Pajamas Media

49 Comments

Clifford J. Wirth:

The use of military power to obtain oil will have limited success, and it would only push back terminal depletion a few years. We are running out of oil, and there are no real alternatives, according to the best scientific and independent government studies, reviewed in this 50 page free downloadable report: http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html

Jun 24, 2008 - 6:47 am Justus Allens:

Is that really a good idea - to invade KSA too? Of course it isn’t far to go for the troops who are stationed just across the border. Indeed, I think you’ll agree one objective of the Iraqi invasion was to position a permanent force in the region for geostrategic reasons, specifically to oversee oil production and supplies.

But is control of Middle East oil supplies a real solution, even for the next few years, let alone decades? KSA ain’t Mexico and its takes a long time for a tanker to reach US refineries. And, as I’m sure you know, even the Saudis don’t have unlimited capacity. Besides Ghawar and Safaniya have almost had their day.

The big dilemma for US supplies appears to be waning exports of conventional oil from Venezuela, Canada and Mexico. And no militarism can solve Cantarell’s decline. Maybe Americans should consider how Europeans, on average, derive a higher standard of living from less than half the fossil fuels per capita. Energy consumption fell by over 5% in Germany and Denmark last year, not due to a lack of supply, but rather conscious personal choices and federal policies.

Could there be a better approach to tackling the matter?

Jun 24, 2008 - 6:49 am GoodTower:

Well I don’t know how much trust to put in a reporter who could write “In a famous historic deal struck just after World War II on an American destroyer” since I know that Roosevelt died before the end of the war.

Jun 24, 2008 - 7:19 am Kay:

ALL HAIL THE(our) KING!

Why our government is obsessed with having the likes of Saudi Arabia and China run our economy is beyond me. And someone please smack McCain in the back of the head to support drilling in ANWAR. We have more oil then Saudi Arabia. Even the current polls has the environment in single-digit % points with drilling domestically around 70%. The ineptitude of government on every single issue is blisteringly painful. The solutions are stone-axe simple. If our founding fathers have seen what our government has become, they never would of bothered to fight for it in the first place.

Jun 24, 2008 - 8:01 am Tonto (USA):

Cut off their food….or price it so high that we can pay off the national debt, fix social security and pay to ship all the illegals back home in one year.

Jun 24, 2008 - 8:03 am freetoken:

There are several absurdities in this piece by Mr. Ibrahim. One example: “The country sits atop the world’s largest proven reserves of oil, conservatively estimated at 500 billion barrels.” First of all, tell us how you came up with that number. Secondly, what do you mean by “conservatively” as any lexicon will likely provide a different meaning of that word than how Mr. Ibrahim has used it here.

There are several good commentators on oil out there on the net (and quite a few poor ones) - I wish PJM would find some knowledgeable people to write clear explanations for the readers, with references to actual data sources, rather than offer up hearsay or absurdities.

Jun 24, 2008 - 8:08 am Kay:

I thought the current figure was around 280B barrels myself

Jun 24, 2008 - 8:58 am Lynn:

I am almost but not quite speechless. Since everyone is entitled to my opinion: Your piece is silly and now I am beginning to understand why neo-libs are catching the bus to ?. Well I’m not sure where they’re going, but it’s such a pretty bus.

Jun 24, 2008 - 9:00 am Daedalus:

Unfortunately we need a total comprehensive energy plan, not the bits and pieces being offered. Yes, we need to drill both in ANWR and offshore. We need nuclear power plants, lots more of them, and yes, we need a crash program on renewable resources including wind, solar, wave action, geothermal, hydrogen powered cars, and whatever else the genius of American technology can dream up. To not do so is to permanently cripple our economy.

As for carbon cap and trade - whoever dreamed up this Rube Goldberg nightmare needs to go back to school - It is obvious they have no understanding of economics 101. When two of the largest economies in the world (China & India), laugh at us and say they will not engage in economic suicide, we continue to march on the plank by ourselves, intent on crippling our economy on the alter build by eco-freaks who have no real understanding of our economy or the consequences of their actions.

