BF2S Forums Oil for everybody (U.S.A.)

Actually very interesting, I watched about 8 min of it, and looked up the book, will check out the library tomorrow for it. If there is that much oil in Alaska, I find it hard to believe no other previous administration decided to drill, so whats going on...?

The appropriate question is "why isn't more infrastructure being built to exploit this reserve?"

The answer will point you away from the current administration (or any other, for that matter).

I thought it was enviromentalists preventing Alaska drilling? Or some sort of law associated with that.

ghettoperson wrote:

That's really interesting. To be honest though, I would have thought it more to do with the oil companies than the government as they benefit far more from the high oil prices.

Basically the same people IMO. The current US administration is riddled with oil men and women.

FEOS wrote:

ghettoperson wrote:

That's really interesting. To be honest though, I would have thought it more to do with the oil companies than the government as they benefit far more from the high oil prices.

Don't you think the oil companies would benefit more from higher consumption and not having to pay royalties (no pun intended) to ME governments?

I'm sure they'd have to pay the same royalties to the US government. You may be right on the environmental front, but the video gave the impression (I don't really know a lot about the subject, so I'm just going on what he's saying) that they had a lot of equipment in place already and were bringing it out of the ground.

There is surposably a huge oil reserve under the great barrier reef, but for similar reason it (for the foreseeable future) will never be mined.

abiotic oil theory, should look into that. Pretty interesting alternative viewpoint.

Turquoise wrote:

B.Schuss wrote:

FEOS wrote:

DING DING DING DING!

We have a winner.

so you're against protecting the beautiful alaska nature ? Oil drilling isn't exactly environmentally friendly...

Good point but....  even though I usually support more regulation against pollution and such, I'm 100% behind drilling in the ANWR area.  It's better we do it now than to wait until the Middle East is completely drained.

So keep relying on fossil fuels?

We're really headed down a scary path.  There will be a point when oil runs out, no matter where you drill.  Many believe that "peak oil" as it is called has passed, in fact, many feel that 2005 was the year of peak oil production and now it will continue to decline, even as demand grows. Source.  When oil does run out (or become too expensive to really use with any degree of effectiveness) what happens?  All of our alternatives are derivatives of oil.  They need the energy from oil to make the solar panels, or to collect the corn for ethanol, or to split the water into hydrogen.  When it drys up, life is going to change in a significant way; but no one seems terribly concerned -- well, they're concerned about their wallets... but what's new.

So should we really keep drilling?  Trying to find that fix that'll last us another 5, maybe 10 years?  Hell even if we find enough oil to burn for 200 years, there's so many other downsides.  The production of everything these days requires so much oil, so much fresh water, so much of the resources that we've taken for granted for so long, and as our population swells, we'll be in a real pinch for them.  The amount of fresh water that goes into the production of many every day products is disturbing.  Source

source wrote:

Petroleum refining is one of the most water-intensive of all industrial activities. Tar Sands oil represents 66% of the world's supply of petroleum,13 and it requires huge amounts of fresh water for refining. High-pressure steam (heated by natural gas) is required to wash heavy oil from sand.14

Manufacturing one automobile requires approximately 118,877 gallons of fresh water. This water comes in clean and goes out polluted. With peak oil putting our entire energy paradigm in question, if we consider what it means to create a new generation of alternative-fuel cars - to build 700 million new vehicles would require 83,213,900,000,000 gallons of fresh water.15

We do have enough fresh water, oil, and other resources to last us indefinitely if we us them in a sustainable manner, the problem is, we have so many people.  As China and India industrialize, we're talking about several billion people competing for increasingly limited resources.  While capitalism is an establishment that works best with an ever-growing base of consumers, we need to wake the fuck up and tackle the true source of the issue (population), otherwise, we're in for quite the bumpy ride.

How about more money into research for alternative fuel sources? Fuck, let Big Oil become Big Hydrogen or Big Uranium or Big Photovoltaic for all I care. Let's just end our reliance on dirty fossil fuels, the money for which goes into the pockets of hostile nations.

Kmarion wrote:

It was Clinton who blocked the drilling the first time. One of the excuses was that it would take too long to actually acquire. Had he not put it off the oil would be in use today... when we desperately need to get off of foreign dependency.

I think the whole point is to use up the rest of the worlds oil while it is cheap and then use ours when it is worth a fortune because the world is running out.

The rest of the world is still no where near running out and $4/gal isn't nearly as bad as it can get.

Lotta_Drool wrote:

Kmarion wrote:

It was Clinton who blocked the drilling the first time. One of the excuses was that it would take too long to actually acquire. Had he not put it off the oil would be in use today... when we desperately need to get off of foreign dependency.

I think the whole point is to use up the rest of the worlds oil while it is cheap and then use ours when it is worth a fortune because the world is running out.

The rest of the world is still no where near running out and $4/gal isn't nearly as bad as it can get.

That would require foresight. Something most politicians lack. The cost on the average citizen transcends the amount spent at the pump. Food, tourism, shipping, manufacturing.. are just a few things that increase as the cost of oil goes up. We rely on a civilization content with self destruction. If we were truly concerned with the long term effects we would be running, not crawling towards energy independence.

liquix wrote:

ps: i do not condone the policy of drinking..

You must not own a car then as every time I fill up I feel like I need a drink.