What's wrong with both? You haven't discussed any logical problems with our position.
You seem to believe that it is ridiculous to think we should spend more money on alternative fuels before we go to war or drill up all our public lands. How do you defend your position that this is ridiculous?
Cycloptichorn
Cycloptichorn wrote:What's wrong with both? You haven't discussed any logical problems with our position.
You seem to believe that it is ridiculous to think we should spend more money on alternative fuels before we go to war or drill up all our public lands. How do you defend your position that this is ridiculous?
Cycloptichorn
Main problem: We need oil at this point in time.
We need to secure our own oil which we have but the Greens won't let us drill for. WE HAVE OUR OWN OIL.
The point of the article was that we have oil and the means to drill it in a clean way thanks to modern drilling equipment and technology. The Feds won't release the land for drilling because of the Green movement in our country.
The problem I see is that the same people who accuse the US of going to war for oil are the same people who won't let the govt release land for drilling of our own oil. We could solve the war and oil issue by drilling our own oil but they won't let us.
They want expensive energy at the cost of everyone else.
What is it going to cost to push our economy into a non-oil one? It is going to cost billions and most of it is going to come out of the private sector because they own the infrastructer.
How many cars are made right now that run on hydrogen? How many gas stations have filling stations for those types of cars? When it becomes more previlent we will do it. Right now it takes twice as much hydrogen to get around as it does gas. These are all problems that need to be fixed before we move to renewable energy. Until then we need oil because this change isn't going to take place overnight. Where do we get the oil?
We have been trying to drill in ANWR for years but the greenies won't let the US do it. These are the same people who complain about the war in Iraq being for oil but they lobby hard against the drilling at home.
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, on Alaska's North Slope, is the new hope. The Prudhoe Bay oil field, one of the world's biggest reservoirs, is just sixty miles west of the refuge. Surveys carried out by the U.S. Geological Survey suggest that anwr may contain about ten billion barrels of recoverable oil. If this estimate turns out to be reliable, and if exploration starts next year, in 2025 anwr could be generating about a million barrels of oil a day.
This is a lot of fuel, but it dwindles next to our energy requirements. By 2025, according to the Department of Energy, Americans will be consuming almost thirty million barrels a day. With luck, an anwr oil field operating at full capacity could satisfy perhaps three or four per cent of that total, meaning that most of the oil we use would still have to be imported.
We don't need it so bad that we could do research to do away with burning it up just to move around. We will always need oil, but we don't need to waste it the way we do today - and pollute heavily in the process.
Rightly so. A short-term increase in the amount of oil available does nothing to solve the problem.
This is a false argument. The same people who complain that the gov't does nothing to get off of oil dependency, don't support it when the government takes steps to secure themselves to that same dependency. There is no discrepancy in these two arguments.
You are assuming that the proper solution is to get more oil, no matter where it comes from; this is false. The correct solution is to stop using it as much as possible.
Close; we want a clean and sustainable environment, at the cost of everything else.
Billions? How many billions?
Say, 400 or so billions? That's how much we've spent in Iraq these last few years.
The change isn't even starting, becuase those who run our society don't want to switch away from oil and certainly aren't spending any money to do so.
More expensive oil = net positive for America. I know you big business types have a hard time understanding this fact, but it is true.
So you are suggesting that we kill off every creature on Earth because oil for our comfort is more important? Are you also suggesting that alternative fuels do not exist?
You want more expensive oil but are you willing to put the pinch on the average American for higher gas prices? You can't tell me you were happy to see gas at around $3.00 or more a gallon. I'm sure you were complaining and wanting the govt to do something to get the price to drop. You can't have your cake and eat it to.
Quote:
You want more expensive oil but are you willing to put the pinch on the average American for higher gas prices? You can't tell me you were happy to see gas at around $3.00 or more a gallon. I'm sure you were complaining and wanting the govt to do something to get the price to drop. You can't have your cake and eat it to.
Actually, I was just fine with 3.00 oil; I sold my car two years ago and now ride bicycles and public tran. to get around.
I'll respond to the rest later...
Cheers
Cycloptichorn
Cycloptichorn wrote:Quote:
You want more expensive oil but are you willing to put the pinch on the average American for higher gas prices? You can't tell me you were happy to see gas at around $3.00 or more a gallon. I'm sure you were complaining and wanting the govt to do something to get the price to drop. You can't have your cake and eat it to.
Actually, I was just fine with 3.00 oil; I sold my car two years ago and now ride bicycles and public tran. to get around.
I'll respond to the rest later...
Cheers
Cycloptichorn
I guess as long as you are comfortable we can disregard the millions of Americans that must use their auto's for transportation to and get to their jobs. These people are bleeding.
In addition being self sufficient or at least being able to cut back on the need for imported energy will help reduce the deficit, borrowing from foreign nations and reduce our balance of payment gap.
In addition it will stop feeding the coffers of nation that hate and would do all the can to destroy the US.
Should we stop there? Of course not. The government should fund in a big way research into alternate forms of energy. Increase cafe standards [gpm] and impose conservation measures. As an example why not require that all new housing [in areas of the nation where appropriate] be solar energy equipped.
