More Active Posts
Front Page
Today’s Comic
 |
 22 Comments |
 |
Topic: Cartoon |  |
Email a friend |
 |
Keywords: |  |
RSS 2.0 |
 |
Both comments and pings are currently closed. |  |
Share this: |
One more diversion
Why does WOW keep puting these lying propagandistic sadistic attempts at “humor” out?
Doesn’t the EDITOR have any taste?
These direct attacks on the peaceful Democrats in Congress don’t go unnoticed!
satire. I get it, Bobby. I mean, it must be satire because nobody with common sense and a head that serves more than a hatrack would believe what you just posted. Here’s a good definition of an oxymoron: peaceful democrats.
If you’re a democrat Bob, understand this is not an attack on you. However I get the point of the editorial cartoon. It was stated about 10 years ago….well, more than that according to the cartoon, that drilling for oil in ANWR would take about 10 years to fully be realized as an alternative to foreign oil reliance. Hmmmm……
was it not just 10 years ago that Congress voted to NOT drill in ANWR??????????
aaaaaahhhh…………..I remember the days way back when, when gasoline was a mere $2/gallon.
From what I know of Bob, I doubt he’s serious.
And I remember when gas was $.69/gallon…
And how long would ANWAR actually help the oil situation in the U.S.?
It will, however, make some oil copmpanies even richer.
So lets answer this question:
U.S. oil usage:
21 million barrels/day
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_con-energy-oil-consumption
ANWAR probable reserves:
7.7 billion barrells
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Refuge_drilling_controversy
Or it will provide a total of 1 year of oil at present consumption rates.
Hmmm, yup this would seem to make a big difference.
So lets answer this question:
U.S. oil usage:
21 million barrels/day
ANWAR probable reserves:
7.7 billion barrells
Or it will provide a total of 1 year of oil at present consumption rates.
Hmmm, yup this would seem to make a big difference.
P.S.WMB seems to be swallowing the URLs.
An insightful comic and a sorry irony.
Well, Musing, notice how they are mum about the DEMAND side of oil prices…
So yeah, let’s talk planning ahead…
Here is how poorly it is done in my city…
“The ’burbs: Bruce Andriatch’s blog about his decision to take the bus rather than continue to fill his car’s tank with ever-costlier gas drew this comment from Nothing But the Truth:
There are no transit options in Buffalo worth exploring. In cities like Denver, Portland, St. Louis, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, etc. . . . they were smart enough to invest in regional rail systems over the last couple decades. Not Buffalo, and it is too late and expensive to do it now.
Except, that’s always the excuse…
It’s too late and too expensive - until you find out that had you done it then, 10 years ago, you’d be better off now. But, 10 years ago, they said the same thing…
And instead of doing it now…
In 10 years, someone else will say the same thing..
Sigh..
So.. I’ll tell ya what… I’ll back drilling in ANWR, just as soon as folks tell me what we’re doing, or what they would support doing, on the demand side of the equation
These are the same people who, for about the same amount of time depicted in the cartoon, have been fighting the idea of seriously trying to develop alternatives to oil and mocking any suggestion that we might need to.
If we’d started a Manhattan Project-scale energy R&D effort in 1980, we might not need oil anymore by now.
So as it becomes a real crisis, the conservatives have no answer other than “drill more” (and never mind any ecological damage done). They reveal themselves time and again as unimaginative tin men with no solution to offer but the one they already know.
One day, Bob Buckles and Justus, there will be no more oil to drill for. And then where will we be? Maybe THEN the dim lightbulb over your heads will shed its sketchy illumination over the thought that finding something other than oil might have been a good idea … when there was still time to have done it.
So as it becomes a real crisis, the conservatives have no answer other than “drill more” (and never mind any ecological damage done). They reveal themselves time and again as unimaginative tin men with no solution to offer but the one they already know.
OK, Steve. What’s your solution?
StuBob
LOTS of solutions out there.
Ways to reduce consumption:
Drive less
Invest in mass transit infrastructure
Use local zoning to encourage development that relies less on automobiles, including pedestrian friendly communities
Encourage investment in energy efficient housing and contstruction
Alternative sources of energy:
Wind
Wave
Geothermal
Nuclear
Solar - both Active and Passive
That’s just the off the top of my head, without a whit of research.
