Peruna, it's good to discuss this with someone who is reasonable, because there has been a gross shortage of reason on both sides of this issue.

If you heard Palin last night, she put plenty of emphasis on alternatives. I worked in and around energy for most of the last 35 years (even though I'm not in academia, my office walls are full of offshore pipeline maps that always get my students' attention when they come by). I first knew of Palin through the energy connection, and I believe she has the ability to craft and present to the American people a plan that transitions us to alternatives while using fossil fuels to ease the transition. That's what Pickens is really talking about and that's what I think sensible people will ultimately come to see as the solution. But other than Paris Hilton and T Boone, nobody has really put that forward yet.

As my son says, "How bad is it when Paris Hilton has a better energy plan than either major party?" I'm hoping Palin changes that. She certainly has the knowledge to change it. If only her party listens to her. I was beginning to fear that they were trying to resign her to the Dan Quayle corner, but I'm hoping they think better of that after last night.

I don't care for Palin's religious right views, but I'd be willing to put up with them to get her input taken seriously on the energy issue.

Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:Peruna, it's good to discuss this with someone who is reasonable, because there has been a gross shortage of reason on both sides of this issue.

If you heard Palin last night, she put plenty of emphasis on alternatives. I worked in and around energy for most of the last 35 years (even though I'm not in academia, my office walls are full of offshore pipeline maps that always get my students' attention when they come by). I first knew of Palin through the energy connection, and I believe she has the ability to craft and present to the American people a plan that transitions us to alternatives while using fossil fuels to ease the transition. That's what Pickens is really talking about and that's what I think sensible people will ultimately come to see as the solution. But other than Paris Hilton and T Boone, nobody has really put that forward yet.

As my son says, "How bad is it when Paris Hilton has a better energy plan than either major party?" I'm hoping Palin changes that. She certainly has the knowledge to change it. If only her party listens to her. I was beginning to fear that they were trying to resign her to the Dan Quayle corner, but I'm hoping they think better of that after last night.

I don't care for Palin's religious right views, but I'd be willing to put up with them to get her input taken seriously on the energy issue.

Id rather she stick to her past view of Alaskan secession and then educate herself on the hard science of evolution...Do that.. Im a fan.

perunapower Wrote:We've discussed this before Owl. I know that limited drilling is essential to a healthy energy plan, but I'm just sick of it being touted by conservatives as a significant short term solution. It's a gross misrepresentation to argue that we can significantly reduce our reliance on foreign oil by just opening up ANWR, the OCS, and other areas.

Drilling actually IS a signficant short-term solution. What it's not is a significant long-term solution. That will have to be alternatives. But realistically we are 25 years away from alternatives taking a major share of the load, and we have to get from here to there.

Drilling can do more than people realize, at least with respect to price. This year we got supply and demand out of synch by less than 1%, and the price doubled. When you're in a place on the supply and demand curves where things are pretty inelastic on both sides, that can happen. If we had 1% more supply over the summer, prices probably would have stayed around $60-$70/bbl.

If we replace another 20% of gasoline with ethanol, we essentially knock 3% off world demand. Not exactly, becuase we still need oil for the non-gasoline applications, but fortunately shale oil meets those needs while it provides little help for gasoline. It's doable--Brasil uses a mix of gasoline (25% ethanol) and ethanol (85% ethanol, becuase you need some petroleum content to keep the ethanol stable), that works out to +/- 40% overall. We can't make that much ethanol out of corn, but we can also use more efficient sugar and we can import sugar cane ethanol from Latin America. That doesn't save us foreign exchange directly, but it gives us much more leverage with OPEC than we have now. And I have to believe that the impacts on illegal immigration and drug supplies justify giving Latin America a significant cash crop.

Drilling is a reasonably short term solution. Opening up the areas presently closed off would start generating more oil in 5 years, and the amount would be significant within 7 years. That's what the DOE report that has been quoted as saying "nothing for 10 years" and "no significant benefit for 30 years" actually says, if you go past the sound bytes and look at the details.

We really don't know how much oil is available offshore. More importantly, we do know that there's a LOT of natural gas offshore (see T Boone Pickens). Best estimates, based on what is known now, are that if we drilled the promising targets now off-limits, we would get 1% of daily world oil production from them. That would have a more significant impact on prices than people realize.

We can do it, but we need to quit pointing fingers and get to work.

Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:

perunapower Wrote:We've discussed this before Owl. I know that limited drilling is essential to a healthy energy plan, but I'm just sick of it being touted by conservatives as a significant short term solution. It's a gross misrepresentation to argue that we can significantly reduce our reliance on foreign oil by just opening up ANWR, the OCS, and other areas.

