Alternative energy is fine, but right now, the solution is nuclear power, although I have a long term hope for/belief in solar. Wind power, while perhaps the most cost effective renewable, requires an enormous amount of land and an expensive new infrastructure to transport it. And it’s environmental laws passed 35 years ago, and NIMBY inertia, that opposes new, more effecient, nuclear plants.
The vast majority of petrochemicals are used in industrial products or fuel sources. To replace gasoline you’ll have to dramatically increase the amount of electricity available, when the current capacity of the US electrical generation has nearly been reached. Literally the only way to do this is to build a considerable number of power plants, and the only way to make this energy “clean” is nuclear.
All talk about alternative energy sources ect., vastly ignore the scale that is required. Even Germany (according to Wiki) produces only 6% of it’s electricty via wind.
If you want more energy, today, you want more Hydrocarbon sources, or Nuclear power. Everything else is on the fringe. If you want more energy tomorrow, solar is probably the only feasible technolgy that combines efficient land use with reasonable costs.
Not really. Yes, you’re right that w need to do a lot. That said, windpower is a very quickly growing technology. Even 6% is a far greater impact than offshore drilling or ANWR.
How is it a greater impact though? It’s apples and oranges. Electricy =/ petroleum.
I’m pretty puzzled by the willingness to explore alternative energy sources without exploiting the ones you already have. I suppose implicit is the assumption that we will not adjust our energy patterns unless forced. I see little justification for not drilling offshore except for some vague environmental threat which may or may not occur. Which, again, is a NIMBY issue.
If one decides, for example, to ban oil imports at the same time your banning offshore drilling, i’d at least give such a person credit for being consistent. Outsourcing production is, quite probably, the no. 1 source of pollution today.
It’s not a NIMBY issue, it’s that it’s going to do jack and shit about our energy problems or national security. What is going to do is help a few oil companies bottom lines, especially when they buy the rights at firesale prices. So why open it up? So we can be fucked from both ends?
It isn’t that. I haven’t said that I’m not willing to consider offshore oil drilling and ANWR.
It’s just that after considering them it is clear that they are nowhere near a solution. We need solutions that will increase energy production (or decrease consumption) by 2x+. Not something that is a <1%.
Offshore drilling is a nice conversation for some congressional subcommittee. It isn’t worthy of national debate. The only reason why it is taking up so much of our attention is that it’s a nice wedge issue for conservatives.
So you don’t think 85 billion barrels of oil would matter on an industrial scale? I think you’re mistaken.
I agree that offshore drilling is not a major source of energy but i disagree that it isn’t worthy of national debate; it reflects upon the outlooks of some that, in the midst of an energy crises, they refuse to increase their production of energy, because they dislike how it’s produced. Despite the fact they aren’t really trying very hard to change their lifestyles, and simply want a whole scale industrial revolution on how energy is produced, used, and stored. Offshore drilling should just be approved and the real energy issues addressed. That it is not is clearly an example of NIMBY.
Napkin math tells me 85 billion barrels, at 25% royalty, could pay for more than 20% of the national debt.
Just offhand, if you want to solve virtually all of the worlds problems, reduce the population of the earth to around 1b. The faster the population grows, the more exacerbated the effect of every joule of energy extracted or every piece of trash cast aside.
I think you’re kidding yourself if you don’t think offshore drilling is a NIMBY issue. We’ve been doing offshore drilling on the gulf coast for decades with minimal environmental impacts. Meanwhile, none of you have addressed my question about whether your “environmental” concerns cover the impact coal extraction and shale oil. That’s because you don’t live in those places. Classic NIMBY.
As for wind, that’s another NIMBY scenario. I saw an interview with the head of Shell who said that the technology is such that with a few decades of investment up to 20% of US electricity needs could be met by wind turbines. Shell wants to build wind turbine farms, but is facing endless NIMBY and environmental obstacles that are greatly slowing their efforts.
The reality is that no matter what system of energy production you talk about there are environmental consequences.
I think it clearly won’t solve our energy problem. So when we’re talking about our energy problems, I don’t think it’s worthy of being our #1 topic of discussion (as it has been these past few months).
