Bush lifts offshore drilling ban in symbolic move

[Jay2TheRescue]

Originally Posted by froggy81500

You're missing the point, and I am suprised since this is a gas saver's forum. What about all this talk of trying to develop alternative energy sources? Or protecting the environment? Off shore drilling does not help in either of those areas and the economic benefits of such are far into the future.
Bush is an oil man and he is going to look out for those interests. As president, he's supposed to be looking out for the interests of the American people, not of a particular industry solely. Profit is not evil, profit at the expense of others is.

The profit margins that the oil companies see is not out of line one bit. But all that is focused on in the news is this "Billions of dollars" in profits. So what? I understand this stuff to some degree since accouting is my background and took a few economics courses along the way. If an oil company makes a $1B profit with a $10B operating revenue, that's 10% and not that bad. If they were grabbing 30% then I would be a bit concerned, but not at 10%. People who take a figure like billions of profits and never consider the margin are clueless.

Alternative energy is still being explored, and protecting the environment? You do realize China is drilling for oil on the North American continental shelf. Who do you think is going to be more environmentally conscious? An American oil company, or China? As far as economic benefits far off in the future... Well unfortunately there is no good short term fix. This is a product of decades of environmentalists and NIMBY's saying "You can't drill and/or refine here" We have vast resources of energy available right here. We are the Saudi Arabia of coal and uranium. We are literally sitting on top of mountains of coal, and lots of uranium. Again the environmentalists and NIMBY's complain. Coal can be used to make oil, and both coal and uranium can be used to generate cheap electric power for use in electric cars. The best this move by the president will do right now, is lower futures pricing, which will give us a small bit of relief right now.

[OokiiMamoru]

Originally Posted by froggy81500

You're missing the point, and I am suprised since this is a gas saver's forum. What about all this talk of trying to develop alternative energy sources? Or protecting the environment? Off shore drilling does not help in either of those areas and the economic benefits of such are far into the future.

I'm all for alternative energy sources; however we are still five years out from even starting production of our most promising experiments, and probably another decade from that point of having the infrastructure to fully support a working idea. Let alone the additional time needed for the consumers to have the actual product in hand. God forbid if any of our most promising technology's experiments fail. We need a balanced approached right now, and the current approach is way off balance.

Ethonal Food needs to go, Ethonal Cel, is still way out there, even if they are building processing plants to experiment at the commercial production level right now.

Battery technology while nice, is still not enough to gain the support of the general public, plus we will still need a way to generate the additional needed power to run the cars. No nuclear power planets need not apply, windmill bird kill, no power line from the future solar farm collectors, no wave production facilitates may be built because of sea life interference.

I want to be able to drive to work and occasional head out to the astronomy field once a month to group observe and a 75 mile range car just wont cut it. A 300 mile range car is needed. I'm not interested in the upkeep of two cars either. I can't afford it.

Algey production is finally be tested, but they are being quite about it, and they are going to need to bring it down to 50 dollars a barrel in order to compete with the bacteria production model.

I would only support hydrogen if alternate power sources are used to produce it. Plus It would have to be handled safely by the general public. I have no desire to be blown up by some redneck who can't put out his/her cigarette while pumping hydrogen.

Solar power revisited. I'm not interested in .35 cent solar power. The most promising tech is the Sterling Engine but you need large fields for this technology to get the cost down to .10 cents a kwh. 100 square miles to produce all our energy needs.

Originally Posted by froggy81500

Bush is an oil man and he is going to look out for those interests. As president, he's supposed to be looking out for the interests of the American people, not of a particular industry solely. Profit is not evil, profit at the expense of others is.

I agree with you to a certain extent, and disagree with you also. Like it or not, (I never have.) Oil is still the life blood of this countries economy. I want that to change. Bush seems to give some indication he understands the alternate technologies are out there.

Private industry seems to have done more with alternate technology in the last 5 years than the federal government in the last two decades. Algae tech. was abandoned with the Clinton administration, the government could not get its 2 blade windmill to work probably so abandon windmill technology all together. Offering tax breaks and subsidies for emerging techs seemed to be the correct move. Only the future will give us the full story.

