The former Gulf of Mexico
 

I was in favor of offshore drilling, certainly shallow-water drilling, but no more. Unbridled capitalism can't fix the decades of loss we are facing. Oil from the Valdez is still on the beaches, just under the surface, 21 years later. BP doesn't care about fixing the rest of the leak (not that they ever did in the first place), now that they are collecting good oil off the cap and earning money off that well.

You guys have to watch this video - divers going below the surface.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGX7k...layer_embedded

Can't wait for the expert opinion of Jet Skiers.

Bottom line: We need the oil, and we will need it for quite some time. You can get rid of offshore oil drilling when you allow enough land based drilling to make up the difference (and more...the amount needed for continued growth). That is, assuming that a land-based supply actually exists.

You want the end of offshore drilling? Start by opening up ANWR and let's go at it. I'd prefer land based drilling for the simple reason that you'd never have a leak go 24 hours let alone 50 some days.

But all the same people screaming about the Gulf catastrophe -- which should never have happened -- also aren't willing to pay $10/gallon for gas.

Supply and demand, as usual, is analogous to the law of gravity in physics. It will be obeyed, period.

You post presumes a couple things: that the only choice of energy is oil (not true) and that the wells we have now will soon become insufficient (also not true).

Oh, I am all for another source of energy, of course. The energy sources for mobile transportation are that much more difficult to implement. Windmills aren't going to do it -- not even for traditional uses. They will, if 100% successful, alleviate about 2% of our current gasoline and/or coal consumption.

Just making electric cars doesn't do it either. You've got to look at the whole system. The system includes everything from the generation of electricity (always from something else since we can't reliably collect and store lightening), to the manufacture, use, and disposal of the car. If you make a car run on electricity, and the electricity demand goes way up, as it will, and your power plant belches that much more soot and filth into the atmosphere, did you really save anything by allegedly "going green"?

Let's say we had the ideal source of energy today, in the quantities that we need. Everything's better -- cleaner, cheap, people buying cars want this new fuel because the cars actually perform better with more horsepower -- you get the idea. It will still take quite a while to get universally adopted as the car market is such where most people have to save a while to afford a new car, and cars, unlike computers for example, are normally not retrofitted with new hardware.

It's going to take time. The discovery of the really big thing needs to come first, and the government cannot do that by decree. The creativity of the freedom-loving individual, like another Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie or equivalent is where it starts. Until then, we need to perfect the techniques for the extraction of oil to drive the probability of this kind of event to as close to zero as we can get it. But when push comes to shove, we are going to get that oil -- until oil itself is obsolete as a fuel.

Cars that run on Natural Gas. The liberals won't go for it though.

Do you know about some discovery that fuels autos that we havent heard of?

I just got a flashback of "The Road Warrior". Isn't that what they used?

I don't remember.

All I know is the U.S. is loaded with natural gas and it is the perfect transition resource between oil and solar.

the very agency that looks over the oil wells at sea..epa will never let that many new nuke sites go up.. its a pipe dream.. fossle fuels rule..

We're always going to need oil for transportation, I agree, that would be difficult and expensive to replace. h28-30% of our oil goes to transportation. Fine, between what we can produce, Mexico and Canada, that's beyond covered.

We've coasted for years not having to develop other sources of energy for the other 60-70% of our energy use: electricity, heating, cooling, etc. We live on petroleum, natural gas, coal, and any attempt to develop other sources is met by screams of protest. It's beyond time to change that, but we're spoiled in the US. We want anything we want, when we want it, and nobody can tell us no. We use it until it's gone, with little to no planning ahead or thought to the future (see water in the western US).

Plenty of other, rather easily implemented, increasingly inexpensive ways to create electricity - geothermal, wind, hydroelectric, etc. We need to get serious about that, rather than going after more oil for these uses.

It took 5 days for the largest Alaskan North slope spill to be detected a few years back. Thousands and thousands of gallons spilling over the tundra.

Bobby Jindal is screaming for drilling to resume, due to jobs needs. I'd think all those oil men can be gainfully employed bringing the thousands of oil rigs currently drilling in the Gulf up to new safety standards.

'bp doesent care' ..thats fn stupid ..its 5,ooo feet down ..this post will forever garner you the title of 'the dumbest **** in the world

No, it's not fn stupid, you moronic d**head. They make money on oil. They lose money on safety implementations (they are currently fighting safety standards - the same ones which lack of caused the gulf disaster - for their Canadian drilling ops). They lose money spending it on cleanup.

The problem is those forms of energy arent that cheap or easy. If they were they would have been put into widespread use long ago. Collecting energy from wind turbines for instance isn't difficult but the storage, disimenation and reliability is. Usable geothermal energy is mostly found in remote places. hydroelectricity is hardly not already extensively used in areas condusive to its use.

The way to go would be nuclear but that seems to be against the environmentalists code.

Those forms of energy have become pretty affordable. They reason they are not in great use is that we in the US haven't been forced to use them. In the US we coast on what we know, and what is easy and familiar. We have lost our desire to innovate when what we have is working. We just came off eight years of oilmen determining our energy policies - what incentives were put forth during that time to not use oil? Right now, we have all the oil we need (for "today"), and we can afford it. We live day to day in the US, we don't plan ahead very well.

They arent as easy or affordable as you want to say they are. The viability of alternative energy sources doesnt have anything to do with what we want or what we know. Geothermal energy simply isnt easily gotten to and areas that it is are remote western states. Wind energy is fraught with issues. Same with hydroelectricity. Their issues have nothing to do with attitudes.

