, and how much they had to keep pumping out of the ground. Absoluetely revolutionary for the US, and probably if it ever really came to that, the very same politicians who are supporting domestic drilling now would (rightfully) be screaming "communists!" at the top of their lungs. And even if that unlikely even did occur, how much would we save on gass. Well, we’d get 40% of our oil at $5/gallon, and then 60% of our oil at $10/gallon, so the domestic price would end up being $8/gallon (5 x .4) + (10 x .6). Now, if we didn’t drill in ANWAR, we’d be able to control only 30%, so we would instead be paying $8.50/gallon. So, basically in this doomsday scenario, where we throw capatalism down the tubes (at least for oil) we save 50 cents a gallon.
Again, it makes little objective economic sense. If you are worried about energy independance, a much much much smarter plan is to spend your efforts getting yourself off of oil and onto something which doesn’t have a global market and can be produced 100% domestic such as solar, or wind, or nuclear.
Also, note, that if energy independence is your goal, biofuels are not a good model, because just like crude oil, they are highly fungable. While we could theoretically produce %100 domestic supply of biofuels, we still get 0 insulation from world markets with free capatalism.
and RRR, not using oil is inevitable, it’s not a gamble. In 100 years nothing will run on oil that has been dug up from the ground. It’s just a question of what they do run on, and how we get there.
Kevin @5. What evidence supports these numbers? And is the evidence based upon speculation or hope, or hard numbers? The parenthetical ("hopeful") sort of gives it away.
If tapping ANWR increases us to 40% domestic production, why wouldn’t we tap it? 40%. That’s not bad. It also returns us to Michael’s original common-sense question- why wouldn’t a nation tap its oil reserves? Example: I’ve recently read that some European countries are developing (gasp) coal-based power plants. In Kansas, Gov. Sebilius just vetoed two such plants in the name of global warming. Why will China or Europe act in its own interests, and we won’t?
To me, it makes sense for a cheap-oil economy such as the US to ease the transitional pain of its citizenry (especially those who can least afford it) by pursuing domestic drilling.
Are your positions undergirded on the unspoken assumption that that carbon-based energy is inherently evil. I sense Al Gore lurking in this thread somewhere.
If you are worried about energy independance, a much much much smarter plan is to spend your efforts getting yourself off of oil and onto something which doesn’t have a global market and can be produced 100% domestic such as solar, or wind, or nuclear.
Kevin your article was entertaining until you drew your conclusion which is totally erroneous. Oil has NOTHING to do with Solar, wind or Nuclear. Those alternatives fuel electricity. 1.5 percent of all oil imports daily goes into heating oil or fueling oil fired electric plants.
Oil fuels diesel trucks, tractors, earth movers, cranes, automobiles, motorcycles.
Nothing in the works right now can replace oil for those items. Nothing. Biofuels while attractive simply means we would have to start growing our gasoline and importing our food. If we can make breakthroughs in next generation biofuels this could change.
I am all for building all the wind, solar and green stuff you want. Go for it. It still is not going to get us to work, move goods to market and keep most of our infrastructure sound.
Electric or fuel cell cars just might………great…….super. If we start building them today we might have 15 or 20 million electric cars on the road in 5 years…….super…….only 230 million more to replace.
Can’t find again the exact page I saw. I remembered the stat from about 2 days ago. However, there is this EIA pdf, summarized in this wikipedia article. It has a slightly lower number for oil production, but a slightly higher number for domestic oil control (.4 to 1.4 % increase in world crude supply, but 46-49% domestic oil production with anwar).
Somewhere my napkin math is probably wrong, or what I saw before was referring to an earlier, slightly more optamistic assesment. The basic idea is still pretty much solid though. We are talking about a small effect on oil prices that won’t make us significantly more secure from global price fluctuations.
kreiz, that’s UP to 40% from something like 30% now. The question is, how much more secure does it make us. The answer, not much.
If your set on drilling just for drilling’s sake, at least people should go look at the trade deficit numbers. I haven’t looked at them myself, but I’m sure they would be much more impressive than $.06/gallon.
