MC.no.spin

"Earth has a fever."

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The heart of human intelligence is pattern recognition ~ Ray Kurzweill

Lightdemon

The type of oil that we have in the US are not in liquid form, as the type found in Saudi Arabia.

The amount of time and money spent to convert our oil, that are in shales and in sands, are not economically beneficial. One can argue that the amount of energy used to convert US oil into usable oil may not be worth the trouble, except in very extreme circumstances (such as a last resort). Essentially we're handicapped because of this. Therefore, it is more difficult for us to compete in the world market in terms of pricing.

This isn't a simple supply-demand relationship. It is a globalized market, where easily exploitable production takes the lead in competition.

As well, there is concern of the amount of pollution from mining and converting oil shale. Groundwater need to be lowered in order to mine the shale, and that affects surrounding forests as well as arable lands (for farming). Solid waste (known as Semicoke) from converting shale into crude can be toxic and also requires additional land for disposal. Also Carbon Dioxide emissions from oil shale production is higher than any other type of oil production. Lastly, and regretably, the oil shale industry is not efficient in terms of oil production.

If you're talking about off-shore drilling then that would require me to give you a different type of response.

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rsixing

I think most of you know I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed but I'm still going to give this a shot.

IMO, like some, increased drilling for oil would not cause an immediate drop in oil prices, particularly at the pump. The long term effect may be a different story since none of this crude is discovered, drilled or processed and the estimates I have read have stated that more drilling, processing and distributing these new wells is some 7-10 years down the road. Not very immediate if you believe the current projections for such increased drilling.

What I would like to see addressed is, afaik and I am depending on unverified information, there is something like 12 million drilled and capped wells domestically, already, which are said to contain around 2 billion barrels of oil which when processed is some 2 years of consumption. Should the big 5 open these wells now and add them to our domestic oil and would that cause a drop in oil prices immediately.

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obvious Child

As I understand the drop, it was due to a massive sell off of contracts, many of them from banks that had huge amounts of securitized mortgages. Essentially they sold off profitable energy contracts to raise capital to merely survive. With such a massive sell off (who can blame them given the string of banks that went under this week), prices are obviously going to drop. Coupled with a large sell off from people who believe that oil has reached its peak price, well you saw the numbers.

What will be harder to find is if financial hedging has moved to another commodity.

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obvious Child

Environmental damage (really that depends where we're drilling). Redirection of resources away from renewable. Redirection of attention away from raising efficiency on a variety of things from cars to fridges.

If you understand commodity markets along with basic economics of big supplier vs. small supplier, we can't do much to prices unless we nationalize (or get the dollar up).

There's not really a reason not to do it. It is that many of the arguments for drilling are often one sided, non-fact based, and believe that we can drill ourselves out of this problem.

Increased drilling is at very most stalling for time.

buttonpsi

Is that just drilling the rockies, or is the coastal drilling and also far-northern drilling? I can't find info on this havoc that comes from drilling so can you post a link or two?

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buttonpsi

I also think we need to raise the dollar before we see a real profit in our market at all. If our currency has no value how can we compete on any level?

aquapub

The implications of this poll are outrageously dishonest.

Aside from the instant market reaction, no, drilling would not immediately fix anything (neither would alternatives). That's why responsible leaders (conservatives) tried to get Democrats to stop insanely denying us access to American energy supplies five years ago, when doing so could have prevented all this...but Democrats insisted we ignore the looming crisis and wait for it to devastate our economy...and even raised fuel taxes.

These are the same people who thought al Qaida wasn't worth doing anything about, who told us the surge would never work, who release terrorists and pedophiles, oppose missile defense, appeased North Korea, installed Iran's lunatic fundamentalist regime, allowed identified terrorists to board planes on 9/11, and still insist on surrendering Iraq to Islamic terrorists in the middle of a global jihad against America, now that we're winning. Ever notice how liberals constantly end up on the wrong side of history, like the visionless stooges who told us the telephone would never be anything more than a kid's toy?

Democrats with America are like an abusive spouse...they have to tear down and destroy the other in order to control them. I suspect their control freak nature is at the root of their refusal to let us have our own oil, win wars, or control our borders.

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Lightdemon

Yes, what I'm referring to are only consequences of drilling in and near the rockies. Particularly Utah and surrounding states.

Coastal drilling have a different set of environmental hazards. The ones that pop into my head are:

Tons of drilling liquid to keep the drill working at optimum. Depending on the type of drilling liquid, whether it is water-based or oil-based, will determine it's toxicity to aqualife.

Produced water. Which is the water that comes into contact with the drilled oil, whether it is spilled or used to help pump oil out of the wells.

In addition to the last hazard, oil spills are even more dangerous. However, natural disasters are more of a concern than accidents created by human error.

Structures and platforms that are left behind attract aqualife as "artificial reefs" if not taken apart. Dismantling a platform usually takes a significant amount of money, I'm guesstimating for about $200-300 Billion. If not taken apart, the structures may be toxic to aqualife and spread of anthropogenic hazards if aqualife remains in these structures.


So far the best sources of information that I found regarding the environmental impact are:

Environmental Impact of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry

LUMCON - Bibliography

Reverend_Hellh0und

LD

how many barrells were spilled last full year. Compare that to the 70's. Thanks!

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