How much have the Democrats cost you at the pump?

[HAL 9000 96]

You'll have to prevent others that want it from getting it first. And unfortunately the world of today doesn't quite live up to what domination we thought we had in that department anymore.

High prices should take care of that automatically. Our economy will adjust, theirs will be f##ked.

I don't know Marc... many economies are experiencing economical booms that makes your logic very shaky.

[mawilson 2,133]

You'll have to prevent others that want it from getting it first. And unfortunately the world of today doesn't quite live up to what domination we thought we had in that department anymore.

High prices should take care of that automatically. Our economy will adjust, theirs will be f##ked.

I don't know Marc... many economies are experiencing economical booms that makes your logic very shaky.

We haven't reached that point yet, Mav. Oil is still undervalued and gas is very affordable

(especially in places like Venezuela where it's 12 cents/gallon.)

[HAL 9000 96]

You'll have to prevent others that want it from getting it first. And unfortunately the world of today doesn't quite live up to what domination we thought we had in that department anymore.

High prices should take care of that automatically. Our economy will adjust, theirs will be f##ked.

I don't know Marc... many economies are experiencing economical booms that makes your logic very shaky.

We haven't reached that point yet, Mav. Oil is still undervalued and gas is very affordable

(especially in places like Venezuela where it's 12 cents/gallon.)

Venezuela is a producer nation.

[GaryC 7]

Feds: Much of oil, gas under lands off limits

By MATTHEW BROWN

A new report from the Bush administration says most of the oil and more than 40 percent of the natural gas beneath public lands in the United States are off limits to drilling.

Opening those reserves would give energy companies access to an estimated 19 billion barrels of oil and 95 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, administration officials said Wednesday. That would require Congress to roll back environmental safeguards and lift drilling prohibitions on vast areas -- from Florida to Alaska and across the Rocky Mountain West.

The report, from the Bureau of Land Management, is likely to add to growing political pressure to curb fuel imports and dampen prices by ramping up domestic energy production. But it comes amid a development backlash in some parts of the country, where drilling rigs are blamed for interrupting wildlife migrations, fouling water supplies and marring natural vistas.

"If we want to lower the cost of energy, we must be willing to use our own energy resources as part of a balanced and rational energy policy," said Assistant Secretary of Interior C. Stephen Allred.

The inaccessible reserves outlined in Wednesday's report amount to roughly a two-and-a-half-year supply of oil and a four-year supply of natural gas, based on current consumption.

However, the report drew harsh criticism from environmentalists and a leading member of Congress for oversimplifying the nation's energy woes.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall pointed out that drilling on federal lands has increased steadily since 2000 -- even as gas prices rose. He said the BLM report gives the "absolutely false impression" that more drilling results in cheaper energy prices.

"We simply cannot drill our way to lower prices at the pump," Rahall said.

Wednesday's inventory sharply ratcheted up prior estimates of restrictions to production. In 2003, a study focused on Western states indicated roughly three-quarters of oil and gas reserves were open to development.

The latest study covers a much broader area -- 279 million acres managed by federal agencies. It does not include state or private lands, which generally have fewer restrictions on development and account for the majority of drilling in many states.

Federal officials said the inventory showed Alaska, home of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, has the largest inaccessible oil reserves. The Rocky Mountain West -- particularly southwest Wyoming -- was said to have the most natural gas.

An executive with the Independent Petroleum Association of America, Dan Naatz, said the BLM was "right on the mark" in identifying the huge volumes of oil and gas off limits to his industry.

Meanwhile, the report was condemned by The Wilderness Society as "extremely misleading." The group's Nada Culver said the BLM had ignored the value of preserving some land from drilling, while exaggerating restrictions on development.

Nationwide, energy companies now hold mineral leases on approximately 44 million acres of federal land. In 2007, companies produced oil and gas from 11.6 million leased acres -- or one-quarter of the total available.

Oil companies face other constraints beyond laws that limit where and when development can occur. Houston-based Anadarko Petroleum Corp. says it has been producing as much gas and oil as it can given the limited availability of drill rigs and crews.

Still, a spokesman said the company is in favor of more access.

"We're one of the few counties in the world that keeps much of our domestic resources off-limits," spokesman John Christiansen said.