Those who oppose any more drilling reference the Union Oil Platform A blow-out off shore of Santa Barbara in 1969, and the Exxon Valdez tanker accident in Prince William Sound in 1989. Both of these were man caused events. In the Santa Barbara event, the USGS had given Union Oil permission to operate with reduced safety standards, the platform was more than 3 miles offshore, and did not fall under California’s more stringent standards. The captain of the Exxon Valdez was intoxicated.

Nuclear naysayers scream about Three Mile Island, and Chrenobyl. Three mile Island happened in 1979, and according to the NRC included “…a combination of personnel error, design deficiencies, and component failures….” As for Chernobyl, according to the World Nuclear Association, the accident was. “…the result of a flawed reactor design that was operated with inadequately trained personnel and without proper regard for safety….”

Accidents are not something to mourn, but something to learn from…..The very foundations of our society are built upon the ashes of those who have died, and their deaths have contributed to progress. To deny these deaths and stop progress is to stop society, and live in a time warp, forever in the past. We lost lives when then Titanic sunk, but we learned and made ship travel better. Recently we have lost lives in the space program, but we improved the program and made it safer. To freeze our society with a past mentality is to forever cripple our society and watch us turn into a third world nothing.

Jun 24, 2008 - 9:06 am Kay:

And hasn’t SA just increased production roughly 500k/day barrels over the past few months?

Jun 24, 2008 - 9:09 am Mary Madigan:

I have no objection to the idea invading Saudi Arabia, but the time to do that was immediately after the Saudi-financed and Saudi-organized act of war that was 9/11.

When Bush said “From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.” most people assumed that he was talking about Afghanistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Military action against Saudi Arabia the acknowledged hub of world terrorism has been justified since that point.

However, invading Saudi Arabia for oil would be a complete waste of time. Many experts, including Matthew Simmons, have proved that Saudi Arabia doesn’t have as much oil as they claimed to have. Saudi Arabia’s recent actions prove that they were right.

In the past, the KSA always made an effort to keep the price of oil from going too high, because they knew high prices only provided short term benefits. In the long-term, high prices encourage us to develop alternative sources. They were smart enough to do everything they could to discourage that.

Now, they’re not pumping more oil because they don’t have more to pump. Our estimates of how much oil the KSA has are based on the information the Saudis gave us (gee, have they ever lied before? every time they open their mouths). We never really verified their numbers, because the sponsors of 9/11 are such trusted allies. Sure, they can pump some more oil, but they’re selling their children’s inheritance to do it.

So what should we do with the Saudis? Immediately after 9/11, the CIA were able to severely weaken the Taliban, through a series of well-targeted attacks. We could do the same thing to the KSA. We know our trusted allies so well, we could quietly weaken them enough to control their government without destroying it.

A direct military invasion would destabilize the area, which would make the price of oil go through the roof.

They know that their role as “guarantor” of oil stability is primary reason we tolerate their Islamofascist, terror-supporting regime, so they’ll continue to lie about their reserves. We need to turn our attention away from this dying regime, we need to stop obsessing about the mythical importance of oil from the Middle East. We get most of our energy from the Western Hemisphere, from Canada, Brazil..

Some of these energy sources are renewable. All of these energy sources are free of Wahhabi ties. It’s time we started paying attention to our own backyard.

Jun 24, 2008 - 9:10 am Freddie Funky:

I think is author was close but needed to dig a bit more. Question: Why wont the Saudi’s pump more when oil is high it would be in their obvious interest to do it? The answer isn’t they are stubborn, and it isnt that they hate Bush.. the answer is… They would if they could. - That simple. Who tells you they have 20% overcapacity, and why would you believe they wouldn’t pump out every barrel they could at the historical high? I think the Saudi’s didnt invest enough in their infrastructure to still have that 20% overcapacity. Their remaining oil reserves will take increasing investment to get at, the easiest oil was long ago pumped. So, there is no short term way to dramatically increase oil supply. Maybe you can cut out some speculation, but there is no simple way to dramatically increase the supply on the market.

