Lets have California declare that a world without energy causes cancer and get on with removing all the crusty old obstacles to civilization.

So I took her to the gas station.

According to a FOX News poll in PDF format (via Hot Air), plenty of Americans feel that oil drilling should be allowed on the US shores…

If this deposit was developed, we would probably see crude prices on the American market fall to $70 to $80/barrel, equivalent to $2.50/gallon gasoline. The problem is, most of this is under Federal land, which needs to be opened for development. The ball is in Congress’ court, but will McCain run on this? It’s a VERY persuasive arguement, for those who know the facts!

I read an article a few years ago from Calfornia Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, who is also an avid scuba diver. After hearing complaints about how offshore drilling rigs hurt the environment, he decided to visit some and go scuba diving near them. To his surprise, he found that fish tended to congregate around the oil rigs (possibly they provide shelter from storms and predators), and they all seemed healthy. If oil rigs were so bad for the marine environment, why do the fish like them?

When oil was cheaper, a lot of people probably associated offshore oil rigs with marine oil spills, and horrible images of marine birds unable to fly with their wings covered with crude. But most of those spills are due to tankers running aground, not offshore drilling. There were no oil spills in the Gulf when Cat 5 hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the numerous oil rigs off the coast of Louisiana. If we drill off our own shores, and reduce imports, fewer tankers will be needed, which will REDUCE oil spills.

“Nothing quite like a GW Bush supporter trying to share his views on economic policy. It’s great that you’ve heard of Intel. If you read Barron’s, you’d know that many on Wall Street want to see the government take real action- beyond drilling regulations.”
“Oil demand is expected to increase by over 30% in the next 12 years. But I’m not going to argue with brilliant oil price strategists who say that it’s going lower, any day now! I’ve made too much money investing against people like you so it would be more appropriate to express my gratitude.”

What could have prompted such a response? My simple post regarding the virtue of pumping our own oil and, as an aside, the fact that I thought the crude oil market was currently in a bubble. That post follows:

“Nice dodge Bayam. You mentioned Intel and solar energy. Hmmm. Private sector leading the way. You are starting to get it. The private sector allocates and determines things very well, thank you. I certainly trust that secret hand as they say rather than the Al “I’m not a moron” Gore’s of the world directing traffic.
But back to my larger point. We would be pumping our own oil, not someone else’s. My intention is not to lower prices-although that would happen-it is simply to harvest our own and contribute to the world’s supply of oil. Meanwhile as an added bonus, trillions of dollars would stay here. Is this getting to be too difficult a subject for you?
As to Intel, a fine company but a bad investment these last 10 years along with most of the tech stocks that caught up in the tech bubble of 1992-2000. I give you a chart to gaze upon in your leisure. The fact that I think the same will be happening with crude oil as it approaches $170 a barrel is besides the point.

This is tech and housing

http://www.investech.com/

This is crude oil

http://www.mrci.com/pdf/cl.pdf

And just as the Empire state building came to represent the excesses of the 1920’s here’s the crude symbol of the 2000’s:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080610094436.jmv7az8n&show_article=1&image=large

it even looks like the crude chart.

Remember what I have said. Crude oil will be lower in ten years than it is now. If Jimmy Rogers disagrees then using your logic I must be smarter than him. Oh well, he’ll get over it.

patrick neid on June 18, 2008 at 10:54 PM

Now Bayam I didn’t bore you with my bone fides as regards my reading Barron’s but what I will bore you with this apparently Barron’s reads/agrees with my analysis here and at other sites.
Allow me to point you in the direction of this week’s Barron’s lead article and headlines on the cover:

Bye, Bubble? The Price of Oil May Be Peaking

The price of oil may be peaking in the current range of $130 to $140 a barrel. Here’s where you want to be when the bubble bursts.

Oh my god Bayam there’s that word I used a couple of months ago BUBBLE. They even refer to the charts I used above.
Who knew Soros and Andrew Bary were possibly reading HA and Powerline…..or maybe great minds think alike :)

Bubble or not we need to pump ANWR for all the good reasons mentioned above.

