That's great, Jim. A prodigious rant but, where's the meat? Hurricane Katrina went through the Gulf of Mexico like a portagee through a WestMarine sale. Where's all the oil damage from all those rigs? There wasn't any. I've seen plenty of oil spills and most of them result from carelessness with some from just freak nature. In all of them, the key is having proper equipment available for containment and clean-up.
Nevertheless, an oil spill is NOT the end's of the earth even if it seems like it. In fact, the number one source of pollution in the Gulf is oil. Oil that naturally seeps through the tectonic plates beneath the ocean floor and upwells to the surface. Colonies of bacteria that live off this oil form around the discharge points on the sea bottom and consume it as well. The Valdez incident so popular in myth was aggravated in it's damage by the USCG hindrance of proper clean-up methods, specifically dispersant's. Yet even with a large spill nature has shown an amazing ability to recover, probably because nature herself has created situations where oil is released. I'll not argue that it is no big thing and certainly argue that stringent safety measures must be taken but I'll also argue that you probably have no idea of how many and how safe most oil production is. In the maritime industry we commonly ship hundreds of thousands of tons right by you and pollute no more than that old 2-cycle tied up astern of you.
The Lake Michigan drilling proposed is to be done from on-shore and would be directional drilling out under the lake. The technique is very safe and is a proven technology.
It's actually not up to California or Florida the way it is to Michigan and the Great Lakes states. The waters being drilled in are not state waters in those states, they're controlled by the Feds. They are US territorial waters. The states can squawk but they cannot stop it.
Your last statement does, I guess, make you an eco-Nazi. It is the presumption of eco-arrogance to assume that the citizens of the Gulf regard their waters any less stringently than you do the Great Lakes. And, unlike you, a great many of them make their living from those very waters. They have far more interest in their preservation than the recreational boater does.
I'm with you on conservation but it is something that only works on an individual basis. Once you have a lot of individuals doing it you can make a dent. But when the matter is government imposed, you end up with a cluster fluck of unintended consequences that largely undoes any benefits. The market is the only reliable agent for change. I'd remind you of that Iowa town where they got half the people on the energy-saving light bulbs and energy consumption actually went up. Cheaper energy means more will be used in profligance.
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“Scientists are people who build the Brooklyn Bridge and then buy it.” Wm. F. Buckley, Jr.
CD...I'm gonna take some time to study that as it obviously took you a long time to put together. What I have to say right now though is that you have not responded to the question asked: What energy sources do we have locally that can be sustained for a decade or two (your words) that are anywhere near capable of replacing even 25% of the btu's we get from oil? This means NOW and over he next two decades. 75% of the energy you propose is from nukes which take 20 years to build. This merely reinforces the need for oil reserves over the next 20 years...and the more the better to keep the price as low as possible and our balance of payments down and dollar strong.
Having said that. Your scenario for what 20 years out might look like is worth considering but will require a lot more research on my part. so...I'll take a partial "Sapper Syndrome" on this one for a while!
CD,
I'd respond but have nothing beyond what Cam has already said. And I'll accept that your proposal is an admission that we cannot do anything else other than drill to realistically meet our needs for the short-term future.
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“Scientists are people who build the Brooklyn Bridge and then buy it.” Wm. F. Buckley, Jr.
You can run an electric car on cow sh.t... Still looking for oil?
Get biodiesel from frying oil...
I'm seriously thinking about converting the traditional diesel engine of the boat I'd get into biodiesel... Every port has a restaurant, every restaurant has a frying oil to dump... Dine and refill...
It's already weird with the weather... Don't f it up more...
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" I refuse to engage in an intellectual battle with an unarmed man!"
Materialism: Buying the things we don't need, with money we don't have, to impress people who don't matter.
CD,
I'd respond but have nothing beyond what Cam has already said. And I'll accept that your proposal is an admission that we cannot do anything else other than drill to realistically meet our needs for the short-term future.
OHHHH NOOO YOU DONT!
Your turn now, Baby!
By the way, my little excercise removed over 10% of our drill necessity. I guess you can take the rest out in ethanol on cars. Luckily, my truck runs on pure ethanol.
But Sway, it is put up or shut up time. I have done my part, your turn.
Show me where we can drill here and replace 25% of our foreign dependence for 20 years. Go back and read the challenge. It is what you have given me, now your turn.
I will anxiously await.
- CD
PS I Do NOT accept the Easter Bunny as a source. I WILL accept Santa Clause, but his address must be in the continental USA - not Saudia Arabia, Venezuela, or other country. However, if you can talk Val into agreeing to hand over Canada, maybe Santa Clause can help you from there. Cause without his help... good luck.