I don’t really care too much about carbon. We already have a lot of it in the atmosphere, the world is going to put a lot more up there, and it is going to stay there for a very long time (atmosphereic halflife of 100 years) I think it will be a significant problem for the world, but unfortunately the time to fix it by lowering emissions seems to be 30 years ago. Certainly crippling an economy for the sake of carbon emissions would be counter productive and cause more problems than it fixes. As with all things there’s probably a optimum middle ground, but I don’t know enough to speak directly to that.
The critical fact that I’ve been trying to hammer home is that domestic supply CANNOT provide "a cheap-oil economy". The math just doesn’t work out. It is a fundamental misconception in this debate, and very important.
We are in for an expensive, and increasingly expensive oil economy until we find an alternative to subterranian oil, which is why I think our scientific and political effort should be spent finding those alternatives, not wasted on ANWAR.
RRRocks, your perfectly right that other forms of liquid fuel are probably needed for transportation of goods. Although, at the current rate, wind powered sail transport is only 5% more expensive than oil powerd sea transport, so when that changes due to rising fuel costs, we might be looking at a somewhat different picture. Land freight probably will still need liquid fuel, and there natural market forces will dictate weither we move to a more local based economy or continue with our current extremely global economy.
Domestic commuter fleet turnover is certainly an issue, but we are talking about a 50-100 year time frame so it is feasible to move off of liquid fuels. There are still, ofcourse a reasonable option, but as I pointed out earlier, don’t solve the ‘domestic independence’ issue.
I’m not saying that I have the solution to our energy problems, I am merely saying that anwar and other even less valuable projects such as the outer continental shelf are most certainly not it.
2nd to last paragraph, last sentence should be "Man made fuels such as biofuels are of course a reasonable option…." sorry. Most of my typos have been pretty benign, but that needed some clarification.
ahh, kreiz, I think you mean where did my %20-50 cited in #6 come from….
I remember reading a Scientific American article where the author’s argued "by 2050, you could generate 69 percent of all United States electricity and 35 percent of the total energy requirements of the country".
With a lot of these renewable energy technologies, it is basically just a price issue. We aren’t talking cold fusion here, we are talking about prooven, but expensive technologies. Is it cheaper to build a wind farm to drill for oil? How fast can new technologies bring down the price? T Boone Pickens made his choice very publicly recently. Even if he’s wrong, People will continue to find power for the things they want to do, it’s just a matter of cost. All things like Anwar do is change by the course of maybe a year or two when it becomes cheaper to use alternative forms of energy.
If instead of making a huge deal out of anwar we were having a long thread on the relative plusses and minus of different alternative energy forms, that would be a huge improvement. Even better if we started making our elected officials have that debate.
Probably we aren’t because it is even a more complicated issue than drilling, with each tech having it’s own relative strengths and weaknesses, but the bottom line is, debating about drilling is ineffective and doesn’t help our energy future.
The critical fact that I’ve been trying to hammer home is that domestic supply CANNOT provide "a cheap-oil economy". The math just doesn’t work out. It is a fundamental misconception in this debate, and very important.
The fallacy in your argument is that the only people I hear characterizing the pro-drilling argument this way are anti-drillers. Nearly all pro-drillers I’ve heard argue for a full court press- from conservation to drilling to nuclear to alternative sources. I just heard Newt Gingrich argue this point this week.
The issue is one of transition, and my reading of many, including Obama, is (to paraphrase) ‘the more pain, the better’, thus accelerating a quicker transition. Of course this assumes that there’s something tangible on the other side, i.e., functional alternative energy sources that complete a transition. That’s the gap in your approach- it assumes technology will provide us a functional alternative. That may or may not be true. If additional domestic oil will aid an otherwise painful economic transition, where’s the harm?
As an example, I listened to the esteemed Amory Lovins arguing that there is existing technology which permits significant reduction of gasoline consumption in vehicles and airplanes. As a pro-driller, I marveled at Lovins’ acumen and wholly endorse his efforts. I see nothing inconsistent in this. More importantly, if Lovins’ methodology prevails economically, so much the better. His approach merely enhances the importance of ANWR drilling or offshore drilling, as that energy will be used more efficiently.
Yes, exactly. It appears that anti-drilling people are unable to respond to any argument that is actually being made.
Of course, given the laziness and bias of the media and the absolutist dogmatic intransigence of the Congressional leadership, that probably won’t hurt them in the slightest.
