“Wrong. ANWR (learn to spell it before pretending to be an expert on it) has only 16 billion barrels in it. We import 5 billion a year, so it would replace foreign oil for a very limited period. And once we burn off ANWR, then what? It’s like eating your basement emergency rations just to keep the status quo going a little longer rather than changing the situation (like getting a job or switching fuels).”

I don’t know where you got your information, but for the most part, it has been reported that ANWR & North Slope of Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay have more crude and nat. gas than all the rest of the world’s known reserves combined. Also, checking the U.S.G.S. reports, it has been reported that other formations, e.g. Bakken and the Rockie Mts. have more than 8 times the crude and nat. gas than Saudi Arabia.

Even if ANWR has limited supplies, it would be foolish to ignore the value of utilizing this resource now, especially when our economy is in the toilet.

WASHINGTON, December 8, 2008 – The development of America’s vast domestic oil and natural gas resources that had been kept off-limits by Congress for decades could generate more than $1.7 trillion in government revenue, create thousands of new jobs and enhance the nation’s energy security by significantly boosting domestic production, a study released Monday shows.

The ICF International study, commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute (API), shows that developing the offshore areas that had been subject to Congressional moratoria until recently, as well as the resources in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and a small portion of currently unavailable federal lands in the Rockies, would lift U.S. crude oil production by as much as 2 million barrels per day in 2030, offsetting nearly a fifth of the nation’s imports. Natural gas production could increase by 5.34 billion cubic feet per day, or the equivalent of 61 percent of the expected natural gas imports in 2030.

The study also estimates that the development of all U.S. oil and natural gas resources on federal lands could exceed $4 trillion over the life of the resources.

Albert Einstein said, the definition of insanity…“doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

I hope someone begins to listen to wisdom soon as we have very little time to figure out how to live without food and electricity. If we shut down our power sources by taxing them into oblivion, further breaking the back of what industry we have left, and by using up our food supply for producing alcohol fuels for power and transportation, we won’t be able to survive much longer as a nation.

There comes a time when ideology and extremism becomes impractical and counterproductive. This is one of those times.

So what?

I’d rather agribusiness and some Midwestern corn farmers get rich from our fuel purchasing dollars than the Iranian nuclear program, Chavez-ite narco-Marxists, and a vast array of assorted Islamist terrorists.

Our ethanol subsidies and tax breaks total less than $10 billion. And conservatives and “free market” types (especially those who take oil money) go into hysterics.

Meanwhile OPEC, a cartel of socialist klepto-tyrannies, restricts production below market demand by state fiat in order to artificially drive up the price in a huge viciously regressive tax on the productive, humane, and free portions of the world to the tune of trillions.

And the same conservatives yawn.

“And what has that gotten us? Nothing more than higher corn prices that drive a cut-back in the amount of other crops grown.”

WRONG. Factually false.

As ethanol corn production has risen, “food corn” production has NOT fallen but risen as well, as have other staple crops.

Only a minority of US farmland is under cultivation so there is tremendous unused capacity.

Ethanol corn has the starch taken out to make fuel, but the vitamins, minerals, and protein are retained to make animal feed for meat livestock. So it ends up on our plates anyway and that corn would have been needed to be grown for feed anyway.

Only a small portion of the retail price of a box of corn flakes comes from the corn, a huge portion comes from energy. By helping reduce petroleum demand, ethanol helps LOWER food prices.

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/in-defense-of-biofuels

Finally, everyone forgets about methanol with an M, which can be made from coal, natural gas, or ANY biomass without exception (TODAY, no further research necessary) such as sewage, trash, or weeds like kudzu.

“It certainly hasn’t gotten us a good alternative fuel.”

Actually alcohol is an EXCELLENT alternative fuel. Unique among alt-fuels, it is “backwards compatible” with the existing legacy fuel (gasoline). No other alt-fuel can say that – if your compressed natural gas, liquid natural gas, diesel, bio-diesel, vegetable oil, hydrogen fuel cell, or hydrogen internal combustion engine car, or electric vehicle runs low on fuel or charge far away from a refueling station that carries your exotic alt-fuel (or a recharge station), you are out of luck.

But a flex-fuel vehicle low on alcohol and far from an alcohol pump can just fill up on gasoline, no problem. That makes the transition easy and painless.

And at $100 FFV tech costs a fraction of what gasoline-electric hybrid tech does (thousands).

Alcohol burns clean, can’t cause Exxon Valdez style disasters, and because its resource base is so wide, can’t have its market “cornered” by an OPEC-like entity so the price will be permanently reasonable.

“Why not let the market develop its own solution?”

Because OPEC controls the market, genius. They have the by far deepest, cheapest, and easiest to extract oil reserves of anyone with an enormous and decisive portion of capacity relative to demand.

