Senator Stevens (R - Alaska) Indicted

ScottTheWise13 said:
No that is finally an argument that I think is valid. :) I just wanted to clarify that you have a reason other than "its pointless"

I dont know enough about existing platforms to know if thats true or not. I'll bet there will be lots of reports released in the next few months from both sides on the topic of environmental harm as the debate goes through congress.
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I honestly felt similarly about off-shore drilling as i do about ANWaR (i.e. didnt give a fuck) until my parents moved to florida years ago and i started hearing about the issue from them, and thus started following it.

I'd be perfectly fine if we sat on those oil reserves for 100 years without blinking.

50-70% nuclear
25% wind/solar

That oughta be our immediate goal... hoping to get ahead of the impending peak oil crisis.


Now, if only Mccain had the balls to call for this. :D
 
ScottTheWise13 said:
But this is what I dont get:

You claim that offshore drilling/anwr drilling wont affect prices or produce a huge amount of oil, which is probably essentially true. Thus, the desire to get away from oil in general will still be just as strong. so in terms of coming up w/ new technology and energy sources, drilling would make no difference, in your own words!
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At $40/barrel there was plenty of desire for alternative energy, but unfortunately there was no leadership. Perhaps that can change.

You talk about how it is "pointless". Well drilling each individual well on land is probably pointless too, then. Should we not allow oil copmanies to drill anywhere anymore?
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The part of the equation you seem intent on ignoring is the ecological sensitivity of the areas in question. We can't drill there, the debate was settled 20 years ago...with actual debate, in those days, not shrill totally false talking points.

The weirdest part is how direct, narrow oil company interests have become the entire platform of half (less than half as of 2006, and less again in November) the political structure of the country. What is in it for you?
 
Automatic Jack said:
The part of the equation you seem intent on ignoring is the ecological sensitivity of the areas in question. We can't drill there, the debate was settled 20 years ago...with actual debate, in those days, not shrill totally false talking points.
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If you would read the thread, you would find that I think that is a fine argument. I dont know if there are real definitive settled facts in this area to make a decision.

I just wanted to be presented with a reason other than "it wont lower gas prices a lot"
 
I just want to quote this again for humor.

Code4 said:
triple said:
Offshore drilling would be so far off the coast you wouldn't be able to see the rigs. I don't know what you're fucking complaining about.
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Here's a picture taken along the Alabama coast in Fort Morgan.

norigs%20copy.jpg
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Automatic Jack said:
The part of the equation you seem intent on ignoring is the ecological sensitivity of the areas in question. We can't drill there, the debate was settled 20 years ago...with actual debate, in those days, not shrill totally false talking points.
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I'm under the impression that current plans kinda addressed the problems of 20 years ago.
 
triple said:
Offshore drilling would be so far off the coast you wouldn't be able to see the rigs. I don't know what you're fucking complaining about.

I don't drive an suv, I drive a 50mpg sportbike. It beats your prius hands down.
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My prius gets 47 miles/gallon and has a trunk.
 
triple, I can show you a beach near Santa Barbara that'll wash up tiny chunks of oil onto you on a semi-regular basis. The nearby hotel even distributes special cleaning pads for when that happens.
 
New tech offshore drilling is interesting - no platform above the water.
It consists of a drill rig that drills at silly angles and starts onshore and by the time it's under the ocean it's 9 miles offshore.
Very deep underground, so spill hazards would be nil.
 
I was not trying to claim current rigs were invisible

the new, proposed rigs, would be

unless you got a time machine feel free to prove me wrong
 
And again I ask, since it isn't going to affect you, why are you shilling so hard for it? I am trying to get you to imagine a place where you aren't a partisan. It's nice here.
 
Look, if you want to live on saudi arabia's big juicy oily tits, be my guest. Go to the uk where they pay 8 bucks a gallon. Meanwhile in reality, where people need to drive to work (we can't all stay home in our mother's basements) - the price of oil unfortunately matters.

Pff, yea, im "partisan" for wanting oil under $140. Good luck winning an election on that line. '

I'm just at a loss. The price of oil doesn't affect people who don't live on the coast?

what magical fantasy land do you live in anyways? I fucking wish.
 
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triple said:
Pff, yea, im "partisan" for wanting oil under $140. Good luck winning an election on that line.
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I agree that is the talking point in question, but you have already admitted that the extra drilling won't affect the price. So it's got to be some other reason. And the reason is you are totally partisan beyond any rationality, just FYI.
 
AJ, why can't you just accept the fact that he thinks that the benefits (jobs, profits, taxes, less foreign oil needed) outweigh the negatives (damage to environment/tourism/eyesore/etc...).

There isn't a definitive answer. It is just opinion.

You don't KNOW how much drilling will affect the environment, just like he doesn't KNOW how much money it will make or jobs it will create or effect it will have on oil prices.

Just accept that you have different opinions. There is no way to prove one side wrong in this.
 
triple said:
Look, if you want to live on saudi arabia's big juicy oily tits, be my guest.
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We are already at the point where we will be dependent on Saudi oil to get us to 2050 no matter what we do.

Economies are like vast circulatory systems in living beasts, with circulation of value. Ours are like giant beasts with huge self inflicted gashes in their femoral arteries. The big beasts elsewhere can only drink so much of our blood and turn it into their own beast muscle, they have their own circulatory systems. Global politics is the olympiad of coexistence of beasts, and economics is just one arena in the olympiad of beast interaction.

They are big beasts, and critical desanguination takes time. But, our beasts need enough time to get to 2050. We need to do whaever we can to stop our own bleeding so that our beasts can help all the beasts get there.

Bush The Oil Man quietly signed the US up for ITER in 2003? 2002? The US/DoE has been leading the fusion research effort for 5 decades. (See PPL Princeton Plasma Physics lab, Lawrence Livermore, etc.) The US participation in ITER, both as technical contributor and financial contributor, is important for that 'access to energy' question. The nature of the Deuterium economies (1 Hydrogen atom in every 5000 in seawater is Deuterium)makes 'access to energy' beyond 2050 a question of 'access to seawater(and lithium, initially) plus access to the technology. 1 gallon seawater has the deuterium equivalent of 300 gallons of gasoline. By some estimates, enough known deuterium in the oceans to power humanity at present levels for 180 billion years. (The earth has only been here for 4 billion (non Genesis) years.) The carrot held out by fusion is so massive that it rates a centruy of R&D to get there. If we can get there without destroying each other and/.or shittng the nest, those economies will take humankind to the same stars fueled by the same deuterium.

ITER. There is alot to take in there. They finally stopped bickering over where to tutn over the first shovel of dirt. Gets absolutely no widespread political coverage, because long term solutions do not help machines focused on 2 year election cycles, and makes everyone's eyes glaze over at CNN/FOX/MSNBC.

Domestic oil production isn't about lower prices at the pump in 2008, 2009, or even 2020. Domestic oil production is about stemming the desanguination of our beasts, the ones we need to carry us to 2050.

Wind, solar, conservation, geothermal, biofuels, nuclear, all of those are nibbling around the edges, crutches on the way to future fusion economies. Fusion is the only path that offers game changing returns, but we can't put all of our eggs in one energy basket(like we have with fossil fuels, because they've been so cheap.)

Well, they're not so cheap anymore, so the fringe players have moved up in the world since 1973, when everyone was saying the exact same thing about solar, wind, geothermal, etc.

Our energy policy should be comprehensive, developing all of those as they make economic sense, and not a second sooner, but as part of a long term plan to get to 2050 and the fusion economies.

Our real political problem is, fusion is a long term effort, not easily ridden like a political pony.
 
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