I'm honestly surprised we are not in worse shape with what Bush has had to deal with.

OM

[froggy81500]

Good points both of you.

I do have to disagree with your final sentence, OM. Much of what Bush has had to deal with was self inflicted.

[civic_matic_00]

Originally Posted by froggy81500

You're missing the point, and I am suprised since this is a gas saver's forum. What about all this talk of trying to develop alternative energy sources? Or protecting the environment? Off shore drilling does not help in either of those areas and the economic benefits of such are far into the future.

gassavers for me is a forum to save gas. I do believe that alternative energy efforts should be increased. you have no idea how many times I've contacted my congresswoman and senators urging for more alternative energy subsidies for homeowners and car owners. guess what none of the can explain to me why alternative energy, to be specific, solar panels is still not taking off. without the proper government help, alternative energy will never take off. offshore drilling CAN help in developing allternative energy if profits from it is used responsibly.

you are missing the point that those of us who are for drilling oil are also for alternative energy.

offshore drilling will produce plenty of economic benefits and that is a fact. it is a fact that we are transferring a large amount of wealth to countries that are know to sponsor terrorism. $700 billion dollars worth of oil money going overseas is something that can contribute a lot to the American economy and contribute to Alternative energy projects so long as some democrats and environmentalists do not block those projects as we have seen so far. It is a fact that environmentalists and other democrats are blicking alternative energy projects. it is a fact oil will not be replacd by alternative energy anytime soon. it is a fact that we can produce more oil faster than alternative energy can offer to replace even jsut 25% of our energy needs.

we have oil wells off the coast of california (that were capped off when the moratorium was signed) that can be opened IN ONE DAY and start producing thousands of barrels a day. don't tell me that won't affect oil prices in the short term.

Bush is an oil man and he is going to look out for those interests. As president, he's supposed to be looking out for the interests of the American people, not of a particular industry solely. Profit is not evil, profit at the expense of others is.

Bush being an oil man doesnt even apply to the argument. Congress can allow drilling and put measures in place that will ensure safety and responsible profit sharing. Bush is on his way out. to keep arguing that Bush is an oil man and will only look out for oil interest is moot. Congress can and should place proper measures to look out for the American people...instead we still see the status quo of sending oil dollars overseas.

profit is not evil, and as you said, you agree. ok, then let's keep the profit here. we are willing to ask other countries to drill more in order for us to take a the majority of the oil. other countries accuse us for going to war for oil, well, let's use our own oil then so we don't become hypocrits in the in the international community.

I still don't see why many can't understand the fact that in order for us to not go to war for oil, not support terrorism, allow other countries to have the energy they need, keep large amounts of dollars within our country, and increase efforts in alternative energy is to develop our own resources available within our country.

The profit margins that the oil companies see is not out of line one bit. But all that is focused on in the news is this "Billions of dollars" in profits. So what? I understand this stuff to some degree since accouting is my background and took a few economics courses along the way. If an oil company makes a $1B profit with a $10B operating revenue, that's 10% and not that bad. If they were grabbing 30% then I would be a bit concerned, but not at 10%. People who take a figure like billions of profits and never consider the margin are clueless.

all is focused on oil companies making profits and almost all has the misconception that the increase in price is benefiting oil companies. higher oil prices go to the countries where the oil is coming from.

as you've said, if an oil company makes $1B in profit with a $10 B operating revenue, that's 10%. compare that to the hundreds of percentage increase in oi price. where did the rest of the profit go? as you've shown there, it didn't go to the oil companies. it went to the countries liek Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other Opec countries.

what if the US is using domestic oil. then the money stays in the US and will not go to the hands of terrorists. the money will stay here and the government can subisdize A LOT of alternative energy projects and can actually allow the government to increase tax rebates for homeowners and business owners that want to install solar panels.

again I ask, how is that a bad deal?