Drilling in the US won't make a dent in the amount of oil we use. ANWAR would add how much to the total? Even if the total percentage from US oil reserves added 15-20%, it wouldn't get us off of foreign oil. And it isn't a good long-term solution.
Criminal Inquiries Look at U.S. Oil-Gas Unit
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: December 15, 2006
WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 ?- The Justice Department has begun two criminal investigations into the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, which is already the focus of several inquiries into its collection of royalties for oil and gas produced on federal property.
The new investigations are still in the early stages, said Congressional officials who were briefed this week by Earl E. Devaney, the Interior Department's chief independent investigator.
The investigations are an unexpected development in what has already become a broad examination of the Interior Department's oversight of companies that pump more than $60 billion worth of oil and gas each year from publicly owned land and coastal waters.
One Justice inquiry involves Interior Department officials in Denver who manage the government's fast-growing program to collect "royalties in kind," which are royalties in the form of oil and gas rather than in financial payments, people briefed on the investigation said.
That investigation is being run by the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section, which examines suspected criminal violations by federal employees. The focus of the second investigation is unclear, but it is being conducted by the inspector general with help from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Mr. Devaney, the department's inspector general, is already conducting two other investigations into suspected mismanagement of the minerals agency. And just last week, he issued a scathing criticism of the agency's system for auditing oil and gas royalty payments.
Mr. Devaney is also finishing up an investigation into how the Interior Department signed 1,100 oil and gas leases in the late 1990s that inadvertently permitted companies to avoid up to $10 billion in royalties over the next five years. The errors were made during the Clinton administration, but people briefed on Mr. Devaney's investigation said he had concluded that high-ranking agency officials either knew or should have known about the problem at least two years ago.
Representative Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said Thursday in a statement that Mr. Devaney had briefed his staff.
"The two criminal referrals by the Department of Interior's inspector general to the F.B.I. and Justice Department are proof positive that the conflicts of interest between Bush administration regulators and those they regulate in the oil and gas industry are costing the American taxpayers billions in royalty revenues," Mr. Markey said.
Word of the criminal investigations surfaced just as the Interior Department announced Thursday that five big oil producers had voluntarily renegotiated leases and agreed to not exploit a loophole that could save them hundreds of millions of dollars each.
The leases gave companies an incentive to drill in deepwater in the Gulf of Mexico by letting them skip royalties on millions of barrels of oil and gas. But the leases omitted a standard escape clause that would have required the companies to pay in full if oil prices rose above about $34 a barrel. Interior officials have said the mistake, if left unchanged, could cost the government as much as $10 billion.
The Interior Department said Thursday that it had concluded new deals with BP, ConocoPhillips, Marathon Oil, Royal Dutch Shell and Walter Oil and Gas. Those companies hold about 17 percent of the flawed leases, according to Interior data.
But about 50 other companies have not yet agreed to change their leases. Among them is Chevron, one of the biggest potential beneficiaries of the error. Chevron and several partners could save more than $1 billion in royalties in years to come if the lease language is not changed.
Don Campbell, a spokesman for Chevron, said company executives had met several times with government officials to resolve the matter. Mr. Campbell said his company "put a reasonable offer forward" and would "look forward to further discussions."
The new agreements did little to mollify the Interior Department's Republican and Democratic critics in Congress.
The incoming Democratic chairman and the retiring Republican chairman of the House Government Reform Committee sent a letter to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, suggesting that the leases might never have been valid and that the government might be able to force the companies to pay up.
Officials have provided few details about the new criminal investigations, except to say they are "related" to previous inquiries of the royalty-management program.
Started about six years ago, the royalty-in-kind program has become a multibillion trading program run from Denver. Since President Bush took office, Interior officials and many of the industry's biggest producers have argued that the government should collect as much of its royalties as possible through "in kind" payments because, they say, the accounting is much simpler.
In 2005, the Interior Department collected about $3 billion worth of royalties in oil and gas ?- about a third of the total. The government funnels much of the oil it receives to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but it sells virtually all its natural gas and sends the cash to the Treasury.
Congressional officials briefed this week by Mr. Devaney said he had cautioned that both of the criminal investigations would last several more months. Mr. Devaney said it was possible the investigations would not lead to criminal charges, though he suggested that they should at least lead to disciplinary actions.
Drilling in the US won't make a dent in the amount of oil we use. ANWAR would add how much to the total?
Baldimo wrote:We have been trying to drill in ANWR for years but the greenies won't let the US do it. These are the same people who complain about the war in Iraq being for oil but they lobby hard against the drilling at home.
Fact check:
Quote:The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, on Alaska's North Slope, is the new hope. The Prudhoe Bay oil field, one of the world's biggest reservoirs, is just sixty miles west of the refuge. Surveys carried out by the U.S. Geological Survey suggest that anwr may contain about ten billion barrels of recoverable oil. If this estimate turns out to be reliable, and if exploration starts next year, in 2025 anwr could be generating about a million barrels of oil a day.
This is a lot of fuel, but it dwindles next to our energy requirements. By 2025, according to the Department of Energy, Americans will be consuming almost thirty million barrels a day. With luck, an anwr oil field operating at full capacity could satisfy perhaps three or four per cent of that total, meaning that most of the oil we use would still have to be imported.
Source: The New Yorker
