Offshore drilling bill passes house - CONTACT YOUR SENATORS!

[Trinigordo]

uhm, if you keep the "C" underground, then it isn't going to form "CO2" in the atmosphere. take it out, it gets burned and winds up CO2...

Yeah I guess, but why would you do that?

How is that financially beneficial to USA Federal Government/The states of Florida and California/Floridians and Californians?

 

[carlthecat]

American will never be self-sufficient in oil again unless we actually reduce demand by an order of magnitude (90%)

90%?!?!?! Jesus lamont... I take back my suggestion and now suggest the following:

1) We use candles in our homes for light and a fireplace for cooking.
2) Walk to work. If you live too far to make it see #3.
3) Everyone buy a horse and never use a car again. families may want to buy a buggie/wagon as well.
4) We better get used to raising live stock and gardens because the trucks that stock the grocery store stopped delivering because they live by suggestion #2 and #3
5) Forget any shopping due to #4. So we will have to make our own goods, clothes, furniture, wait, what about toilet paper? Maybe we can squeeze that into the 10% usage.
6) Forget about traveling unless you have a year to get to vacation
7) Every computer? gone. how are we going to disucss scuba topics on scubaboard?
8) No compressed air. My new scuba outfit will be a clear plastic bag over my head. Wonder what my no decompression time will be?
9) and so on and so on and so on...

Reduce demand by an order of magnitude (90%)? Why stop there? Lets reduce it by 100% and become Amish. Not that there is anything wrong with being Amish.

 

[lamont]

We don't even know that CO2 causes global warming. It's a theory.

Not very long ago, we were told that CO2 causes global cooling. Now they say warming & no one really knows. We've seen temps rise 1 degree over 100 years, something that seems to be statistically insignificant, and we had more CO2 output during the 1st half of that time than the 2nd.

CO2 causes global warming. Its transparent in the visible peak of the Sun's output (~5880K black body) and has wide absorbtion bands in the I-R spectra which cause it to absorb and reflect heat that the Earth gives off at ~350K black-body. The result is a greenhouse effect, just like glass which has similar characteristics. You can look to Venus for a planetary example of how this works. There is no actual scientific debate over this, just public misinformation.

 

[LeFlaneur]

I agree, but it's not like flipping a switch, unfortunately. I wish it were as easy as explaining it and getting everyone to agree with me. But how realistic is it?

That's why I made that post about tax incentives. You're right it isn't as easy as flipping a switch, but nothing will get done if we don't start allocating resource (aka money) in the right place.

Imagine after the surgeon general advised us to quit smoking, the government gave huge tax incentives to farmers that grew tobacco. This makes about as much sense.

 

[lamont]

Yeah I guess, but why would you do that?

How is that financially beneficial to USA Federal Government/The states of Florida and California/Floridians and Californians?

offhand... not having florida underwater in 50 years after greenland and antarctica melt? probably be nice not to completely disrupt crop production as well -- we might not starve to death here, but it wouldn't be very good for GDP growth.

 

[lamont]

Reduce demand by an order of magnitude (90%)? Why stop there? Lets reduce it by 100% and become Amish. Not that there is anything wrong with being Amish.

and that's my point, we're not going to become Amish, so therefore drilling in ANWR or the gulf of mexico does not produce any energy self-sufficiency or most of the other claimed "benefits" of drilling there "instead" of in the third-world or middle east.

 

[jbichsel]

You seem to be assuming that the options are that it happens domestically or it happens in the third world. In reality its going to happen in the third world. The question is if its going to happen domestically or not.

And a lot of people claim that pumping domestically means that we don't give money to terrorists in the middle east, etc. You should actually do some research on the peak pumping capacity of ANWR or oil rigs in the gulf and figure out when they'll hit their peak and how significant it will be and compare it to the 84.9 Mbd the world is using now, or the the US share of that. The numbers I've read on ANWR are 1 Mbd something like 10 years in the future. That isn't going to be of any help. I expect that neither will drilling in the Gulf. American will never be self-sufficient in oil again unless we actually reduce demand by an order of magnitude (90%), we do not have oil fields that can produce at the rates necessary to sustain the rate at which we are consuming oil.

