The Washington Post opposes oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and other ecologically sensitive areas. But the Post also opposes misinformation about offshore oil drilling spread by environmentalist groups and others. In particular, the Post takes aim at three myths about offshore driling:
Drilling is pointless because the United States has only 3 percent of the world's oil reserves. This is a misleading because it refers only to known oil reserves. According to the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service (MMS), while there are an estimated 18 billion barrels of oil in the off-limits portions of the OCS, those estimates were made using old data from now-outdated seismic equipment. . . . there could be much more oil under the sea than previously known. The demand for energy is going up, not down. And for a long time, even as alternative sources of energy are developed, more oil will be needed.
The oil companies aren't using the leases they already have. . . . The notion that oil companies are just sitting on oil leases is a myth. With oil prices still above $100 a barrel, that charge never made sense.
Drilling is environmentally dangerous. . . . According to the MMS, between 1993 and 2007, there were 651 spills of all sizes at OCS facilities (in federal waters three miles or more offshore) that released 47,800 barrels of oil. With 7.5 billion barrels of oil produced in that time, that equates to 1 barrel of oil spilled per 156,900 barrels produced. That's not to minimize the danger. But no form of energy is perfect or without trade-offs. Besides, if it is acceptable to drill in the Caspian Sea and in developing countries such as Nigeria where environmental concerns are equally important, it's hard to explain why the United States should rule out drilling off its own coasts.
Drilling — offshore or anywhere else — is no panacea, and the drilling debate should not distract policymakers from considering ways to encourage the economical development of alternative energy sources (such as with prizes). Yet, as the Post notes, "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." In other words, we'll still need new sources of oil in the near-to-medium term.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Anti-Drilling "Snake Oil":
- Anti-Drilling Group Supports Drilling:
I say drill here, drill there, drill everywhere. In fact if we just let nuclear power get back into the game, we could use nuclear power to generate the energy required to create new alternative energy sources for vehicles.
As to environmental damage, if Russia wants to destroy itself to provide energy to the world, that's the stupidity of its leaders and, alas, the huge numbers of Russians who keep their leaders in power.
Well, if the data is outdated and potentially faulty, there also could be less oil out there. All this indicates is that there is a need for better information about what in terms of oil is out there. If there is more oil (and remember the cost of getting that oil out of the ground goes up exponentially the more difficult it is to get to), the question still remains, is there enough oil in the OCS, of the right kind of grades, to be able to change our import/export ratios sufficiently to improve our global strategic position, that it would worth the economic &environmental risks of potential spills? In my opinion, if the current numbers could be upward estimated by 3-4x, the answer would be an unequivocal yes.
Just leaving resources undeveloped is a bet that they'll be worth more in the future, and as NPV generally demonstrates, this is almost always a bad bet.
The concern usually cited against offshore drilling is the concern that drilling will produce oil spills and that oil spills will destroy U.S. coastlines and the environment around them. That concern is not at issue if there is an oil spill that results from drilling in the Caspian Sea. The question is whether offshore drilling is more likely to generate a spill that destroys our coastline than ferrying oil drilled elsewhere to the U.S. in outdated tankers.
Would not the risk of spills scale roughly with the amount of oil being extracted and/or the number of wells? If there's little (possibly expensive to extract) oil, the spill risk is small (few wells, limited production). If, on the other hand, there's 3-4x more economically extractable oil than current estimates, wouldn't that mean there's 3-4x more spill risk if it's all extracted?
Why would more knowledge of the amount of oil available change the decision? If there's more than we think, we could decide to leave some of it in order to reduce spill risks. If there's less than we think, the spill risk is also lower than we think.
Greens should just admit that they want us to freeze in the dark.
Isn't materiality the issue here?
The 18 billion barrels of potential reserves sounds like a huge number, but it's not ...
The US consumes roughly 7 billion barrels of crude oil per year; the world consumes roughly 30 billion per year.
So that resource base, extracted all in a rush, would only cover US consumption for three years ... or the world consumption for six months. Then, after that one time, we're back in the hole.
It also means that Russia gets to destroy Georgia. Caught a segment on NPR this evening talking about how Germany gets a huge portion of oil from Russia, so Germany wasn't really able to stand up to Russia in the recent conflict.
