Some simple logic. We need crude oil and will continue to need it for the foreseeable future. We are currently importing crude oil and paying other countries for it. We are also the owner of proven crude oil reserves. The infrastucture and labor necessary to bring those reserves to market will generate millions of dollars in sales and wages (if not billions), and that's even if all we do is stick it in the Strategic Oil Reserve. And we will be reducing the amount we pay out for foreign crude supplies.
Jobs, revenue, and a reduced trade deficit. Seems like a no-brainer to me.
Your argument that it isn't a long term solution is like saying 0% of everything is better than 20% of something.
I am sorry John, I rarely do this but I am going to break your argument down. It is not mean to irritate but to make the point.
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Originally Posted by PBzeer
Some simple logic. We need crude oil and will continue to need it for the foreseeable future.
Especially if we make no attempts to get off of it.
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Originally Posted by PBzeer
We are currently importing crude oil and paying other countries for it.
And always will if we do not find another solution.
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Originally Posted by PBzeer
We are also the owner of proven crude oil reserves.
I would buy that argument if we were anywhere near being able to supply ourselves with whqat we have. Not even on the highest, most improbably scenarios can we even come close to supporting ourselves.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PBzeer
The infrastucture and labor necessary to bring those reserves to market will generate millions of dollars in sales and wages (if not billions), and that's even if all we do is stick it in the Strategic Oil Reserve.
The infrastructure and labor necessary to bring renewable energy sources to the market will generate hundreds of billions in sales and wages too. No difference from that persepctive. THe difference is that one runs out and has no chance of ever supplying us long term, one doesn't run out and has the potential to supply us long term.
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Originally Posted by PBzeer
Jobs, revenue, and a reduced trade deficit. Seems like a no-brainer to me.
Me too - if we can keep it going. Why throw good money after bad??
- CD
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You miss the salient point CD. Oil is here and now. Renewable is, to this point a pipe dream. Allowing drilling in no way HAS to reduce or otherwise impact the search for renewable resources. Rather than costing the taxpayers money, as the highly subsidized plans for renewables does, it generates revenue.
70% of our oil usage is for transportation. That includes the trucks, trains and airplanes that carry the goods and supplies we need. As I asked Rick, how long do you think the Florida citrus industry would last if they didn't have a timely way to ship their products? Or what would the people of Vermont do for fresh food?
One doesn't have to be against finding renewable energy sources while advocating making use of what we currently have. Basing your future on a hope and a prayer though is just what you're saying.
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I am sorry CD, I rarely do this but I am going to break your argument down. It is not mean to irritate but to make the point.
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Originally Posted by Cruisingdad
Especially if we make no attempts to get off of it.
It is not our job to get rid of it. The economics will eventually take care of it when there is something more economical that does not exist today.
And always will if we do not find another solution.
Not true..."always" assumes an unlimited supply. If there WERE an unlimited supply we would not need another solution. Of course if another CHEAPER solution appeared, it would not matter whether we had oil to burn or not. There is plenty of incentive to supply the world with cheaper energy.
I would buy that argument if we were anywhere near being able to supply ourselves with whqat we have. Not even on the highest, most improbably scenarios can we even come close to supporting ourselves.
They said we would be OUT of ALL oil by 1990. I suggest that improbable scenarios do come true. In any case...if we can keep 10% of our oil dollars or 25% of our oil dollars in this country and creating US jobs and NOT tilting the balance of payments while other technologies come to maturity that is a good thing. Better than sending it to the Arabs and Chavez...and better than letting them control our foreign policy options like Putin is doing to Europe right now.
The infrastructure and labor necessary to bring renewable energy sources to the market will generate hundreds of billions in sales and wages too. No difference from that persepctive. THe difference is that one runs out and has no chance of ever supplying us long term, one doesn't run out and has the potential to supply us long term.
Great...LET THEM...APPLAUD THEM. The difference is that they can't do it profitably even when competing against $4 a gallon gasoline. So they want MY money to make up the difference...all while blocking the only technologies that CAN power our country profitably and economically today without requiring my $$ and indeed while PAYING into the Treasury. Nukes and Oil and Coal and Gas.
Me too - if we can keep it going. Why throw good money after bad??
No one is asking taxpayers to throw ANY money into the pot EXCEPT the industries that cannot compete on the world stage. THAT is throwing good money after bad...just like ethanol.
- CD
Sorry CD...your arguments just don't hold water. There IS nothing that can replace oil etc. currently. If there is to be something else that works...it will certainly take time to develop AND it may NEVER develop. In the meantime..we need to allow what DOES work today develop further in the interest of our country and our economy. Nukes and oil and gas and coal.
And none of these need any taxpayer subsidies...just permission and an end to obstructionism.
