There is NO BAN on drilling. This is a Republican scam.

[stevedeshazer]

On every "news" station, on every talk show, in every newspaper, this Republican/energy company scam is being repeated. Now Bush is out there cranking up the Republican noise machine even more.

I just heard Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore. and a fine progressive) on a local radio show in Portland. DeFazio serves on the House Natural Resources Committee, and he laid out in no uncertain terms that there are 6492 active leases and oil companies are sitting on 80% of them and have been since 1980. The Naval Petroleum Reserve in Alaska additionally has 13 billion barrels of proven, untapped reserves and there is no ban on drilling there.

There is NO shortage of oil. If there was, there'd be lines at gasoline stations as there were in the 1970's. Any fool who is willing to pay over $4 a gallon is free to pull up and empty his or her wallet, no waiting.

The oil companies have NO incentive to drill for more oil. They simply don't need it yet. They're making staggering profits as it is, and now Wall Street is in on it through speculating on oil futures.

Don't believe what you're being told...this is Enron on steroids.

I'm sure Thom Hartmann will be talking about this on his show today...check it out if you don't believe me or want to know more.

Have I said yet how much I hate these greedy bastards?

[SteppingRazor]

1. He's right, but so are the people talking about the ban.

Yes oil companies are sitting on 80 percent of public land leased to them. That's public LAND.

The vast majority of America's coastlines cannot be explored for oil. This is a real ban, and it's up to Democrats in Congress to fight to keep it.

[stevedeshazer]

3. Partly correct.

There is a moratorium, NOT a ban, on offshore leasing and drilling in effect since 1980. There is nothing to prevent drilling on existing leases that are land based.

[SteppingRazor]

5. Yes but, of course, the current debate is on off-shore drilling.

I certainly grant you that the current debate over the ban (or moratorium, if you prefer) is a somewhat manufactured one, given the oil companies' squatting on leased public land, but that doesn't mean we can afford to just dismiss this as a manufactured controversy, because if we don't show up, the other side wins.

[redqueen]

11. Focusing only on off-shore ... why the distraction?

To get taxpayers to fund it?

To buy time for more profiteering?

[Buzz Clik]

4. Thanks. That needed to be said.

[malaise]

2. But, but, but

Bush is about to speak live on this subject.

KO will be discussing the Enron loophole tonight.

[newportdadde]

6. Yeah but they want American taxpayers to pay for the drilling there.

Besides as you mentioned they are making record profits and there is plenty of supply available so why would they want to drill?

[Leopolds Ghost]

13. there is NOT plenty of supply available

I am consistently amazed at how even liberal Americans assume that we will see renewed oil surpluses past peak. It is mathematically illiterate to think so.

[stevedeshazer]

24. I've read all your posts on this thread, and you've completely missed the point of my OP

Nobody denies peak oil here. We all know it's happening.

In fact, your assertions help make my point.

Which is, in the short term, we're being had.

This is simply a colossal land grab for the remaining oil lands, and a political stab at the Democrats, because the Republicans want to tar them with the price of gasoline when the blame lies with Wall Street and worldwide speculation made possible by the globalization of oil markets.

Again, I don't disagree with what you've said by and large, but the point is, we're being Enroned.

[SalviaBlue]

7. k&r

[eallen]

8. The easy stuff gets drilled first. People still lose money drilling for oil.

BTW, many of those leases are in the hands of small, independent exploration companies. If you think it's impossible to lose money drilling for oil when it is selling for $135/bbl, I am more than happy to give your name to those companies, who will put you in partnership with other investors to drill wells. Most turn up dry, of course. Others water out very quickly. But you may strike a good one that will pay for years.

Good luck!

:hippie:

[Leopolds Ghost]

17. Excellent!!! People are so willing to DEMAND free motoring but unwilling to pay for it.

[SnoopDog]

9. Is there a link to any of this?

I heard that too on Hartman today. I would like to create a thread in a forum I post on but would help to have a link proving this info...