We have a huge chicken-and-egg dilemma. Nobody demands alternate fuel capacity in their cars because they see no gas stations with alternate fuel. Gas stations won’t provide that fuel in part because there are so few cars that can use it and thus few potential customers.

We could wait decades for the market to resolve this as it did the cell phone vs. cell phone tower chicken-and-egg dilemma but we are at WAR and Captain Market in dis cape and tights has not yet rescued us.

We ordered Ford to make tanks in WW2; this is a much smaller deal. The total cost is less than what we spent on foreign oil in 5 hours in 2008.

“The most blatant dysfunction of cap-n-tax as a way to lessen dependency on foreign oil is that it takes coal liquification a la Fishcer-Tropsch and shale oil off the table.”

All that is far more expensive than Saudi oil, which is the easiest and cheapest on Earth to extract. You can’t beat OPEC at its own game; you have to play a different one instead.

“If this administration were sincere in their claim to want to reduce oil imports, they’d immediately lift the ban on offshore drilling and allow production on ANWAR.”

Wrong. ANWR (learn to spell it before pretending to be an expert on it) has only 16 billion barrels in it. We import 5 billion a year, so it would replace foreign oil for a very limited period. And once we burn off ANWR, then what? It’s like eating your basement emergency rations just to keep the status quo going a little longer rather than changing the situation (like getting a job or switching fuels).

The Mideast has 70% of the world’s oil reserves and we have only 4%. If we do nothing, by 2020 we’ll have 1% of what’s left and they’ll have over 80%. And that’s WITHOUT burning off our ANWR and offshore reserves; if we tapped those we’d have even less.

This is a rigged game and we have to break out. The solution is alcohol fuel.

Wrong. Once we burn our reserves off they are gone forever, and our reserves are much shallower than OPEC’s. They can outlast us and then we will be in an even worse fix.

“Whether it be hydrogen power some other alternative fuel.”

Hydrogen is a hoax.

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-hydrogen-hoax

I note that its most prominent recent advocate, former Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, is now a registered paid agent of the Saudi government.

“We have the oportunity to develop wind, solar and nuclear energy that would be both clean and cheap.”

Did you read the article you’re responding to? Again, we’re already 97% oil-free when it comes to electricity. The pressing need is in tcansportation fuel, where 95%+ of cars are gasoline-only.

The solution is flex fuel cars and switching to alcohol fuel.

http://www.stoptheaclu.com/archives/2008/11/02/shocking-audio-obama-promises-to-bankrupt-coal-industry/

Good going, guys! Hope you enjoy your messiah while you freeze in the dark.

http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2009/04/taxed-into-great-beyond.html

When the value is substantial, and the ratepayer is ready to act, they can request a voucher to be used for approved energy friendly projects:
–energy efficient improvements on their home, insulation, caulking, new Energy Star rated appliances, etc.
–installation of home alternative energy projects like solar, wind, and hydro, and the electrical storage and metering to sell back excess power to the power company
–purchases of low-intensive-fuel transportation like public transport (instead of driving oneself), bikes, motorcycles, scooters, econobox cars, and hybrid sedans and SUV’s, electric vehicles, etc. Imagine buying a car with a voucher to pay for it! You’d do that instead of ponying up tens of thousands of dollars to finance a gas guzzler, now wouldn’t you?!

This would change behavior massively and rapidly and be the green revolution. If everyone was producing excess power at home and selling it back to the power company, there would be no need for coal or nukes.

Cap and trade is a greedy government tax scheme by comparison, that doesn’t result in any change benefitting the environment.

In the short run, there could be a 100% tax credit for installing home energy projects. Those are expensive, but your wealthier early adopters would be all over it and start the ball rolling. Of course, half the population doesn’t pay taxes so this wouldn’t benefit them, which is why the voucher rebate scheme is for all ratepayers and not just taxpayers…everyone has an electric bill.

I don’t believe in any of these schemes BTW, but the divident/rebate/voucher proposal flushes out the real motives of the cap and traders.

The voucher rebate plan is doable–the government did so well with the digital TV coupons. coff coff

BTW I live in coal country and there’s mines shutting down, permitting has stopped, and our rates have already jumped, I believe due to coal scarcity. The coal operators and power company people fully expect cap and trade and said the cost would be passed on to the consumer and their friends on the utility commissions are on board with this.

You don’t see nearly as many coal trucks/trains out there any more.

John Galt has left the building.

You are wrong about three mile island. Sure no one got hurt, no radiation released etc. but we did learn that Carter did not know how to pronounce “Nuclear” and looked like crap in an environmental hazard suite. You overlook the important stuff.

Anyhow liberals have this crazy idea that corporations pay taxes. They don’t. They only collect them.