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Off shore drilling

Would you trade another thirty years of drilling for the rest of the gulf coast?

  • yes

    Votes: 7 33.3%

  • no

    Votes: 14 66.7%

  • hell yes I'm in the oil business

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • I would trade the chesapeake bay for 30 years of drilling

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    21
  • Poll closed .
LiberalAvenger said:
Most of the pro oil people are saying that "well, we only had one accident in 30 years" (which I believe is an outright lie).

Wouldn't it be a lot better and cheaper to seek safer energy sources?
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If there were better energy sources, you wouldn't need to ask this question.
 
winston53660 said:
There isn't an equal because the infrastructure is not there IMO.
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That is true but alternative energy doesn't hold a candle to oil.
It's still relatively cheap, abundant and the technology to extract it, is well developed.

Not to mention that oil and it's by products are very energy dense compared to any of the alternatives.
 
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LiberalAvenger said:
Most of the pro oil people are saying that "well, we only had one accident in 30 years" (which I believe is an outright lie).

Wouldn't it be a lot better and cheaper to seek safer energy sources?
Click to expand...

I first supported off shore oil drilling, I was under the impression that in a worst case scenario that they would do a better job of plugging the leak. However this worst case scenario proved that they can not handle it. I still support drilling in Alaska, it shouldn't be that hard to plug a leak above ground.
 
jamesrage said:
I first supported off shore oil drilling, I was under the impression that in a worst case scenario that they would do a better job of plugging the leak. However this worst case scenario proved that they can not handle it. I still support drilling in Alaska, it shouldn't be that hard to plug a leak above ground.
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Yeah, I agree and I love watching "Ice Road Truckers".
 
The problem though is, even if the US doesn't off shore drill in the Gulf Coast other countries (like Cuba, China, and Venezuela) are, and I am 99% certain that their safety standards on oil rigs aren't as good as ours. We will still have potential spill threats from other countries' oil rigs. Either we force everyone out or we suck it all up before they can get to it :)
 
digsbe said:
The problem though is, even if the US doesn't off shore drill in the Gulf Coast other countries (like Cuba, China, and Venezuela) are, and I am 99% certain that their safety standards on oil rigs aren't as good as ours. We will still have potential spill threats from other countries' oil rigs. Either we force everyone out or we suck it all up before they can get to it :)
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I did not know that Cuba, China, and Venezuela are drilling in the Gulf.:confused:
 
LiberalAvenger said:
I did not know that Cuba, China, and Venezuela are drilling in the Gulf.:confused:
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Yeah, it's just not in US waters.;)

Several companies are trying in earnest to take advantage of gulf oil, and we just don't seem to be interested, in the name of green.

While the debate about drilling off the coast of Florida continues in Washington and the state Legislature, several international companies are getting started on projects that could bring oil rigs within 60 miles of the Keys by year’s end.
Companies from nations like Norway, Spain, India, China, Russia and Brazil have signed exploration agreements with Cuba and the Bahamas that could mean drilling south of Key West this year, and 120 miles east of the Keys in the Cay Sal area of the Bahamas in fewer than two years.
Last week, Cuba’s communist newspaper Granma reported that the country’s state oil company Cubapetroleo, or CUPET, inked a deal Tuesday with Russian company Zarubzhnieft to begin exploring for oil in four of the 59 blocks the island nation divvied up off its coast in the Gulf of Mexico.
Jorge Pinon, an energy fellow with the University of Miami’s Center for Hemispheric Policy, said the Russian-leased blocks are too small and will be too far west into the Gulf of Mexico to be much of a concern to South Florida.
But the projects from other countries’ energy companies, particularly from Spain’s Repsol-YPF and Norway’s StatoilHydro, may add a new twist to the ongoing debate about domestic oil and natural gas exploration.
These companies are major players in the exploration industry, and they wouldn’t be eyeing this area of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean if they weren’t confident their efforts would bear fruit, Pinon said.
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Other countries ink deals for oil drilling off Florida Keys | Commercial Diving | cDiver.net | The Commercial Diver Network

Now Russia is using oil exploration to establish a new presence in the Western Hemisphere. It recently concluded four contracts securing oil-exploration rights in Cuba's economic zone in the Gulf of Mexico. A Russian-Cuban joint partnership will exploit oil found in the deep waters of the Gulf.
Cuba has rights to the area in which drilling will be conducted under an agreement the Carter administration recognized. From Russia's perspective, this is another way to gain leverage inside what traditionally has been America's sphere of influence. It may not be as dramatic as the Soviet Union attempting to use Cuba as a missile platform, but in the energy wars, the message is the same. Russia is projecting power into the Western Hemisphere while the United States retreats. The world will not tolerate a superpower that acts like a sidekick much longer.
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EDITORIAL: Obama surrenders gulf oil to Moscow - Washington Times

There's also talk and negotiations between India and Cuba from what I've been reading.
 
lizzie said:
Yeah, it's just not in US waters.;)

Several companies are trying in earnest to take advantage of gulf oil, and we just don't seem to be interested, in the name of green.