But that does buy us three extra years to get alt-fuel infrastructures up and running. That's the real value of continuing to explore and drill for oil in the meantime - we will need all the infrastructure development time we can get.
It is imporatant to remember that the price drops at a greater percentage than the quantity increases.
Everything's possible. It could have turned back into dinosaurs, although the odds are against it.
Realistically, though, technology and the numbers don't work like that. To give a rather mediocre metaphor, if you take a picture of a big table with an old VGA camera, and then again with a modern 9 megapixel one, you're not going to see more salt with the former than with the later. You just don't have the resolution, especially when making a low-ball estimate is very important.
I'm sorry, but this statement sucks at actually convincing people, and moreover isn't that accurate. The oil companies are sitting on oil leases, because they have oil leases for land that has nearly no oil that can be recovered at 100 USD/barrel or even 150 USD/barrel. They're sitting on these leases because they're valueless.
I can name a few. How about this one: If we start drilling for oil now, the price of oil will come down fast and far.
Or this one: The amount of oil we would find would solve all of our energy problems for many years.
Or this one: All oil drilled within the US will only be consumed within the US, and will not be sold on the open market.
Or: If we drill for oil, then we don't need to invest in conservation or alternative energies since they won't be needed any longer.
The fact that our knowledge of domestic oil reserves leaves something to be desired doesn't necessarily mean that we have MORE oil than the original estimate indicates - it could just as easily turn out that we have less.
The fact of the matter is, regardless of how much oil you locate off of Florida or Texas, or in ANWAR - it's going to be sold on a global market, not a national one. Producing more oil domestically does absolutely nothing to help us reach some type of energy independence. Dump more oil on the market, prices go down, and world-wide consumption increases, leaving us to face the exact same problem a few years later, with even fewer acceptable options to pursue.
Maybe this is an area where you all might defer to the knowledge, judgment and wisdom of a few engineers, entrepreneurs and scientists?
Nah, that would spoil all the fun... reality bites.
A barge on the Mississippi River is more vulnerable than an oil platform in the Gulf, or offshore elsewhere.
We need to get diverse sources of energy including oil and renewables. The oil sources must be spread out over many locations. A weather phenomenon such as a hurricane in the gulf should not cause a major disruption in the flow of energy, and it wouldn't if there were alternate wells on the other coasts to make up for the disruption. Likewise more refineries should also be constructed in various locations.
Developing a larger domestic supply also reduces the impact of oil on foreign policy, as well as helping the balance of payments, and the deficit, because of the taxes paid by oil producers.
Furthermore, most of those unused leases are deep in the Gulf of Mexico, where it is more difficult, expensive and time-consuming to drill. Oil companies would rather pick the low-hanging fruit (logically enough).
Finally, I think Congress is just mad at itself for exempting oil producing leases from their fees when oil was $20 and failing to insert a provision reinstating the fees if the price went up. Too bad the oil industry called 'no backsies'
Speaking of snakes:
Oil shale development in the United States : prospects and policy issues / James T. Bartis... [et al.].
ISBN 0-8330-3848-6
RAND Corporation for The National Energy Technology Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy
Another fact is that the revenue for that oil will flow to US companies in the US rather than the national oil companies of foreign nations. That money will not flow out of the US, but will remain in the US.
The profits it generates will flow to further energy development in the US, and to stockholders of the US companies. Over 50% of those stockholders are US pension and mutual funds. That money is then available for investment in the emerging alternative energy industry.
The royalties paid to the government will be paid to the US government, and American state gvernments, not a foreign government.
The jobs that additional production in the US creates will employ Americans. The suppliers of the pipe, pumps, turbines, control systems, and heavy equipment will be American companies.
The companies engaged to build these projects will be American engineering and construction companies. The subcontrators will be American subcontractors.
And, sometimes it makes sense to sell US oil to foreign nations. For example, at one time the US west coast refineries could not handle all the Alaskan crude. Getting it to the Gulf coast was very inefficient. It made much more sense to sell it to Japan and then buy the same amount from Mexico to feed the gulf coast refineries.
Repeat after me -- "Oil is fungible." Even if what we drill gets sold overseas, it'll drive down prices.