I used to suspect McCain’s proposal was weak and a throw-away to oil companies. After Kevin’s barrage of sense and facts (more than others have offered) I am very sure that this is the case. Good show.
Well, utsu, let me point out several points where Kevin has erred.
First, there’s this:
"ANWAR is expected, at peak, to produce something like 2% of the world’s crude oil on any given day. that’s a lot, but what would it do to prices? A 2% drop in crude prices actually only means a 1.46% drop in gas prices. So we are talking about roughly 6 cents/gallon. That’s it. Less than the gas tax holiday. "
Problem here is that a 2% increase in production can lead to a lot more than a 2% reduction in price per barrel. The two are not related in a 1:1 function by a long shot because the supply/demand curves for oil are VERY steeply sloped (as explained here, h/t to Tully of Stubborn Facts.)
I honestly don’t know how much prices would be expected to change for each percentage increase in supply of crude, but it is definitely more than a 1:1 ratio. And that’s only considering the fundamental supply/demand effect on clearing price of the market; in addition there are all of the factors which determine productivity. For example, the Saudi’s initially refused Bush’s request to pump more, but when they saw the change in US domestic opinion on drilling more here, they changed their tune. IOW, even the threat of the US producing more can have an effect on those countries that aren’t currently producing at full capacity. Which only makes sense- if you believe that supply is going to remain stagnant, you’ll hoard your product and continue to reap the high prices, but if you see signs that other players will begin increasing the supply that they bring to market, then you know that you’ll want to sell as much product now as you reasonably can, to take advantage before price begins to fall too much.
The other major flaw that I saw in Kevin’s analysis is that he’s ONLY considering ANWR potential, while most proponents of drilling would have us exploring OCS as well as ANWR.
Put simply: An all or nothing solution either way doesn’t make sense. Kreiz, I’ve heard Gingrich talk on this, too, and I like what he says.
I can’t believe that no one understands the term ‘finite resource’ look at any future projection of oil production, and then explain to me how an oil heavy economy can continue to grow for 50 years. Add on another 2% to those production numbers, and it doesn’t change a thing.
To provide enough oil to fuel the difference between a 2% growth rate and a 3% growth rate over 30 years, we would need to find a source capable of producing 60% of the current worlds oil production by then. To think that anwar changes that basic math is insane!
If it costs nothing politically to drill in anwar, sure go ahead. I don’t think it’s going to kill alaska, or the polar bear or anything. But the constant illogical retoric (mostly from the republican party) is preventing America from dealing with the main problem. We have an economy based on a resource we can’t make any more of. That is the issue we should be dealing with.
Yes, it is a small part of Gingrich’s overall plan; a SMALL part. Therefore, it should be easy to drop it and retool the plan if for whatever reason, right or wrong, it looks like that part can’t happen. This isn’t about being right or wrong, this is about making sure we have cheap energy for the next 50 years.
If alternative fuels yielded a marginal cost drop (say 2-5%), anti-drillers laud this step as spectacular. Somehow, if this marginal drop occurs as a result of new domestic drilling, then it’s meaningless and even dangerous. That’s where I’m getting lost in Kevin’s argument; the cost/benefit appears equal.
For example, I heard on CNN that Germany produces 15% of its power from solar. That’s great (but it means 85% is from other sources). Earlier in this thread, a hypotetical 10% increase from ANWR oil was dismissed as meaningless ("ANWAR would add another 10% to that or so, so we could theoretically control 40% of our own oil consumption.").
It appears that we’re peeking beyond the blindfold in evaluating impact. If the energy increase from an alternative, Green source, then it’s good, no matter how small the percentage. If it’s carbon-based, it’s bad, even if the percentage is the same. My position is simpler- it’s all good, baby.
Why do you persist in responding only to a distortion of what others are arguing, Kevin?
No one is saying that drilling is a solution or that the oil-based economy should be continued forever without any attention to alternatives. Every energy proposal I know of acknowledges that we need to get serious about developing alternatives.
