Yeah, and what’s going to happen to gas prices now that millions of acres of corn in Iowa and the other flooded areas are completely wiped out?
sigh
You’re right - it looks like China isn’t drilling - yet. But they have agreements with Cuba to explore for fields and to drill them once they’ve mapped them out. So it’s not much of a distinction to say they’re not drilling - the point is that if the U.S. doesn’t exploit the oil of its coastline, others will.
How is plastic ‘killing us’? Isn’t plastic that winds up in landfills actually sequestering CO2? It seems to me that if there’s a finite supply of oil, and all of that oil is going to be used up, you should be happy that some of it is going into plastics which then get either repeatedly recycled, or buried.
It is? Look up petroleum-related accidents that have taken place in the last 50 years. There have been many.
The Texas City refinery explosion killed 15 people and injured 170.
In 2004 alone, China reported 6,027 deaths from multiple coal mining accidents.
I grew up in a city near the Crows Nest past - my mother’s boyfriend for a few years was a coal miner, and there were several accidents during those years that killed miners, in just that one mine. The boyfriend himself died of brain cancer - along with a lot of other miners who died of various cancers due to exposure to toxic chemicals and radiation in the mine.
4,000 new cases of black lung are reported each year in the United States, making up 4% of the entire coal mining workforce. 10,000 are reported in China.
A coal mining accident in West Virginia in 1968 killed 78 people. The Sago mine disaster a couple of years ago killed 12.
A coal mine explosion in China in 1943 killed 1,500 people.
I could go on. For some perspective, have a look at this list of man-made disasters of various kinds. Look at the numbers involved. Now scroll down and look at the tiny section on nuclear accidents, and the incredibly small number of people who have been killed or injured by them.
For example, 56 people have died from the Chernobyl accident, which is widely considered to be about the worst accident that could happen to a nuclear plant. The page I linked to lists 72 coal mining accidents with higher body counts. And if you want to talk about the future deaths from cancers (which have generally not materialized), then we’re going to have to start talking about deaths from black lung and emphysema due to coal, and the number is still going to be an order of magnitude or more greater.
Hell, even hydro power has killed far more people. The Vajont dam overflow in Italy in 1963 killed over 2000 people. And the mother of them all, the Banqiao Dam failure of 1975 in China killed 171,000 people and destroyed six million buildings. It’s hard to imagine any kind of nuclear accident that could ever come close, since the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn’t kill that many people.
The U.S. has had three dam failures since 1970, which killed three times as many people as died at Chernobyl. Hardly anyone can even remember those incidents (other than the families of those killed). Yet Three-Mile Island is still brought up as an example of how ‘dangerous’ nuclear power is, despite its having killed or harmed no one.
Transportation only makes up a small percentage of energy consumption in the U.S. (I think it’s around 25%). Coal and natural gas are big CO2 emitters, and they could be almost completely replaced by nuclear, since they are mostly used for the generation of electricity. Even if you just look at oil, transportation only uses about 67% of it, and the rest is used by industry.
Plug-in hybrids are only a couple of years from the market. The current grid can support replacing about 80% of the ground-based vehicle fleet with electric power, since most of the recharging would be done at night when utilization is low.
The vehicle fleet turns over about once every ten years or so. If oil shoots up even more in price, you can reasonably expect close to half the auto fleet to move to plug-in hybrid or all-electric power within a decade or two.
If we don’t move to more nuclear power, this just means we’ll burn even more coal, which is demonstrably far more dangerous than nuclear even if you don’t include global warming.
That sounds remarkably non-urgent for someone who thinks global warming is a looming ecological apocalypse. Hey, let’s just muck about for a decade or two with other sources. If we can’t make them work, we can always go to nuclear in 20 or 30 years, and have it come online in strength maybe 50 years from now. No hurry, right?
