..when out from the ground came atumblin' crude
Read article today:
http://www.startribune.com/484/story/1154655.html Oil, gas drilling to expand in Gulf, off Alaska, Virginia
WASHINGTON - The Interior Department announced a major expansion of offshore oil and gas development on Monday with proposed lease sales covering 48 million acres off Alaska, in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and in the central Atlantic off Virginia.The 3 million acres that are 50 miles off Virginia's coast would require Congress to lift a long-standing drilling moratorium that has covered most ocean waters outside the western Gulf of Mexico for decades. The Democratic-controlled Congress has given no indication that it is willing to lift the moratorium. ... Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., said in a statement that any plan to allow drilling off his state must protect coastal economies that are heavily dependent on tourism. Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine said that the state would accept only offshore exploration for gas, but not its development. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who last year threatened to filibuster legislation that would expand offshore oil and gas drilling beyond the central Gulf of Mexico, said the Interior Department plan "calls into question why the White House remains intent on drilling elsewhere off our coasts and fattening the bottom line of the oil companies." ... Kempthorne said the 21 lease sales planned in coastal waters over the next five years could produce 10 billion barrels of oil and 45 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
I must admit I don't find the defensive arguments very persuasive, environmental or certainly not the "antiprofit" arguments. The environmental one is bogus since we'll import oil from anywhere and not care about the risks elsewhere in the world. And the antiprofit argument is total BS. Would we rather reward U.S. companies for producing oil or other countries?
The only argument I accept for limiting production is to protect the future. Specifically, our dependency on imported oil, and the risk to our economy if/when the market can't meet demand. It is claimed the U.S. holds 3% of the world's oil reserves, and we're producing something like 10% of the world's oil. This means we're producing our last reserves sometime like 3 times faster than the rest of the world. That means we're moving to more and more dependency on imported oil.
For this reason, if I believed we were moving to reducing our oil production, then I'm content to say, okay, lets keep going, but I see no serious effort to move away from oil. I mean at least no alternatives that can compete with current prices. To me that means it is better to WAIT until prices are more competitive, when oil prices rise enough, we'll throw down every environmental concern for our fix. I want to keep our future options available, so I'd say better to not produce our oil faster than the rest of the world.
I wish we could move sooner than later away from oil. I don't know what the future holds, but best guess is we'll have less energy available than now, and that conservation will make a difference sooner or later, and saving the remainder of our reserves might make the difference between a grim or less grim future, and I'll pick less grim if we can.
http://www.startribune.com/484/story/1154655.html Oil, gas drilling to expand in Gulf, off Alaska, Virginia
WASHINGTON - The Interior Department announced a major expansion of offshore oil and gas development on Monday with proposed lease sales covering 48 million acres off Alaska, in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and in the central Atlantic off Virginia.The 3 million acres that are 50 miles off Virginia's coast would require Congress to lift a long-standing drilling moratorium that has covered most ocean waters outside the western Gulf of Mexico for decades. The Democratic-controlled Congress has given no indication that it is willing to lift the moratorium. ... Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., said in a statement that any plan to allow drilling off his state must protect coastal economies that are heavily dependent on tourism. Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine said that the state would accept only offshore exploration for gas, but not its development. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who last year threatened to filibuster legislation that would expand offshore oil and gas drilling beyond the central Gulf of Mexico, said the Interior Department plan "calls into question why the White House remains intent on drilling elsewhere off our coasts and fattening the bottom line of the oil companies." ... Kempthorne said the 21 lease sales planned in coastal waters over the next five years could produce 10 billion barrels of oil and 45 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
I must admit I don't find the defensive arguments very persuasive, environmental or certainly not the "antiprofit" arguments. The environmental one is bogus since we'll import oil from anywhere and not care about the risks elsewhere in the world. And the antiprofit argument is total BS. Would we rather reward U.S. companies for producing oil or other countries?
The only argument I accept for limiting production is to protect the future. Specifically, our dependency on imported oil, and the risk to our economy if/when the market can't meet demand. It is claimed the U.S. holds 3% of the world's oil reserves, and we're producing something like 10% of the world's oil. This means we're producing our last reserves sometime like 3 times faster than the rest of the world. That means we're moving to more and more dependency on imported oil.
For this reason, if I believed we were moving to reducing our oil production, then I'm content to say, okay, lets keep going, but I see no serious effort to move away from oil. I mean at least no alternatives that can compete with current prices. To me that means it is better to WAIT until prices are more competitive, when oil prices rise enough, we'll throw down every environmental concern for our fix. I want to keep our future options available, so I'd say better to not produce our oil faster than the rest of the world.
I wish we could move sooner than later away from oil. I don't know what the future holds, but best guess is we'll have less energy available than now, and that conservation will make a difference sooner or later, and saving the remainder of our reserves might make the difference between a grim or less grim future, and I'll pick less grim if we can.
posted by Ares Olympus at 7:31 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home