Where those proposals differ is in what they want to do in the interim while we develop alternative technologies. The proposal of most Republicans, including McCain and Gingrich, is to look to expanded exploitation of new and existing oil reserves as a "bridge". the (non-)proposal of Congressional Democrat leadership (Barack Obama has taken a somewhat more responsible position, probably because he has to face the prospect of actually governing while reflexive anti-drilling environmentalists have the luxury of unreasonable obstructionism without personal or political accountability) is to do nothing as a bridge, obstruct everything (Democrats and environmentalists are obstructing new drilling, new refineries, nuclear power, AND wind power projects) and hope that the resulting pain provokes some kind of magic wand that creates a complete replacement for oil out of thin air.
I think the Republican approach on this one is rational and the Democratic approach is pandering to unrealistic environmental extremists.
And if opponents of drilling can offer nothing more than just misrepresentation of the other side’s position, then they are only confirming my contemptuous view of them on this issue.
The majority of OCS is already open to drilling. If you had listened to that podcast I mentioned earlier, the stats he gave were 41 billion barrels in area that is already open to drilling, and 19 billion in waters that are off limits. Oil companies aren’t drilling there because it is simply too expensive. They won’t drill there until oil is very, very, very expensive. Anwar has ~10 billion barrels, but it is much cheaper to get the oil out, so it is by far the most viable domestic source of oil.
Which is why I surmised there must be a hidden global warming argument undergirding the anti drilling position. Otherwise, a 10% drop in price due to increased domestic oil production is equal to a 10% price drop from a Green source. Better yet, marry those two and get a 20% drop. Toss in some nuclear power, and we’re all happy.
My sense is that that advanced nations will be wed to ME oil for decades, even with our efforts toward efficiency and new sources. For the next 20-30 years, oil’s still the most reliable and feasible way to power our economic engine. Still, any and all means of making inroads into our oil reliance makes sense.
I saw/heard it, Kevin. But the "majority of OCS is already open to drilling" claim is disingenuous if those parts aren’t where the oil is. The claim of low amounts of oil in the unexplored areas is deceiving because, by definition, they haven’t been fully explored yet. If Brazil had followed their logic, they never would have found the massive new reserves they found last month. Why should we insist on being willfully blind to what might be out there for no identifiable gain?
Anyway, the claim that a partial solution is not a complete solution is not a legitimate reason not to attempt at least a partial solution while we look for a complete solution. Environmentalists’ argument is fundamentally illogical.
Imagine if we applied their argument to murder. Since jail doesn’t stop ALL murders, we should just not put murderers in jail, right?
bridge? bridge? you gotta be kidding me. Show me any numbers that have anwar or ocs, or any domestic oil project of making anything more than a token change in oil prices. Then explain to me why on earth we are debating drilling, why politicians are throwing down that gauntlet about drilling, why every news outlet is focused on drilling instead of policies that have hopes of producing %20-50 of our energy needs within a slightly higher timeframe.
That is my argument, and one that no one is addressing. The obsession with drilling is fueled by empty rhetoric, not reality.
ohhh, so your plan for the future is to hope that there might be a lot of oil in an off limits area. yeah, sure that’s much more practical than trumpeting alternative energy plans.
how many times do I have to say it. If it takes a lot of effort for little return, then its not worth it. Politically, right or wrong, it is going to take a lot of effort to drill, and produce little effect, so why on earth would you bother drilling?!?!
Such as? Recalling that Democrats/environmentalists also oppose nuclear power and much wind power, I’m not sure what those easily available alternatives are. Perhaps you could provide evidence for your claim. As I recall, the alternatives such. Electric cars would take a long time to produce in quantity and have crippling limitations on range and speed that make them impractical for replacing most of our transportation needs (especially long-haul trucking). Greater reliance on electricity would also require that we address generating limits and transmission grid limits that environmentalists have been blocking us from addressing for many years now. Hydrogen and biofuels are still energy-negative to produce (it costs more oil to produce them then they replace). Hydrogen and natural gas burn cleaner, but we lack the technology to make them broadly distributed into a transportation infrastructure and there are still crippling problems with making hydrogen affordable. So what exactly are these clear alternatives that we have such “hopes” about that we can be sure that we won’t need new oil reserves a decade from now that we would need to start drilling for NOW?
