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Short Wave Sportfishing[_2_]

On Tue, 05 Aug 2008 08:49:08 -0500, wrote:

On Tue, 05 Aug 2008 13:19:48 +0000, Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:

That means drilling until we can develop other methods of
supplying the energy.

I wouldn't argue with that. Drilling is definitely a *part* of the
solution, but the days off cheap energy are over. We need a
comprehensive energy plan, including drilling, *and* including
conservation. All this bitching about $4 gas, is just that, bitching.
We had one wake-up call in the '70s, $4 gas is a second wake-up call. If
we don't deal with it, we deserve to go down the drain.

We agree - I think we're just motivated by different details. :)

What is interesting to me about this issue is that up until two years
ago, including one regular here who I respect greatly, peak oil theory
was all the rage. Oil hits $150 a barrel and now we're awash in oil -
there's freakin' oil everywhere. The Bakken Field is an older field -
you are correct. What you apparently don't know is that while the
original field is fairly well played out, the field UNDER the old field
is huge - 400 Billion (with a B) barrels of oil that can be recovered
with new vertical/horizontal drilling techniques.

I disagree. We aren't awash in oil, we are awash in talk of oil. It's
true, the higher the price of oil, expensive oil fields become
profitable, but it is still a finite resource, and we are still running
out.

Well, that's entirely in dispute. Some will say half, some say a 1/3,
some say a 1/4, some are somewhere in the middle. Personally, I
think the anecdotal evidence pretty much rests on the more side than
the less side. It seems to me that the discussion has, since the
'70's, always been price will find more oil. That seems to be proving
true.

Think about it for a minute - two years ago, peak oil was all the rage
- we're running out - it's all over but the shouting - we'll be out by
2015 - 2020, etc. Where is that discussion now?

I forget where I read this, but apparently the bulk storage facilities
are in crisis - they don't have the room to store all the oil that
being pumped. We went from having excess storage capacity to not
having enough in five years. Oil on old bulk tankers, barges, old
refurbished land based storage tanks - there's oil everywhere.

Admittedly, some of it is heavy/sour crude which requires a different
cracking process which also is in short supply, but the proof in the
pudding of oil supplies is the Indian ship breaking industry in Alang,
India - they are having a hard time finding old tankers to break
because they are all being used for storage.

Add the new discoveries, the Artic potential, offshore, yada, yada,
yada we have too much oil.

Lastly, the Chinese are exploring the Straights of Florida off Cuba
and the Russia's Rosneft and Gazprom are getting into the act - what
do they know that we don't?

We import 1/2 our oil, but we are exporting our wealth. This is
perhaps the greatest transfer of wealth in history, and who are we
transferring it to? Not our friends.

I don't disagree with that - in fact, I'm in complete agreement.

Drill, drill, drill. :)

The problem is this - there is no clearly defined energy policy - the
Democrats don't have one, the Republicans don't have one and the
environmentalists - climate change advocates don't have one. All sides
of the issue are at logger heads over inconsistent and frankly stupid
concepts and outdated theories of social progress.

30 years ago, Carter had one. He was laughed at.

Um...I'll let that statement stand if only because...well, I'll just
let that one go.

Be that as it may, the current situation requires some forethought and
action - we need to do something. Less talk, more do. We can't have
politicians like Chuck Schumer saying we need to have the Saudi's
produce more oil instead of drilling on our own.

We can't afford to have moronic statements like keeping tires inflated
will save all the oil we can drill for the next five years.

It silly crap that is muddying up the waters and stopping us from
accomplishing what we can accomplish by using a comprehensive plan to
increase out independance - in short, use everything.

Weneed to really have a comprehensive plan from upgrading the grid to
distributed power generation - there's a ton of things we need to do
that we just aren't doing.

I've often thought that what we really need is a new WPA to put people
to work and get **** done.

Sorry for the language. :)

Here's the hitch - there is no way to tax sun power. In short we won't
see this technology put into production because the power from the sun
can't be taxed. In short, there is no "use" tax on free power.

Yeah, but it's past taxes. It's getting real close to survival. Perhaps
not literally, but definitely economically.

Again, agreed, but the point is that there is a technology which has a
lot of potential - not only for us, but for the Third World and it's
not going to go anywhere because governments can't add revenue cost to
the process.

One of my buddies here in town has a development he started just
before everything went down the tubes. He managing to keep his crews
busys with this and that, but he's been really interested in turing
the development into a "green" development. Geo thermal
heating/cooling, solar power - state-of-the-art type homes. Did a
whole ROI for potential purchasers.

Up until the Planning, Zoning and Code Compliance folks started
getting involved that is.

It's a mess.

I think we're on the same side, we're just looking at it from
different angles. :)