"we can’t drill our way out"

[TexasTiger 13,053]

He’s a billionaire Texas oilman with an urgent message.

T. Boone Pickens, 80, has been showing up all over television in recent weeks, talking about the nation’s dependence on foreign oil.

With pie charts and a charming drawl, Pickens lays it out this way: “America is in a hole and it’s getting deeper every day. We import 70 percent of our oil at a cost of $700 billion a year - four times the annual cost of the Iraq war.

“I’ve been an oil man all my life, but this is one emergency we can’t drill our way out of."

http://news.bostonherald.com/business/gene...p;position=also

Yeah, what's he know about the oil business?

[AURaptor 1,128]

Meanwhile, W says he'll open up Gov't lands for more drilling, and lookie here ! Oil drops $ 10 a barrel. Go figure

Yes, we can drill our way out of this. Face reality.

[autigeremt 6,719]

Comprehensive Energy Plan!!!!

[DKW 86 7,450]

Tex, I like you, but drilling aint going to hurt anyone but OPEC and that is a good thing.

[quietfan 233]

Meanwhile, W says he'll open up Gov't lands for more drilling, and lookie here ! Oil drops $ 10 a barrel. Go figure

Yes, we can drill our way out of this. Face reality.

From what I heard on the news today, the slight drop was more in fear of diminishing demand due to high price/consumer cutbacks rather than any future drilling hopes. Reassuring everyone that a few more holes will solve the problem is a clever way to keep demand up.

Personally, I think putting one's hopes in more drilling is like an addict saying "Give me one more fix and then I'll quit, I promise!". We know petroleum is going to run out eventually (We've known it since the first OPEC embargo of the 1970's and never tried to wean ourselves off) and even with more drilling the crisis will rear its ugly head again in a few years. Sure, there are some pie-in-the-sky fantasies about huge reserves of oil shales, tar sands, or coal liquification, but they'll never deliver gasoline at $4.00/gallon. Developing those to anything close to current market price, even if possible, will take massive R&D dollars, so why not spend those R&D dollars on something cleaner instead of dumping more money into something that's poisoning our planet? We're junkies and the petroleum industry is our pusher. Painful though it may be, maybe it's time we bite the bullet and kick our gasoline addiction now.

[Plus in the long run, what petroleum remains is much more valuable as a raw material for plastics, pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, pesticides, lubricants, etc.--things ethanol, electric, hydrogen, etc. can't do. We don't need to send it up in smoke.]

[AURaptor 1,128]

The OPEC embargo had absolutely nothing to do w/ the world oil supply. It's politics then and it's politics now. The more of our own oil we have to work with, the less the Arabs , or anyone else, has a say in our business.

[OldNewby 27]

Stupid is as stupid does. We need all the energy we can produce: wind, solar, geothermal, battery, nuclear, coal, natural gas, and oil. While alternative energy sources are being explored, developed and advanced, we should increase our own exploration and production of natural gas and oil. Meanwhile, the world laughingly passes us by.

[quietfan 233]

The OPEC embargo had absolutely nothing to do w/ the world oil supply. It's politics then and it's politics now. The more of our own oil we have to work with, the less the Arabs , or anyone else, has a say in our business.

I agree the OPEC embargo wasn't about reserves at the time...my point re it was just that we've known about our dangerous addiction to oil since the 1970's and have never seriously attempted to find alternatives. Had we started doing the R&D for alternatives and trying to get off the petroleum teat back then, we wouldn't be in the fix we're in now. If we just keep trying to nurse that "last drop" out of the ground without changing our ways, we'll be in this same fix 10, 20, or 40 years from now.

Another way to keep OPEC & Persian Gulf tyrants out of our business is to not be addicted to their product, period.

[Tiger Al 0]

Meanwhile, W says he'll open up Gov't lands for more drilling, and lookie here ! Oil drops $ 10 a barrel. Go figure

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

[AUTiger1 0]

The OPEC embargo had absolutely nothing to do w/ the world oil supply. It's politics then and it's politics now. The more of our own oil we have to work with, the less the Arabs , or anyone else, has a say in our business.

I agree the OPEC embargo wasn't about reserves at the time...my point re it was just that we've known about our dangerous addiction to oil since the 1970's and have never seriously attempted to find alternatives. Had we started doing the R&D for alternatives and trying to get off the petroleum teat back then, we wouldn't be in the fix we're in now. If we just keep trying to nurse that "last drop" out of the ground without changing our ways, we'll be in this same fix 10, 20, or 40 years from now.