If you’re serious about energy independence and global warming. It should be clear that nuclear must be part of the mix. But so should other technologies. Wind and solar and geothermal and other energy sources will be part of the future energy infrastructure - no doubt about it. They already are. Their percentage of contribution will continue to grow. Hell, maybe they’ll even get to the point where they produce half our power. But is that good enough for you? To maintain a 50% burn rate of fossil fuels? Given economic growth and rising consumption, that probably means we’ll be burning as much fossil fuel in 50 years as we are today. If you’re cool with that, great. If not, you need to do some serious thinking about your priorities and how they fit in with reality.
Read my location again dude. AustrALia. Not Europe. 4.5% unemployment. Spread out.
Because, according to you, governments are supposed to plan for the future. You contradict yourself.
GW IS having negative effects now.
What you are effectively advocating is to use more oil now and have less left in the ground for the future. How could this possibly be a good idea?
I have to go with the relative conservatives here (even though on most policies I am very far to the left) and say that I think reinstituting nuclear power facilities is a good idea, and I suspect could bear results far greater and more quickly than off-shore drilling. The spent “waste” should be sealed in huge and sturdy lead and concrete bunkers and saved for a time when we figure out what we can do with them. Techonology may come up with a real use for these materials in the future.
We could always adopt a regional solution for offshore drilling. Those areas that allow off-shore drilling get to reap the rewards. Mississippi to Texas - go ahead and enjoy your rewards, Florida and the Atlantic Seaboard - keep the tankers rolling in from the mid-east…
Of course I say this in jest.
As others have already mentioned, even if we do increase production here to off-set what we are importing - it’s still carries the same market value. If we increase production here PLUS keep importing at the same rate, there would be little benefit at the pump due to current refining capacity.
Seriously - I’ve never gotten why people are so worried about nuclear waste. What is the big deal with just having a gigantic storage space for it, out in the middle of nowhere in the desert, somewhere totally useless and desolate to begin with? Surely the benefits of more nuclear power would outweigh whatever negative consequences this would cause (which would be…what? Accidental leakage or something? Just make sure it’s sealed and far away from civilization.)
In ten thousand years there might be a chance of an earthquake or water damage after our civilization has collapsed.
I honestly think that’s the problem with Yucca Flats. I may be in error.
I asked about this back on page 1. Sometimes I wonder if my posts are invisible…
So, what language for the warning signs do you think will be understood by people 10000+ years from now?
I’m a proponent of nuclear power, if done right. We need to solve the waste problem, though.
Maybe this was also invisible :rolleyes:
That said…
There could be a “trickle down” effect that would not be dependant upon refining capacity.
If OPEC kept output at the same levels AND we added market capacity from off-shore drilling, then the increased supply to the world market could actually drop the per barrel price which would drop the pump price for gas.
Yucca Mountain
Re: Yucca Mountain
And I’m a lot less worried about what language people might understand warnings in that far in the future, or whether or not something might happen to the repository 1,000 years in the future. Barring some Civilization ending planetary catastrophe, I expect that future technology will be able to deal with these issues far better than we can.
On the other side, if Civilization comes to an end, we don’t really need to worry about what happens to it.
I think it’s far more likely that we will have to deal with a transportation accident in moving the shit there than have to deal with problems with the site.
On my scale of Things To Worry About, “Well, we don’t know what happen to the site in 10,000 years” ranks pretty low. If they said there might be problems within the next 100-300 years, ok, yeah I can see wanting to deal with it. But 10,000 years is longer than the span of Human Civilization and it’s pretty foolish to worry about that kind of time scale into the future.
I read the post on this thread with a great amount of expectation but with an exception of a few, I was sorely disappointed and learned nothing about pros and cons of offshore drilling. I ‘hope’ that my observation and cites here below are found helpful as their seems to be a shortage of facts and an abundance of emotional rage…
This statement shows no concern for the working person who has to buy gas to go to work and back and expresses a desire for the government to receive more taxes. Basically, the consumer pays out the nose putting that many more on the edge of not being able to support their family. This is socialism and state control pure and simple and it don’t matter how many suffer to achieve an ideal Marxist society.