What people have to understand is that not every barrel of oil costs the same to extract -- the surrounding geology and terrain can significantly affect prices, and no oil company is going to bother with sources that cost $150/barrel if by the time they've extracted it the market price has dropped to $120/barrel.
Last I heard, oil shale won't be economically viable until oil tops $200/barrel. Unless the costs drop significantly, oil shale won't be economically viable until we've exhausted every other source of petroleum on the planet.
Can you source that, Sean? Back when oil was $20/bbl I always heard it had to be above $50/bbl to be viable.
p37 etc? See the orange part in "In particular, the Post takes aim at three myths about offshore driling:..."? That's called a "link". If you click that with the mouse-pointer thingie, it takes you to a whole 'nother page, which has the complete editorial. That's where you find the whole argument, including multiple references.
Good child. Not real smart.
Anyone who thinks there isn't a lot more oil under U.S. jurisdiction should talk to a petroleum geologist. They'll find out that the Dakotas alone have as much oil as Saudi Arabia.
And there are more multi-billions of barrels of recoverable oil offshore than have previously been extracted. It's just sitting there, waiting to be used. Only the 'mentalists stand in the way -- the same misguided folks who think that $4 gas is somehow good for us.
So enough with the phony claims that leaving it in the ground is a good idea; that sounds like telling a starving person that he should save his roast beef sandwich until he really needs it.
http://ariail.thestateonline.com/?p=331
At what price, Smokey?
And when oil is $200/bbl oil shale will be viable if oil hits $500/bbl.
Absolutely false. You're welcome to freeze any place you like.
(Actually, at oil > $100/bbl, I'm for leasing the OCS, provided California gets a market rate for the leases.)
Really? I've raised nothing more than strawmen? Then please talk to Sean O'Hara, who stated "Even if what we drill gets sold overseas, it'll drive down prices."
Every estimate I've heard is that if we drain ANWR, it will lower oil by a few cents per barrel in about 20 years. They say it takes about 20 years from the start of drilling to bring it to your pump. Now, maybe others will quibble and say, no, it's only ten years, or fifteen. Whatever. The point is that is isn't going to make much impact one way or another. And that's not a myth.
Sooner or later, that oil will find a way out; there's too much money to be made. And every dollar that is made by an American company, for the benefit of 401-K, IRA-type shareholders, is a dollar that is not sent to the Middle East.
We're being foolish not using our resources to lower prices, provide tax revenues, and throw a scare into the oil speculators.
Normally, holding on to an appreciating resource is not considered foolish.
Oh, and those oil speculators are down about 25% in the last 3 weeks.
Now there may be an argument for the government to pay to keep the trans-alaska pipeline open longer or otherwise reduce the time to start pumping domestic oil but even though oil drilling can take some time to start up the argument is still valid. Frequently before any conflict there is a period of tension giving a warning to start domestic drilling. Even if not it's still better to at least be able to drill than to have little oil left.
Then our kids will be doubly lucky. First, they have viable, affordable, clean energy. Second, we will not have soiled their environment. Leaving the oil in the ground is a win for our kids no matter what happens to alternative energy.
And let them do it with (more likely than not) significantly lower environmental protections than we would! It always amazes me that environmentalists would rather have us rely on oil produced by countries with very low environmental standards than have us get it ourselves, under some of the strictest guidelines in the world.
This is totally not about politics, it's super important for our future!
Indeed. And since we're forcing our kids to inherit a huge Chinese credit-card bill, it would be nice if we also left them some tangible assets, instead of consuming those assets for our own advantage as quickly as possible.
Wait, which is it? Is the oil getting more or less valuable?
Of course, there's no such thing as an "appreciating" resource. People frequently make this mistake about the stock market: they don't sell a stock because "it's going up," when what they mean to say is that "it just went up recently." But right now, at this very moment, the stock price is stable. In fact, the best time to sell a stock is after it has gone up, because that's how you keep a diversified portfolio.
There are certainly other arguments to be made against drilling, and I don't think it's an open-and-shut case, and I definitely don't think it will significantly reduce prices (although it doesn't matter at all where the oil is sold on the world market as to how much prices fall).
But if the question is "when is oil most valuable to sell?" then you need to realize that oil can be manufactured from carbon-free energy sources, such as solar or wind or nuclear. It's definitely more expensive that pumping it out of the ground, but it's not infinitely expensive. If you don't know where those breakeven points are, you don't know what the best economic strategy is for when to sell oil.