Cd, I could go item by item over the current state of just about every alternative energy source giving you good bad and ugly, but let me just say this is one of those great ideas that turns into a poor reality. And this is why.
1st, All the states that produce corn are going to fight for ethanol to be included, all the states that raise animals for consumtion or dairy cattle are going to fight like hell to exclude it.
2nd, All the states with lots of nuclear will fight real hard to have it included, Nuclear is pretty much developed you say, doesn't matter, we're talking major pork here.
3rd, The most out there, but reasonable ideas that probably would lead to some thing useful will be excluded while the crazy useless one will find there way in.
4th, You'd spend months just trying to get this though congress, it would come out the other side with all kinds of other regulations or other give-aways that had nothing to do with energy and doubled the cost.
5th, Unless you really are just planning to shovel out the dough with no intention of accountability then a quarter to a third of the money would have to go to enforcing and auditing whats being done with the rest.
6th, All this money going into the feds faves, would have a crippling effect on anything not funded, or anyone not able to meet the requirements of the fed. This would keep the real alternatives stuck in low gear so to speak, for years or decades to come.
A comparable story would be when we want a machine that would mimic the electromagnetic pulse given off by a nuclear bomb. Both us and russia we're stuck by a little piece of plastic. We needed a insulating material with property no one had ever seen before. Russia put five of they're top science teams on it. None where able to crack it.
Back home we bid it out. Detailed the specification and all and sent it off to the top research companies as well as posted it to the public. Fully expecting one of the majors like Dow, 3M or Bell labs to find the solution for us. A bit of a suprise when a small chemical company in Nebraska showed up with it. To add insult to injury, turns out the owner of the company had questionable qualifications as to whether he was even a chemist. Dosn't matter though. He got the job and we started testing all are army equiptment. Not the russians though, at least not untill EP generators had become fairly comon in American universities.
As to the current bailouts of the banking world. I believe if you look up how many negative responses your adverage representative got, you wouldn't think they'd keep trying this game. In the meantime, it remains to be seen if that bailout really helped us.
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I am sorry CD, I rarely do this but I am going to break your argument down. It is not mean (sic) to irritate but to make the point. (g)
Nothin' brings 'em in off the bench like proposing the old socialist solution, eh, CD? I'm feelin' your pain all the way up here in wintery old Michigan. Just between us; you ain't talkin' this commie pinko stuff down to the IHOP are you? You are still in Texas, correct?
Most of the salient points have been made and, hopefully, this time you're getting them through the better efforts of the above authors. I would reiterate Cam's point that we should let the leases on federal lands now, while oil is cheap, so that Big Oil can pull the trigger when the time is ripe. Elsewise, we'll have even longer gas lines next time while the Congress dithers. Might not be a bad time to throw up a couple of nukes as well.
The bottom line to alternative energies, especially the popular "renewables", is that, if they made sense-economic sense-somebody would be doing them absent government subsidy. Imagine if we had the money back that we've spent in a quarter century of subsidizing ethanol?
Now here's the irony. People, well meaning people, of your particular vision have been in favor, for decades, of supporting...that is, subsidizing, what they want to work while ignoring what we already know does work. How else can you explain that we do not derive 80% of our electricity from nuclear and the remaining from hydroelectric? Hey, forget the science for a moment or even the economics. We import electricity, great big gobs of electricity, from Canada! What's up with that? I don't know about you but, I find that pretty embarrassing. For one, it's not like they've got Alberta covered in solar panels and, for another, we're talking about a country whose only claim to competition with the internal combustion engine began and ended with the sled-dog. That just ain't right!
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Not sure where to put this, but this seemed the best place.
So now that Obama is running the show, he needs to appear environmentally friendly. So, comes Canada. Apparently, the oil fields in Canada do not meet with his eco-stance. THere is talk about not buying from them or puting a tarrif on oil taken from Canada in this way.
You know,that has to make you laugh. Why? Because all Canada is going to do is sell that oil on the open market. SO, it is just going to go through someone else. It would not surprise me to see someone else buy it and turn around and sell it to the US (indirectly). The point is that it is still going to be used.
Dumb. That is not the answser, but I guess it makes some people happy. Maybe I will even get that once in a lifetime Sailaway21 agreement here!!???
- CD
__________________ Sailnet's best looking and smartest EX-Moderator!!!!
Yeah, you get a Sway endorsement on that one and it is gratifying in the extreme that to see your new found respect for the fungibility of oil. I'd only add that it has now been over a year wasted on that unrealistic ten or fifteen years it was going to take to start pumping our own oil. It'll always be ten years off, if we never give approval to do it.
With prices so low, maybe this would be a good time to "stimulate" the moribund domestic oil industry and re-stock the strategic petroleum reserve. We're stimulating the construction of nature trails, maybe each one could have an oil derrick alongside of it!
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