This is an attempt to turn the issue into some conspiracy. Wrong, The public has spoken.See http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/67_support_offshore_drilling_64_expect_it_will_lower_prices
Good point!
Bush bashing works as the basis of an argument here!
Bush had stepped in but it did no good with the Marxist environmentalists.
And besides Clinton had a key role 6/12/1998 ten years ago and supported the Marxist environmentalists!
Don’t count me as one of those ‘We’ kemosabe '. A blind man can see that all those commuters around the big cities are using a lot of gas and spending lots of money. And surely a collage eduction should introduce students at least an introduction to civics and world events.
He did make it a priority by signing an energy policy act.
But you seem to overlook that Democrats liberals and Marxist environmentalists do not support such initiatives.
Bush’s fault, Bush conspiracy, Bush Bad. I have heard it all before and it don’t fly.
Bush did not create this problem. You the consumer created this problem, as you say
So don’t point fingers at me or at anyone else for your apathy. I took advantage of the credits, lived within my means, avoided commuting and generally was a responsible steward and am now reaping the rewards. If you want to point fingers and place blame, point them at the Marxist environmentalists, the biased irresponsible lying media, and yourself.
The oil companies make only 4% profit on gas products overall, less even from the refining sector. And the states make a whopping 17%.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/bookshelf/brochures/gasolinepricesprimer/
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?feed=OBR&date=20080501&id=8571658
While state governments are reaping the windfall, like California
And now the dumb ass Pelosi wants state control of the refineries
One must consider the problem unemotionally, so per you request.
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/ng/ng_enr_sum_dcu_NUS_a.htm
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_sum_crdsnd_adc_mbbl_m.htm
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_cons_psup_dc_nus_mbbl_m.htm
Just a minor clarification
China is engaged in land exploration and drilling.
The offshore fields rapidly tend to 3000 ft water depth, no Chinese drilling contractor have a rig to go into that deep water, and the likes of CNOOC do not have the expertise to get involved in deep water drilling (it is quite a different kettle of fish to more conventional shelf drilling)
The main company who is going to team up with Cuba is Petrobras (brazil), they do have deep water expertise.
However I dont think any brazillian drilling contractors have any deep water drillships or semis, thoses are mostly held by US based companies. Although they are teaming up with Japan to get hold of one
Anyway, the offshore fields are at the seismic stage right now.
This Associated Press article from 2004 indicates that the vast majority of federally leased lands held by energy companies haven’t even had a permit filed for exploration yet, much less been explored or exploited. Is there a more reasoned response for this than “WTF??” I’d assume that there must have been geological features to the land which made it seem worth leasing if the companies decided to actually lease it.
Bolding mine for emphasis:
Shouldn’t there be a push to explore the lands already legally set aside for this purpose?
I have a question: I’ve heard other here argue against developing our potential oil resources because it won’t matter as it will “go into the world market”, I suppose due to trading.
What would stop us from simply keeping any additional oil we find right here in the USA, refining it ourselves and using the end product ourselves? And if we did that and bought a little less from countries we currently import from, is there any threat that we would be “cut off” by other oil exporting nations, or that they would simply take their business elsewhere?
What would stop “us”?
Us is public corporations, who have a duty to their shareholders to maximize profits.
Unless you go the Hugo Chavez route, and just nationalize 'em.
I guess “stop us” was a bad phrase. Maybe “give us pause” is better.
I meant that even if we tap into what could be a vast source of oil domestically, would oil exporting nations that we would continue to buy from take a dim view of what we’d be doing and strangle our supply?
If that were to happen, we’d be right back where we started and would likely have been better off not drilling our own in the first place.
Don’t you think OPEC and the rest of oil exporters to the USA actually like the fact that our own government has forbidden expansion of our own exploration and production?