Another way to keep OPEC & Persian Gulf tyrants out of our business is to not be addicted to their product, period.

That is not what most of us are wanting to do. We simply ask, and get no real response, on what is wrong with tapping into OUR OWN natural resources while at the same time researching alternatives.

Make no mistake about this, for Pickens this is all about the almighty $. He has what? 2 billion invest in to wind power and has ordered 600+ turbines from GM? I would doubt that Pickens would make any money off the drilling that would take place in Alaska and off the gulf coast, so why not come out and spend $50 something million on a campaign for wind and solar power, especially if you stand to make billions.

Everyone seems to forget that in 2005 Pickens said this:

“I was in wind energy for a minute…. I hate it. And when I got to looking at those damn things I said, I don't want to be a part of putting that on the horizon. I think it's homely and I don't like it. We took a loss and got out of it and I'm glad I did.”

—T. Boone Pickens, Bloomberg, February 17, 2005

3 short years ago and all of a sudden a change of heart....wonder why?

"Don't get the idea that I've turned green," Pickens tells the Guardian in the Dallas offices of his new venture Mesa Power. "My business is making money, and I think this is going to make a lot of money."

It's all about the money that he wants to make. Kudos for wanting an alternative. I think we all do. I think that everyone on this board will agree that we need alternatives and stop making the Arabs and Venezuela rich.

[DKW 86 7,450]

Wind is doomed to failure. The tree huggers are trying to shut them down now.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-0...ills-usat_x.htm

Wind turbines taking toll on birds of prey

By John Ritter, USA TODAY

ALTAMONT PASS, Calif. — The big turbines that stretch for miles along these rolling, grassy hills have churned out clean, renewable electricity for two decades in one of the nation's first big wind-power projects.

SeaWest Windpower wind turbine generators stand near Tracy, Calif.

By Ben Margot, AP

But for just as long, massive fiberglass blades on the more than 4,000 windmills have been chopping up tens of thousands of birds that fly into them, including golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, burrowing owls and other raptors.

After years of study but little progress reducing bird kills, environmentalists have sued to force turbine owners to take tough corrective measures. The companies, at risk of federal prosecution, say they see the need to protect birds. "Once we finally realized that this issue was really serious, that we had to solve it to move forward, we got religion," says George Hardie, president of G3 Energy.

The size of the annual body count — conservatively put at 4,700 birds — is unique to this sprawling, 50-square-mile site in the Diablo Mountains between San Francisco and the agricultural Central Valley because it spans an international migratory bird route regulated by the federal government. The low mountains are home to the world's highest density of nesting golden eagles.

Scientists don't know whether the kills reduce overall bird populations but worry that turbines, added to other factors, could tip a species into decline. "They didn't realize it at the time, but it was just a really bad place to build a wind farm," says Grainger Hunt, an ecologist with the Peregrine Fund who has studied eagles at Altamont.

Across the USA — from Cape Cod to the Southern California desert — new wind projects, touted as emission-free options to oil- and gas-fueled power plants, face resistance over wildlife, noise and vistas. The clashes come as wind-energy demand is growing, in part because 17 states have passed laws requiring that some of their future energy — 20% in California by 2010 — come from renewable sources.

Environmental groups, fans in principle of "green" power, are caught in the middle. "We've been really clear all along, we absolutely support wind energy as long as facilities are appropriately sited," says Jeff Miller, Bay Area wildlands coordinator for the Center for Biological Diversity, which took 12 companies to court.

Wind energy is a tiny but fast-growing share of U.S. energy — 0.4%, up from less than 0.1% five years ago. Since November, when Congress reinstated a key tax credit for wind producers, the industry is poised to expand by as much as a third this year, the American Wind Energy Association says.

In 2004, wind generated enough electricity to power 1.6 million households, the association says. Altamont's turbines are the nation's No. 2 producer. Few energy experts think environmental concerns will discourage wind development long-term because the tradeoff is too appealing.

"When you opt for wind turbines, you don't opt for pollution that harms children and crops from fossil-fuel power plants," says Dan Kammen, an energy professor at the University of California-Berkeley.

But windmills — derisively dubbed by some "toilet brushes in the sky" — draw fire when they're planned in areas prized for their pristine landscapes:

• Cape Cod groups are fighting what they call visual pollution from 130 turbines, each taller than the Statue of Liberty, sought for Nantucket Sound. Fishermen fear loss of prime fishing grounds from the USA's first offshore project.

• Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., asked the Government Accountability Office to study the effects more windmills would have in the Appalachians. Research found that existing turbines killed up to 4,000 bats on Backbone Mountain last year.

• In the Flint Hills of Kansas, the Audubon Society worries that windmills could despoil views in one of America's few remaining stands of native tallgrass prairie and harm habitats of migrating prairie birds.

• Acting Gov. Richard Codey last month ordered a 15-month wind-power moratorium on the New Jersey shore, where the desire to preserve Atlantic views has collided with plans for offshore turbines near Ocean City and other sites.

Altamont Pass bird kills have been known for years, but turbine owners and federal regulators ignored them except to urge more research, says Miller of the Center for Biological Diversity. But a California Energy Commission study in August found bird fatalities much higher than had been thought and laid out steps to limit them.

At the same time, 20-year-old county permits were up for renewal, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided to crack down. "Twenty years has just been too long to resolve this problem," says Scott Heard, the agency's chief Northern California enforcement agent.

Fish and Wildlife can prosecute those responsible for kills under federal laws that protect eagles and migratory birds.

The center's lawsuit was withdrawn but filed again in November because the wind companies' bird-protection plan was "not a serious attempt," Miller says. The center is appealing Alameda County's approval of new permits.

The state study's key recommendation would be costly for companies: replace old turbines with fewer, larger-capacity modern ones, relocate them away from favorite bird haunts and build them more than twice as high so blades rotate above the birds' flight paths.

Environmentalists want 3-year permits that can be renewed only if companies show progress. The companies, citing financial pressures, have proposed at least 13-year permits and want their own timetable for installing new turbines.

Alameda County is trying to broker a deal. "We can't put them out of business by telling them to take out all their old turbines," says assistant planning director Steven Buckley.

Turbine owners say Altamont's 4,000-plus windmills are outdated and eventually will be replaced by 1,000 or fewer new ones. G3 Energy, a small Altamont operator, is replacing 180 obsolete turbines with 38 larger ones.

Others are more cautious. FPL Energy, Altamont's biggest operator with 2,000 turbines, wants the study's findings tested. "Certainly the turbine owners hope fewer, taller turbines reduce collisions," says FPL spokesman Steve Stengel. "But there has not been research done to verify that."

[AURaptor 1,128]

Meanwhile, W says he'll open up Gov't lands for more drilling, and lookie here ! Oil drops $ 10 a barrel. Go figure

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

You're suggesting that the very day the President makes an announcement on opening up Fed lands for drilling, there's a huge drop in the price of oil per gallon, the biggest drop in months, that it's pure coincidence ?

And yet you offer nothing in the way of an explanation , other than the President's declaration, which would explain the drop in oil?

Huh.

[tiger88 934]

Drill now, ask questions later. No we can't drill our way out of this, but we can drill our way into surviving this whole mess.

When Israel bombs the sheeet out of Iran in the coming months we would be glad we have already started. Of course, that would be assuming that liberals can actually pull their heads out of their a$$es long enough to make a halfway competent decision.

[AURaptor 1,128]

Drill now, ask questions later. No we can't drill our way out of this, but we can drill our way into surviving this whole mess.

When Israel bombs the sheeet out of Iran in the coming months we would be glad we have already started. Of course, that would be assuming that liberals can actually pull their heads out of their a$$es long enough to make a halfway competent decision.

A GOP slogan I heard on the radio, on the energy issue and fighting Islmao Fascism - Drill here, Kill there.

[Tiger Al 0]

Meanwhile, W says he'll open up Gov't lands for more drilling, and lookie here ! Oil drops $ 10 a barrel. Go figure

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

You're suggesting that the very day the President makes an announcement on opening up Fed lands for drilling, there's a huge drop in the price of oil per gallon, the biggest drop in months, that it's pure coincidence ?

I'm suggesting that you've posited a fallacious argument. You expect people to believe that because Bush uttered a few words about oil that that's the reason for the decrease, but, you failed to show any evidence of how your proposed cause, Bush's announcement, brought about the effect of oil prices dropping.

If Bush only has to make announcements to affect the price of oil, why hasn't he done it before or since?

And yet you offer nothing in the way of an explanation , other than the President's declaration, which would explain the drop in oil?

Huh.

I was merely pointing out your faulty reasoning. I think this might be a better explanation of why the price of oil actually dropped:

July 16 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil futures fell more than $4 a barrel in New York after a surprise increase in U.S. inventories and as a slowing U.S. economy sapped demand for energy.

