Offshore Drilling Is Not the Solution 21 comments
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My Aug. 5 article about offshore drilling elicited thoughtful replies from readers, as is usual around here. This site doesn't attract much of the ruck crushed around popular message boards, for which I'm grateful. According the USGS, the area north of the Arctic Circle has an estimated 90 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil, 1,670 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable natural gas, and 44 billion barrels of technically recoverable natural gas liquids in 25 geologically defined areas thought to have potential for petroleum. I am not buying the lie, promoted by President Bush, that sacrificing the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and America's coastal waters to oil drilling would make a real difference in gas prices -- either today or twenty years from today! I oppose any legislation that would remove the ban on oil development in these treasured places. With our economy sinking and oil prices soaring, George Bush is offering snake oil: a plan to sacrifice more of our coasts to oil drilling on the chance it will produce a few weeks' worth of oil and reduce gas prices by a few pennies a gallon...in 2028. Imagine America forever tethered to Bush's failed energy policy. It's like giving him five more terms. No, the United States cannot drill its way to energy independence. But with the roaring economies of China and India gobbling up oil in the two countries' latter-day industrial revolutions, the United States can no longer afford to turn its back on finding all the sources of fuel necessary to maintain its economy and its standard of living. What's required is a long-term, comprehensive plan that includes wind, solar, geothermal, biofuels and nuclear -- and that acknowledges that oil and gas will be instrumental to the U.S. economy for many years to come. We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that's got to change.
Rob found in Newt Gingrich's Winning The Future newsletter "a study by two economists that argues that drilling in ANWR would produce an immediate drop in oil prices even if the oil did not enter refineries for several years. Interestingly, this study was rejected for publication in The Energy Journal, not because they disagreed with the findings, but because they considered the study's conclusion so obvious that it was not worth publishing!"
Ric sent along the results of the first U.S. Geological Survey [USGS] resource estimate for the area in Alaska north of the Arctic Circle. From Congressman John Culberson's (R-TX) website in reference to the study:
Meanwhile, the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund has countered such sentiment with an ad campaign decrying offshore drilling for oil. It tells visitors to its website that they should tell Congress they won't buy the lie: "The Bush Administration wants Americans to believe that drilling in the Arctic Refuge and off our coastlines will ease our pain at the gas pump. In reality, it would lower gas prices by mere pennies -- and that would be 20 years from now!"
These resources account for about 22 percent of the undiscovered, technically recoverable resources in the world. The Arctic accounts for about 13 percent of the undiscovered oil, 30 percent of the undiscovered natural gas, and 20 percent of the undiscovered natural gas liquids in the world. About 84 percent of the estimated resources are expected to occur offshore.
We know the resources are there and we know we have technology available today to recover the oil in an environmentally-responsible manner. Congress needs to act now to bring relief to American families. If our country is ever to be energy self-sufficient, we must be able to access our own energy resources.
Here's the pre-written letter that the NRDC Action Fund suggests sending to congresspeople and senators:
The fund's "Elixir" ad ran in The Washington Post. You can see it exactly as it ran here. Below is the main text:
With just three percent of the world's oil reserves, our nation simply doesn't have enough oil to impact the global market or drill our way to lower prices at the pump. Putting rigs in the Arctic Refuge and off our spectacular coastlines would certainly boost oil company profits, but it would impoverish our natural heritage and deepen our already destructive dependence on oil.
We deserve real solutions to high energy prices -- not gimmicks and land grabs. Please support legislation that will help our nation kick the oil habit and usher in a cleaner, greener energy future. I urge you to promote measures that will make our vehicles far more fuel efficient, put millions of plug-in hybrids on the road and connect them to a cleaner electric grid, dramatically boost our reliance on renewables like wind and solar, and limit America's global warming pollution in order to spur innovation in energy technologies.
President Bush's "Drill It All" policies and his rejection of cleaner alternatives have gotten us into this mess. They will not get us out. Please take bold action that will move America beyond oil and into a more sustainable energy future.
The Washington Post itself responded to the NRDC Action Fund ad in a nice editorial Tuesday. It said that environmentalists made some excellent points in the debate over whether the U.S. should drill off its shores. It agreed that "the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, with its varied and sensitive ecosystems, should be preserved. . . . That pristine area must remain off-limits."
It's a cruel Shell (RDS.A) game. And BP (BP) game. And ExxonMobil (XOM) game. Over the past five years, the number of domestic drilling permits has nearly doubled. But because of rising worldwide demand, oil prices have skyrocketed. More drilling off our coasts is not the answer. Once destroyed they can never be replaced. The only winners will be the oil companies.
