You know I was thinking about our oil problem and it dawned on me...

Forums: Politics, Political, American Politics
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It is now common knowledge to Americans (I admit I was caught on the bandwagon that we needed to drill in ANWR and we needed to do it NOW! thanks to the media hype put on it and the lack of knowledge on the process of going from oil > gas on my end)

Well I would hope that our political friends in Washington were a little smarter than I was back then (Gee you would hope so huh).

Ok so the question posed is:

Why are we introducing legislation to drill in ANWR with the main intent to lower gas prices in the future (The main goal put forward by the supporters of the legislation) when the fact is we have plenty of oil yet we can not refine the oil that we have right now into gas within our own country.

Thanks to Jimmy Carter and his hippie friends we have not built a new oil refinery plant since 1973.

Now I do not know about you but since 1973 we have had some major Technology come along... and to tell me that we can not build a efficent low polluting refinery plant today is rather mind boggling.

You say that it may be too expensive to build these things? Well how about government grants, like the millions if not billions of dollars that will be used to open up new drilling in Alaska.

Do not get me wrong I still think we should drill in Alaska. We need to provide as much of our own oil as possible.

But right now we can not turn this oil into gas.

Our politicians have their priorities all messed up.. or possible intangled within the big money of the corporate world.

Food for thought Smile

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Type: Discussion • Score: 1 • Views: 1,920 • Replies: 11

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@Brent cv,

Maybe we should take all that money given to the cops in California to start profiling and put it into oil refineries.

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@Brent cv,

Excellent idea and a new idea for a section of this site Smile

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@Brent cv,

We need to concentrate on building refineries so we can refine the oil all these ppl are yelling about drilling for. The hippies need to shut up, let us get this country going in the right direction again, and just be glad we aren't drilling them for oil.

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@Brent cv,

We need to strike a balance here; I believe we should in fact build new oil refineries but defiantly in a controlled fashion. we need to use that post 1973 tech. but I still stand against the drilling in ANWR, and its not all that I’m worried about conserving the environment (which I am) but a lot has to do with the fact that we have about 15 years worth of oil in the United States as of last I heard (at the currents consumption rate) now right now Iraq at its current consumption rate, while lower then ours, has 75 years worth of oil (as stated by Time) so by just a strategic value ANWR is priceless. As unsettled as things are in the Middle East we can’t afford to run the risk of not being able to supply oil to our people and if ANWR is cashed the United States is in a lot of trouble. so my vote, don’t drill at ANWR because we don’t really need the oil nor in my opinion do we need to lower gas prices (that argument is for another post please do not comment on it here) and to for sure build more oil refineries so we can refine the large amounts of oil we have

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@Brent cv,

Fuckin tree huggers.

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@Brent cv,

Back when Jimmy made his messes. We had roughly 350 opperating refineries. Today we have less then 150. I think all we have to do is get those closed ones modded to todays standards or as close as they can within reason. The reason we can't build new ones is because of restriction from the government itself. They are regulated out of existence. It's cheaper to seek outside souces like they have been for the last thirty to forty years, then to build new. Same goes for drilling in Alaska. The tree huggers/ecologists are to blame.

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@Drnaline,

Drnaline wrote:

Back when Jimmy made his messes. We had roughly 350 opperating refineries. Today we have less then 150. I think all we have to do is get those closed ones modded to todays standards or as close as they can within reason. The reason we can't build new ones is because of restriction from the government itself. They are regulated out of existence. It's cheaper to seek outside souces like they have been for the last thirty to forty years, then to build new. Same goes for drilling in Alaska. The tree huggers/ecologists are to blame.

I agree but my point is that we should have been first going for the new refineries or updating existing ones instead of ANWR

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@Brent cv,

The way i see it ANWR is gonna get drilled. Just a matter of time. When oil get above a hundred buck a barrel the tree hugger will losen the hold they got on the noose. We operate on petrol and until we use something else there is no choice. The only reason i see of not using it would just be to postpone it use until we use up everyone elses.

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@Brent cv,

Exactly , we need to drill in ANWAR , but not yet . My job is in transportation and Dow Chemical is our largest customer , but we also service many refineries , and I have been to most of them on the Gulf Coast from South Texas to New Orleans . Those refineries are upgraded to the max now and are really only limited in production by available space and held back by regulations . We could refine all the oil if these restrictions were modified . New plants can't be built because regulations by local entities tie them up for decades before they can even plan a new refinery .
In my opinion , we should go after our resources later , in order to have an edge when the other sources begin to dry up .
Have you seen reports that we get more oil from Canada than anywhere else ? I wonder if that is true ?

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@Curmudgeon,

Curmudgeon wrote:

Exactly , we need to drill in ANWAR , but not yet . My job is in transportation and Dow Chemical is our largest customer , but we also service many refineries , and I have been to most of them on the Gulf Coast from South Texas to New Orleans . Those refineries are upgraded to the max now and are really only limited in production by available space and held back by regulations . We could refine all the oil if these restrictions were modified . New plants can't be built because regulations by local entities tie them up for decades before they can even plan a new refinery .
In my opinion , we should go after our resources later , in order to have an edge when the other sources begin to dry up .
Have you seen reports that we get more oil from Canada than anywhere else ? I wonder if that is true ?

I have heard those reports as well

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@Brent cv,

We do need to do our own drilling. ANWR is nice because we have a bit of a head start to get things going for the future. However, as was stated, getting permission to build a new refinery is so locked up in red tape and politics that it is nearly impossible to build one. While it is nice to have other sources for oil, I think we should really look to be self supporting, or at least more self supporting, so that we are less affected when the sheik decides he needs a new 747 because his current one is a couple weeks old.

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You know I was thinking about our oil problem and it dawned on me...

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