Well, sort of. They understand that a high price for oil will increase demand for substitutes like coal. I would imagine there are environmentalists with education in economics.
"It isn't happening here, at least to any large degree, because of regulation and NIMBY."
It's that NIMBY thing you should pay the most attention to. It means a majority of Americans feel that coal has negative environmental impacts. This may also explain why the regulations are there. Environmentalists are in the mainstream on that issue.
"But any responsible environmentalist that actually cares about the environment rather than just wanting us to regress back to the stone age would be pushing for oil/gas/nuclear to reduce the lure of coal."
You've snuck "nuclear" in there, which is interesting. There is a weakening of the anti-nuclear sentiment within the environmental movement. Several well-known environmentalists have made public comments that they support certain forms of nuclear power.
The charges that environmentalists are "out of touch" or "irresponsible" or "want us to freeze" are plain silly.
As a related aside, have you seen the recent MIT research that uses a simple catalyst to remove oxygen from water under the sorts of current you get from solar power? It uses no platinum and is apparently simple enough to go to market rather quickly.
Why are the anti-drilling folks even opposed to exploration using current technology? Because they are afraid that we will discover that the US is sitting on a shitload (that's the technical term) of oil, and that will blow away many of their anti-drilling arguments.
A few years later we'll have more options to pursue, as algae oil, cellulosic fuels, shale oil, etc. will have had more time to move from research to development to commercial production.
shawn-non-anonymous: As a related aside, have you seen the recent MIT research that uses a simple catalyst to remove oxygen from water under the sorts of current you get from solar power? It uses no platinum and is apparently simple enough to go to market rather quickly.
I haven't heard about "quickly". And I remain unconvinced about the relevance to solar power. Rather than electrolyzing water in the middle of the day, when power sells at peak rates, it makes more sense to do it in the middle of the night, using cheap coal power. Or much better, nuclear power.
Since our kids will be vastly wealthier than we are as we are vastly wealthier than our parents (do you know what a $300 Dell system unit is worth at a 1966 tech level?). Illegal day laborers waiting for work while chatting on cellphones?
Computers were just the first fruits of nanotech. The rest will increase wealth even more.
Drill Now!
Except that they often do create a mess over a wide area. Often times the shell company that operated the lease is dissolved or bankrupt and we are all left holding the bag for cleanup while the profits magically disappear. I wouldn't mind drilling in ANWR if I had faith that the company taking the lease was strictly responsible for obeying the campsite rule.
And all over the world, partciularly in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, they are investing in technologies that will be alternatives to oil and coal because they know that oil won't last much longer, and coal is too dirty and produces it's own problems that are costly.
Smart people know that although the cost of coal is cheaper than oil, the externalities are far more costly, in terms of health care and environmental degredation and so on. It's hard to grow wheat when they are coated with coal emissions.
Really? I guess you are right. I'm just trembling with fear!
But I can play that game as well.
Why are the pro-drilling folks opposed to alternative energies? Because they are afraid that we might find a way to make solar and wind and other sources that will blow away many of their pro-drilling arguments.
But I'm secure that nanotechnology will save us all.
People always say this. I'm skeptical. While I'm no technocrat, I'm sure there are (expensive) ways of using electricity for transportation. Aren't many light-rail systems run on electricity? When the power source is decoupled from the vehicle, doesn't low energy density become less of a problem?
That's, at best, speculative. Much of the money earned offshore by foreign subsidiaries is kept off-shore for tax purposes.
Why don't you use your powers of sarcasm and science to invent neo-flubber and sell it for a bazillion dollars, glavin!?!
The best part of that retort was the "neo" in front of "flubber."
Because just plain flubber would be silly.]
Because most of them have one or more of the following drawbacks: less reliable, less efficient, more costly, use more energy to produce than they provide, unable to be scaled up enough to meet all of our demands, cannot power the current automobile fleet, are not readily available, require expensive new infrastructure, depend on some future magical technology that does not exist or at the least is not ready for prime time...
Even though alternative sources have all these drawbacks, many (most?) pro-drilling people advocate an "all of the above" approach.
Those guys are only in it for money and want to destroy America.
