drill, baby, drill!

[bryantm3]

i think it would be really funny if sarah palin's dog got drenched in oil.

[Jason Roth]

Originally Posted by bryantm3

i think it would be really funny if sarah palin got drenched in oil.

ftfy

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

Just some friendly nieghborhood boy-john-laura-ingles-walton-type-thing:


Hurricane season commin' round, so, all y'all down south keep in mind the whata all lubbed up and slippery, so check y'all rubbers and be sure y'all not all rydin' round all bald, cause y'all gonna be riden' on slippery, wet and be rear-endin' each other come summah. Ya know, play safe or safety first and all . . .

[bryantm3]

nonono john, you got it all wrong. if you're going to imitate a southerner you ought not to do it in a maine accent.

[holden]

Let me preface this by saying i don't consider a word of Sarah Palin to be genuine or useful. Do not agree with her.

But as for "domestic" exploration:

Ok, so I work for a Large Oil Company. Not BP, mind you, but on that level.
Back in the 1980's, we drilled offshore Alaska. Then things got tough and we sold the leases, but we bought 'em back and for the last several years have been making every effort, i assure you, to be technically and environmentally sound and respectful of the wishes of the locals, native peoples and industries while drilling.I mean everybody. It gets to the point if you drop a tablespoon of oil off the deck, you'll need to report and pay the fine. That's how a responsible company should treat it. Unfortunately, in the arctic waters, you can only drill for a few months per year, else the sea is frozen solid and nary a ship can pass, so if you're going to drill, time is of the essence.

After having all of the legal and environmental docs in place, we were still injuncted by courts and non-gov't parties, despite being previously approved and having most all of the stakeholders in agreement (after all, exploration operations generally mean good things for local employment and economy), so no drilling yet.
We were hoping for this year. But i do believe that the BP catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico will tighten federal regulations against all oil companies, and shut drilling down again.
Maybe that's a good thing in some environmentally sensitive settings. A deep offshore well near a habitated place is much more sensitive that Ma and Pa's oil well in Nowheresville, Texas where there's nobody and almost no living thing around for miles.

Now, yes, there are plenty of valid reasons why people disagree with drilling, especially domestically. it's the old "not in my backyard" argument. But guess what? If you've filled your car up with petrol or natural gas lately, if you've purchased a cosmetic or plastic product, if you've kept the heat on in your house, you've likely supported the industry that employs hundred of thousands, if not millions of people. Is it better if we drill in Oman or Saudi Arabia instead to get our oil? Here's another fun fact - oil from overseas and oil from the US of A gets treated at the same refineries and sold at the same pumps. It's just as positive for their countries or detrimental to their environments, depending on your perspective, so the whole argument against domestic drilling eats it, since all hydrocarbons are domestic to someone.

Yeah, we need alternative, sustainable energies. And we're working on it. But we're not at a stage where it is conducive to mass distribution (e.g. people like a solar powered house, but won't pay for the supplies; no infrastructure exists to harness and deliver solar or wind power), and demand for fossil fuels could not be higher.

It's a horrible disaster what has happened with BP. But there are literally millions of wells that have been drilled, completed, and produced without incident for the last hundred+ years. It's the fact that we've exhausted the "easy targets" that we are looking deeper offshore, further into remote lands and employing novel technologies to find the remaining hydrocarbons. Peak oil has been a speculation for decades...are we there yet? Not if you keep driving your 12 mpg SUV, nope.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by holden

Let me preface this by saying i don't consider a word of Sarah Palin to be genuine or useful. Do not agree with her.

But as for "domestic" exploration...

I hear your points. For me though, it comes down to a cost/benefit analysis. Based on what little I know about it, the oil yielded from domestic drilling would only provide a small fraction of what our current needs demand. To me, the damage caused by this spill coupled with all the potential damage that future spills and drilling in general will undoubtedly cause simply isn't justified by the minimal gains it would provide. So if we as a country have the drive and means to be building new oil rigs and drilling for new oil, why not redirect those efforts towards the development and construction of new, sustainable sources of energy?

[bryantm3]

i see your point, holden, but the way i see it is that offshore drilling near populated areas (florida, virginia, california, are some of the proposed locations) both would not provide enough oil for about 25 years, simply because the oil wells would have to be built, and then after that, imagine what an oil spill 50 miles offshore could do to the economy in florida— we're talking about a major shutdown of one of the biggest state economies in the US. the risk is too much and it would take too long to set up— offshore drilling is no more of a quick solution than investigating alternative energy sources.

[Troy McClure]

So this is what drill baby drill looks like...really disturbing and sad pictures from the Gulf Coast.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/201...n_the_oil.html

Jason

[Andrea]

poor bird....
but there are people who are working on solving the problem so it seems
of course each one after his own fashion...

[Sean]

Originally Posted by Troy McClure

So this is what drill baby drill looks like...really disturbing and sad pictures from the Gulf Coast.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/201...n_the_oil.html

Jason

And now Palin is trying to blame this disastrous spill on environmentalists. From her Facebook page:

"This is a message to extreme “environmentalists” who hypocritically protest domestic energy production offshore and onshore. There is nothing “clean and green” about your efforts. Look, here’s the deal: when you lock up our land, you outsource jobs and opportunity away from America and into foreign countries that are making us beholden to them. Some of these countries don’t like America. Some of these countries don’t care for planet earth like we do – as evidenced by our stricter environmental standards.

With your nonsensical efforts to lock up safer drilling areas, all you’re doing is outsourcing energy development, which makes us more controlled by foreign countries, less safe, and less prosperous on a dirtier planet. Your hypocrisy is showing. You’re not preventing environmental hazards; you’re outsourcing them and making drilling more dangerous.

Extreme deep water drilling is not the preferred choice to meet our country’s energy needs, but your protests and lawsuits and lies about onshore and shallow water drilling have locked up safer areas. It’s catching up with you. The tragic, unprecedented deep water Gulf oil spill proves it."