Your turn, Buddy.
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Sailnet Adminstrator & Moderator (at large soon)!!
Show me where we can drill here and replace 25% of our foreign dependence for 20 years. Go back and read the challenge. It is what you have given me, now your turn.
.
Gull Island off prudhoe bay, 200 yr surplus...........so they say
__________________ 1978 Tayana 37
Mother Nature, in whose lap we sit and who sustains us, sometimes eats her young
Answer one single question. What energy sources do we have locally that can be sustained for a decade or two (your words) that are anywhere near capable of replacing even 25% of the btu's we get from oil? I'll wait.[/quote]
OH YES I AM!
You have failed tio answer the question, in the least sense. None of your researched methods of alternative energy are any more capable of being on line, in anywhere near the quantities needed to replace even 5% of our energy neeeded, let alone 25%, within the teny years frequently mentioned. Take a gander at how long it takes to get a nuke permit-just for starters. contrast that with the FACT that we could start drilling in ANWR this winter. You can't get a wind farm off Hyannisport this decade. And I've seen no data on one, how you're going to acquire enough land to mount all those solar cells in the American SW or two, how fast you can build the electrical grid to carry that power to where it's needed, the midwest and northern US.
There'll be an interstate highway from San Diego to Honolulu before your plan can be implemented.
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“Scientists are people who build the Brooklyn Bridge and then buy it.” Wm. F. Buckley, Jr.
Hey CD...go to the solar and wind thread and check out the latest from Nano Solar. Even though you have failed to answer Sway (despite a good effort) the Nano stuff should give you hope for the future!
While I'm beating my CD blow-up doll about the head and shoulders I thought to remention a point I believe I made earlier. The actual delivery of the oil can indeed be ten years away and still affect prices today. The run-up we're seeing today is based primarily in the futures market. Current oil traders look at the futures market and bid up the price of oil today knowing that they'll pay more to buy later. Larry Kudlow explains it a lot better and here's a quote from his blog at, yes CD, National Review:
Understanding “Speculators” [Larry Kudlow]
The stock market plunged 170 points this morning and oil jumped over $3, allegedly based on a New York Times story that Israel is carrying out military exercises as a rehearsal to bombing Iran. But actually, the Times story, written by the very able war correspondent Michael R. Gordon, is talking about Israeli training exercises from early June, not now. It’s a rehash story with some new details. And it does in fact confirm the market rumors of June 5 and 6 that Israel was planning an Iranian attack to stop the rogue state’s nuclear-weapons program.
Recall that oil jumped almost $15 on Thursday, June 5, and Friday, June 6, largely in response to Middle East war worries. In fact, on Friday, June 6, stocks plunged 400 points as oil jumped $11 to close at its peak price of $140 a barrel. It was this oil spike that helped trigger various Washington and presidential-campaign attacks on so-called oil “speculators.” But what the heck? Anybody with half a brain operating in the oil markets who thought there was going to be an Israeli-Iranian war would be buying spot and futures contracts — which is exactly what happened.
So far as I know, there is no new news coming out of Israel. Today’s Times story is a look backwards.
But I want to make a separate point. Oil-market traders react rationally to new information. Instead of blaming them, senators McCain and Lieberman might want to visit with some traders on some of the big Wall Street trading floors to better understand the relationship between global news and price discovery.
There’s something more here. Democrats reading from their talking points are completely opposed to Bush and McCain proposals to open up new oil drilling offshore and onshore. The Democratic argument — which I heard again last night on my show from Robert Reich — is that it will take ten years to lift new oil, which will never help today’s price problem. Obama says exactly the same thing, as do Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and all the rest. But they’re forgetting the role of oil traders.
Oil futures markets have contracts that run out five years and beyond. If these traders — or “speculators” — believe new oil supplies are on the way in the future, they will sell those out-year contracts. And before long market arbitragers will backward-ize those price drops toward the spot market, bringing prices down there as well.
In other words, trader/speculators can be very handy instruments of energy (and economic) policies. If demand exceeds supply they are buyers. But a prospective future supply increase makes them sellers. In a free market prices move both ways. And if Sen. McCain would take the time to learn this he could respond accordingly to Obama’s silly criticism that we shouldn’t drill because it will “take too long.”
This is all part of the key point that McCain can turn record energy prices to his political advantage, as polls now show 65 percent, or two-thirds, of the public favors drilling. But to do this the whole GOP must understand the role of oil traders and their speculations
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“Scientists are people who build the Brooklyn Bridge and then buy it.” Wm. F. Buckley, Jr.