Jun 24, 2008 - 9:21 am Waraqah:

“This seems an insane scenario now, but maybe not by summer’s end.”

This IS an insane scenario and always will be. An invasion by Western armies of the country that is home to Islam’s Holiest sites would be seen throughout the Muslim world as an attack on Islam. The entire Muslim world would declare jihad and we really would have WWIII on our hands. How can you talk about protecting the economy by an action which will unleash armageddon?

Jun 24, 2008 - 9:27 am Mary Madigan:

An invasion by Western armies of the country that is home to Islam’s Holiest sites would be seen throughout the Muslim world as an attack on Islam.

Due to their history of genocide, their support of al Qaeda-affiliated paramilitary groups world wide and their relentless destruction of Muslim holy places, the Saudis are hated by most of the Muslim world. If anyone incapacitated or destroyed the Sauds while leaving the holy lands intact, the Muslim world, and the world as a whole, would benefit.

Jun 24, 2008 - 9:47 am Lynn:

Daedalus: I lived near Three Mile Island and I would not dismiss what happened there so lightly. There is also the problem of disposing of nuclear waste. What about hydro-electricity? I am not an expert but was thinking that it could be a possibility, since I was reading that only a small percentage of dams are utilized to produce electricity.

Jun 24, 2008 - 10:01 am Tom Holsinger:

We’re already doing it. The Saudis are very worried that oil above a certain price will make coal gasification, oil/tar sands and oil shale in North America economically competitive with pumped oil while being a far, far more reliable and, from a balance of payments perspective, superior source of energy.

The last thing the Saudis want is a free market for energy because that will get them killed. Only the Democratic Party’s adversion to, and imposition of legal obstacles to, domestic and Canadian alternatives to pumped oil has kept that from happening.

So they see the escalating price of oil demolishing the Democratic Party’s obstacles to a free energy market, and are starting to ramp up their own production to avoid the catastrophe they see coming.

But if we really want to scare the Arab oil producers, we need only talk about fairness to their Shiite minorities.

Jun 24, 2008 - 10:46 am randyleepublic:

Bush went to the Saudis to ask for more oil? Ha, that’s a good one! He went to the Saudis to laugh at the stupid American citizens who paid for the military force that put the Saudi’s competition, the Iraqis, out of business. Duh!

Jun 24, 2008 - 11:30 am DrKrbyLuv:

I think “his royal majesty mused about “selfish” speculators, muttering assertions of enough oil out there and far too many Western bottlenecks holding it up” is a fair statement. Oil demand is going up for sure, but not near as fast as the skyrocketing costs.

“Testifying to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Michael Masters of Masters Capital Management said that the price of oil would quickly drop closer to its marginal cost of around $65 to $75 a barrel, about half the current $135.”

The testimony was a damming reference to the speculators, armed with the Enron loop-hole. There is clearly something very wrong here, and it’s not the Saudis. I think we have many “connected” investors and politicians who have been stealing our money under the auspices of oil shortages.

Jun 24, 2008 - 11:42 am John the Libertarian:

I’d rather take Iran’s oil.

Jun 24, 2008 - 12:12 pm Brian:

I thought that high oil prices was capitalism at its best. Isn’t the whole point to make money by selling something that people need at the best possible price?

Jun 24, 2008 - 12:36 pm TomJW:

If I was Saudi Arabian why would I want to use up my natural source of wealth as quickly as possible for a country hoarding the same material for when I run out?

We are responsible for our own energy needs. If people don’t want to drill because the oil won’t be available for 10 years (ANWR), why would anyone think that technologies that don’t exist yet will provide energy sooner?

I’ll go with Daedalus’ plan, go forward on everything. If the oil isn’t needed later, then keep filling the strategic reserve. Oil will always be needed to provide us with plastic products.

Jun 24, 2008 - 12:47 pm Greg:

Erm … I hope this was a piece of satire.