Truth is that all available alternative transportation technologies are decades away from being able to provide a significant replacement to oil. We are going to NEED more oil to get there. I could care less about reducing oil prices from current levels, I’m more concerned about finding enough to get to alternatives AT ALL. And environmentalists are standing in the way of every practical option, including drilling. Your insistence on interpreting ALL pro-drilling arguments as claims that drilling will magically solve everything even though you have been repeatedly corrected is beginning to appear intentionally dishonest.
It is also worth remembering that some radical environmentalists actually support what they call "de-development" as a way of destroying industrialized/capitalist economies and paving the way for what they believe would be a more earth-friendly utopia. The fact that the collapse would cost billions of lives is, to them, just the unfortunate necessary cost of the transition. Recognizing the monstrous philosophy that lies at the heart of some of the most influential environmentalist groups is important when explaining their obstructionist actions towards nearly all feasible types of energy generation.
As you have been told repeatedly, no one is opposing "trumpeting alternative energy plans". My position is to DO BOTH. I consider it necessary to do so in spite of your prediction of low returns because (1) I believe your predictions are unfounded and disproved by history (the Brazil example shows that not all available reserves are currently known and reported in your pro-environmentalist, anti-drilling NPR podcast) and (2) even a small return is better than doing nothing at all and hoping that some mysterious technological breakthrough in alternative technologies will magically emerge just in time.
If you can’t at least be honest about what others are arguing even after they repeatedly correct your misperception, maybe you should reconsider your own ethics. As I have discussed in other posts, I am sick and tired of dishonest scripts and stereotypes trumping sincere debates about real-world issues.
A lot of Democrats seem to feel that high oil prices are a necessary evil (and Democratic politicians are happy to demagogue on this issue because it allows them to simultaneously placate the environmentalist lobby and to tout a populist message about the evils of "Big Oil" reaping windfall profits.) Make no mistake, this is why the Dems have opposed drilling so vehemently, Kevin- it’s not because they truly think that it would be a waste of time and resources. By definition, NOT drilling is a waste of resources, because we’re neglecting to exploit the natural resources on which we sit.
Strip the issue down to the core and we should all be able to see that energy policy as promoted by DOE should be to exploit all existing energy resources and explore long term alternative sources and the technology to use them, for the benefit of consumers and economic growth. There should be sensible push back on that full court press by the EPA, to make sure that the extraction of resources is done in a sustainable manner and as cleanly as possible, and to balance mining, drilling, and other energy related activities with the recreational or other use of land resources.
Instead though, the Democrats want energy policy itself to be based on environmental impact (the idea, as stated here by Kevin, that some energy resource use has too high of a cost or impact to even be considered.) That’s the problem with the Dem side of the arguments.
On the GOP side, there’s been a different problem- that oil companies have had too much influence, so that the govt under GOP leadership has focused too much on oil resources instead of alternatives.
Fortunately, a lot of folks now understand that NEITHER party has pursued good energy policy (which would address both short term cost stability and long term resource availability.) But what most of us here are arguing is that the main proponents of a more comprehensive policy today are on the GOP side of the aisle, while the Dems mainly continue to posture (see paragraph one for why they are stuck in that position.)
Jason- is the harm you see political? That is, that the hope of drilling will take our eyes off the prize (alternative sources)? That’s what I’m gathering, since you’ve indicated that global warming’s not in play. I’m not trying to be sly or obtuse- just trying to understand your viewpoint.
Jason, please actually respond to my argument if you want me to respond to yours.
Is drilling in Alaska or anywhere else in the US likely to significantly effect either gas prices or energy independence?
Is it better to spend time/effort working on something that has very little returns, or has large returns?
Two, very simple questions that you haven’t answered.
I think that environmentalists who oppose drilling do so for a wide range of reasons. For moderate environmentalists, that might be the fear that drilling would distract from the search for alternatives. Some of them might also include global warming fears in their list of concerns. Radical environmentalists, however, tend to oppose drilling as part of a much broader and more sweeping opposition to all capitalist/industrial society.
My own view is that moderate environmentalists are unreasonable and/or disengaged from reality in their assessment of the practical alternatives to more drilling and radical environmentalists are actively dangerous in their embrace of a monstrous philosophy.
