Posted by TECHUSER on July 22, 2008 at 7:28 a.m. (Suggest removal)

More oil is what we need. Even I can figure that out.Soon as bush said he lifted the restrictions on off shore drilling,the price of oil dropped.
Now that people are not using as much gas the price of gas has dropped.
That is market place economics 101.
This guy NAVA needs to go back to school and read up on market forces. He is ignorant.

Posted by cassandra2 on July 22, 2008 at 7:53 a.m. (Suggest removal)

There are so many things wrong with mm and techuser's posts, it would require several essays to reply. By drilling in sensitive areas, we risk the environment and AT MOST will get small change off the price of gas in 10 years.

I don't usually post Kunstler because his language could offend the sensitive. However his latest commentary on T. Boone Pickens and other matters appears to be without naughty words and gives a lot of good information on the topic at hand. Keep in mind that Kunstler has been uncannily prescient in the recent past predicting the subprime meltdown, the drop in the dollar's value, and so much more; thus, he is well worth reading despite his intolerance of stupidity and general flavor of arrogance.

http://www.kunstler.com/Grunt_drill.html

Posted by cslaurie on July 22, 2008 at 8:54 a.m. (Suggest removal)

More domestic drilling = more domestic dollars stay at home. Local economy improves as does the balance of trade. Why do the defenders of slavery have such problems understanding simple economics?

Posted by wallace on July 22, 2008 at 9:44 a.m. (Suggest removal)

In fact, the price of oil has dropped dramatically since President Bush made his announcement.

Mr. Nava and other Democrats apparently think the basic law of supply and demand applies to everything but oil. How foolish.

Posted by sslocal on July 22, 2008 at 10:04 a.m. (Suggest removal)

For the record, I stand with mmshoot.

Posted by marketrealist on July 22, 2008 at 10:24 a.m. (Suggest removal)

mmshoot - Could you clarify your point that you support?

"Roadway contruction everywhere."

What do you mean by this? 40% to 60% of US cities are already covered in roadway related infrastructure - parking lots, roads, on-ramsp and offramps, hardscape pavement, etc.

Are you saying we have too little roadway in the US now?

Posted by marketrealist on July 22, 2008 at 10:56 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Interesting observation - the word conservative has a root in the word conserve. However, if you look at the thread above, there is nothing about conserving from the conservatives. The conservatives seem to reject the concept of conserving.

You can go up to Reagan and Bush, who have run up the biggest budget deficits under their administrations. They spend like drunken sailors.

Then you look at fuel economy standards - they oppose them. Driving a 2 ton truck that gets 12 mpg to buy a gallon of milk makes no sense. Even if drilling does yield 3 million barrels per day in 10 years, that is a drop in the bucket. How could anyone oppose CAFE standards (oh yeah, Elton Gallegly opposes them)? I agree with cslaurie's concern that we loose $700 billion in a $15 trillion dollar economy and its unsustainable. Why not then look at the low hanging fruit we can work on right now - put in CAFE standards, support the electric car, mass transit, etc? Even the oil industry knows that drilling would not make significant dent in our oil needs unless the look at end use efficiency.

Conservatives need to be just that.

Posted by sslocal on July 22, 2008 at 11:30 a.m. (Suggest removal)

We still need the oil.
Even if we all started riding bikes tomorrow we would still need the oil.
Lets take the bike as an example for things that are made with oil.
Tires
Cable housing
Jockey pulleys
Hand grips
chain stay protector
seat (if its vinyl)
Bearing caps/covers
Reflectors
I am sure I have missed a few parts.

Not to mention all the metal parts that are made with machines that use oil to work.
You folks need a hard lesson on how things work.

Posted by nelsonknows on July 22, 2008 at 11:36 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Clearly, President Bush signing a powerless executive order has had an effect on oil prices, Nazi Nancy Pelosi MUST let the vote be held on the House floor! Pelosi is refusing to let the people WE elected, do their jobs and Democrats are defecting from her stance because of this. Is Pelosi afraid measures to allow more petroleum discovery and refinery will pass?
My second point is to mmshoot, don't worry if cassandra calls you a Nazi, it's clear projection because Nazis were and are left-wing Socialists , Nazi being an acronym for: Nationalsozialistische deutsche Arbeiter-Partei, National Socialist German Workers' Party.
Here I am having to give History lessons to leftists like cassandra, who should have learn this in Junior High. I should get paid for this.