The major drawback of oil is that too much of it comes from bad guys. Exploiting US supplies will alleviate that problem.
Of course I recognize that the anti-drilling folks are also true believers in the church of AGW, so they imagine much bigger drawbacks. I, on the other hand, am an AGW atheist.
No, it doesn't. It goes up proportionally to the difficulty. In other words, where it is twice as difficult, the cost is twice as high. Four times as difficult, four times as high.
They don't.
Surely you're not confusing "unwilling to do alt only and unwilling to subsidize it" with "oppose".
Feel free to invest as much of your money as you'd like in alt energy. If you're correct, you'll get rich and do good. Folks who backed the wrong horse will lose their money. What better result could you hope for?
Huh? You're not willing to risk your money? But you tell me that it's a sure thing....
It's fun to watch righty "conservatives" argue for quick change to policies that seem to be working in the predictable manner, while lefty "liberals" argue for stasis because of unanticipated consequences (or inevitable catastrophe) of change. Makes libertarians seem honorable, instead of just smart.;)
I've never heard that one, although it's a big Internet, so maybe Randy has.
However, I buy gas now, so I'm glad somebody was drilling for oil seven years ago, and I intend to be buying just as much gas seven years from now, so I hope somebody is drilling today.
What on earth are you talking about. A barge is an unpowered vehicle, and does not have its "own fuel supply."
A barge carrying a cargo of oil was hit by an oil tanker. The oil tanker did not spill, but the barge's cargo was discharged into the river. Or at least 280,000 gallons of it.
.
Actually, investment in alternative energies is at an all time high. Germany is the leader in alternative energy research. No. 2? China. So yes, those countries will be the big winners when their investments pay off. The US is around No.12.
"Because most of them have one or more of the following drawbacks: less reliable, less efficient, more costly, use more energy to produce than they provide, unable to be scaled up enough to meet all of our demands, cannot power the current automobile fleet, are not readily available, require expensive new infrastructure, depend on some future magical technology that does not exist or at the least is not ready for prime time... "
Yup, they do now. Part of that is because they don't have the efficiencies of volume. If a lot of solar technology were purchased, prices would come down even further than they already have, for instance. Part of this is a chicken/egg problem. We need to have demand in order to spur alternative energies to get more efficient, but we don't have that demand because there are few of those efficiencies. This is where gov't has a role to play -- help stimulate demand through various forms of stimulus, mandates (like having all new gov't buildings obtain 20% of their energy from alternative energies), R&D, tax incentives and so on.
The US should be one of the leaders in clean energy, instead of being way down the list. That will help secure our energy and financial futures.
So am I. And I don't like the fact it costs me $60 to fill my tank. But there is a limit to the amount of drillable oil in the world, and yet demand is rising, including places like India and China. So prices are going up no matter what, at least over the long term. Shouldn't we be adjusting for that now? Or should we wait until it happens, and we are blindsided all over again?
I'm not really opposed to drilling -- it actually is much safer than in the past. But what I object to is this notion that we just need to drill for oil, and our we can go back to the 1950s (or least the Clinton years) of big cars and cheap energy.
We must invest in a post-oil world now while we have the luxury of time. You say you are glad that people were drilling 10 years ago so that you have gas for your car now. How about this one: Don't you wish we had invested more in public transportation, and planned our suburbs better 10 years ago, so that we would be better prepared for the rise in price now?
Depends on what the rules are and how they will change. If the coal power industry is allowed to strip mine mountains, destroy streams and emit any blend of particulates they like, I wouldn't bet on solar. On the other hand, if they have to be good stewards, solar might be a better idea.
You got that from wiktionary, and I think it's not quite right. The exact answer you get depends on what dictionary you look at. See here:
Or here:
Or here:
Anyway, in this instance the barge was definitely not self-propelled. It was being propelled by a tugboat.
One more thing. If the "barge's own fuel supply leaked," as the commenter claimed, it would not have spilled 280,000 gallons. I seriously doubt that any self-propelled barge has a fuel supply that large. A typical fuel capacity for a tugboat is about 36,000 gallons.
This is an absolutely ridiculous statement. At best it will increase production in the U.S. by five percent or so. The more likely scenario is that it will simply make up for declining production in existing U.S. fields. Since we import about 60% of our oil, even if every drop stays here in the good 'ol USA, it is going to do very little to reduce our reliance on foreign oil.