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D90Q9RIO0.htm

[HAL 9000 96]

And yet not willing to accept personal responsibility for overconsuming oil... priceless yet again.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Our New Energy Crisis (worth reposting here)

By Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery

almost four years ago, when oil was trading at around $40 a barrel, Paul Roberts wrote a story for Mother Jones on a bleak scenario gaining currency among energy insiders, but not yet in the mainstream consciousness: peak oil, basically the notion that the world's petroleum resources are nearing exhaustion. If the theory held true, Roberts warned, oil prices could soon leap to "perhaps as high as $100 per barrel—a disaster if we don't have a cost-effective alternative fuel or technology in place."

Welcome to the disaster: $100-a-barrel oil is in the rearview mirror, and no cost-effective (or even cost-prohibitive) alternative has emerged. The most dire consequences of this failing—hurricanes, drought, extinction—are occurring far more rapidly than even Slideshow Al could have predicted four years ago. And then there's the war.

It's easy enough to blame ####### Cheney, Big Oil, Detroit—all of whom have done their part in obstructing progress. But their chicanery distracts us from the far greater problem, one that, unfortunately, comes down to Organic Chemistry 101. Every technological advance of the last 150 years has been powered by a unique, extremely energy-dense, but finite—and, as it turns out, planet-killing—source of fuel. Switching away from fossil energy requires an economic and social transformation at least as great as the Industrial Revolution. And we have to build this new economy on the fumes of the old, hoping that we don't run out of gas, or ice caps, before we get there. As Roberts points out in this special issue on energy, if we sit on our hands or let the process be hijacked by vested interests, "there may not be enough crude left in the ground to fuel a second try."

This change will be painful. Building a new energy economy will require enormous government and private investment. It will involve massive workforce upheaval and possibly physical dislocation. The conservation measures demanded will make victory gardens or Jimmy Carter donning a sweater look like three-day diets.

The last time we took such issues seriously, in Carter's day, it was called an energy crisis. Thermostats were turned down across the land, and we went into R&D overdrive. And that crisis was only about the price of oil—which topped out at all of $78 in today's dollars. Few were talking about global warming or blood for oil.

Today's energy crisis is on a different scale. We're reliant on an ever-more dubious cast of characters to provide us power. And if you think the mortgage meltdown is troubling, wait till the markets discover the real price of carbon and realize that our entire economy is, essentially, built on a planetary accounting fraud.

Greenhouse gases, geology, and geo­politics give us no choice but to change our ways. The truth is, that change has already begun. Just as we've gone, in the space of a few years, from debating the validity of climate change to being confronted daily with the rapidity of glacial melting, so too will the shift to a postfossil economy, now largely imperceptible, soon be painfully evident. We can—as we did when confronted with the Great Depression or World War II—overhaul our society and economy and emerge stronger, or we can get swamped by change, watching helplessly as others ride the wave of postcarbon innovation. Will we be Chrysler or Toyota?

What we can't bank on is that some geek in Silicon Valley will, on her own, come up with the perfect solution. Nor will the treasured fixes of the left—solar panels on every roof, banning Hummers, forgoing imported tomatoes—be sufficient. The questions we face are on the order of: Are you willing to consider a nuclear plant in your back yard? If not your yard, whose? And if not a reactor, how about damming a bucolic river, or windmills that ruin a cherished view? What new regulations and taxes do we need to kick-start the transformation?

Forcing the nation to confront such questions is the most critical task our next president faces—more important than resolving the war, bolstering the economy, or fixing health care. As Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) has warned, the president will have advisers whispering that she or he "can appear forward-looking on energy with a few carefully chosen initiatives.... without asking for sacrifices or risking the possible failure of a more controversial energy policy."

We are guaranteed better leadership than Bush: John McCain introduced the first carbon cap-and-trade bill, and both Clinton and Obama have presented solid, at times groundbreaking, energy plans. But better isn't good enough. We need someone who recognizes the urgency and enormity of the task at hand, who won't fall for bromides like "energy independence" or "clean coal," and, most of all, who can shock the rest of us out of our complacency and ask for sacrifices. Let's hope that kind of change is in the offing.

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/edno...itors-note.html

[Heracles 417]

And yet not willing to accept personal responsibility for overconsuming oil... priceless yet again.

Are you using Obamanomics again. Over consumption. lol

And how exactly do you propose to reduce the over consumption?

Is it push people to use the non-existent modern high speed public transport systems?

Or is it force people to move into the cities again, basically cutting down commute time? Which is the norm pretty much everywhere else in the world. Only problem with that here is that the inner cities are now ghetto slums where many would rather die than live in.

Maybe installing solar panels everywhere as some, well one clown, recommend.. Still will not cut down oil consumption though.