Want gas at $1 a gallon? America needs a bold new approach to energy, from more fuel efficient vehicles to plug-in hybrids and electric cars. A cleaner electric grid powered by renewables. Existing technologies could have us driving at the equivalent of a buck a gallon for gas!
Tell your Representative and Senators to stop the giveaway of our coasts. Tell them you won't stand for billions more for oil companies -- and snake oil for the rest of us.
However, it challenged "three 'truths' masquerading as fact among drilling opponents" in a quick list:
The editorial concludes:
In politics, we hear the word "change" bandied about and cheered for frequently. People love change, it seems, but when it comes to the actual moment of change, they shrink back.
I would say that it is not acceptable to drill in the Caspian Sea and off developing countries such as Nigeria. The environmental damage caused by oil is well documented, not just from the getting it but also from the using it. Any child who's ridden in a car behind a smoke-spewing truck can testify to the polluting characteristics of internal combustion engines.
The very reason we have a gasoline price crisis and an environmental crisis is that the world is dependent on oil. How can the right answer to the problem be a way to extend the dependence?
It doesn't really matter how much oil is available under ANWR or other places within U.S. borders because:
Everybody agrees that massive changes are necessary, but almost nobody is willing to take the massive steps. If government was bold enough to say simply "no more oil supplies" it would force the market to change to a new energy source ASAP. This is a part of free markets that is known to not work well. Regulation is needed because of a generational gap that enables companies to keep promoting harmful products well past the lifespan of those who protest them along the way.
Think about it. Can you even remember the environmental protests that occurred in 1969 when 80,000 barrels of oil from an offshore well washed up on the beaches of Santa Barbara? Probably not. People born now see that they have no choices when it comes to getting in a car for transportation because the choices were made decades ago -- and the system is locked down. Ripping it up from the bolts will not be a smooth process. It's necessary, though. If left to their own, oil companies will keep selling oil to the last barrel even as the world dies while superior technologies wait on the sidelines, ready to go.
Our collective foot has to be put down at some point.
We can't say we want change, say that oil is bad, lament the loss of wildlife and fresh air, moan about high gas prices, and then choose more of the same as the solution.
No more of the same, is the solution. Enough is enough, is the solution. We've tried your way for too many decades already and we want to move on, is the solution.
Al Gore's speech about getting beyond oil within ten years was a lot better than the excerpts propped up and attacked in the media. Here are some highlights:
The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels.
What if we could use fuels that are not expensive, don't cause pollution and are abundantly available right here at home?
We have such fuels. Scientists have confirmed that enough solar energy falls on the surface of the earth every 40 minutes to meet 100 percent of the entire world's energy needs for a full year. Tapping just a small portion of this solar energy could provide all of the electricity America uses.
And enough wind power blows through the Midwest corridor every day to also meet 100 percent of US electricity demand. Geothermal energy, similarly, is capable of providing enormous supplies of electricity for America.
The quickest, cheapest and best way to start using all this renewable energy is in the production of electricity. In fact, we can start right now using solar power, wind power and geothermal power to make electricity for our homes and businesses.
But to make this exciting potential a reality, and truly solve our nation's problems, we need a new start.
That's why I'm proposing today a strategic initiative designed to free us from the crises that are holding us down and to regain control of our own destiny. It's not the only thing we need to do. But this strategic challenge is the lynchpin of a bold new strategy needed to re-power America.
Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.
A few years ago, it would not have been possible to issue such a challenge. But here's what's changed: the sharp cost reductions now beginning to take place in solar, wind, and geothermal power - coupled with the recent dramatic price increases for oil and coal - have radically changed the economics of energy.
When I first went to Congress 32 years ago, I listened to experts testify that if oil ever got to $35 a barrel, then renewable sources of energy would become competitive. Well, today, the price of oil is over $135 per barrel. And sure enough, billions of dollars of new investment are flowing into the development of concentrated solar thermal, photovoltaics, windmills, geothermal plants, and a variety of ingenious new ways to improve our efficiency and conserve presently wasted energy.
And as the demand for renewable energy grows, the costs will continue to fall. Let me give you one revealing example: the price of the specialized silicon used to make solar cells was recently as high as $300 per kilogram. But the newest contracts have prices as low as $50 a kilogram.
You know, the same thing happened with computer chips - also made out of silicon. The price paid for the same performance came down by 50 percent every 18 months - year after year, and that's what's happened for 40 years in a row.
To those who say the costs are still too high: I ask them to consider whether the costs of oil and coal will ever stop increasing if we keep relying on quickly depleting energy sources to feed a rapidly growing demand all around the world. When demand for oil and coal increases, their price goes up. When demand for solar cells increases, the price often comes down.