The reason that many are skeptical of increased drilling is that it simply puts off the day of reckoning--and not by very long.
Actually the spill was closer to 400,000 gallons and it shut down the Mississippi to navigation for almost a week and forced several communities to close their water intakes for a couple days.
That's what early reports said, but the number was later reduced. Either way, it's still a shitload of oil. See here:
Production would no longer be taxed, which is the dream of supply-side economists, so the conservatives couldn't possibly object. And it would be guaranteed to dramatically reduce CO2 production, and probably require something very much like (but not quite the same as) Kyoto to make sure we don't just shove energy consumption off shore, so the liberals couldn't possibly object.
I kid, of course. The conservatives wouldn't go for it because it'd give the greenies a victory, and the liberals wouldn't go for it because it doesn't make the rich suffer enough for their sins.
No, I don't. I live in the country. Public transportation and crowded suburbs hold no appeal for me. My truck was fully depreciated sometime during the first Clinton administration, so I can easily afford the $85 fillups (gas is $4.64 today here).
The gummint spent $10 million in my county 10 years ago to demonstrate that you could make 'medium-density motor fuel' from grass. It's true. You can. And for $10 million, you get about $1 million worth of fuel.
I wish less had been spent 10 years, but that what was spent was directed by people who had a clue.
You're in luck — pretty much nobody holds this notion.
We need to drill here in our own land. I'm tired of us meddling in the affairs of other countries because we NEED THEIR OIL.
</blockquote>
If the stated goal of dramatically lowering our oil imports is the point of opening up the current off limits area, then based on what we know now, the proposed solution fails to meet that goal. Unless there is far more oil in the OCS and ANWR than we know about, at most the extra drilling at peak production will make a small dent in our oil imports. This doesn't necessarily mean that opening up the closed ares isn't worth doing, it just means that there needs to be more compelling and attainable goals for it to be worth the risks.
80 miles offshore? The US controlled Gulf of Mexico production does not support your idea.
Glad you live so off the grid that nothing affects you. However, I would suspect that if we HAD invested more in public transportation in the past, and also designed our suburbs so that you don't have to get in a car for absolutely every errend, then demand for gas would be less today. Less demand equals lower prices for everyone.
Considering the fact that billions of dollars is leaving the country now and going to forieng countries, one would think that any decent American would think that's crazy, and that the money should stay here. By driving less, that would happen. Unfortunately, our society is set up so that driving is a necessity in almost every place you live. It;s really sad that we have boxed ourselves into a corner where cars are the sole choice of transportation -- I think a healthy society would offer choice: cars, buses, trains, bicycles, walking. Many of the alternatives are healthier for us, give up less pollution, and consume less carbon-based fuels, all the while advancing new industries that create jobs. It's win - win for everyone.
Sorry for taking so long to respond, but I had to go take a sledgehammer to all my neighbors cars first. Must be nice living in a 4-year-old's world.
Just curious -- how much did your gummit spend on building new roads or expanding existing ones in the last 10 years? How much did they subsidize new developments that are solely dependent upon car transportation? How many tax and other incentives were spent on such projects?
I suspect quite a bit. I would hope that you are just as upset over those expenditures as you are on others, because you ought to be.
It wasn't too long ago that in almost every city, you had a system of public transportation that was cheap, fairly clean and went everywhere you wanted to go. Streetcars, cable cars, trolleys -- they took you from the outer suburbs to the city, and you could cross the city at major intersections. Then some cities even had beltway railroads which could get you fast from one end of town to another.
On top of that, there were interurban trolleys and trains that connected from the outskirts of the major cities to other cities. You could travel from any point to any point in a city, and from city to city without ever needing a car.
Why did we get rid of it all in favor of cars? Had we kept those old systems, the need for cars would be significantly less. Had we kept developing the surburbs along those lines, we wouldn't need cars nearly as much. Of course, those who want them could still use them. The point is that you would have *options* to get to work. did you break your leg? You can still get to work via a trolley if you can't drive a car.