I am assuming that I would prefer to buy my oil from Florida, Texas, Colorado or even California than Iraq, Saudi Arabia, et al. My point is that if we have a choice to take steps to reduce our dependency on foreign oil, what's wrong with that? I'm not sying this is the end all of our problems, but we need to start somewhere.

How do you eat an elephant?

What about the puddle of crude that is sitting under Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Utah? It's possibly the largest deposit ever found.

Yet the tree huggers don't want to drill. When are the tree huggers going to actually do something that comtributes to the solution rather than saying every idea proposed is bad or evil? When will the tree huggers allow a new refinery or nuclear plant to be built?

Again, I realize these are not solutions. But they are a temporary, necessary evil that is a means to an end. Pricing us into economic squallor is not the answer. Just because Europe and others are paying high prices does not mean we should. The Founding Fathers believed and creates this nation to be different and to be a beacon in the storm. I don't want America to be like everyone else.

 

[MEL-DC Diver]

Actually, soem of the things on his list ARE doable. North America loves their cars, and big ones at that. Canada isn't very good in this regard, but Americans are still twice as bad.

We could all choose to stop buying stupid SUVs... I laugh everytime I see one. And they just seem to be getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger. What the hell do people need these vehicles for!

Oh yeah, and we could choose to commute more responsibly: carpooling, bussing, etc. There are a LOT of things to do to drastically reduce your gas usage.

I have a small car, and with the recent gas hikes, I've further decided to start running to/from work. I've lowered my consumption nearly about 40%. Yes, YOU can do something if you want to. Stop complaining about what you can't do, and do something that you CAN do.

- ChillyWaters

Chilly,
I love my SUV for all other reasons you hate them. Conservation by itself only perpetuates the current issue. Greater usage increases demand, demand increases the prices, and higher prices force alternatives to be sought as less people are able to afford the fuel. The real trick is getting all of this to happen so that alternative fuels are able to come on line and become sustainable at the right price point in such a way that any economic impact sustained is relatively unnoticable. A solution for managing the future of fossil fuels and alternative energy correctly is years in the making, involving a diverse set of energy initiatives - oil, nuclear, hydrogen, etc. Everyone turning around today and buying a Civic or Prius will do nothing... Well, nothing more than perhaps feeling really, really good about yourself.
Regards,
MEL

 

[dlndavid]

get rid of the diamond lanes, then all the SUV's could legally drive in fast lane, not wasting gas stuck in bumper to bumper traffic.

 

[jbichsel]

the big problem is the CO2 emissions from burning these fossil fuels. if we keep the fossil fuel in the ground it will not produce CO2 and will not cause global warming.).

Good night! Get a grip. Are you so arrogant that you think humans have more effect on the environmet than our sun? What about the reports stating that solar activity has been on the increase over the past 30-50 years and that is the cause of global warming?

What about the fact that 96% of greenhouse gas is WATER VAPOR? Stay with me here; the sun warms the earth, water evaporates and becomes......water vapor. More heat, more evaporation, more water vapor.

What effect do volcanoes have with all the gases they emit? How about all the fires raging all over the world, many of which are in third world countries that are clearing forests for farmland, residential or commercial development?

How about the fact that 800 years ago there was a period where earths temperatures rose 1 degree in 50 years? I believe that was long before our Ford Expedition was built.

What about all the heating and cooling events that took place throughout the geologic record long before Henry Ford, Ely Whitney, the Industrial Revolution or the evil band of polluters know as the Colonists?

Get a clue. Global warming is real. And it has been in the distant past also.

exploiting ANWR or the gulf of mexico will not prevent an oil crisis, will not reduce our demand on foreign oil, will not prevent drilling in third world nations and will not prevent money from going to terrorists. it will help out those who work in the domestic oil drilling business and will help the profits of the companies that drill domestically. for that result along we are going to wind up dumping all that CO2 into the atmosphere, delay creating alternative and sustainable forms of energy, and cause ecological damage due to seepage (at the least) or a major spill (worst case).

Agreed, it is not a solution. I don't believe anyone said it was. It is a temporary assist to get us past the reliance on fossil fuels. It is a necessary evil that we must face in order to get the next level of energy.