Drilling can do more than people realize, at least with respect to price. This year we got supply and demand out of synch by less than 1%, and the price doubled. When you're in a place on the supply and demand curves where things are pretty inelastic on both sides, that can happen. If we had 1% more supply over the summer, prices probably would have stayed around $60-$70/bbl.

If we replace another 20% of gasoline with ethanol, we essentially knock 3% off world demand. Not exactly, becuase we still need crude for the non-gasoline applications, but fortunately shale oil meets those needs while it provides little help for gasoline. It's doable--Brasil uses a mix of gasoline (25% ethanol) and ethanol (85% ethanol, becuase you need some petroleum content to keep the ethanol stable), that works out to +/- 40% overall. We can't make that much ethanol out of corn, but we can also use more efficient sugar and we can import sugar cane ethanol from Latin America. That doesn't save us foreign exchange directly, but it gives us much more leverage with OPEC than we have now.

Drilling is a reasonably short term solution. Opening up the areas presently closed off would start generating more oil in 5 years, and the amount would be significant within 7 years. That's what the DOE report that has been quoted as saying "nothing for 10 years" and "no significant benefit for 30 years" actually says, if you actually read it in detail.

We really don't know how much oil is available offshore. More importantly, we do know that there's a LOT of natural gas offshore (see T Boone Pickens). Best estimates, based on what is known now, are that if we drilled the promising targets now off-limits, we would get 1% of daily world production from them. That would have a more significant impact on prices than people realize.

We can do it, but we need to quit pointing fingers and get to work.

Watch out T Boone!! I heard today that bats are getting killed by windturbines...This is occuring when bats fly close to the blades...The air pressure change explodes their lungs. LOOK OUT...The environmentalists are going to be on your ass.

Fo Shizzle Wrote:Watch out T Boone!! I heard today that bats are getting killed by windturbines...This is occuring when bats fly close to the blades...The air pressure change explodes their lungs. LOOK OUT...The environmentalists are going to be on your ass.

They already are. Birds, bats, this has been going on for some time.

There are a lot of problems with wind. It's no good when the wind isn't blowing, and we can't control that. That would improve with better storage technology. Solar is a little better than wind in this regard because the period of maximum demand is hot summer days when solar is best. Perhaps and even bigger problem is that our power grid is not really equipped to deliver significant amounts of power from places where the wind blows to places where people use electricity. It still needs to be part of the solution.

Coming up with better electric storage technology is one of those unsung efforts that would clear the way to a lot of renewable technology. Electric cars become immediately more desirable. Scattering storage around the system would help in times when the grid gets dragged down and we have blackouts and brownouts. And many other advantages, too.

Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:Drilling actually IS a signficant short-term solution. What it's not is a significant long-term solution. That will have to be alternatives. But realistically we are 25 years away from alternatives taking a major share of the load, and we have to get from here to there.

Drilling can do more than people realize, at least with respect to price. This year we got supply and demand out of synch by less than 1%, and the price doubled. When you're in a place on the supply and demand curves where things are pretty inelastic on both sides, that can happen. If we had 1% more supply over the summer, prices probably would have stayed around $60-$70/bbl.

I'm not talking about lowering the price so much as I'm talking about lowering our dependence on importing foreign oil. We consume 20.7 million bbls/day. We have 21.8 billion bbls in proven reserves. If I'm a little more optimistic and throw in a 2 billion more for off-shore reserves that may not be discovered yet that would grow the number to 23.8 billion bbls in reserves. Doing some simple arithmetic (dividing the total number of reserves by the consumption rate then dividing by 365 days/year) the total reserves for the US would last the country 3.15 years.

Now that's not to take away from the fact that it will be advantageous to our economy to take advantage of our natural resources, but let's be honest, drilling here and drilling now isn't going to significantly reduce our foreign oil imports.

I'm not really going to delve too much into the economics of oil prices, but I do know that the recent surge in oil prices has been driven by more than simple supply and demand forces. Speculation, geopolitical instability, and a weakening dollar in addition to increasing demand have all played a role in rising oil prices.