Posted by mikeb6804 on July 22, 2008 at 11:38 a.m. (Suggest removal)

mmshoot and cs laurie --- you're exactly right.

market seems to delight in stereotyping conservatives as beer-swilling ultras driving big trucks and suv's. That's not true in my case and if those are his idea of rational comments, oh well. In his vision of what's right in his world, he'll probably vote for Obama too. Stereotyping? Maybe.

I guess all the overspending in the Reagan and Bush administrations was done by executive order. I doubt that Congress, including Democrats, approved any of it.

Posted by marketrealist on July 22, 2008 at 11:45 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Oil is too valuable to burn in an internal combustion engine for Joe to run back and forth to get beer in his F250 truck. We need it for products, agriculture, defense, etc.

Posted by marketrealist on July 22, 2008 at 12:03 p.m. (Suggest removal)

mike6802, I actually have read a lot of what you write and don't believe that you are a beer swilling big truck driver. You seem pretty logical so I must assume you come to your conclusions because you start with different facts. That is why I am so keen to know where you get your news. I await that response. You discounted all the major news media - CBS, PBS, LA Times, NY Times, etc. If there is a good source out there, I want to access it too.

Posted by nelsonknows on July 22, 2008 at 12:15 p.m. (Suggest removal)

marketrealist, maybe mike6802 discounted your above named media sources because they are so biased to the left as to be laughable. It's amazing that when George Mason, Virginia Tech, and Quinnipiac Universities do studies on news bias, they can only find one network that is not completely biased towards the left, Fox. All three studies claim that Fox News is the most unbiased toward either side of the political spectrum yet leftists claim Fox is a right-wing patsy. I guess news just can't be far enough to the left for some people.

Posted by wallace on July 22, 2008 at 12:20 p.m. (Suggest removal)

"The conservatives seem to reject the concept of conserving."

To the contrary, we support your right as a free American to conserve as much energy as you can. No one is suggesting any laws to prohibit you from conserving energy.

The authoritarian mandates the Democrats favor are another matter.

Posted by marketrealist on July 22, 2008 at 12:25 p.m. (Suggest removal)

nelsonknows, So you are saying Fox is the most reliable source of news? Whom within Fox do you trust the most - Ann Coulter, Bill O Reilly, Sean Hannity, or someone else? I will make it a point to listen to them to undersand more.

Posted by nelsonknows on July 22, 2008 at 12:29 p.m. (Suggest removal)

jw1000, why is it that in 1991, there were 4 non-hybrid cars on the market that got an estimated 45 MPG or more and there are ZERO today?
Geo Metro LSI at 50 MPG, Honda CRX at 48 MPG, Honda Civic at 46 MPG and the Volkswagen Rabbit Diesel a 45 MPG.
Even hybrids rarely reach these fuel efficiencies.
Also, please explain why Democrats in Congress have place such a high tariff on the new Volkswagen Polo that it is impossible for Volkswagen to import them into the U.S. The Polo gets an estimated 75 MPG using diesel with ZERO emissions by the way.
Even the tiny Smartcar gets only 38 MPG!

Posted by nelsonknows on July 22, 2008 at 12:30 p.m. (Suggest removal)

marketrealist, jw1000, I'm not saying this, 3 university studies are saying this, learn to read.

Posted by marketrealist on July 22, 2008 at 12:33 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Fox New was beating the drum for the Iraq war from the start.

Charlie Rose has good interviews. You don't like PBS but you should like this - its by Jim Webb, the Secretary of the Navy under Reagan. He was against Iraq from the start. Do you believe what the rest of the says that no WMDs were found or that Iraq had nothing to do with 911?

http://www.charlierose.com/shows/2008...

Posted by nelsonknows on July 22, 2008 at 12:41 p.m. (Suggest removal)

jw1000, how may times are you going to be caught lying in posts? The Wall Street Journal stated that the oil price drop is directly contributed to Bush's executive order.

Posted by nelsonknows on July 22, 2008 at 12:45 p.m. (Suggest removal)

jw1000, read my post again, I stated 4 NON-HYBRID cars got 45 mpg or over. I had a Geo Metro for 9 years and averaged over 52 MPG until the car was stolen which must the first Metro in history ever stolen LOL

Posted by leahb78_1999 on July 22, 2008 at 1:01 p.m. (Suggest removal)

This is not a Democrat or Republican thing because BOTH parties accept money from oil companies. So far in the 2008 presidential campain oil companies have given $346,150 to Barrack Obama. Hillary Clinton took $393,469 from oil companies during her run. And John McCain has taken $971,418. They are all accepting money from the oil companies, and they are all going to do what the oil companies want.

Best way to solve this, IMO, is for the US Government to own and operate its own oil drilling and refining plants instead of giving perks and money to oil corporations.