Of course the Saudis are holding back oil. Inelastic commodities are strange, and you can often make more money if you hold them back. Their comments about selfish speculators are all a bunch of George Soros as well, because if you are speculating on an oil price and you get it wrong … you (or the poor sucker who buys the contract off you) stand to lose a lot of money.

I guess the solutions are back to supply and demand.

Increase supplies by drilling for oil in places that aren’t called Saudi Arabia. Also build some nuclear power stations to ease the pressure on electrical generation (yeah I know, it won’t make an immediate difference to today’s oil price … but oil futures?)

And on the demand side, erm …. no, not the energy saving lightbulbs. I guess a few more purchases of some turbo-diesel cars might make a difference.

Hey, why don’t we invade China? (Poor joke).

Jun 24, 2008 - 2:10 pm Kay:

Lynn:

Daedalus: I lived near Three Mile Island and I would not dismiss what happened there so lightly. There is also the problem of disposing of nuclear waste. What about hydro-electricity? I am not an expert but was thinking that it could be a possibility, since I was reading that only a small percentage of dams are utilized to produce electricity.”

And many dams are now in dire condition, and cities have been built below them long after initial construction, adding to massive costs to get them up to spec for a long-term future. A nuclear power plant is a much more viable alternative in all but the most perfect circumstances to justify hydroelectric. Now generating it from tidal flow in the oceans is another story.

Jun 24, 2008 - 3:44 pm Greg:

“Daedalus: I lived near Three Mile Island and I would not dismiss what happened there so lightly.”

Fair enough, but have you read the investigation reports written after the event? It’s used as a case study within the reliability community for how NOT to do things.

e.g.

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf36.htm

What we had here was an accident waiting to happen … and even then it was contained. Some of the root causes:

(1) Poorly designed instrumentation. A parameter must be DIRECTLY measured (e.g. the state of a valve should be measured, rather than determined from a control signal).
(2) Poorly designed control room (e.g. inconsistencies with layout of instrumentation). This exacerbated the fault diagnosis process.
(3) Inadequate emergency response training.

We are not talking about an inherent lack of safety with nuclear power, we are talking about a poorly designed nuclear power plant from nearly 30 years ago.

You may also be interested to know that everyone appears to link to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s fault tree analysis techniques if you enter the search phrase “Fault Tree Handbook” in google.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=fault+tree+handbook

Jun 24, 2008 - 3:44 pm Rightminded:

Holy Cow!
Talk about a diversity of opinions. Man, the MSM would be proud.

1 or 2 posters mention that SA must already be producing at capacity. Instead of postulating on justification for your position, I suggest that you go to the OPEC.org website and read their market analysis (it states that SA and OPEC capacity has increased over the past 4 years, but production has barely increased over the same timeframe.

I believe SA is doing what any company would do: maximize return for the shareholders. The problem is that OPEC supplies about 40% of world production (OPEC.org), and thus acts as a trust, controlling a substantial portion of the market. In the US, a company in this position would be examined for possible anti-trust action.
The funny thing is that we allowed this to happen, by eliminating production in the US (east and west coasts and Alaska).
There is a free market system for oil, but it has been deformed by the production restrictions and the OPEC trust conditions.

Jun 24, 2008 - 3:48 pm Greg:

Lynn - I agree with your comment about the benefits of hydroelectric.

Have to get it past the enviro-wackos first, who hate large scale hydroelectric:

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/climate-change/solutions/hydroelectric

It’s more important to protect ecosystems you see, than it is to provide power to a growing world economy with 6 billion mouths to feed (see how I can turn the guilt ridden rhetoric back onto liberals?)

Seriously - I agree with you. Strategic decisions must be made about energy security. Environmentalists (even if their concerns are valid) must not be allowed to hijack the debate to the detriment of humanity.