And it is worth remembering that the radicals tend to exercise disproportionate influence at the leadership level of environmentalist interest groups that strongly influence Democratic party policy positions. Because many individual radical environmentalists live expensive/privileged lifestyles that allow them to reject the use of oil entirely in their own lives, some of them feel free to make demands that, if implemented more broadly, would be devastating to those not similarly privileged. However, their self-righteousness and/or dogmatism often numbs them to such points.
As you may be able to tell, I have been dealing with one such individual recently. It has not been an enjoyable or intellectually fruitful exchange.
Is it better to spend time/effort working on something that has very little returns, or has large returns?
I realize you were asking Jason, but I can’t help but note Kevin that you are the one who hasn’t answered the question of why we shouldn’t do both. They’re not mutually exclusive, yet you appear to buy into the false dichotomy on this issue.
I will be happy if and when you actually stop misrepresenting what my argument is in the first place.
It is better to do both at the same time whenever possible, especially when the "large returns" you predict for alternative technologies are at best unproven. I detailed the problems with alternative technologies in a previous comment that you ignored.
No, I never said it would. I only said that it would help with overall supply levels a decade from now when it is likely we will need them.
I have answered them multiple times, as anyone who is reading the relevant threads can observe for themselves. You just keep lying about it.
CS,you are either not reading my statements, or intentionally distorting them. Consider the idea all you want, but there are two extremely grievous errors here.
One, to make any sort of connection between helping out Americans with their price at the pump for gasoline, or to make any claims of energy independence is extremely false. An outright lie or incompetence. There is no ’shade of gray’ here in the facts.
Second, to have a political party try to throw all of their weight behind this one topic with a very small impact is a waste of effort.
Jason, I don’t care one whit about environmentalists, the fact that I have to constantly say that, and yet it constantly gets brought up shows that you have not been paying attention to anything I have been saying.
Exactly, Christine- exactly. I’ve been trying to flush out the supposed harm of pursuing both. Still haven’t heard it.
Earlier, CS, you lauded Tully at Stubborn Facts. Today, he cites this WSJ editorial, which is pertinent here:
"…We pick on Boone (and exploit a pun) but his "plan" is emblematic of the brainstorms that always find a market when gasoline hits a cyclical peak. Talk is cheap. Talk favors radical solutions to get rid of problems that we are all sick and tired of hearing about. Calls for Manhattan Projects and moon shots invariably decorate the op-ed pages at such times. In a form of social peacockery, the greater the misallocation of resources proposed, the more lavish the ovation — though here Mr. Pickens has already been outdone by Al Gore."
I just answered your repetitive and non-responsive points again in #38. Acknowledge it or kindly STFU. I am tired of these games from you, especially since you have now embraced a position of complete hypocrisy with regards to the alleged dishonesty of others in this discussion. Christine has never been anything other than sincere and civil to people in comments threads and I will not have you falsely accusing her of the dishonesty of which you are the one guilty.
P.S. I criticized environmentalists because they are important to the larger debate. Not EVERY comment is directed at you personally. Perhaps you could deign to respond to the ones that ARE directed toward you specifically before complaining that the other ones aren’t.
Probably would’ve made sense to cite the two preceding WSJ paragraphs:
"Asserting that something would be good to do is not "a plan." Saying how to do it is "a plan." By this standard, what the legendary oil man is devoting $58 million to pitch hardly amounts to a decent slogan.
He would replace natural gas in electricity production with wind, and use the natural gas to power cars. He fails to mention any practical theory of how to get there — that would really be "a plan." Instead, he relies on the deus ex machina of Congress, waving a legislative wand to make people do things they would choose not to do, given the extravagant and unjustified costs involved."
Thank you, Jason.
Effort is just as finite as oil. We can’t just ‘do both’. Both take effort, and what you have to worry about is the return on your effort.
Think, in 30 years, if the world continues to grow at 2%, we will be using 180% of the oil we use today. If we spend our effort so that alternative forms of energy take over from oil in 29 years instead of 30 years, that will have a HUGE impact. It makes the %2-5 seem a bittle silly.
It’s all about how much effort to put into how much return.
Also, think, we are expected to grow 2% in the next year. That’s all of anwar. If we can increase the portion of our growth which is dependant on alternative energy by even just a fraction, we overtake anwar’s effectiveness long before anwar is even productive.