it is a proven fact that 63% of oil spills comes from natural sources. there's more oil spills from transportation and civillian vehicles compared to drilling. if you don't harvest the oil, it will seep out on its own, that is a fact! it is more dangerous to transport oil as proven by the Exxon Valdez accident, so why not elimnate that part and just get the oil domestically.

if you are really to look at the entire oil industry, their operations, the whole economics of it, domestic oil drilling makes more sense than to keep buying oil overseas. that's why I am boggled why many of you still oppose it, and I'm more disturbed that democrats who are blocking domestic oil drilling are the same ones blocking alternative energy projects in their own backyards. Let's go back to the stone age and live without energy.

[ron22]

Didn?t oil prices drop after this was announced? So why are people saying it will have no short term effect? Some are saying it is too late. So are we to do then just give up?
I think we need to drill more locally but we also need to build more refineries. The oil is not going to do any good until we can refine it here.
Yes build some nuclear plants. Wind farms are good I don?t understand why more farmers don?t put them in there fields. Don?t think the crops will care if there is a windmill or not.
Oil companies are making record profits. Yea because they are selling record amounts of oil (gas). Does not take a math wiz to figure that one out.

[froggy81500]

Civic, we could go on for days, if not years, about keeping our money here in this country. Its insane to think our economy hangs at the mercy of some other countries. But as many of us are well aware, it does.

Part of what I was getting at with my initial post in this thread was that I hope people in general don't hear of this news of off-shore drilling and thing things will change in the near future. It won't, the effects of this decision are long off. And yes it will take not just the President to approve such measures. Someone should be questioning why for all these years we've been funnelling money overseas for stuff we have right in our backyard. That is the disturbing part.

And as far as technology for alternative energy sources go, take a look at history and see what has and hasn't been accomplished since the last energy crises in the 1970's. I find it odd that a country like the USA could not have developed better solutions in 30+ years. For crying out loud, George Washington Carver and Henry Ford developed ethanol fuels almost a century ago.

[civic_matic_00]

Originally Posted by Ron22

Didn?t oil prices drop after this was announced? So why are people saying it will have no short term effect? Some are saying it is too late. So are we to do then just give up?
I think we need to drill more locally but we also need to build more refineries. The oil is not going to do any good until we can refine it here.
Yes build some nuclear plants. Wind farms are good I don?t understand why more farmers don?t put them in there fields. Don?t think the crops will care if there is a windmill or not.
Oil companies are making record profits. Yea because they are selling record amounts of oil (gas). Does not take a math wiz to figure that one out.

yes, it went down yesterday and it is down a little more today. people are seeing that domestic oil drilling will have short term benefits!

the Dow is up today due to the oil price drop. don't tell the dems though, for them, benefits of domestic oil drilling is an illusion, so the dow's rise today is also an illusion!

[ron22]

Originally Posted by froggy81500

Someone should be questioning why for all these years we've been funnelling money overseas for stuff we have right in our backyard.

Could be my brother in-laws told me once. He works for be bad oil by the way
Use up all their oil first then after everyone else runs out we can start using our own.
He did say we need to build refiners to process all there oil here.
Again not my words just another way to look at it.

[froggy81500]

I just found this and find it interesting. A lot of people bash Carter but he was smarter than people gave him credit for:

http://news.aol.com/political-machin...405x1200285179

[bowtieguy]

Originally Posted by froggy81500

Good points both of you.

I do have to disagree with your final sentence, OM. Much of what Bush has had to deal with was self inflicted.

i was ready to defend you, as you stand alone on this thread. but after that statement...

let's review:

Bush orchastrated 9/11
Bush voted ALONE for the iraq war
Bush is influencing the price of crude oil
Bush is responsible for the aftermath of Katrina(and caused it for that matter)
Bush caused the housing market fiasco
Bush is responsible for the California wild fires
Bush is making the moon move away from the earth, which is the true cause of global warming

did i miss anything?

WE HAVE FOUND THE ANTI-CHRIST!