13 Comments

That’s one way of looking at the matter. As more of an engineering sort, I don’t see the point of pushing niche technologies for large problems. When some alternative energy source shows real promise and the ability to scale, and IMHO that doesn’t include current methods of ethanol production or wind power, then I say go for it. Till then, coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear look like the only real options.

Bush has mentioned conservation and alternative energy sources many times over the years going back at least as far as his proposed energy policy. It was ignored.

It immediate need is for greater production. Lifting the ban on offshore (and onshore) drilling is the fastest way to make a difference.

Not long ago Bush said that he believed the future would bring a shift away from carbon based fuels. And there were some people who considered that a betrayal.

I do believe that the more diversity the better, but right now we need to open the way for future drilling. Oil went up again today after the Saudis signalled they were not going to increase production after all. That meant the dollar and the market went down. We need to break that cycle.

Roger,

I’m with chuck. There ain’t no silver bullet alternatives out there. Drill here drill now.

As Larry J said, Bush has made many statements about new and “alternative” energy sources, getting, of course, zero credit from the reality-based community for doing so. It’s high time this supposed tool of the oil industry woke up about the need to drill. We are the only country in the world not fully exploiting our own oil and gas resources, let alone those off our shores. The Chinese are drilling in the Caribbean, for goodness sakes, but heaven forbid we should drill in the Gulf, regardless of vast improvements in safety and recovery technologies.

Unfortunately, Bush and McCain have both weakened the case they now belatedly attempt to make for drilling by giving ignorant lip service to the global warming hoax.

freetotem:

Bush did not just wake up about the need to drill. He has been pushing for more drilling for years. He has also pushed for more refineries. However, until the price of gas hit $4 a gallon, no one paid any attention. The Democrats blocked any attempts at new drilling, environmentalists and property owners stopped new refineries. I remember reading years ago about an effort to turn an old Naval ship yard into a refinery up in Maine and the deal was killed by lobstermen.

And considering the amount of grief Bush has taken for refusing to support Kyoto, blaming him for the socalled global warming hoax is nonsense. If some of those hardliners who stayed home in 06 and refused to vote because they were trying to send a message had not let the Democrats run away with the election, they might have had enough people in the Congress to get development of oil shale through committee.

Just think, there was once a time when the USA was the world’s leading producer of just about everything; now we go hat in hand to beg the Saudis to let us send them ever more money. How disgusting.

We should have an all-out assault on energy needs; there are enough carbon-based resources (oil, gas, coal) and potential nuclear sites here in the U.S. to let us tell the Venezuelans, Saudis, Mexicans, and everyone else to go ahead and eat their damned oil for all we care.

Enough, already. Just think, if we weren’t sending foreigners hundreds of billions of dollars for their oil, we could fund alternative energy research out of pocket change.

Scott

To drill, or not to drill: that is the question

Let’s see. We are experiencing an ever-increasing price of gasoline with no end in sight because of speculation of future shortages of oil. So what should we do? Continue the moratorium on exploration and drilling in ANWR, the continental shelf and in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming (where there may be as much as 800 billion barrels of in the oil shale) or to exploit these resources? You either have to have an IQ of 50 or be an environmental fanatic not to know the correct answer.

Hopefully the American people will finally wake up and realize that continuing the worship of Gaia, the pagan God of the environmentalists will be disastrous for our economy. We must have a rational energy policy that includes exploiting our existing oil and coal resources along with nuclear energy now while doing research on alternative energy sources for the future.

There are no viable alternate energy sources, excluding nuclear, and there never will be. It is a matter of energy density. Yes, the energy density of ethanol is comparable to gasoline but the mass of raw material needed to produce ethanol is thousands of times that of product. Not in this universe.

Yes talking of alt energy may have been good PR but Bush is a blunt guy, and he’s correctly pegged that we cannot conserve our way out of the current problem, and we certainly cannot innovate our way out of it in any reasonable time span. People expecting an alt-energy magic bullet should find it sobering that a solid decade into the commercialization of hybrids, and they represent less than half-of-one percent of cars on the road in the U.S. Technological change in transportation takes an enormous amount of time to be pervasive. Assuming we actually get super-serious it’ll be 2020 before 2% of cars on the road are electrics, and we’ll all be long dead before half the cars are EVs. Are we going to wait for that? Or drill?

Why in the name of God would people want to do ANYTHING that would increase demand for fossil fuels? The price of gasoline is exactly what it should be, and hopefully will remain there for years to come. Knowing that some Ford Expedition owners are spending $200-$300 a month at the local Citgo warms the cockles of my heart, and ought to do the same for anyone who hates Chavez, Putin, Ahmadinijad, King Abdullah, et al.

There is only a SINGLE world price for a barrel of oil. Even if increased U.S. production was able to lower the price, this would further increase worldwide demand, and thus further enrich other oil producing nations.

Why in the name of God would people want to do ANYTHING that would increase demand for fossil fuels?

Absolutely. And electricity too! Women should spend their time splitting wood, cooking, spinning, and washing clothes instead of pursuing energy wasting careers. And markus would help us all if he was out in the fields hoeing, scything, plowing, and bringing in the hay instead of tapping on his keyboard. I’ll bet he also has one of those useless college educations. What a waste.