Quote:If we replace another 20% of gasoline with ethanol, we essentially knock 3% off world demand. Not exactly, becuase we still need oil for the non-gasoline applications, but fortunately shale oil meets those needs while it provides little help for gasoline. It's doable--Brasil uses a mix of gasoline (25% ethanol) and ethanol (85% ethanol, becuase you need some petroleum content to keep the ethanol stable), that works out to +/- 40% overall. We can't make that much ethanol out of corn, but we can also use more efficient sugar and we can import sugar cane ethanol from Latin America. That doesn't save us foreign exchange directly, but it gives us much more leverage with OPEC than we have now. And I have to believe that the impacts on illegal immigration and drug supplies justify giving Latin America a significant cash crop.

I have no qualms with this. Unfortunately, we have pissed a lot of Latin American leaders off. Maybe that would be a means of bridging the gap between South America and North America.

Quote:Drilling is a reasonably short term solution. Opening up the areas presently closed off would start generating more oil in 5 years, and the amount would be significant within 7 years. That's what the DOE report that has been quoted as saying "nothing for 10 years" and "no significant benefit for 30 years" actually says, if you go past the sound bytes and look at the details.

I've read parts of the DOE report (I think I've actually linked to it on this board). I know that oil reserves will take 5-10 years to get running at peak capacity. I just don't think we have enough oil to be touting "drilling here, drilling now" as a means of ending importing foreign oil from "people that don't like us".

Quote:We really don't know how much oil is available offshore. More importantly, we do know that there's a LOT of natural gas offshore (see T Boone Pickens). Best estimates, based on what is known now, are that if we drilled the promising targets now off-limits, we would get 1% of daily world oil production from them. That would have a more significant impact on prices than people realize.

We can do it, but we need to quit pointing fingers and get to work.

There is a lot of natural gas, period. I like T. Boone Pickens' plan. I'm up for implementing it. I'm optimistic we America can become energy efficient and use significantly less oil by using a wide array of alternatives (wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, nuclear, clean coal, natural gas, etc.).

I want (naively I'm afraid) for Republicans to quit pointing at Democrats and saying "they don't want us to be energy independent because they won't let us drill" and I want Democrats to quit pointing at Republicans and saying "they hate the environment because they would rather quench their gas guzzler's unending thirst".

Peruna, we have discussed this before and concluded that we are not far apart.

I would challenge you to look at a couple of the numbers somewhat differently. You say we have domestic reserves for 3+ years of domestic demand. We are producing 1/3 of our oil domestically, so what we really have is enough reserves to continue to meet 1/3 of demand for roughly 10 years. You pretty much never have more than 10 years of reserves, as an economic matter and not a geological matter, because it's simply not economically feasible to develop reserves faster than that. Now the problem. We need new finds to keep replacing the oil that we produce each year, or else our ability to produce 1/3 will deteriorate further. If we don't drill we won't keep producing 1/3; that will fall to 1/4 then 1/5 then 1/6 and so on, and we'll become increasingly dependent on imports. So not drilling is not the status quo; we have to keep drilling to maintain.

Mr. Obama has pledged to get us off oil in 10 years. I think that's very unrealistic. There are alternative technologies, but they're not ready to go to market today. And even if they were totally ready to go today, they're going to require infrastructure changes that aren't ready to go today. And those changes alone will probably take at least 10 years under the best of conditions. Realistically, even with a crash program that is wildly successful at every step, we're probably talking 25 years before we can meet a majority of our fuel needs through renewables. We need to bridge that gap.

I think you're way low on estimated undiscovered future reserves. The best estimates for ANWR is about 10 billion barrels, and a similar number for prohibited offshore areas. That would buy us another 10 years at 1/3 of domestic demand. I would not go to ANWR right away, but would expand offshore. I think we should hold off ANWR as long as possible, keep it in our hip pocket. Because of proximity to an existing pipeline, and pretty much as much certainty as it's possible to have about what's there before you start punching holes, it has the ability to ramp up relatively quickly. That being the case, I'd keep it as a last resort, hoping that advancing technology will enable us to address environmental and other concerns more effectively when we actually go there.

Drilling plus ethanol, solar, wind, and nukes should be enough to bridge the gap. And while we're bridging that gap, it's not going to be popular, but we need to tax the use of non-renewables to help people make economic deicisons to wean themselves off, plus to finance certain infrastructure changes (mass transit, high-speed intercity trains, etc.) that the private sector won't do becuase the payback takes too long. Not to finance alternatives directly--if we get the price high enough on gasoline, the private sector WILL take care of that, and will do so more efficiently and more effectively than any government.

Finally it is somewhat misleading to say that we have a abundant natural gas. We have a short-term oversupply, but not long term unless we open up the eastern Gulf of Mexico. I'm not convinced that powering cars is the best use for it, either. It may make more sense to power more electric generation and put more electric cars on the road.