Supplies rose 2.95 million barrels to 296.9 million barrels last week, an Energy Department report showed. Stockpiles were forecast to drop 2.2 million barrels, according a Bloomberg News survey. Fuel demand averaged 20.3 million barrels a day in the past four weeks, down 2 percent from 2007, the department said.

``The inventory numbers are starting to reflect the bad macro-economic news,'' said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research in Winchester, Massachusetts. ``Not only did we get a surprise build in crude-oil stocks, the products were also up nicely.''

Crude oil for August delivery fell $4.14, or 3 percent, to settle at $134.60 a barrel at 3 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices dropped 7.3 percent since July 14, the biggest two-day decline since January 2007. Futures are up 81 percent from a year ago.

Oil today fell as low as $132 a barrel, more than 10 percent below the record of $147.27 reached on July 11. A drop of that magnitude is commonly referred to as a correction.

LINK

[AUman43 5]

One better question TigerAl, is why did he (Bush) wait so long to lift the ban on off-shore drilling when he COULD have lifted it long ago by Executive Order rather than playing politics with it? Moreover, any expanded drilling now would have no REAL results for 10 years or more and with the limited number of refineries, we couldn't handle the excess production anyway. Pickens is right in the sense that we need an effective energy policy and we need to begin quickly to move in the direction of solar, nuclear, wind, natural gas and other alternative forms. We need a leader who will convene an emergency panel of the finest minds in the country (and we have some) to develop this energy plan and implement it. We need to reward the private sector for finding an effective solution to this serious problem. Leadership has been in the toilet while we rewarded the giant oil companies for simply doing what they've been doing all along.

[Tigermike 3,065]

I have several for sale if any of you non drillers are interested.

This is the mass transportation system they have in mind.

Here is another question Shug, why hasn't the congress sent a bill to the president (any president) to open up drilling?

[autigeremt 6,719]

They be skerd

[CCTAU 3,351]

One better question TigerAl, is why did he (Bush) wait so long to lift the ban on off-shore drilling when he COULD have lifted it long ago by Executive Order rather than playing politics with it? Moreover, any expanded drilling now would have no REAL results for 10 years or more and with the limited number of refineries, we couldn't handle the excess production anyway. Pickens is right in the sense that we need an effective energy policy and we need to begin quickly to move in the direction of solar, nuclear, wind, natural gas and other alternative forms. We need a leader who will convene an emergency panel of the finest minds in the country (and we have some) to develop this energy plan and implement it. We need to reward the private sector for finding an effective solution to this serious problem. Leadership has been in the toilet while we rewarded the giant oil companies for simply doing what they've been doing all along.

Blah, blah, blah. When the main source of your energy is at $1 a gallon, you don't really need an aggressive energy policy. No one has said that the extra oil would add 100% to the big picture. What has been suggested is that it would add some and replace a lot of what we have to import. Then the price would not be tied so much to the middle east. And that money would stay here. And if you think it will take 10 years to get the oil out if the go ahead is given, then you are just citing librul babble. The oil in Alaska may take a while, but oil in the gulf would flow much quicker.

I just got some of that new KY Jelly so I could be like the libruls too. Just lube up my thumb and sit on it and do nothing. And while it sit here, maybe somebody will come up with a miracle energy source.

[AURaptor 1,128]

Tiger Al -

That you seem to think that the President of the United States, because it happens to be George Bush , can't utter a few words and change how people act, people like oil speculators, ...it's pretty laughable. I'm not saying it was the ONLY reason , but the fact that the US is possibly moving toward reopening up lands which had been off limits to oil companies for how many years ?, and these lands are considered oil producing areas, you can't say w/ a straight face that W's actions had NO effect on the price of oil.

You gotta let go of your hatred for Bush and look at the big picture, if only for a little bit.

[Tiger Al 0]

Tiger Al -

That you seem to think that the President of the United States, because it happens to be George Bush , can't utter a few words and change how people act, people like oil speculators, ...it's pretty laughable.

I never said that what the president says never changes how people act. The problem with your assumption here is that Bush's lifting the Executive ban didn't change a thing, so, his words are meaningless in that they don't add one drop of oil to existing or future oil supplies. Even he knows that:

Bush said that speculators are not to blame for higher oil prices and it is the market fundamentals of tight supplies and strong demand that are pushing up crude costs.

"The fundamentals are what's really driving the long-term price of oil," he said. "Demand for oil has increased and supply has not kept up with it."