[Blue_Tires]

10. the work of the secret energy task force??

[stimbox]

12. K&R

GRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!

[Leopolds Ghost]

14. Correction: The model you are referring to is NOT the Enron model; it is the DeBeers model.

The reason oil companies are moving to the DeBeers model of oil production (the same model behind US interests in guarding against free oil flows from Iraq) is precisely BECAUSE they want to conserve oil resources in order to drive up the price even more because they KNOW there is not enough oil left in the ground.

Billions of barrels of untapped oil left in the ground in the US are NOT economically recoverable.

One half to two-thirds of all oil in the Earth is NOT economically recoverable.

If there was a single 2000 carat diamond left buried deep in the Earth, would you tear down the Himalayas looking for it?

NO. You would hoard diamonds and keep them out of circulation in order to guard your existing investment,
if you are a diamond manufacturer, because you know it's not worth it to recover the remaining ones in the earth.

There is a name for large untapped oil reserves off-shore in this model: "rainy day fund".

Oil is "beginning" to run out. People on this board by and large do not understand the mechanics of peak oil
and they are doing nothing to change their profligate driving behavior.

Denial is the first stage of grief.

[pt22]

22. The direct cost of making the hole is of considerable import as well.

It can easily cost a thousand dollars PER FOOT and that doesn't include completion costs when and IF oil is encountered. Many pay zones are deeper than 10,000 feet - multiply that by a thousand and get a feel for
how expensive it really is. But even with those kinds of costs, there are actually few rigs sitting idle. Call up Noble Drilling and order one...it's like trying to buy 5000 new Priuses.

[truedelphi]

26. The fact of the matter is that although we have hit the top of peak oil

And are beginning to fall down the slope, we are no where near the bottom.

Just last week the Saudi emirates came forward and said the supply is just as available today as it was last year.

The reason gas and oil prices have risen is because of speculators, pure and simple. And if we don't shore up the Enron stye loopholes, then prices on everything will continue to spiral out of control. Including alternative energy sources.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

15. Why are Democrats letting Republicans frame the issue as one of supply and demand?

I hear absolutely no mention of the role the war in Iraq is playing in driving up oil prices. I hear no Democrats blaming the devastated value of the U.S. dollar and Bush's failed policies in that regard as partly responsible for the rise in oil prices. I no longer hear any talk about the impact of futures speculation and increasing the margins required to engage in this kind of speculation. Instead, Democrats are simply rebutting the question as to whether there's a lack of supply in the ground.

[Leopolds Ghost]

16. Democrats and Environmentalists were laughed at for YEARS talking about peak oil.

Now you claim it's a Republican meme, because you STILL don't believe it?

Discovery worldwide has dropped year by year since the 1950s.

Discovery in the US has dropped year by year since the 1930s!

The reason we are not drilling for oil in the Los Angeles Basin a la "Blade Runner" as you would have us do,
is because it's not worth it to take all your penny jars containing 1000s of unrecoverable pennies to the bank
until you are truly desperate and there are actual shortages. Current investment is anticipation of shortages
and for once "the market" is actually doing something useful -- punishing Americans (and Chinese) for their
profligate and wasteful and harmful investment in oil-based infrastructure, oil-based transportation, and
oil-based cities.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

18. Deny all you want - but it's more than a question of supply and demand

I know that for some, peak oil is such a big issue that they will ignore everything else and be blinded to any other issue just to push that idea. But there's a lot more involved. Oil didn't more than double in price since February 2007 because of supply and demand.

[Leopolds Ghost]

19. The market is successfully punishing folks who want to keep economy chained to destructive resource

That is beginning to run out (i.e. half of it is gone).

We are pumping more oil than ever before. But the number of people is increasing while the amount of new discoveries is decreasing. And the flow rate has maxed out and will never recover -- for every tiny wildcat well or expensive, hugely environmentally destructive coal-gasification or tar-sand pit that opens up thanks to high gas prices, another mega-field waters out or goes off line. And no new mega-fields have been discovered since the 1950s. The people vs. oil equation is supply and demand. Investors -- most of them the same people who made a killing on Enron -- are responding to that.

