Zyphlin

Wonder how much stock Gore will be holding in the different major "Green" companies that would be the forefront of this moonshot.

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UtahBill

If it was as simple as that, it would have been done by now. The problem is getting our government to support it. The businesses involved will be seeking some tax breaks, and protection from ambulance chasing, progress impeding, legal lardassses....

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Gill

We are still the third largest producer of oil in the world. Combine the US and Canadian (or Mexican) production, and the combo is the world's largest oil producer.

A 10% increase in US production would amount to almost a million barrels of oil a day. Not an insignificant amount.

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Orius

Every politician does business according to the free market, and for this we cannot fault him. At least he has stock in companies that want to provide solutions that don't damage the environment. His ideas still need political backing, so democracy is not being usurped by his business affiliations.

Kandahar

Well the world consumes 84.7 million barrels per day...and that number will almost certainly be even higher by the time production is ramped up. So that would still only increase the world supply by about 1.2%.

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Gill

Your point is number 2 on the absurd list. So, an increase of 1.2% is insignificant?? How about 10 increases of 1.2%?? How about 20 increases of 1.2%?? Any increase in supply will help keep the economy going and reduce prices until alternatives can become practical.

By the way, number 1 on the absurd list is "but, but, but, no oil will be shipped for five years, so why bother...." Now that is a silly excuse.... and a dumb one.

UtahBill

The world should not be OUR problem, let's get more for the USA so we can buy less from importers. Then they can sell what we don't buy to the rest of the world...

Kandahar

For the purposes of creating an effective national energy policy? Yes, that's insignificant.

Umm...yeah that would be significant. What's your point? Are you going to stick the oil we produce in a copy machine 10 or 20 times?

I have no problem with drilling to boost the economy; I'm sure it would create lots of jobs for people who need them. What I have a problem with are the absurd claims that this is going to reduce the price of oil, or even worse, that this is even a partial solution to our energy problems. I worry that drilling for more oil will just become another excuse to not have a REAL energy policy.

Well since I haven't argued either that premise or that conclusion, you can just keep beating that straw man.

Kandahar

Economically impossible. Oil is traded on a global market, whether you like it or not. The price of a barrel of oil is a function of global supply and global demand. Therefore it only makes sense to view the possible increase in drilling in terms of the effect on the GLOBAL supply.

The more oil we buy from ANYWHERE, the more money flows into the coffers of Iran and Russia, even if we produced all of our oil needs domestically.

Gill

OK, now we are getting somewhere. So, you think a significant amount would be somewhere between 1.2% and 12%... Care to narrow that down some??

My point is that every little bit of oil helps. You can not say that an increase of only 1.2% won't help. The left says that about every potential oil source. We can't drill in ANWR because it will ONLY provide us with 10-12 billion barrels of oil, and we can't drill offshore because it will ONLY provide us with 10-12 billion barrels of oil... and besides, it will be at least 5 years before we see any of it at the pump. That's a lot of oil.