Oh I knew what you meant, I was thinking more along the lines of a car being powered by a miniature nuclear reactor. I suppose that’s fraught with problems, not the least of which (safety aside) is building a reactor that small/light enough for an automobile.
Sure would make that movie cliche about the car going over the cliff and exploding much, much more exciting!
Point of course is that the area is pristine wilderness. Three months oil is not enough incentive to destroy it for many.
It’s not pristine anything. We’re already drilling there. The infrastructure to move the oil is there. It was put there so we could extract oil.
The alternative is to hand money over to another country and piss away all that tax money. Tax money we could put into renewable energy research.
And I don’t know where you get 3 months of oil. That’s a political way of trying to link all the US consumption to one oil field as some kind of risk assessment litmus test. No oil field will measure up to that test.
I don’t oppose drilling in ANWR. But the notion that we can drill our way out of high gas prices is absurd. High gas prices are a blessing that will deliver us from being dependent on foreign energy. Domestically produced alternative energy will finally be competitive, wasteful use of energy will simply be too expensive, and we can tell the oil cartel to go fuck themselves. I hope gas goes to $8 a gallon.
The only problem with that is the fluctuation of prices makes for an unstable economy. I’d like to get the tax profit from our own oil resources instead of sending it overseas. Specifically, I’d like to see gas prices stabilize to a point where domestic alternatives can take hold. Short term drilling to get the taxes for the long-term technology to become energy independent.
Which is true when our energy comes from domestic alternative sources as well. There is no way we are going to drill our way out of dependence on foreign energy.
Sure we can. We can drill our way to a new source of energy with the tax money. Even without technological advances we could produce enough bio diesel with algae. As these plants come on line and the price of diesel comes down it will meet the rising cost of gasoline. Market forces will do the rest.
By drilling in ANWR, and getting that big 3 months, aren’t we looking at merely delaying (for no good reason I can see) that magic moment?
-Joe
We’re going to need the oil. China is going to steam roll us, not just with the consumption of oil but with the industrial capacity brought to them by expanding their road infrastructure. I don’t think I need to be Nostradamus to predict gas prices will continue to climb and the market place will adjust accordingly. What you seek as an incentive to buy fuel-efficient cars has come to pass. Gas prices at $4 is a trigger point for people to buy such cars. That’s a good thing. It would have been nice if GM didn’t elect to shut down a plant in my area because of it but that’s a different thread.
ANWAR is part of the North Slope area that represents a large field of oil. At some point after we started to develop it a line was drawn. It could just as easily been drawn around the oil fields but it wasn’t. Someone got out a pen and drew an arbitrary line without consideration for land use. There is a huge oil pipeline that runs across the state of Alaska right to the North Slope. It’s a major investment in resource management that is not fully utilized. If you look at google maps and tap into the Sierra Club info you’ll see that we are already drilling in area 1002 (the section of ANWAR in the North Slope).
Well, atg least McCain agrees that the oil drilling meme is mostly hocus pocus:
The calculus is ,do you destroy a wilderness that is the calving area for elk , for an amount of oil that will have practically no impact on the oil supply or prices. I do not see how you can vote yes.
Elk? Surely, you mean caribou. There are no elk in ANWR.
Perhaps you should talk to people who live and work in the area. I have several friends who worked on the North Slope, and according more than one source, the caribou prefer to calve on the concrete platforms at the drilling sites, apparently because the mosquitoes are fewer there. Drilling in no way inhibits caribou calving.
I believe it’s due to the warmth of the pipes and it has been a positive aspect, not negative. Mosquitoes are a real problem for caribou and every other animal. If I worked up there I would be caribou’s best friend because I would bring a fogger with me.
But its numbers that make for discussion:
**
In 1977, as the Prudhoe region started delivering oil to America’s southern 48 states, the Central Arctic caribou herd numbered 6,000; it has since grown to 27,128.” Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game Web site reports that “in general, caribou have not been adversely affected by human activities in Alaska.” Pipelines and other manmade objects have been built to accommodate caribou movements, and the animals have adapted to people and machines.**
I don’t see any caribou issues unless overpopulation becomes a problem.
My position in ANWR and offshore drilling can be compared to a rich man’s conditions to his son before he can come into his inheritence: First prove that you can live without it.
The demand for oil is only going to increase, exponentially. What will the demand be in 10, 20, 50 years? Is there theoretically enough fossil fuels to handle this at whatever high price the market dictates. The era of cheap energy I believe is over but is enough of the expensive energy ultimately available? Take coal and gasoline made from it, tar sands, oil shale if these are developed is it enough to last say 100 years or at some point is the world out of fossil fuels?
If you want to pay $15.00 a gallon for oil shale gas, is there enough for everyone?