Posted by mikeb6804 on July 22, 2008 at 1:18 p.m. (Suggest removal)

market -- by all means grit your teeth and go to Fox. They are not perfect but they often give points of view from both sides. Even I can see through things they say from time to time. However, anyone who takes the 3 major networks, NYT, LAT, CNN etc as gospel is going to have a really disturbing wakeup before long. The NYT and LAT are both suffering from poor circulation. Why? Because rational people are getting tired of seeing the continuous garbage they put out. Just loved their treatment of McCain's submitted Op-Ed piece. Let's see a lefty put a spin on that one!

leah -- your comment about both Republicans and Democrats accepting oil money is right on.

Posted by ReadMyLipsNoNewTaxes on July 22, 2008 at 1:22 p.m. (Suggest removal)

"Best way to solve this, IMO, is for the US Government to own and operate its own oil drilling and refining plants instead of giving perks and money to oil corporations."

Yea, they should run the banks too, and healthcare!

I have seen goverment housing... I love what they did after Katrina, heck they should run everything!

Posted by cassandra2 on July 22, 2008 at 1:44 p.m. (Suggest removal)

It is really useless to debate with folks illogical enough to vote for an administration and then point to its obvious indifference and incompetence as a sign that government can't do anything right. One might as sensibly assert that Enron's failure proves that private industry is incapable of functioning or that Anderson's Accounting shows that private business is corrupt.

There is really no point. They have no facts. They have no logic. Their perspective is faith based and requires constant affirmation in the face of evidence to the contrary.

I will leave it to Jw, et al. I just want to post one more. Kunstler appeared in the Washington Post and cleaned up his language to meet their standards and thus the Stars.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...

Posted by mikeb6804 on July 22, 2008 at 1:57 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Cassie--go on back to the smoking chimp, smirking chimp or whatever it is you live with. Your logic also leaves something to be desired. I'm still waiting for good comments from you for the good ol' U S of A. C'mon Cassie -- you can do it!

Posted by sslocal on July 22, 2008 at 3:13 p.m. (Suggest removal)

God it busts my chops to say this but jw is right. I just read an article that says the very same thing. However, it also listed uncle george as a contributing cause.

Posted by marketrealist on July 22, 2008 at 3:22 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Interesting article from the LA Times. It has a graph in there about oil depletion rate projections from the US DOE. Very relevant to our discussion.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi...

Posted by marketrealist on July 22, 2008 at 3:50 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Mike6804, I am begining to understand your views now what I know you believe Fox News more than anyone else. For your information, here is a long writeup in wikipedia on Fox News controversies. Not that wiki is perfect but its fully open for challenge so does not spin one way or the other too much. Note that there are huge statistical differences in what Fox News people believe about 911 and Iraq compared to PBS viewers. For example:

35% of Fox viewers believed that "the majority of people [in the world] favor the U.S. having gone to war" with Iraq. (Compared with 28% for CBS, 27% for ABC, 24% for CNN, 20% for NBC, 5% for NPR/PBS)

With such a difference set of information being fed to Fox versus PBS viewers, there can be little hope for reconciliation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News...

I will try and watch Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity when I can to see if I am missing some information. I just watched Ann on youtube scold 911 widows for being unpatriotic for questioning 911. She is bold, to say the least. But if you believe her, your world view would certainly be different from people who don't.

Posted by Citizen on July 22, 2008 at 3:54 p.m. (Suggest removal)

mmshoot has good first comment. Two full decades have past and nothing was done. Nothing was done, many knew high oil prices would come, and now they are here.

At the same time, my vehicles still run on gas, airlines still need jet fuel, and the old saying: 'oil runs the engine of democracy'is still true. Our current infastructure and economy is so interwoven with oil that without it we would enter a modern paleolithic area (thanks to the neanderthals running this country).

This board is a microcosm of differing ideas discontent and down right disrespect of other view points on this issue. Today, it is those who watch PBS vs. those who watch Fox News. I enjoy both PBS and Fox News (BTW, "faux news" was funny and creative at first, but it has ran its course and is now old, old, old.........cough, ahem, jw1000 ;))

jw1000 is right about oil prices falling due to higher inventories - there is less demand. The WSJ is an outstanding source of information. Also, the speculators are getting hammered at the price of falling oil - cool! I think nelsonknows is pulling your leg too - "exeuctive order", sure, like an executive order is all it takes to make gas cheaper. And yes, nelsonknows, who would still a Geo Metro?! I cannot believe yours last nine years! Those cars were a step above the Yugo in quality.