I think that a lot of people are conflating the two problems and pretending that offshore oil is related to gas pump prices in a way that it isn’t. The only reason why the issue is being raised at the national level is because of this confusion. It’s gas pump prices that people are worried about, not the deficit. The deficit is a concern as well – I wish people would talk about it more. But let’s not pretend that this conversation is about something other than gas prices, because it isn’t.
I agree that offshore drilling is not a major source of energy but i disagree that it isn’t worthy of national debate; it reflects upon the outlooks of some that, in the midst of an energy crises, they refuse to increase their production of energy, because they dislike how it’s produced.
I agree that offshore drilling reveals a lot of people’s mindsets. For example I think that, as an issue currently under national debate, it reveals that conservatives politicians have a consistent strategy of raising small wedge issues to obfuscate larger problems that need larger solutions. Offshore drilling is certainly worth consideration. I’m not opposed to state’s getting to decide if we can make sure that states will get most of the money and that pollution will be avoided wherever possible. I’m just not that interested in spending so much time talking about something that won’t fix our larger problems.
That’s fair but it isn’t conservatives, ironically, that are holding things up. That Democratic politicians are allowing this to remain in the public view by not simply approving it, is, again, classic NIMBY.
Don’t mistake me for a conservative, but refusing to go ahead on, and making an issue out of, what is otherwise basic industrial policy, doesn’t make sense economically, although i’m sure it appeals to certain populations, but it does leave Democrats vulnerable and appear to be contradictory in the fall. But this isn’t a major plot, but basic politics. Republicans want it = Democrats don’t want it. But even … er. No comment about the Autobahn :).
P.S. most of those 85 billion barrels are already accessible. It’s only part of our cost that is currently unavailable for offshore drilling and even in a lot of those areas there is drilling going on through grandfathered leases. We’re only looking at opening up a fraction of that (from stuff I’ve read it’s like 25%). Also, offshore oil drilling is expensive, especially if we’re going to get all of that 85 billion. So don’t leave that out of your napkin calculation.
Re: Napkin math. Cost doesn’t matter with royalty interest. If you produce 100 barrels, the government gets 25. It doesn’t matter what it costs you, the producer, to extract that 100. I don’t know off the top of my head what the Feds get offshore, but i’m sure it’s around 25%.
Oops, almost forget. China is already drilling off the coast of Cuba, in some cases almost literally on the dividing line. Yet the environmental threat of offshore drilling hasn’t caused an uproar of protest from this activity.
It’s both sides. What we’re looking at is a smaller (in the global context) windfall of oil versus a smaller environmental/tourism issue. Where I hold the Republicans responsible is for misrepresenting their side of the issue by pretending that offshore oil reserves will impact pump prices when that isn’t really the case. Thus they inflate the issue. Democrats are left wanting to defend their valid environmental concerns but can’t do so in a realistic context. I.e. instead of arguing about the actual terms of the issue they end up arguing a small environmental issue versus the entire energy crisis.
It matters with respect to what realistic royalties are. 85 million barrels is the theoretical maximum yield but clearly as we try to squeeze out more it will get progressively more expensive. I don’t know what we’re getting, nor did Google answer that, but my guess is that it’s well under 25%.
Also, from some sources I’ve read, oil companies aren’t even using all 68 million acres of offshore drilling acreage that is already available to them under the current moratorium.
Would the current proposal force them to start drilling as soon as possible? If I were an oil company, I’d lease the land, then I’d sit on it. It’ll be worth even more later.
Well, start to nitpick the number, and i’m sure you’ll find it smaller. It is, after all, completely estimated. But 25% royalty always means 25% of oil at the wellhead, not at the point of sale.
So your sole opposition to off shore drilling is because you don’t think it will have an impact on supply? Or do the environmental risks factor into that? If the environmental impacts factor in, it’s partly a NIMBY situation.
NIMBY implies that people will be directly effected by it. How about NIABY – Not In Anyone’s Backyard. I don’t live anywhere near Alaska or drillable coastline, but I’m still not enthused about drilling in those places. The environmental impact is a secondary factor for me, with the much larger points being that it fails to address the actual problem in a meaningful way and its effect on supply will be minimal, and won’t be felt for years. But given those two things, I’m opposed to what I see as unnecessary molestation of the environment.