Edited May 24, 2008 by Boo-Yah!

[Don_Joy's Prince 0]

Both parties are to blame for the failed US energy policy. It hasn't made a difference whether the Dems or Reps have been in control. Clinton vetoed ANWAR drilling, but when Bush and the Reps could have done something they dropped the ball. They could care less as long as they keep power. We need to drill, build refineries, build coal and/or nuke plants, and look at developing alteratives, not one or the other.

This is the 100% truth!

Not one or the other, all of the above!

Amen!

[Heracles 417]

[Dan J 277]

Let me put it simply. Real demand for oil has not increased as much as prices have. At least in the US, demand is expected to decrease. But it probably wont lead to much of a decline in price. Why?

Oil is a solid investment. Look how much its gone up in the past few years. Combine that with a weak dollar and US ecomony, investors, not refineries are buying up the oil. The investors just resell the oil to the refineries when they need it for a profit.

No supplier is going to spend money to increase supply if they are only going to end up oversupplying the market. If they oversupply the market, the price drops, and it takes longer to recoup any investment costs in infrastructure to create that increased supply in the first place.

Want to fix the gas prices problem? Take care of the weak dollar. Make oil a less attractive investment.

[Heracles 417]

No supplier is going to spend money to increase supply if they are only going to end up oversupplying the market. If they oversupply the market, the price drops, and it takes longer to recoup any investment costs in infrastructure to create that increased supply in the first place.

Want to fix the gas prices problem? Take care of the weak dollar. Make oil a less attractive investment.

As you said, there are quite a few solutions there the government should consider. The Arabs, Russians, Chavezs etc are obviously driving up the prices and pocketing billions and billions. Therefore America and the west should manipulate the market to our advantage be it artificially causing an oversupply etc.

[Dan J 277]

No supplier is going to spend money to increase supply if they are only going to end up oversupplying the market. If they oversupply the market, the price drops, and it takes longer to recoup any investment costs in infrastructure to create that increased supply in the first place.

Want to fix the gas prices problem? Take care of the weak dollar. Make oil a less attractive investment.

As you said, there are quite a few solutions there the government should consider. The Arabs, Russians, Chavezs etc are obviously driving up the prices and pocketing billions and billions. Therefore America and the west should manipulate the market to our advantage be it artificially causing an oversupply etc.

We do manipulate the markets, by making prices even higher Someone has to pay for the wall street investor's new Porshe.

[cmartyn 0]

Fix the dollar.. Good one. They can't fix it so they will make investing in its alternatives more difficult. Increasing margin requirements, banning pension funds from commodity trading.. anything to save their stupid paper. And when that doesn't work what next? Ban private gold ownership? Already did that. Default on the national debt? Heck, we have done that twice. Its fun to watch Bring on 200.00 oil, I’m ready for it.

[mawilson 2,133]

Fix the dollar.. Good one. They can't fix it so they will make investing in its alternatives more difficult. Increasing margin requirements, banning pension funds from commodity trading.. anything to save their stupid paper. And when that doesn't work what next? Ban private gold ownership? Already did that. Default on the national debt? Heck, we have done that twice. Its fun to watch Bring on 200.00 oil, I’m ready for it.

Huh?

[kerewin21 2]

And yet not willing to accept personal responsibility for overconsuming oil... priceless yet again.

Are you using Obamanomics again. Over consumption. lol

And how exactly do you propose to reduce the over consumption?

Is it push people to use the non-existent modern high speed public transport systems?

Or is it force people to move into the cities again, basically cutting down commute time? Which is the norm pretty much everywhere else in the world. Only problem with that here is that the inner cities are now ghetto slums where many would rather die than live in.

Maybe installing solar panels everywhere as some, well one clown, recommend.. Still will not cut down oil consumption though.

You're right, many cities don't have modern public transport systems. But there are plenty of other ways to reduce over-consumption. People can buy smaller, more fuel-efficient cars (not just hybrids, but also civics and yarises and corollas). People can choose to shop, spend time, and work closer to where they live (not an option for everyone but it is for some people). People can carpool. People can drive and park near existing public transit options (it is much quicker and easier to build new parking garages near train and bus stations in the suburbs than to try to make a whole new system). People can ride bikes, or mopeds if they're not going far.

The higher price has already pushed demand down and is already causing changes in peoples' lifestyles.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/24/business/24gas.html

We already have everything we need to decrease consumption. No, we can't stop it, but we can change it, and it's already happening.