Other countries ink deals for oil drilling off Florida Keys | Commercial Diving | cDiver.net | The Commercial Diver Network


EDITORIAL: Obama surrenders gulf oil to Moscow - Washington Times

There's also talk and negotiations between India and Cuba from what I've been reading.
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Thanks, that was very interesting.
 
No matter which cheap energy source is employed, there will be death and destruction..
The key word is "cheap".
From this we must escape.
We must learn from the developed nations(France,Japan, Germany), this will take an attitude change.
This Washington Times rag....the truth means nothing.
 
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LiberalAvenger said:
Most of the pro oil people are saying that "well, we only had one accident in 30 years" (which I believe is an outright lie).

Wouldn't it be a lot better and cheaper to seek safer energy sources?
Click to expand...

Yes. It would.

Unfortunately, it will take all of the Gulf coast turning black with tar to get them to see this.
 
Solar energy is quickly becoming competitive. The cost of solar power is following a Moore's Law-like trajectory, dropping by about half every 2-3 years. Given this trend, by the end of this decade it should be competitive with oil, and by 2025 we'll be able to get nearly ALL of our energy from solar power at a cost-effective price.
 
Kandahar said:
Given this trend, by the end of this decade it should be competitive with oil, and by 2025 we'll be able to get nearly ALL of our energy from solar power at a cost-effective price.
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Do you have your bicycle tuned up and ready to go?;)
 
Blackdog said:
Ummmm this is the only oil rig spill in the last 30 years? How is that a lie?
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Well... because it is.

Here is just one article speaking only to oil spills caused by hurricane Katrina. There have been over 800 oil spills just in the Gulf of Mexico.

Enjoy and be educated.

Speaking of oil spills, SkyTruth images revealed significant spills covering a large area of the northern Gulf of Mexico in the wake of Hurricane Katrina back in 2005. At the time, nobody was talking about what had happened to the 4,000 offshore oil platforms - and 34,000 miles of pipeline on the seafloor - when Katrina ripped through the Gulf as a Cat 5 storm, followed a few weeks later by Hurricane Rita. Attention was rightly focused on the unfolding human tragedy, as well as the 7-9 million gallons of oil spilled from damaged pipelines, refineries and storage tanks onshore.

But for months after the storms, officials from government and industry repeatedly claimed that there were no "significant" spills in the Gulf. That line is still heard even now. Yet in May 2006, the U.S. Minerals Management Service published their offshore damage assessment: 113 platforms totally destroyed, and - more importantly - 457 pipelines damaged, 101 of those major lines with 10" or larger diameter. At least 741,000 gallons were spilled from 124 reported sources (the Coast Guard calls anything over 100,000 gallons a "major" spill).

Wells and platforms were shut down before the storm, so leakage from those facilities was minimal. Pipelines were shut down too. But what the officials failed to mention is they don't require industry to "purge" pipelines before a severe storm - so they were probably still loaded with oil, gas or liquid gas condensate. Any section of pipeline that was breached leaked all of that product into the Gulf within hours of the storm. That's what we think accounts for the widespread slicks seen on the imagery from September 1 and 2, covering hundreds of square miles and obviously emanating from many points of origin. These slicks dispersed after several days of high winds offshore, as shown by our followup imagery taken on September 12, but a few problems remained as evidenced by ongoing leaks from wrecked platforms.

This report from MMS details the pipeline damage that occurred.
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SkyTruth: Hurricane Katrina - Gulf of Mexico Oil Spills

741,000 gallons. I believe there have been over 800 spills in the Gulf in something like the last ten years. If you're still interested in learning, you could Google it yourself. I've found that if someone does the leg work themselves, they're more apt to remember what they find. Brace yourself, you are probably in for a life changing epiphany.
 
Kandahar said:
Solar energy is quickly becoming competitive. The cost of solar power is following a Moore's Law-like trajectory, dropping by about half every 2-3 years. Given this trend, by the end of this decade it should be competitive with oil, and by 2025 we'll be able to get nearly ALL of our energy from solar power at a cost-effective price.
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There will be -that- many solar-powered cars?
15 years from now?
 
Goobieman said:
There will be -that- many solar-powered cars?
15 years from now?
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Depends what you mean by solar-powered. If you're asking if we'll see cars with solar panels on them, probably not. What I think we'll probably see is a lot of electric cars, which plug into a mostly solar-powered electric grid. So in that sense, yes, the cars would be solar-powered.
 
Kandahar said:
Depends what you mean by solar-powered. If you're asking if we'll see cars with solar panels on them, probably not. What I think we'll probably see is a lot of electric cars, which plug into a mostly solar-powered electric grid. So in that sense, yes, the cars would be solar-powered.
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Thats a --lot-- of cars over the next 15 years.
How about truck/rail/water transportation?
 
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