lgm said:

I do not want our energy policy to be: “drill where the best estimate is 4% and hope for 30% instead”

If you think 4% is too low, find a reference that puts it higher.

Here’s one reference for you:
oil shale

I’ll quote a few highlights from the article:

—
“The largest known oil shale deposits in the world are in the Green River Formation, which covers portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming….the midpoint in our estimate range, 800 billion barrels, is more than triple the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.”

“…Shell anticipates that, in contrast to the cost estimates for mining and surface retorting, the petroleum products produced by their thermally conductive in-situ method will be competitive at crude oil prices in the mid-$20s per barrel.”

“In short, if the Congress removed its prohibition, America could develop a substantial amount of its oil needs from domestic oil shale resources rather than relying on foreign governments.”

“Yet, buried in a Department of Interior appropriations bill passed in December 2007 was an amendment that prevented establishing regulations for leasing land to drill for oil shale. The House passed that amendment, proposed by Rep. Mark Udall of Colorado, on June 27, 2007, by a vote of 219-215.”
—

Now why would Democrats vote to block the use of oil shale? If it’s not viable, why put it off limits? Are they afraid it will succeed and destroy their master plan to force us off oil and take us back to the stone age?

Then there is the Bakken Formation in North Dakota, where there’s an estimated 32 to 300 billion barrels of oil waiting.

Not to mention the more than three trillion cubic feet of natural gas off the coast of Florida in the Destin Dome. This is one of those leases that the Democrats keep bringing up where the oil companies are not drilling. That’s because the Bush family teamed up with Congress to stop any drilling after the lease was explored and found viable. No wonder the oil companies have leases they are not using. If they find anything significant on the lands they lease, Congress prevents them from extracting it!

And I didn’t even have to bring up the 7.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil in ANWR…

SHoward said:

Doing things the Obama way means we should just stop using fuel altogether. Yeah, that’s really going to happen.

I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t Obama and his supporters stop using fuel altogether? It’s you who claim it’s time to get off oil. Admittedly, you would have to do something no Democrat has ever done before – “practice what you preach”. But, by so doing, you could prove to the world that you’re right. You could prove that it’s possible to live happy, productive lives without oil. Or you could fail miserably. Either way, it would leave more oil for the rest of us.

What are you waiting for, Obama supporters? If you really think it’s such a great idea to stop using oil, do it. Don’t sneak around obstructing drilling in an attempt to make oil unaffordable for the poor masses just so you can force people off oil. Be the pioneers and go first. Do it before those devious Republicans steal your idea, invent an alternative energy source, and take all the credit for saving the world. No more stalling, Democrats. Take an oath today that you will use no more oil and produce no more carbon. You are the ones you’ve been waiting for…

That will happen no matter how much oil we produce, because they will never know for sure how much we’re going to get out of the ground on our own..

Surely lgm would want the least amount possible going to terrorist nations, right? Right? lgm? hmmm.. Are those crickets I hear?

~Dan Lee & ~Dan Lee again.

On August 18th, 2008 at 5:10 pm, dakine said:
Dan Lee, we know by your handle that you are in fact Dan Lee. Just sayin’.

Dakine, that was anal, petty, & borderline OCD for you to point out.. Just sayin’.. ~Dan Lee

On August 18th, 2008 at 4:10 pm, lgm said:

guitarplayer said (#58):

wouldn’t it be better to reduce the amount of oil we import? Let’s say we go from importing 70% down to 40% over the next 5-10 years.

I would be glad to do that, but the earth will not comply. I do not want our energy policy to be: “drill where the best estimate is 4% and hope for 30% instead”

If you think 4% is too low, find a reference that puts it higher.

Now, I’m assuming you mean that 4% is the amount that we will reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

Here’s what I found. An article based on a report by the US Minerals Management Services said that there are about 76 billion barrels of oil in the Gulf, Alaskan waters, and Atlantic and Pacific shelves. The US uses about 7.2 billion barrels a year. If we can tap all those fields, we can be running on US oil alone for 10 years. Again, we won’t be able to run solely on it, but it will reduce our dependence by much more than 4%.

This is a big issue for Republicans.

And democrats as well now. If Obama and Pelosi are showing signs of wavering on the issue, you know it’s gotta be a big issue period.

If there were reliable figures showing domestic drilling would work, they would be all over the internet and Fox news. The fact that they are hard to find shows that they are not so positive.

Not true. My wife is a research analyst and can tell you that finding reliable figures on anything are sometimes the hardest to come by.

On August 18th, 2008 at 12:49 pm, Barry F. said:

On August 18th, 2008 at 12:44 pm, zorro said:

Sign it and, then, blacklist the mailserver address, zorro.

Done.

wouldn’t it be better to reduce the amount of oil we import? Let’s say we go from importing 70% down to 40% over the next 5-10 years.

I would be glad to do that, but the earth will not comply. I do not want our energy policy to be: “drill where the best estimate is 4% and hope for 30% instead”

If you think 4% is too low, find a reference that puts it higher.

This is a big issue for Republicans. If there were reliable figures showing domestic drilling would work, they would be all over the internet and Fox news. The fact that they are hard to find shows that they are not so positive.

LGM Wrote:
“One difference between Obama and the pro drilling people is that Obama has facts and figures. The pro drilling people only have hopes. Hopes do not produce oil that is not there.”

LGM, you’ll have to forgive me for the audacity of my hope.. I didn’t know that the “audacity of hope” was only for your savior, & not me..

~Dan Lee

On August 18th, 2008 at 2:29 pm, lgm said:
Yes, but that’s not the question. As Obama said, there isn’t enough oil in the US to do that.

Even if that’s so, wouldn’t it be better to reduce the amount of oil we import? Let’s say we go from importing 70% down to 40% over the next 5-10 years. That will be a huge help to us – and it will stick in the sides of the Saudis. If more advances in alternative energy come along, then we may be able to reduce that import number ever further.

One difference between Obama and the pro drilling people is that Obama has facts and figures. The pro drilling people only have hopes. Hopes do not produce oil that is not there.

We also have economics on our side. If we put more oil into the market, the price will go down. That’s just simple supply and demand right there. If we lift the drilling restrictions tommorow, the same market speculators that drove the price of oil up will drive it right back down.

Just for fun, google around looking for a pro drilling advocate who estimates the amount of oil that will flow next year, or in the next 5 years and compares that to what we use now or import.

I have no doubt that we won’t be able to replace the amount of oil we import with domestic oil in the next 5 years. That’s alot of oil. Plus, the oil companies need time for exploration and building of infrastucture to get the oil drilled and out to market. The thing is, we need to start somewhere. Had we started during the Clinton years with drilling in ANWAR, we probably wouldn’t be having this discussion right now. We’re going to be using oil for a long while still. It’s not just in our cars, petrolium-based products are in most every product we have around the house. We need to begin drilling and reducing our dependancy on foreign oil if for nothing else than our national security. Even if we can’t get off of foreign oil completely in the next 5-10 years, at least we can reduce it. The oil we drill will reduce the price we pay at the pump. Simple economics says so.

We can’t just pin everything on alternative energy and hope that will yield energy independence in the next 10 years. That’s a very big gamble to make. We need to continue to fund them and I have no doubt that one day they will have something. I’m just saying let’s not set a timeline (no Iraq references please) that we’re not sure the science-folks can meet.

BTW, I will be logging off soon. If you respond, I probably won’t be able to get back to you until later this evening. Thanks for the good discussion though.

But how does signing that petition mean ANYTHING? It’s like signing a petition in favor of fuzzy puppies.