Jun 24, 2008 - 3:49 pm Greg:

Interesting link by Patrick Moore:

http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/greenpeace-is-wrong–we-must-consider-nuclear-power/2007/12/09/1197135284092.html

Jun 24, 2008 - 3:58 pm joseph cole:

Actually Saudi Arabia’s reserves are split into 260 billion of proven reserves defined as oil , which is recoverable undress present economic circumstances and as much as another 300 billion barrels of assumed based on the same geological formation that provides the recoverable oil.
That’s a lot of oil even at a daily output that is twice as much as the current 9 million barrels a day they are producing. We could use all that oil and we are owed it.

Jun 24, 2008 - 4:35 pm John Samford:

“We are running out of oil, and there are no real alternatives, according to the best scientific and independent government studies,”

This is called the “Big Lie’ technique.
We are nowhere close to running out of OIL. We ARE running out of cheap, easy to get at liquid OIL, but that is a different issue. “Experts” (yes, those are snear quotes) intentionally confuse the two because there is a profit to be made doing so. Over 2 TRILLION barrels are locked up in the Shale OIL fields of Utah and Colorado. Enough for about 1200 years at the current rate of consumption and growth;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_shale_reserves
Here is a second source. The USA has approximately 5x the Petroleum reserves that Saudi Arabia does. That is a FACT. One that the scare mongers driving the market up don’t want you to know.
http://www.dailyreckoning.com/rpt/OilShale.html

The alternatives are legion, so this is a half/lie. Half because there is no ‘Silver Bullet’ one size fits all alternative. There are however, many separate techniques that combined will be an alternative to liquid OIL. Too many to list here. As a highlight; Nuclear, hydro, geothermal, kinetic, Solar, conservation. All will play a role, depending on local conditions.

Those are NOT scientists, they are bureaucrats with scientific degrees. Two different critters. Your mistake is one the left makes all the time. Having a PhD doesn’t make you a scientist. Doing science makes you a scientist.
A professor with a PhD in Plasmaphysics is NOT a scientist, but an Academic. Once in a blue moon, you will find some one who is talented enough to do both, but normally they don’t do either one very well.
IIRC, the Government is the number one employer of PhD’s. That doesn’t make those people scientists.
Doing research makes you a scientist. This is where the anthropogenic global warming advocates show their true colors. Go thru one of their list of “scientists” (more sneer quotes) and google some of those names. Not a scientist in the lot. Bureaucrats and academics with an occasional administrator thrown in. None of them has seen the inside of a research lab since their Junior year at Podunk State University.
NO SUCH THING as an independent GOVERNMENT study. That is another Big Lie.

Four strikes, you are out.

BTW, those ’scientists’ you are so happy to cite are still stuck on the Dead Dino theory for OIL. OIL has been found in one of the Saturn’s moons;

http://www.physorg.com/news102870255.html

A slight exaggeration, since OIL is made out of hydrocarbon, but not as much of one as the OIL price manipulators are using.
Anyway, those “scientists” are having as much trouble explaining how the dinosaurs got to Saturn’s moons as the anthropogenic global warming advocates explaining global warming on Mars;
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html

What sort of SUV’s do Martians drive?

Jun 24, 2008 - 5:57 pm John Samford:

“Instead of saying pretty please, the president could have suggested what his irate citizens may demand if they do not get relief.”

It would have been a bluff, and a bad one at that.
Western Civilization won’t even defend itself and is no more then a generation from joining the Umma.

Jun 24, 2008 - 6:01 pm Navytech:

Stealing????? I don’t care to pay $5 grand for heating oil this winter, but stealing it isn’t the answer. WE are sitting on enormous oil deposits but refuse to drill. Over the top environmentalism and cartels both act to keep oil supplies from market. WE control our own oil production. I don’t like the Saudis much but let’s not scapegoat them for not producing enough oil while we do the exact same thing!

Jun 24, 2008 - 6:39 pm ic:

We can’t even convince the Democrats to let us drill our own oil. Why shouldn’t the Arabs take advantage of this artificial shortage, imposed by our Congress, to make money? Suckers, as always, are American taxpayers who keep on voting the same selfish buffoons back to Congress. By the time we drill our oil, the Arabs would have enough money to buy up our industries, real estates, financial institutions, and our oil companies to drill our oil.