Anyway, solar thermal remains in numerous ways superior to both and the technology is simpler: http://www.ausra.com

bayam on June 21, 2008 at 10:00 PM

If it is a good solution, the market will ebrace the technolgy.

Solar thermal is great but it will not get you from point A to point B. for that you need transportation fuel. Now if electric cars come on market then things change.

As far as oil. at the moment there is no dupply shortage, thus you can buy gasoline at the station. No lines, no rationing etc. But supply is tight. It could become a shortage if the ballon goes up in Iran or if a hurricane hits the gulf, or if a hundred different things can happen. Because of this tight supply and because of the rising demand from china, India and the rest of the world the numbers say there is not enough in the short term or the long term. therefore the price has to go up so people will use less of it.

The only way to bring prices down is to increase supply, decrease demand or a mixuture of both.

If the USA were to get up tommorrow and announce it will tap the oil shales or anwr where it is known quanities the price of oil will fall that day by about $30.00/bll.

If it anounces OCS drilling where the finds are not known the price will not drop until a major find.

Much like Bear Streans once the economy understands that our “leaders” see the problem and they are taking steps to fix the problems the fear and greed within the oil market will decrease and the pprice will reflect that.

Therefore drilling is the quickest way to bring prices down.

your_worst_enemy on June 21, 2008 at 5:51 PM

So your commie ass thinks that companies making a profit is bad?

Believe it or not sometimes profit is a good thing. When the needs of the citizens and business align then capitalism will defeat any amount of socialism.

the environuts have dug themselves into a big deep hole. If gas hits $5.00/gal you can say goodbye to the entire environ wacko movement.

It goes back to careful what you wish for. The environnuts/commies have been praying for gas to get this high. Now they will understand that people don’t give a rat’s ass about the environment when they can’t buy food or go on vacation. Most people given the choice don’t want to live in a cave. Deal with it.

alphie on June 21, 2008 at 4:00 PM

yes just as soon as we win. polls are funny ask if the majority of Americans want to leave Iraq with our tail between our legs like BHO wants to do and you get a completely different answer.

The cost of crude right now is not being driven by demand but rather by speculators.

That’s the other line that people continue repeating- and it’s also wrong.

Earlier Saturday, U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman told reporters at the summit that insufficient oil production, not financial speculation, was driving soaring crude prices. …

“Market fundamentals show us that production has not kept pace with growing demand for oil, resulting in increasing prices and increasingly volatile prices,” Bodman told reporters.”There is no evidence that we can find that speculators are driving futures prices” for oil.

developing production of oil from oil shale, and developing gas from coal

I specifically said ‘crude oil’ and oil shale isn’t an immediate solution. Both the engineering process and environmental implications are still partially unresolved. Compared to ANWR, the environmental concerns with shale are far more legitimate and impact human populations instead of reindeer or whatever.

Anyway, solar thermal remains in numerous ways superior to both and the technology is simpler: http://www.ausra.com

you people arent intelligent enough or internet savvy enough to figure out that domain and web site is owned by a party with a financial interest in drilling, right?

your_worst_enemy on June 21, 2008 at 5:51 PM

Do you think that everyone should just ride bicycles?

your_worst_enemy on June 21, 2008 at 5:39 PM

And your solution is to do nothing?

This country is generally poor in crude oil resources, but has the most incredible technical capacity in the world. There’s more to discuss than drilling vs. the environment.

Actually, when you factor in oil shale, we have resources that dwarf the Middle East and Russia.

Anyway, there are still geniuses out there who believe that the US has enough crude oil resources to lower oil prices.
bayam

The cost of crude right now is not being driven by demand but rather by speculators. There’s no shortage of supply, you can buy as much as you want. US refineries are at 85% capacity, not 100%, and Iran has just leased a bunch of supertankers to store about 20 million barrels of crude off shore.

Since the current price runup has been driven by speculators not demand, opening up coastal waters and ANWR for exploration and drilling, plus a commitment to developing our oil shale resources will indeed drive prices down. You’re not going invest in expensive oil futures if you believe that new streams of crude will be coming on the market in a few years.

We should be drilling in ANWR and off the coast and on the continental shelf.