The demand for gas would be significantly less, we would be walking a bit more (good for the waistline) and less of our income would be spent on transportation (good for the home budget). I'm not sure we can recreate all that - the expense would be enormous. So unless gas soars to $10 a gallon, or so, that just won't happen. But if it does, everyone here will be screaming for public transportation.
We didn't get rid of it all. Chicago and New York are examples. DC, San Fran, LA, and Atlanta have relatively new subways. Those lines that were discontinued were due to people's free choice to buy cars and drive.
Not only that, you buy into the Post's fuzzy Beltway premise that it is the US government and not private actors, via the market, that should determine "all the sources of fuel necessary to maintain [the US] economy and its standard of living," and what sources and where should be developed.
The result is an incoherent blog thread that quickly devolves into a food fight - which more than a little surprising and disappointing, given the supposedly libertarian focus of the VC blog.
I'm sorry, but I'd like to get as much of these tyoes of decisions OUT of the hands of government.
Why do we fight over how much oil we produce, but not how many i-phones, laptops or airplanes? Isn't it simply because Jefferson, Seward/McKinley, Eisenhower and Reagan got our government into the business of owning and operating federal lands, which have ever since been the playgrounds of politicians, bureaucrats and special interests/elites of all sorts? Since people with perfectly legitimate preferences regarding how these lands are used cannot express them by means of transactions, they are left instead to battle each other, acrimoniously, for the favor of bureaucrats and polticians.
Clearly, we would all be much better off if we could find paths towards privatization of the federal lands, including the OCS and ANWR.
My suggestion? Require that the government directly pay to the American people a significant chunk of all revenues from these lands, and allow the MMS or other administrative agency to keep a portion of the revenues as well. That would do wonders to increase the interest of the American people and bureacurats in making sure that no sweet deals are given away, that royalties owed are duly paid and that revenues do not simply enable more government pork.
Environmentalists would clearly benefit if such a structure were rolled out generally across FS and BLM lands, and if they were given a share of responsibility in overseeing leases; they have long known that development and environmnetla protection can proceed hand-in-hand, at least for assets and risks that aren't overly socialized.
More on my thoughts on breaking the senseless impasse here.
I'd trade more drilling on federal lands for better oversight and less corruption, and a share of the revenues. And I propose a very similar deal for the atmosphere - rebated carbon taxes, of the kind that have elecited support across the political spectrum, from AEI and ACCF to Rand, Exxon, George Will and Jim Hansen.
The problem with off-shore drilling as 'the solution':
It won't solve any problem in the short term, will only slightly reduce the problem in the long term.
The companies that can do off shore drilling, especially in remote areas like the arctic are the multi-nations - that money will be leaving the US regardless of where the oil is drilled for the most part, i.e. its putting more US dollars in hands that will send it out of country.
Its a distraction: it won't really do anything in and of itself and superior alternatives are where we should put our efforts and money.
I really hope we do have a 'go to the moon' style initiative with the next administration that would serve as both economic stimulus and segway ourselves into a new energy infrastructure.
The key - hydrogen fueled personal vehicles. Produced locally from any electrical source, available as both internal combustion and fuel cell electric. Safe, requires no new technology (slight production variation on designs for other gaseous fuel vehicles like propane).
Get Detroit retooled, get fuel availability out there (low cost hydrogen storage tank installation loans to fuel stations, portable temporary available for locations, tax breaks for home production units). Don't need to immediately replace all petroleum fuels, just convert the personal vehicles that have no need to be using petroleum based fuels. Potential saving almost 400 million gallons of gasoline a day.
Where do we get the power to generate all the hydrogen? Any alternative source you can name, and then there are the two massive natural gas formations recently discovered in northern Louisiana and Pennsylvania. But it doesn't matter - we could even burn a bit of oil and coal to generate the power because the important thing is getting the basic infrastructure changed over - we can generate the hydrogen by what ever means as need demands. What's important is changing petroleum from an essential part to a progressively more optional part of the equation.
Again, off shore drilling is merely a distraction with no immediate or even long term benefit of consequence. Let's spend money on increasing our non-petroleum power generation. If we need more, lets spend the money locally on non-multinational, leasing natural gas leasing rights from citizens, not governments, letting smaller in-country production companies. Spend some bucks on getting hydrogen vehicles available affordably and the fuel availability options necessary that would make adoption practical. All will stimulate the economy with home grown businesses.