When we send money to foreign countries to buy nearly 70 percent of the oil we use every day, they build new skyscrapers and we lose jobs. When we spend that money building solar arrays and windmills, we build competitive industries and gain jobs here at home.
To those who say 10 years is not enough time, I respectfully ask them to consider what the world's scientists are telling us about the risks we face if we don't act in 10 years. The leading experts predict that we have less than 10 years to make dramatic changes in our global warming pollution lest we lose our ability to ever recover from this environmental crisis. When the use of oil and coal goes up, pollution goes up. When the use of solar, wind and geothermal increases, pollution comes down.
When President John F. Kennedy challenged our nation to land a man on the moon and bring him back safely in 10 years, many people doubted we could accomplish that goal. But 8 years and 2 months later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the surface of the moon.
Of course the greatest obstacle to meeting the challenge of 100 percent renewable electricity in 10 years may be the deep dysfunction of our politics and our self-governing system as it exists today. In recent years, our politics has tended toward incremental proposals made up of small policies designed to avoid offending special interests, alternating with occasional baby steps in the right direction. Our democracy has become sclerotic at a time when these crises require boldness.
It is only a truly dysfunctional system that would buy into the perverse logic that the short-term answer to high gasoline prices is drilling for more oil ten years from now.
Am I the only one who finds it strange that our government so often adopts a so-called solution that has absolutely nothing to do with the problem it is supposed to address? When people rightly complain about higher gasoline prices, we propose to give more money to the oil companies and pretend that they're going to bring gasoline prices down. It will do nothing of the sort, and everyone knows it. If we keep going back to the same policies that have never ever worked in the past and have served only to produce the highest gasoline prices in history alongside the greatest oil company profits in history, nobody should be surprised if we get the same result over and over again. But the Congress may be poised to move in that direction anyway because some of them are being stampeded by lobbyists for special interests that know how to make the system work for them instead of the American people.
If you want to know the truth about gasoline prices, here it is: the exploding demand for oil, especially in places like China, is overwhelming the rate of new discoveries by so much that oil prices are almost certain to continue upward over time no matter what the oil companies promise. And politicians cannot bring gasoline prices down in the short term.
However, there actually is one extremely effective way to bring the costs of driving a car way down within a few short years. The way to bring gas prices down is to end our dependence on oil and use the renewable sources that can give us the equivalent of $1 per gallon gasoline.
Our entire civilization depends upon us now embarking on a new journey of exploration and discovery. Our success depends on our willingness as a people to undertake this journey and to complete it within 10 years. Once again, we have an opportunity to take a giant leap for humankind.
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This article has 21 comments:
Instead of another massive government energy effort, the same thing where bipartisan bungling gave us the ethanol fiasco, government should get out of the way and let the marketplace work. Those evil corporations liberals want to tax to death are currently spending billions on r&d directed to new sources of energy. As the process continues the price of the alternatives goes down while the supply/demand dynamics raise the price of current energy sources. At some point they will meet. Government should stick to insuring environmental standards are followed.
When we import oil it all goes to Hugo Chavez, Ahmedinejad, etc. And, the tankers that bring that oil are still more likely to spill than pipelines from platforms.
"...Randall Luthi, director of the US Minerals Management Service, said the US should aggressively pursue energy development in the Outer Continental Shelf off Alaska, as well as regions of the OCS currently closed to drilling, including the eastern and western US coasts and the eastern Gulf of Mexico.
"Much of the future US demand can -- and let me underline can -- be met by OCS production, particularly from new areas in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, if we can survive the threat of hurricanes and survive the hurricane of litigation that surrounds oil and gas development," he said...."
www.gasandoil.com/goc/...
Oil is still the fuel of the immediate future - you can bet on it! We must move forward to a future in which cleaner natural gas, electricity, and renewable energy fuels cars and heats homes. But this transformation will take 20-30 years. Yes we need to wean ourselves from oil, but only as fast as technology can replace oil energy while we keep our country and economy safe. This is breaking the backs of American consumers and domestic industry infrastructure still dependent on fossil fuels, this is unacceptable anti-social, Anti-American behavior. Change is urgently needed.
"Before you get all excited about tearing down the energy industry, stop and think for a moment about what makes your comfortable life possible. Your heat and most of your electricity are provided through the burning of oil and natural gas. The thousands of plastic items in your home, car and office are all made from crude oil. Much of your clothing is woven of fibers made from petroleum.
Without the hard work and ingenuity of the men and women who work for the energy companies, we would be living in the 17th century - no electricity, running water, cars, trucks, airplanes, ships, factories, waterproof clothing, soda bottles, safety glass, sterile food and medical containers, air conditioners, televisions, microwave ovens, X-Boxes, I-Pods, or any of the millions of other products made using power generated from the burning of fossil fuels."