Jun 24, 2008 - 7:14 pm John Samford:

Fighting a war for OIL is about as stoooopid as stooooooooopid gets. Iraq doesn’t have enough OIL to cover the cost of the military campaign that is being fought there.
That doesn’t mean it won’t happen. Look at the so called ‘civil war’ here in the States.
Southerners had no major problems with freeing slaves. The problem the plantation owners had was with the loss of capital involved with those slaves. A Prime Buck would fetch 400$US at auction. This was when a dollar a day was good money. Large Plantations had thousands of slaves, so it was a considerable investment in capital.
A group of Southern Senators offered to sell the slaves to those that wanted to free them, which would have been the smart thing to do. A group of northern industrialists looked at that huge pool of cheap labor that would be created and said no to buying and freeing the slaves.
SO there was war instead. That war cost the country 10X what buying and freeing the slaves would have cost, not counting the death, destruction and misery.
So spending 2.5 trillion to steal 300 million in OIL is just the sort of thing Congress specializes in. Voters get EXACTLY the Congress they want. If you are tired of watching crooked congressmen steal from you, vote them out.

Jun 24, 2008 - 9:25 pm ddl:

Obama will solve our oil shortage by imposing a windfall profit tax on the oil companies. Surely, that tax will increase supply and encourage exploration forcing prices to fall.

Jun 24, 2008 - 9:57 pm Greg:

I know that $4 is a lot to pay per gallon (especially if you have a long distance to travel).

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/wrgp/mogas_home_page.html

But here’s how much worse it could get. Here’s the situation in the UK:

UK Petrol Price = £1.17 per litre
There are 3.7854 litres in 1 US gallon.
There are $1.9648 in £1
Therefore US equivalent price = 1.17 × 3.7854 × 1.9648 = $8.70 per gallon

Okay, so I know in the UK it’s all a great tax swindle.
Still … inelastic commodities … who’d have them?

Jun 24, 2008 - 11:55 pm OmegaPaladin:

Lynn,

Nuclear waste is easy to store. Read up on dry cask storage - all you need is a heavy duty cask, a concrete pad, and security guards. You could do it on any good sized property. I say you stuff out on the Nevada test site - the place was already nuked after all.

Jun 25, 2008 - 12:09 am Pete of Melbourne:

Invading KSA would kill two birds with one stone. Firstly, it would provide the world with extra oil which the Saudis for their own selfish reasons refuse to provide. Secondly, it would deprive the KSA the funds they need to fund the expansion of their brand of radical Islam through Madrassas, Mosques etc. Potentially, it would be a huge step forward in the WOT.

Jun 25, 2008 - 2:50 am Richard:

The question isn’t why are we asking them to pump more, thereby cutting into their own profits.

THE question IS:

WHY ARE WE PAYING THEM SO MUCH FOR WHAT WE CAN GET FROM OUR OWN SHORES?

Jun 25, 2008 - 3:14 am sbourg:

Youssef Ibrahim’s idea to invade the middle east for their oil is absolute lunacy. I could understand it being rattled around as an option if we in the U.S. had explored and depleted our own reserves first, and we were on our last leg and foundering…….then it could be debated. But BEFORE we’ve drilled our own oil, in Alaska, etc? Hell, we buy 15% or so of our oil from Canada. The LEAST we could do is aggressively pursue OUR OWN oil. But no, the Democrats have prevented this, and 41 Dem Senators have filibustered this, for 30 years. Why doesn’t Ibrahim mention this as our first and only sane alternative right now?! If Norway didn’t aggressively take advantage of their own natural resources for energy for their own use and to sell to other countries, they would be economic toast. They’d have a meltdown. And they’re a pretty clean country. We have to do that too, but the Libs ignore the example of other countries.

Jun 25, 2008 - 4:47 am MarkD:

War for oil? DC is a lot closer than Saudi Arabia, and we only need to shoot a few politicians… Then we can drill in ANWR, buy from the Canadian tar sands, and develop our own shale oil.