Let’s say we grow at 2% a year, and that right now, if we make even just 10% of that growth in oil alternatives, that’s jsut .02% of the economy, we will have saved more oil in 10 years than anwar can produce, and within 20 years, the savings are 4 times anwar per year. That’s the type of scale we are talking here.
sorry, that should be .2%, not .02% of the economy, the math is still the same however.
Sure we can. We can license the oil companies to explore on the OCS at the same time we increase research and investment in alternative energy technologies just like we research multiple possible cures/vaccines to the problem of HIV at the same time we treat it. Your assertion is ridiculous on face. The government does thousands of things simultaneously every day. And if we were to extend your logic to HIV research, we would refuse to treat existing cases in order to focus on a hoped-for permanent solution. That’s ludicrous.
And a solution that takes over for oil in 29 years won’t help much if our refusal to increase exploration means we run out in 20 years, especially when your prediction of an alternative solution being available is PURELY speculative as to both its existence and its timeframe.
You have yet to identify even one specific disadvantage to drilling. The fact that it is not a complete solution is not a disadvantage unless you can explain how a specific tradeoff WILL occur.
Jason, now your just waving you magic wand and making things work. It is clear from a realistic assessment of the current situation that it will take a LOT of effort to open up domestic drilling. Alaska would only take federal action, because aslaska is very pro drilling, but the rest of the OCS stuff would have to go through both federal and state legislatures.
I fail to see how taking a few days to pass some legislation the merely PERMITS oil companies to do more exploration does anything to reduce investment in alternative technologies. Please explain IN DETAIL how it does so.
no, without politics there is no downside to drilling. I’ve said that for awhile now. But politics are real, and have to to dealt with.
Alternatives may have a huge impact. And they may not (see #41 and 42 above). There is a troublesome deus ex machina element in all of this (something will be invented in the future and voila, we’ll be off of oil). I’m all for pursuing possibilities. But just because we can dream something up doesn’t mean it’ll be feasible- as opposed to oil- which we know can be used.
Instead of reps spending the last week before this break clamoring for drilling, they could have been clamoring for more research spending on batteries, or alternative energy sources, or subsidies for any of those, or many many things that would probably have a much much larger effect on the future, and also, actually produced something. Because as it stands, that last week yielded absolutely 0 results.
Yes, Kevin. But the politics of the situation is that a large part of the people/legislatures want more drilling and a large part also want more investment in alternatives. Therefore, the "do both" option that you have been ignoring is the most politically palatable, the most politically sustainable, AND the approach that maximizes ALL potential benefits without sacrificing ANYTHING other than the ideological purity of some environmentalists.
Indeed, if Pelosi would stop blocking it, I think a “do both” bill could fly through Congress and the necessary state legislatures in no time at all. You blame the Reps for only talking about drilling, but Pelosi’s Dems won’t address the issue AT ALL.
Kevin, I’m not misrepresenting, just asking you to answer a simple question (which you’re still avoiding.) You’re incensed by the fact that the GOP is throwing it’s political weight into drilling, yet what is the real harm in that, other than that the demagoguery annoys you? And even more pertinent, why are you not equally incensed by the Democratic party leaders who are throwing their political capital into maintaining drilling bans?
And another point you seem to refuse to acknowledge is that there is no viable alternative on the horizon for gasoline powered cars. Going after wind, solar, and nuclear power is great for what it’s worth, but it won’t get people to work in the morning. And in all cases, the new technologies will take considerable time, if they even prove to be feasible at all. So yes, it’s true that opening some of the currently restricted areas for drilling will take time, but as we’ve pointed out, there are reasons that it can lower oil prices now and that can help with the short term price crunch that is hurting consumers and threatening the overall health of the economy.
we will be off oil. right now we have the technology to run your car directly on electricity. It certainly had some downsides, but would you be more willing to deal with those downsides or pay for $20/gallon gas? It’s clear that as oil won’t last forever, and that the free market will push oil out sooner or later.
Oil prices will continue to climb, and alternatives will continue to fall. It’s just a question of when they meet. It would be best if they met as low as possible. We have only a small ability to change how fast oil rises. Drilling is one way, efficiency is another. We have a lot more control over efficiency than drilling production, but as both the industrial and computer revolutions have shown us, investing in technology pays off in a big way.