Lifting the Executive ban doesn't open these areas anymore today than they were one week ago.

On the other hand, as the article I linked earlier pointed out, supplies rose unexpectedly dropping the price of oil.

I'm not saying it was the ONLY reason , but the fact that the US is possibly moving toward reopening up lands which had been off limits to oil companies for how many years ?, and these lands are considered oil producing areas, you can't say w/ a straight face that W's actions had NO effect on the price of oil.

It sounds like that's exactly what you were saying in your first post:

Meanwhile, W says he'll open up Gov't lands for more drilling, and lookie here ! Oil drops $ 10 a barrel. Go figure

And it continued:

You're suggesting that the very day the President makes an announcement on opening up Fed lands for drilling, there's a huge drop in the price of oil per gallon, the biggest drop in months, that it's pure coincidence ?

And yet you offer nothing in the way of an explanation , other than the President's declaration, which would explain the drop in oil?

Huh.

Only until this post that I'm responding to now did you ever allow that there might be other reasons.

You gotta let go of your hatred for Bush and look at the big picture, if only for a little bit.

I don't hate him, I just don't hold him in the same omnipotent, omniscient regard that you do. I will, however, celebrate on the day he goes back to Texas where he belongs.

[AURaptor 1,128]

I don't hate him, I just don't hold him in the same omnipotent, omniscient regard that you do. I will, however, celebrate on the day he goes back to Texas where he belongs.

At least I can be honest about Bush, who I think has done some good, some bad, and is over all a much better choice than Gore or Kerry. I DON'T, as you put it, hold W to any level of omnipotent, omniscient regard. I just saw a clear cause and effect event, and you completely dismissed it, out of hand.

[Tiger Al 0]

I don't hate him, I just don't hold him in the same omnipotent, omniscient regard that you do. I will, however, celebrate on the day he goes back to Texas where he belongs.

At least I can be honest about Bush, who I think has done some good, some bad, and is over all a much better choice than Gore or Kerry. I DON'T, as you put it, hold W to any level of omnipotent, omniscient regard. I just saw a clear cause and effect event, and you completely dismissed it, out of hand.

It was dismissed out of hand because your initial reasoning, or lack thereof, was so specious that only the most enamored Bushbot would try to use it. A more likely explanation for the price drop was found.

[AURaptor 1,128]

What 'lack of reasoning' are you referring to when we have weeks and weeks of ever climbing oil prices, then along comes Bush, makes a bold declaration, and that very day, ( or the next day ) the price of oil drops, and continues to drop ?

Clearly, other events influence what goes on, but other events have been going on week after week, and nothing has stemmed the rising tide ( sorry ) of high oil prices, until W makes his speech.

I'm laughing at you if you honestly think one has nothing to do w/ the other.

[Tiger Al 0]

What 'lack of reasoning' are you referring to when we have weeks and weeks of ever climbing oil prices, then along comes Bush, makes a bold declaration, and that very day, ( or the next day ) the price of oil drops, and continues to drop ?

Clearly, other events influence what goes on, but other events have been going on week after week, and nothing has stemmed the rising tide ( sorry ) of high oil prices, until W makes his speech.

I'm laughing at you if you honestly think one has nothing to do w/ the other.

I'm talking about the lack of reasoning you've employed since your first post. Bush's "bold declaration" did nothing to increase the supply of oil or decrease demand for it. His words carried no authority for action and everyone knows it except you, it would seem. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, something DID happen that DOES affect the price of oil and that was an unexpected increase in the supply of oil which brought the price down some. This from a LINK in Auburn85's thread:

Oil prices fell more than $10 over the previous two days on growing concerns that inflation and other economic concerns could reduce demand for crude. A surprisingly large gain in oil and refined fuel inventories in the U.S. prolonged the sell-off, because it suggested more supplies were heading into storage rather than consumers' fuel tanks.

No mention of oil prices dropping on the heels of Bush's "bold declaration." Instead, tangible evidence demonstrating the effects of supply and demand, not some nefarious, "It happened because Bush said it," claptrap.

Bush himself...again:

Bush said that speculators are not to blame for higher oil prices and it is the market fundamentals of tight supplies and strong demand that are pushing up crude costs.

"The fundamentals are what's really driving the long-term price of oil," he said. "Demand for oil has increased and supply has not kept up with it."

It's the fundamentals, stupid. But, I ask again, if it IS indeed all due to "bold declarations" (and not fundamentals), why hasn't Bush been making these "bold declarations" before and since? Is he pacing himself?