Now, the VW Rabbit Diesel has to be one of the best MPG cars in history. I drove one for a while. I doubt a hybrid could touch it in mpg - it just put out a black cloud when reving it up.

Lastly, off a tangent of conservatives not being conservatives anymore - have you seen the crazy comments by Bob Barr lately? Apparently he has not read the Libertarian handbook. Too bad, thought there was an alternative Obama the "Messiah" and Crazy McCain

P.S. private industry for the most part, has a good track record. Small business in America is private and big corporations have done some great things as well. While some like Enron were bad and made up their rules, most are not. If they were, then we would be living in anarchy because private business is a bedrock of America.

People are more sensitive to government incompetence since gov't feeds off of our taxes - basically, everyone's hard earned money is wasted, but we are compelled by law to continue to contribute to gov't. When a corporation fails, it is the sharehholders who lose their investment and many times the sharehholders had invested in the corporation by choice and were not forced to by law.

Anyway, I have not seen W. Bush and his cronies or Nancy and her buddies in Congress do anything but attack each other and name call, kind of like this board. Nothing will get done...

Posted by Citizen on July 22, 2008 at 4:03 p.m. (Suggest removal)

While "we cannot drill our way to lower prices", let's not take the liberal Democratic approach and try to "tax our way out of the recession" or the Bush approach and "ignore our way out of the recession".

Now, if we drill far enough, we can use geothermal steam to power our electric plants - but that will take quite a "bit".

Posted by marketrealist on July 22, 2008 at 4:06 p.m. (Suggest removal)

citizen, good summary of the day. One point to cheer you up. In California at least, your statement "Two full decades have past and nothing was done" is not accurate. We have the most stringent building efficiency standards in the US - Title 24. Hence, as a state, we use half the energy per dollar of GDP as the national average. We also have been promoting renewables so they now form about 10% of our mix. We have some of the strongest alternative energy companies like solar and wind manufacturers. A lot of this has been led by the public sector (California Energy Commission, Public Utilities Commission, etc.). If the Federal govt had not blocked it, we would also have had more fuel efficient cars.

Hence, we have a lot to feel thankful about. Its not all bad.

Posted by marketrealist on July 22, 2008 at 4:15 p.m. (Suggest removal)

mmshoot, Thanks for the clarification and it does sound better with your clarification.

However, how about we not spend another cent building new roads. Instead, we use available money to build a non-auto dependent electrified light rail network, de-sprawl suburbs, fill in parking lots and put in higher density walkable communities or urban agriculture, look at means to phase out the personal based auto by providing alternatives to it. That would a radical idea I would wholeheartly support. Building new roads is just pouring money down a system of transport that is unsustainable in its current form.

Posted by Citizen on July 22, 2008 at 4:25 p.m. (Suggest removal)

marketrealist - thanks!

If you ever go to Maui and check out the best sunrise of your life on top of Haleakala be sure to look at all of the windmills along the coastal hills on the way down the volcano. Lot's of wind power!

Posted by mikeb6804 on July 22, 2008 at 4:37 p.m. (Suggest removal)

market--I wouldn't necessarily recommend Sean Hannity and for sure not Ann Coulter; you were pulling my leg, right? I think Brit Hume (whom Pres Clinton hated) and his bunch are probably the straightest. Sometimes O'Reilly, depends on the subject.

The differences in polling numbers you mention are easily explained. The results depend on the questions asked and who's asking them. The three major networks, CNN, and NPR are all liberal entities so don't expect them to match Fox.

Posted by Face on July 22, 2008 at 6:43 p.m. (Suggest removal)

This is like saying eating food will not abate your hunger. Whoever is against more domestic oil production has to come up with something better than it will not help ease our dependency on foreign oil... which it does.

Posted by sheltonclan on July 22, 2008 at 8:06 p.m. (Suggest removal)

We need to keep ALL our options open. That does not mean that we will be drilling these sensitive areas dry. But it does mean we need to set up and start doing some drilling.

We haven't built any new refineries for decades - how come? Let's go, people.

We need to continue to develop new solar technologies such as nano-solar's thin film.

We need to continue to work on alternative fuel technologies.

We need to continue to explore oil share deposits.

We need to use what we already have - both windpower and hydroelectric power. West Virginia is currently best known for its coal production, but the one thing it has even more of is water - let's USE it.

Not "which" thing - ALL of them. We've been the middle East's fool for too long. Now we need to stand on our own, and fast. Yeah, I get it - no one of these will fix the problem tomorrow. But sitting around arguing won't have it fixed in five years, either. Let's get going - NOW.