The problem is our politicians. First, they create massive hurdles to building anything in this country (environmental impact studies.) Then they make ANWR off limits. Then they say it will take ten years to get oil from ANWR. Well, if we started ten years ago we’d have the oil now, when we need it. Then they blame everyone but themselves for the problem.

Go ahead, vote for the incumbents. They are doing such a good job for you. Heat your homes with their hot air. Maybe they’ll give you a lift to work with their taxpayer subsidized gas-guzzler. You’ve been played. Oh, that hydrogen car. You won’t live long enough to buy one. Unless we build nuclear plants, there won’t be any hydrogen anyway.

Get set for some bad times, because nobody is serious about solving this problem. I’d like a flying Rolls Royce that costs $1 and gets 3000 miles per gallon from tap water. However, I live in the real world, so I drive a smaller car than I would actually like and live closer to work in a smaller house than I would otherwise have. Life is tradeoffs. Don’t drill ANWR, but it is going to cost you. The only free thing in life is a politicians promise. You get what you pay for.

Jun 25, 2008 - 6:54 am TomJW:

Thank John McCain for the final vote to deny drilling in ANWR back in 1995. Now his promise is open up off shore drilling. Only requiring the local state approval. Miracle of miracles, the Repub governors of Florida and California pipe up and say they are for off shore drilling now.

We aren’t getting played much by ’straight talk’ John, are we?

Jun 25, 2008 - 8:29 am Troll Feeder:

Oil from the OCS is a two to five year proposition, not ten years. The development times quoted all over everywhere are flat ignorance and lies.

Oil from 1500 meters deep off of West Africa is 36 months from discovery (2Q2007) to market (2Q2010), and that is only one of many projects I’m currently involved with. I’m just not involved with them at home.

Remove the drilling and development bans, and overnight the oil price will drop like a rock. And I won’t have to go to hellholes so often, either.

Jun 25, 2008 - 2:15 pm Navytech:

Once you start drilling it only takes a couple of years. But with crude at $130 BBL all the ocean rigs are currently under contract…with other countries. In the worldwide game of musical chairs the music stopped when oil skyrocketed and the United States was left standing. Brazil has really taken the lead in offshore drilling. I read somewhere that they have 80% of the world’s ocean drilling rigs under contract. The good news is that that oil will come to market in about 2 years. The bad news is that no matter what the clowns in DC “decide” we will have at least a bit of a wait to get to our own oil.

Jun 25, 2008 - 4:01 pm Bob:

Start drilling at home. Drill right through the heads of baby seals in Alaska if we need to, whatever it takes. Build more refineries here. Then start backing out of the middle east, we’ve never had anything but problems out of them anyway. They’ll change their tune as our troops start moving out, it gets pretty lonely in the desert.

We have plenty of power right here at home, if we could get people to quit crying about it. No matter WHAT we try to do someone has to whine about it. How about nuclear? “Oh, no, we can’t do that!” How about coal? “That’s terrible! We can’t burn that!” How about drilling for oil? “That might be dirty and ugly!” Solar can’t even keep my air conditioner running. There are going to be 800 wind generators soon in Iowa, the leader in wind power, and it’s only going to meet about 20% of demand, and that’s in a relatively sparsely populated area. Neither solar nor wind will make much difference at all. It’s oil, nuke, or coal, and I’m not going to start wearing sandals and peddling a bicycle 50 miles any time soon, so get on it!

Jun 26, 2008 - 12:34 pm Clifford J. Wirth:

Hey Bob, Dust off that bike and jump on it and get ridin. My research shows oil is declining, coal to liquids will yield little to make up the gap, and the rest provides electricity — which comes mostly from dirty coal and scare natural gas. See the free 50 page report at: http://www.peakoilassociates.com

Jun 26, 2008 - 6:25 pm Susan:

There are plenty of good solutions and there would be much hope—IF we could get rid of whomever is backing Obama–Builderberger being one of them. Tthere is a bigger plan than making America work as a democracy.

Jun 29, 2008 - 1:18 am

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