Yep, for a maximum of 150 miles at 30 miles per hour before requiring a 4 hour recharge. Also, there is no public infrastructure for recharging cars away from their owners’ homes, and creating such an infrastructure would take many years. That is not very useful for interstate driving by individuals nor does it do anything at all to replace diesel trucks for heavy transportation. The manufacture of electric cars would also require at least a decade of ramp-up to even replace 5% of the U.S. automobile fleet. Thus, you are seriously deluded if you think electric cars are a fix that is presently available in any meaningful way.
Also, are you aware that most electricity is generated by either oil, gas, or coal? Are you aware that Democrats and environmentalists are blocking the only realistic alternative presently available for large-scale electricity generation (nuclear) and have even been blocking some wind power projects?
For the 1000th time LET’S DO BOTH. Or is your desire to make sure that Republicans lose so strong that you can’t see the practical side of the issue?
P.S. Other than tire inflation and some marginal gains like carpooling, efficiency gains through things like increased CAFE standards will take just as many years to provide any impact as increased drilling would, and would only do so as substantial additional costs to consumers (who have to buy new cars) and to safety as well.
I see that Jason (in #52)brought the discussion around to the same point I was making in #53, while I was typing. You’re complaining about all of this effort and expenditure of politician’s time, Kevin, but ignoring the fact that it’s the Democratic leadership that is being obstructionist on this issue. If they’d break out of the mode of cowing to environmentalists and pandering to Joe Blow over how bad Big Oil is, they could eliminate the need for all of this political effort in no time at all.
Do two things at one time? Sure, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. But if someone is standing in our path, then it’s that person blocking the way who’s preventing us from doing the two things at once, not the fact that we have to do the two things.
In the next 10 years. All you anti drilling experts explain to me what is going to replace OIL. Today, tomorrow and in 10 years?
@53, see #51. It’s about making a poor choice that based mostly on what polls well instead of about would actually help this country.
Jason do you think what happened last week has anything to do with changing Palosi’s mind? If anything it has made it harder for her to every agree to voting on this issue because now it will look like she lost a fight.
I’m a pragmatist. There is no reason in trying to change an environmentalists (or anyone’s) mind by bullying. They are in power right now and they are going to use that power. Provoking a fight doesn’t work.
If people want drilling, they are going to have to work WITH environmentalists, not try to ram drilling down their throat. They have to be calm, and reasonable, and say to them, ‘look, we can do this, but we’ll tie it to increase millage standards, or have a special tax that goes to solar or polar bears, or whatever’. that is the responsible way to deal with this issue. But no, reps found an "issue" that polled well, and then decided that a fight would have more positives for them, and so we get nothing done on a serious issue.
And again, this whole thing started off because people want to pretend that drilling will help gas prices, which is just a big fat lie.
And, if you offer environmental groups as much as your willing to offer and they STILL won’t say yes. The responsible thing to do becomes to walk away, and spend your effort on something that will make a difference.
But still, in the final analysis, domestic drilling isn’t that important. It is a small side project. Not a national agenda.
Unless you want to talk about trade deficits, then it probably makes much more sense. Probably still not the whole picture, but at least a reasonable, and truthful, argument.
Kevin, this is maddening. First, you never addressed the points I made about why the removal of bans WOULD affect short term pricing (just as, yes, tapping the Strategic Reserve would in the very short term, as it did when Clinton did it, though that’s an inappropriate use of the emergency supply.) Not only is it not a lie that price will be affected, it’s a lie that it won’t; there’s just no doubt that a signal from the US to the world’s other oil suppliers that we are going to stop hoarding would have some downward pressure on pricing (and a short term increase in world supply as the Saudi’s would open the spigot wider.)
Also, how could you NOT be aware that all of the concessions that you mention have already been part of energy policy, and part of every attempt to get the bans on ANWR and OCS drilling lifted? Yet you think that since the environmental lobby still won’t compromise, it’s the people who favor comprehensive policy that includes more drilling that are being irresponsible by not allowing them to bully Congress into the no more drilling stance?
I guess the North was highly irresponsible for starting the Civil War when they refused to walk away and allow states’ rights for slavery, huh?