Obama energy plan would open Atlantic and Gulf drilling Good move by Obama, but he really had little choice. It didn't make sense that we couldn't access local natural resources especially in a time of such economic uncertainty. The environmental impact of drilling is insignificant next to recreational boating, but you don't see environmentalists crusading against 2-strokes. Offshore drilling harbors marine life through artificial reefs and creates jobs. I don't see why people are opposed to it.
Surprised to hear you agreeing with something Obama is doing. But...I hate this. Obama ran on a platform of "ALTERNATIVE ENERGY!!!" And, welp, just another thing he has backtracked on. Furthermore, when the "drill baby drill!" chants were making their rounds, the discussion was how McCain/Palin were going to give us all this cheap oil, while Obama was going to make us ride bikes to work...well that sounds foolish now doesn't it? I'm still trying to figure out how Obama is considered radically different from the other cronies in Washington. They're all big spending, high taxing, environmentally ignorant dolts IMO. Republicans and Democrats. But lets not crash the polarity party, don't want to ruin anyones fun.
If you're calling me environmentally ignorant I'd like to know why, please. The only risk I see from off-shore drilling is oil spills, which is an insignificant contributor to water pollution next to run off and recreational boating. But I'm open to learning about the real dangers.
What? I wasn't calling you environmentally ignorant at all dude. Any attack in my post was directed at elected officials. I was simply stating that Obama ran on this "ENVIRONMENT FUCK YEA" platform, and he's no different than the rest. Campaigning as an alternative to the slash and conquer techniques of getting oil, that apparently "THE OTHERS" had in mind. Hence the "they are all environmentally ignorant dolts." Offshore drilling was supposed to be a stop-gap until alternative sources would be viable in 10-20 years. Now that 10-20 years is turning into 25-40 years. Sounds like what has been said since the 70s, and I doubt we are ever going to allow ourselves to get the bulk of our energy from sources other than fossil fuels. It isn't so much that offshore-drilling guarentees environmental ruin (it doesn't), I wasn't saying that, it is the principle that I was attacking. On top of this, it is the fact that this organization is throwing a bone to an industry, that quite frankly I don't think it deserves. As it has shown to protect its own interests before American. Why should America be so quick to protect their interests. Irks me. Like you said, if our politicians gave a shit about the environment they'd do more to combat our contribution to ocean waste via landfill runoff, plastics, wastewater runoff, etc etc. But that doesn't quite get the headlines like a good ol us vs them battle.
This is silly, since solar power would be a better renewable (until it dies) resource...but oil companies can't put a meter on the sun so there's no profit in it
Honestly...Solar really isn't that great yet. The biggest reason is it is expensive and very hard to store captured energy at the moment. Basically, what is available when it is produced, is it. Energy from June, can't be stored up for a rainy month in November. Generally, all renewables suffer from this at the moment. But the real kicker with solar panels is it requires rare-earth elements to be mined, which on a grand scale (our use of solar isn't a big enough percentage to be considered 'grand scale') would be extremely detrimental to the earth. Not a bad contributory source...but at the moment, not the answer. And if energy companies want to put their mark on a natural resource...they can. I mean after all, oil is a natural resource.
Oil is not a renewable resource.. it is natural, but it's only a matter of time before we run out. Our dependency on oil goes hand in hand with many of the world's problems today. So a more logical choice would be to get off of our dependance of oil, replacing it with a resource based economy utilizing solar/tidal/geothermal/hemp/zero point energy, we have a lot of technology that cannot be used because of the oil companies blocking research if you think we need oil, then you believed the lie
What do you mean, the principle of consuming natural resources? Living in oil excess? I kind of agree that the sooner we get off oil the better, and a lower supply would encourage us to make this transition, but at the same time I'm more concerned with the suffering caused by the collapse of this state driven bubble. While the politicians are likely acting for industry interests out of personal interests, the consumers will benefit from a greater oil supply. Theoretically the money saved getting the energy researchers to and from the lab can aid in improving their innovative capacity.
I think YOU believed the lie. All those renewable sources are extremely impractical right now and diverting public research towards them is a way to squander taxpayer money on special interests. Look at the corn ethanol scam. There's already a solution to the energy problem and it's called "nuclear power", but that's probably the least lucrative political scheme to support.
I agree. I think we seriously need to get off this dependency of oil, otherwise we are just going to end up back to square one. Even if solar power is not as great as it could be yet, we still need to make a shift over to more renewable resources for our energy, otherwise we are just going to keep digging ourselves into a big hole. The only thing I like about this is how they are looking to break our dependence on outside resources to sustain our energy, however digging for more oil is not getting us out of this hole we are in. It appears we are just moving backwards. 2 step forwards, 1 step back.
You missed the point of my post entirely. Entirely. I gotta run, Aaronman, I'll respond when I get back.
I was thinking.. It could go up, as American workers would be paid more and the whole ladder that goes along with the cost of things. Idk, I could be completely wrong. I don't know anything about how that works.
Yeah I agree. It will take a catastrophe like completely running out of oil to pry the gas pump from America's hand. All were doing is setting our selves up to realy be fucked when that day comes. They do have hydrogen cars and a few hydrogen stations in California though, so if someone invested in that and realy started pushing it everywhere we might see a shift, but you can bet your ass that big oil won't like it and will do everything they can (read:everything the government can) to slow down or stop them.
Aaronman, I'd support nuclear fuel a lot more if we forced some tighter restrictions on the recycling of the fuel rods. I believe I read that france uses approximately 75-80% of the fissle material available in the actual uranium where as we use less than 25%. I'd support solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, fusion, and fission. Shit, I'd support gerbil power if we could do it in a better way than oil. And, worst case scenario with all our spent fuel rods? We give them a one way trip to Mercury. lol
Obama is more supportive of Nuclear than any president for 20+ years. Bush talked a good game on it, but he didn't do much to progress that agenda. Figure that, from a self professed "oil man". And so what? If he want to encourage some of the oil companies to start spending some money on developing alternatives - why not throw them a bone. Republicans have been talking "drill baby drill" for decades. Every election time, it becomes a big issue. The Democrats are anti-drilling. They want to make you pay $8 for a gallon of gas." But then the Republicans didn't do anything about it for 6 years of Bush/Republican Congres and they never did anything about it. Because oil companies don't really want more drilling. If they can buy it cheap from the Middle East and not have to deal with pulling it out of the ground, why would they want to drill more here? And when the Middle East wells start drying up, and the price goes up anyway, then they'll start drilling here and make way more profit off of the sucking it out of the ground part of the the oil business. Oil companies already have thousands of acres that they lease from the Government, but they aren't drilling on them. They keep paying to NOT drill on the land. Yeah, they don't want to drill on those, but it's worth paying the leases to keep other companies from drilling. And why would they want to drill more when talks of scarcity can create a bubble that sees the price of the commodity they supply grows 150% in less than three years? I don't think that this is going to increase domestic production. If the only thing keeping them from drilling domestically was access to sites, then they'd be drilling - at least exploring - on the all land they lease now. But they haven't been. Obama just called their bluff. He just took away all the power of that "Drill Baby Drill" platitude. The Republicans won't be beating him and the Democrats over the head with that one in November. It's a brilliant political move actually.