Iraq and the energy task force happened BECAUSE they wanted to keep peak oil a secret and take advantage of that.
Had peak oil been widely known in 2000, President Kerry would be spending those Iraq billions on mass transit in
every US city. Of course, he would be voted out of office by Dems on this very website for doing so. You guys
continue to support building freeways and cancelling mass transit systems in the BLUEST counties in the country --
places like Seattle, LA, New Jersey, and suburban Washington DC. I am gleefully amused at how Dems are allowing
oil speculators to play them for fools because of most Americans' simple assumption that Malthus was wrong and
that liberal policies will allow continued lifting of all boats. The rising tide that lifted all boats in the
1940s - 1960s was a sea of oil and oil-produced goods flowing to these shores. Even wealth redistribution will
not allow us to repair the damage caused by Reagan/Bush, because the super-rich have enough power to strangle the
civic realm and strangle the dollar and drown it in the bathtub. All those billions of dollars in Cayman islands
oil royalties and stock papers are only valuable in the aggregate, i.e. as long as they sit there and peel off a
million here and a million there, on the margin. When we try to redistribute it we'll discover that oil is the
only tangible wealth resource that is still propping up the investment of the super-rich who own half of the
world's resources. Malthus was disproven by the conversion of coal and oil to food which allowed the modern
industrial system to emerge in the first place.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

20. There's no doubt that the planet will gradually run out of oil

But it would require a blindness towards other factors to blame the sudden and dramatic rise in the price of petroleum entirely on peak oil. That's all I'm saying.

It's in fact no coincidence that the crashing dollar has coincided with the rise in oil prices. It's no coincidence that the bursting of the real estate bubble has coincided with investors putting their money into oil and other commodity futures, the only sectors really paying off at present.

Personally, don't believe in magical coincidences. And there are tons and tons of articles on the Internet by people in the know who draw a line between the falling dollar and investor motivations as contributing factors to the sudden rise in oil prices. And then there's the Iraq war as well.

[KamaAina]

25. Slight correction: Had peak oil been widely known in 2000,

President Gore would be spending those Iraq billions on mass transit in every US city. Kerry would presumably be our candidate now, having replaced the odious Traitor Joe as VP in 2004.

You guys continue to support building freeways and cancelling mass transit systems in the BLUEST counties in the country -- places like Seattle, LA, New Jersey, and suburban Washington DC.

Who here is opposed to transit?! This I gotta see!

[truedelphi]

27. The Democrats have NEVER understood the value of being good at debate

Having been in the room with Democratic candidates when they are putting together a campgaign, time and time they wring their hands and say, "How do we explain the issue and how do we make our point?"

The Republicans are much better at putting together controlling frameworks at a debate and also better at keeping whatever answers they need as simple as possible.

Reagan won his debate with Carter with a simple "There you go again." (Fabulous frame!)

We need to do the same thing "There they go again - misrepresenting reality."

[proud patriot]

21. Bastards

:grr:

[sfnative]

23. How long will the Alaskan oil reserves supply U.S. demands?

That's the question nobody is asking. The following estimates are from "Environmental Science" by G. Tyler Miller
based on current rate of oil consumption with no increase in oil consumption (an unlkely assumption). Even under this conservative estimate:

Reserves under Alaska's North Slope (largest ever found in North America) would meet current world demand for only 6 months or U.S. demand for 3 years.

Reserves in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) woule meet the world's current oil demand for only 1-5 months or U.S. oil demand for 7-24 months.

Reserves on other federal lands on Alaska's North Slope would meet the current world oil demand for 10 days to 2 months or U.S. demand for 2-11 months.

It's ridiculous to assume U.S. has this huge untapped oil reserve that's going to alleviate the oil crisis when the most it'll last current U.S. oil demands will be 5 years!