Guess we'll disagree completely on that one.

How do you disagree with facts? The facts are there are a lot of issues with alternate sources of energy. I didn't make them up. They arent my opinion.

Riot never let's the facts in the way of her opinion.:zz:

That's PKB for many righties in this forum

She is famous for disagreeing with facts. She was of the opinion that Bin Laden was not at all popular amongst Muslims around the world. The polls showed that Bin Laden was very popular in Muslim countries throughout the world. His approval rating was around 50% in most Muslim countries. When Riot was presented with this information, she said, "I disagree." She disagreed that he was popular even though all the polls showed he was popular. Even though the polls showed that somewhere around 50% of Muslims admired Bin Laden, Riot continued to believe that it was only a tiny percentage of Muslims that admired him.

Hypothetical conversation between Cannon and Riot:

Cannon: The Lakers beat the Celtics last night.

Riot: I disagree.

You haven't mentioned any facts. You said these forms of alternative energy are expensive, I've said they've become pretty affordable, increasingly inexpensive. There is geothermal in Kentucky - public buildings and private homes & businesses. Of course there are issues - and I think the biggest is the statement I highlighted and disagreed with, where you said, "doesnt have anything to do with what we want or what we know." I think it has a heck of alot to do with what we want and know. You disagree.

You want facts, throw some out there.

Here's some: here's a website for heating/air company that installs geothermal private heating/cooling in your town of Louisville Kentucky. You could go geothermal tomorrow:
http://www.louisvilleair.com/waterfu...geothermal.htm

Immediately following 9/11, only in a few countries. You keep leaving that part out :tro:

Really? What facts are you seeing, that I am ignoring?

Give me a break. The fact remains that alt sources of energy are fraught with issues and aren't cheap. Sure I could go solar too if i had a spare 125k to spend on it. I could switch over to geothermal if I had a spare 25k. And I live in a relatively small house.

If scientists could figure out how to store Riot's hot air then we could have an endless supply of clean energy.

:tro::tro:

Or you could replace your furnace, hot water heater, and central air conditioning units for $10-12K when they break, decline the energy savings tax break you'd get with geo, and forfeit the significant daily operational cost savings over a much longer equipment lifetime (that would make the equipment pay for itself in a significantly shorter timeframe than regular gas appliances).

The fact remains that the main thing standing in the way of alternative energy source development and use in the US is the public's lack of desire to embrace it. The technology is advancing, the costs are coming down, but some Americans have no interest whatsoever in learning about the possibilities.

Edit: and it's about time for one of you predictable herd to blame it all on Obama

It wasn't just a few countries. It was all the big Muslim countries.

Let me ask you a question. You seem to have an opinion on this. I'm not sure what your opinion is based on but you seem to have an opinion. Here is my question: If you would have done a poll with every single Muslim person in the world and you would have done this poll every month from 2002-2004, what would you guess that Bin Laden's approval rating would have been on average during this period?

The public would embrace it if it wasnt so expensive. Regardless of your spin above I would still have to come up with 25k in order to save roughly a $1000 a year. It all sounds great till you have to come up with the cash.

What do you think Bin Laden's approval rating is today?

Better than Obama's!



c'mon that was too easy

As I said before, the polls show it is much lower today. It appears the main reason it has gone down so much is because most of Al Qadea's bombings over the last few years have killed Muslims. Most Muslims don't like the idea that Bin Laden mainly kills other Muslims.

Right now if we polled every single Muslim person in the world, my best guess is that Bin Laden's approval rating would be somewhere around 10-20%.

What do you think it would be right now and what do you think it was back around 2002-2004?

We encourage new development/building both public and private to use appropriate alternative energy (less costly than retrofitting) - decrease the need for new oil drilling, new coal, new nuclear plants, markedly decrease pollution and CO2, etc. Many in the US still view all alternative energy as "whacky, new-age, hippie" type of stuff. The technology is advancing by leaps and bounds, in other countries.

Gee. Hum. ;)

I did laugh.

Duely adjusted. Thank you.

So, anyway, back to the subject of the thread: How 'bout them horrific underwater pictures, heh?

good lord, glad i don't live in kentucky. i replaced my heat pump/air conditioner with the top of the line unit available, and spent half that. a new water heater for about $350 more, if i needed one. my cooling bill is less than half what it was already, and that's without leaving electricity and going to solar or geothermal. no need to go with all that fancy stuff, when simply going with more efficient units save money and electricity., thereby saving energy.

thing is, if alternatives were readily available, and just as cost efficient as what we have currently, there would be no hesitation to use them. it's just not the case.

If the Sun can (in a relatively short period of time) turn White people shades of Red or Brown, then, this must be something we can harness better than we do. Without the Sun, how much energy would you have to use (tanning beds etc.) to get these results? That's just the surface of one person's body. Think about all the energy that is available there. What is the problem? The collection, or the storage? Seems like using energy obtained now, can be stored by using it to push water up a grade. Get your energy by letting the water do what it does at hydroelectric plants (come down a grade n' turn turbines.) Why do we have to do Nuclear when we should be using the damn Sun?

I'm still waiting for your answer. What do you think Bin Laden's approval rating would be right now and what do you think it was back around 2002-2004?

We're novices when it concerns the electromagnetic spectrum. We're probably a century away from cracking the nut.