And…

We should be developing the Bakken formation

And…

We should be developing our oil shale

And…

We should be building fission plants for generating electricity

And…

We should be funding the Brussard fusion reactor.

And…

We should be developing solar thermal

And…

We should be using Nanosolar’s thin film solar cells (that are cost competitive to the grid) as roofing materials.

And…

The Republicans should be running ads from now until November showing the price of gas contrasted with Democrats opposing drilling, shale development and nuclear.

BTW, regarding extracting oil from shale, more crude from capped wells, and usable petrochemicals from the 5-10% of crude that is called “residual” and is too thick to refine, along with recycling plastics and tires back into natural gas and petrochemicals, there is a company called Global Resource Corp. that is currently rolling out a very promising microwave technology.

If CO2 causing global warming is your religion, then nuclear power is your saviour, otherwise, you are definitely working another crooked angle.

tarpon on June 21, 2008 at 2:59 PM

A good test of whether someone really cares about global warming is indeed their stance on nuclear power.

Though in fairness I should point out their are a handful of environmentalists that live off the grid. And I can certainly respect someone that is putting his carbon footprint where his mouth is.

Of course most of them see to have no problems with their SUVs, private jets, and the like.

I think the public will quickly change on ANWR, once it’s understood how tiny the footprint and how gawd-forsaken are those mud flats where the footprint will be. Some folks might even be annoyed that the pictures of the ‘pristine wilderness’ that the left has been showing them are NOT the area set for drilling.

I’m sure continuing price increases will have the same effect.

The reason environuts always dramatically low ball the costs of their utopian legislation is that people will gladly sign on as long as the costs to them individually are low to nil.

No one who blindly repeats the current line of the Republican party has any real understanding of oil’s demand curve.
…
bayam on June 21, 2008 at 7:21 PM

Anyone who thinks increasing the supply of oil will not have an effect on prices doesn’t grasp supply and demand.

Does the US have enough oil to affect oil prices? Between drilling for oil offshore and in ANWR, developing production of oil from oil shale, and developing gas from coal, I’d say the US could hugely affect the global price of oil.

Add in the production of nuclear energy to meet some of our energy needs now being met by burning oil, and we could probably cut the price of gas in half within a year, since the current price is based not just on current supply and demand, but also on projected supply and demand, i.e. speculation.

There are complications of course, such as the fact that oil from shale and from coal are more expensive to develop. But reducing the cost of developing oil from these sources should be a lot easier than developing totally new energy sources.

Anyway, there are still geniuses out there who believe that the US has enough crude oil resources to lower oil prices.

No one who blindly repeats the current line of the Republican party has any real understanding of oil’s demand curve. Most Americans don’t understand where the majority of global demand is coming from today. Hint- it’s not the US and Europe.

I’ll continue to side with Barron’s and describe the current political haggling as nothing more than a game that fails to meet the standard of substantive debate on the country’s future energy policy.

This country is generally poor in crude oil resources, but has the most incredible technical capacity in the world. There’s more to discuss than drilling vs. the environment.

And new oil platforms can be built 30 to 50 miles out from shorelines—–tell me how your “beach-goers” are going to see this?

Yes, but you have to keep in mind that in many cases this oil wasn’t tapped for financial reasons. Pre-Bush oil prices didn’t make deep sea drilling a priority. Most deep sea rigs cost nearly $1 bil (billion) to build and cost $1 mil daily to operate. No one likes to operate a business with those types of capital outlays unless margins are high. It wasn’t simply an environmental issue.

Free Enterprise has nothing to do with it.

Should the Texans get Alaskan oil for free, like they do in the Gulf?

Hey, I have an idea, let’s wait ’til it becomes a freakin’ crisis first, then we can debate it for another 20 years.

Tony737 on June 21, 2008 at 2:30 PM

Tony737 for Congress!
He Must Be Qualified! He Thinks Just Like Them!

/Double_sarc (as in, he’s being sarcastic, and so am I)

Anyway, there are still geniuses out there who believe that the US has enough crude oil resources to lower oil prices.
….
bayam on June 21, 2008 at 1:51 PM

They may not be geniuses, but they’re apparently smarter than you, at least on this subject…