"You would have to grow your own food, or ride your donkey to a nearby market, where there would be no refrigerators or electric lights. You'd have to kill and clean your own meat and cook it over an open fire. You'd have to chop down the trees for your home, and provide your own light by making candles from the fat of animals. Every single thing in your modern life is utterly and completely dependent upon a steady supply of oil and gas. Without it, the entire Western world would collapse completely in a matter of weeks; tens of millions would perish from starvation, exposure, and disease." Todd Keister
To bring down the price of gasoline you need to drill where there is a lot of oil quickly. Not where there is little or no oil. America is sitting on vast supplies of proven oil and gas reserves, all ready to produce in short order.
Its all under an OPEC sponsored embargo compliments of Congress.,
Our Modern Economy Still Needs Oil and Gas Today.
Without hydrocarbons fuel the United States would quickly revert to an early 19th century type of country. Except that we would have 10 times as many people and no way to distribute food to most of them.
Without hydrocarbons fuel you would soon be walking. You couldn’t be driving cars, and it wouldn’t do any good to call the maintenance or repair people because they wouldn’t be able to get there, as they would be walking too.
The food distribution system would quickly grind to a halt as cold-storage warehouses stockpiling perishables went offline due to lack of electricity, (which is 20% powered by natural gas and 50% powered by coal) and by the lack of diesel fuels for trucks. Warehouses equipped with backup diesel generators would fail, because we wouldn’t be able get fuel for generators or trucks to distribute food.
Most of the things we depend upon would be gone, and we would literally be depending on our own food assets and those we could reach by walking to them.
America would begin to resemble the 2002 TV series, “Jeremiah,” which depicts a world bereft of law, infrastructure, and memory.
Without hydrocarbons fuel people in hospitals would be dying faster, because they depend on electrical power and natural gas for warming to stay alive. But then stoppages would soon include water, food, civil authority, emergency services. And we would end up with a country with many, many people not surviving.
We can treat our oil addiction, but it's not going to disappear. U.S. consumption has started to ebb, but the U.S. still accounts for 24 percent of the 86 million barrels of oil consumed in the world every day. We buy about two-thirds of the oil we use from overseas. Much of it comes from lands that are engulfed in political turmoil.
It's critical to reduce the U.S. dependence on oil. But it's most critical to reduce the U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
Technology is making drilling less of a risk and the demand for it is growing. The Democratic leadership in Congress has to start listening.
We need to support the continued development of alternative and renewable sources of energy and to increase conservation. In the meantime, lifting the congressional ban on oil and natural gas exploration in outer continental shelf waters is an absolute imperative if we are to rescue any sort of functioning economy.
Things are either going to change because we are forced to or we can be proactive based on prevailing data...
Do you want the government to manage you energy needs? I'll just quote Milton Fredman: "There is nothing the government can do that the private sector cannot do twice as well with half the cost."
The absolute best thing Congress can do is to get out of the way (i.e. do not renew the offshore drillin ban).
Okay, listen up, please. Right now there are roughnecks living on multibillion dollar platforms floating out in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico in up to 7000 feet of water, They are drilling up to 30,000 feet below the seafloor to find oil and gas . These rigs are hundreds of miles from shore. The production that comes later is connected by high-tech pipelines after underwater completions brought about by the most sophisticated remote robotic technology. Complex pipelines connect these remote wells to platform-based central hubs to send the hydrocarbons to shore in other hundreds of miles of pipelines.
Meanwhile similar quantities of hydrocarbons exist off California in a few hundred feet of water, only 3000 to 10,000 feet deep and within sight of shore. The roughnecks in the Gulf do it to get energy to America, The Californians dont do more,,,Well, I don't quite know why.
We are going, quite literally, where no one has gone before in the Gulf to get energy for YOU. You reward us by calling us "Greedy". You are all a bunch of spoiled rotten children.
I can feel your pain.
> jack
1. Energy producers are the enemy.
2. Government can do things better than the private sector.
3. People have to learn to live with less.
4. We know better than you do.
5. Capitalism is bad.
6. Communism is better, and will run the world someday.
They don't EVEN rewrite their speeches, just CHANGE the dates.
To have his endorsement would really be something.
Boone, Buffet, Gates and Gore - amazing.
You devoted a larget chunk of this article to quoting Al Gore. I really don't trust much of what Al Gore says. He invented the human caused global warming hysteria just like he invented the internet.
I do agree we should develop alternative sources of energy... but this should be done along side drilling. DRILL DRILL DRILL!!! Drill here drill there drill in my back yard if you think there's oil there. If enough new oil production is brought on line, it will bring down prices.
Don't look to the government to solve this problem. Government is the problem. The government needs to get out of the way.