oilsands

Oil Sands Keep on Trucking

Right on Roadrunner.
Trippleback, oils sands produce OIL. That is not an alternative fuel.
Apparently, most of the folks who have commented are unaware that a plant producing oil has been in operation for some time. And yes, it is a very expensive, very wasteful operation. It also decreases or dependence on the middle east. Comparing oil to other forms of energy is usually done while ignoring the enormous tax subsidies given to BP, Exxon, et al. Take those away and the price at the pump suddenly makes other approaches sensible. The quickest and easiest is natural gas, already in use by UPS and I believe taxi fleets and other fleets.
Mark Bern, the argument about environmental policy under Obama is a bit premature. He will be busy for some time trying to keep the nation from collapsing. Importing oil like there is no tomorrow was a major facet in our present crisis. As to moonbeams, a rural school district in Illinois bought and put up a wind generator because it is making money for them. We can't afford not to harness the free energy around us.

Oil: What Goes Down Must Go Up?

Richard, thanks for the article. Based on continual reading, I believe the central factors in the price of oil are:

1. the increasing worldwide demand for energy, China and India, especially
(many Americans fail to see we are not the only major player anymore)
2. the sharply increasing cost of producing new oil fields whether onshore or off
3. attempts by producers to control price
4. lack of capital to fund the E & P for future production
5. ramping up of alternative energy sources
(China is going to spend 70 Billion on wind energy alone in the next few years.)

The bottom line is that we are bankrupting ourselves buying foreign oil and as Simmons states, we need to break our addiction to oil.

Watch for Yourself: 60 Minutes Oil Story Was Spot On

1. The crash of the dollar has been a constant underpinning of this mess, and one that is rarely talked about. Certainly not in the our lapdog media.
2. The tremendous upswing of demand in the rest of the world escapes most Americans, who still believe everything revolves around us.
3. Congress allowed the ban on offshore drilling to expire; they didn't actually do anything. So how many acres have been leased sinced then? The agency responsible for leasing said it needs two years from now just to plan what to lease. How does the Bush Adminstration explain that?
4. There are no crews standing around with equipment ready to respond to "drill, baby,drill". We lack trained manpower, equipment, and capital to respond to that futile cry. What a cruel fraud that cry was.
5. America has reduced consumption of gasoline, probably permanently.
This is one of our best defenses. And way cheaper than the war in Iraq.
6. The Enron Amendment enabled the scoundrels to victimize the American public. Deregulation is not consonant with our national interest.

Bush's New Drilling Proposal: Fixing a Hole

paul, you are right we are going broke. drilling will never fix that problem. alternative energy solutions will. likewise, taxing oil interests rather than giving them subsidies should be done. this will of course drive up the price of fuel, but we need to change our thinking and that is what it will take to do it.

4 Factors Fueling Oil Prices Higher

Amazing. So many ignorant comments on top of an article which surveys but fails to mention important factors.

1. Canada is our number one source of petroleum. The crash of the dollar is strictly a result of turning Uncle Sam into a beggar; George Bush and cronies think the solution to every problem is to print more money and talk big. When Bush took offic the Canadian dollar was at 65 cents, US; now it is over a dollar US. You do the math.

2. We have unlimited free energy if we choose to tap it. Geothermal, wind, tidal, hydro, solar are all around us. The gulfstream has mind boggling amounts of dependable energy.
An article in Scientific American stated that a mere 1 % of the Nevada desert could provide all of the electric needs of the entire USA.

3. Unfortunately our energy policy is dictated by the foreign oil companies who make lavish campaign contributions to both parties.

4. Contrary to the propaganda we are fed, we can harness this free energy NOW; it does not require decades of research. Sure, there are advances that can be made in utilizing coal, but that is not necessary for our energy independence.

5. Canada's oil sands have more petroleum reserves than all of Saudia Arabia. Yet our government was apparently asleep while China arranged to build a pipeline from the oil sands refinery to Vancouver where it can load it aboard tankers for delivery to the PRC. How's that for protecting our interests?

6. Congressional subsidies to oil companies amount to 81 billion per year. Factor that into the price per gallon and we are really paying $7.00 plus per gallon. That isn't coounting the amount we have spent year after year deploying troops strategically to watch over our interests.

Our family has been making money on oil for generations. But we don't need or want to see our country go belly up from sheer stupidity.

Wake up people. Start by not accepting the propaganda from Washington and through the lavish ads of major oil companies. Demand a policy which benefits American citizens for a change.