They are trying to push the offshore commitment now to get the genie out of the bottle while the bush administration lasts. We can always start drilling, we can always hold it as an option. This frantic drum beating is pure manipulation and I'm not falling for it, why would anyone?
In my county? Zero.
We motorists pay for roads through the gasoline tax, and developers are required to put in whatever infrastructure is required to reach their suburban projects.
I don't feel like subsidizing your trolleys, thanks. I'll oay as I go.
Gas taxes offset some of the costs of freeways and highways, but not local streets, which are typically funded through general revenue funds. And once developments are in place, it falls back local governments to maintain the roads with, you guessed it, general revenue.
And I'd add to his post the fact that ten years ago, the same enviro-Luddites were saying: "But it will take ten years to get the oil into gas tanks!" So ride your bicycle and fatten OPEC wallets, eh?
If we used the really massive oil reserves within U.S. jurisdiction, we could replace the majority of imported oil with energy that pays Americans through their IRA, 401-K and mutual fund holdings, instead of sending our dollars to the Middle East.
Only Congress -- a wholly-owned subsidiary of the enviro lobby -- stands in the way of U.S. energy independence.
Funny that citizens that support environmental protection should vote for Congressmen that do as well.
It's not your money, or your effort. Other people are independent agents. You don't own them or their labor.
Of course its not, that's why I used the word 'we' rather than 'I', and said 'our' instead of 'mine' and 'should' instead of 'will'.
If a US company can get its oil in the US, it will make a much larger profit than if it buys on the open market from foreign state oil companies.
Under your logic, no company would ever drill the first well in the US; they would send that investment out of the country.
BP America owns about half of Prudhoe Bay. BP invested its own money in the US, pays US workers, buys US supplies and equipment, pays US taxes, and pays US royalties. And it continues to invest in development in the US. Under your scenario none of this would occur because US dollars put in BP hands would be sent out of the country.
On the other hand, the entire price of foreign oil goes out of the US. All of it. To Mexico, Canada, Venezuela, and Saudi.
All of you are concentrating on energy generation and fuel for automobiles. Look at that keyboard in front of you. Plastic. Know what's used to make plastic? That's right, OIL. If some car manufacturer, today, introduced a plug-in car that went 300 miles on a charge and recharged in a couple of hours, and some other company announced a solar material for pennies per square foot with a 40% efficiency, demand for oil would not drop more than 5 or 6% per year. We are that deep into an oil-based lifestyle. Some of it would be people like me, who drive more for fun than any other reason. Some would be people who could not afford to buy one of those new cars. Some would be those hundreds of other uses for petroleum (did you know some medicines are made from oil?) for which nobody has found a better way.
I support building neuclear power plants. I support wind farms, and hydroelectricity. I am entirely in favor of development work on hydrogen power, and solar power, and thermal power. I want bunches of people to be working on ways to clean up coal. I also want us to drill here, drill now, for American oil. I'm tired of my money going to buy ammo to be shot at my family. I don't want to support some oil shiek who hates me, my country, and my religion.
Even if we start now, it will be 20 to 30 years before our need for pumped-from-the-ground oil drops by half, and twice that long to get down to one quarter. If we don't start producing our own oil, by that time we will no longer own our land or our cities; the oil producing countries will have bought them from under us.
the winner of that Party's primary gets the seat in Congress.
Fact of the matter is, if U.S. voters could actually select their politicians, instead of vice-versa, this country would be close to energy independence, and the cost of gasoline would be a lot lower than it is with the current self-serving gang.
As it is, we have what's called a democracy, but in fact the pols have learned to game the system at the expense of the citizens.
There's way too much gerrymandering and each party tries to lock itself into position as much as possible, the better to control the flow of spoils to special interests. The result is that citizen's choices are extremely limited.
But what "enviro lobby" is in control of the Congress? The Bob Dole lobby that gave us ethanol? The one that approved Kyoto a decade ago and approved some climate bill over the past term?
Labeling counter-factual scenarios as "fact" is an interesting philosophical statement. Please tell me more about your conception of modal epistemology so that I too, can opine about the "facts" of unrealized scenarios.
If you can't see the problem of gerrymandering, then you're beyond help.
Sorry.