Posted by marketrealist on July 23, 2008 at 9:09 a.m. (Suggest removal)

One point of correction, there is always chest beating about no new refineries built. Firstly, existing refineries have been vastly upgraded and de-bottlenecked so they get a lot more production out of them. Secondly, the oil crisis now is that crude oil supplies are tight. In fact, refining margins are quite low. There is not a problem in the refining sector. The reason why refineries are being built overseas like in India and China and not here is that those countries have the demand growth. The whole refinery issue is a straw man.

Posted by marketrealist on July 23, 2008 at 9:12 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Clean coal is an oxymoron. Coal has the highest carbon intensity of any fuel. To try and reduce this intensity by coal gasification or sequestration or any of the other means out there takes energy and hence your get even less useful energy out of the process.

Coal also has a lot of other pollutants - particulates, sulfur, mercury, etc that have to be treated. I am sure we will use more coal because its cheap and abundant but I can't see how it can be called clean.

Posted by freethought on July 23, 2008 at 9:45 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Many on this thread have stated that "we need oil". I read this to mean that, for those who stated it, we will need fossil fuels indefinitely. This statement is not true, nor is it possible (at least not in the very long term). We have a dependency on fossil fuels because much of our technology was created around fossil fuels. If it were created with fish guts in mind, we'd have a severe lack of sushi and shark fin soup instead. Base technologies and products on cleaner fuels, and we reduce the problem. It's pretty simple, really - expensive, but simple.

For every use of fossil fuels, there is a less environmentally-impacting solution. Someone mentioned the need for oil in plastics or for lubricating machine parts (or something like that). Vegetable oil has proven to be an effective replacement in both cases. In fact, I invite anyone to come up with a use for fossil fuels that you believe cannot be replaced, and I'll show you that it can. I work in a department that supports new ideas through R&D that lessen our destructive footprint on this planet, so I'm sure I can meet the challenge. Bottom line - we do not need to continue drilling for oil until its supplies run dry. Anyone thinking otherwise is either scared (for economic reasons) or selfish.

Posted by freethought on July 23, 2008 at 9:50 a.m. (Suggest removal)

marketrealist - Absolutely correct! It's no wonder the Bush administration is pushing its use, as well, as a means of cutting dependency on foreign oil. It's probably a competition thing. We used to be the world's top polluters, but China has surpassed us on Bush's watch. He wants to go out as Numero Uno, not loser second!

Posted by bleshon on July 23, 2008 at 10:02 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Nelson know nothing. The German Nazi party was and is considered ultra right wing. Go back to school and learn history

Posted by freethought on July 23, 2008 at 10:30 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Actually, Nazism, as a form of facism, draws from both extreme left-wing and right-wing ideals. However, it does tend to swing more to the right (again, to the extreme right), conceptually speaking.

Posted by sslocal on July 23, 2008 at 10:31 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Interesting post freethought.
How, pray tell, can we make tires without oil? If you have an idea how we could do it I would love to hear it.
Also, asphalt is made from what is left over after refining the oil to get fuel or whatever. What will we pave our roads with?

Posted by freethought on July 23, 2008 at 12:28 p.m. (Suggest removal)

sslocal - here's just a quick answer to each:

On tires, Goodyear is currently developing tires that use cornstarch as a filling in place of petroleum-based silicon and soot. Yokohama is following suit with tires that are comprised largely of natural rubbers and citrus oil (will use 80% less petroleum). While these technologies don't completely eliminate petroleum, they are just the first step in technology development. More research will assuredly eliminate the need for petroleum-based materials in tires altogether.

As for asphalt, there was a developed and tested product in 2005 that uses molasses. Tests have shown that it actually outlasts asphalt produced with petroleum-based road asphalt bitumen. The environmental impact is reduced substantially (runoff and off-gases are much less toxic).

There are many more product developments underway for both items - way too much to list here. the point is that the answers exist if we simply look for them. It is inevitable that the day will come when we no longer need a single drop of oil. The reasoning is simple - the day will come when not a single drop of oil will be found, and we'll have to adapt.

Posted by sslocal on July 23, 2008 at 12:55 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Very interesting freethought. Thank you very much for posting this.
I'm off to the interweb to do some research.

Posted by del on July 23, 2008 at 2:14 p.m. (Suggest removal)

One should dig deep into such research. Remember, you don't get something for nothing and anything you consider 'free' will be worth what you pay for it.

Posted by freethought on July 23, 2008 at 3:52 p.m. (Suggest removal)

del - Right you are. Great effort is always required to make great strives. Luckily, those struggles are what make life interesting.