You really haven’t heard of any of these solutions that I’ve seen proposed again and again around the web, in the papers, all over the place?
What rock have you been hiding under?
You really need Steve to enumerate all of these for you???
Thomas - some of the options you suggest have been met with a lot of NIMBY (Wind, wave, and Nuclear - with the same complaints from those who are against more drilling.
Why can’t we do both? Drill AND look for viable alternatives in the meantime?
Some of your suggestions are also very long term and don’t help us right now.
Klasko,
I agree with you - some of the options have been met with complaints. Frankly, I think while there may be merit to some of the complaints, it is a case of the best being the enemy of the good. I can’t imagine a perfect energy technology, that has zero impact on the environment.
But I’d argue that any of these technologies in their current states are hands down better than drilling in environmentally sensitive areas - which, at its best, is a short term solution. Musing points out, it buys you a whopping one year. Our thoughts on energy technologies and solutions ought to be on the 10, 20, 50, 100 year time spans.
Yes, those suggestions are long term. It took us long term to get here, and it was by design and choice. We can, and should, design and choose otherwise at this point, and it will take us long term to get there.
But if we don’t start, one thing is for certain, we will never get there. And drilling, while a short term solution, is just doing more of the same. It isn’t a meaningful start in any new direction.
klasko post 12,
if you accept my figures, then drilling in ANWAR will have neglible effect on the problem BUT we will have made a mess of ANWAR.
It seems a bad trade to ruin wilderness for essentially no measureable impact on our oil needs.
It will, however, mkae a number of oil companies a lot of money.
so lets try the following thought experiment:
1) lets assume ANWAR is required for our national security: I disagree but lets posit for the moment
2) so the public will give up a wilderness area
3) so how about the oil company drilling in ANWAR and producing the oil at zero gross profit. If that is too severe, how about zero net profit exlcuding overhead costs for administration
If the public is to sacrifice is it too much for our oil companies to scarifice?
Thomas (11) — None of those options gets me to work. Many of them are poo-poohed by environmentalists.
Steve said, “They reveal themselves time and again as unimaginative tin men with no solution to offer but the one they already know.” I asked for a clarification, hoping for something new and imaginative. He didn’t answer and you made a point of saying stuff that’s been “proposed again and again around the web, in the papers, all over the place”.
So Stubob, what then is your proposal for when the oil runs out? Or for the point at which extracting it from the ground no longer makes any economic sense?
Do you have any long term plan, besides drilling?
You know, all the oil in ANWR, Arabia, and the rest of the world will do us no good if we do not have the refineries to process it. Does anyone ever hear why we do not have the necessary refining capacity? Two things: Katrina, and the fact that the same people preventing us from drilling in ANWR have stopped oil companies form building more.
Thomas post 16,
the following appears to be reasonably scaled estimate:
If we invest about $200B/year in nuclear energy for a period of about 15 years, the U.S. could produce all the energy required to run our society.
We can use the electrical energy to electrolyze water to produce hydrogen and run our cars on hydrogen.
It will require approximately doubling our electrical distribution system.
No new technoilogy is required, and the atuomobile infrastructure remains intact.
There will be essenially zero CO2 emmissions.
The cost is about the cost of staying in Iraq, except that it has minimal security problems.
The quantity of nuclear fuel waste is relatively modest and it is only political will, not technology, which is limiting us in storing it safely.
This will work and in fact is if you listen carefully it is already part of our present administrations energy policy.
Musing
Sounds like an excellent idea!
And yet, I observe that despite this and other ideas being out there, some people remain obsessed with the need to drill, and can’t seem to see past reliance on oil.
On Friday, all 15 Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee refused to end the moratorium on oil shale development in Colorado. See the IBD article at: http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=295831226052594
Form the article:
o “Estimates put the amount of oil locked in shale in both Canada and the U.S. at more than 1 trillion barrels. Pulling out even a tenth of that would quadruple our current reserves.”
o “This is the same Congress that refuses to allow drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which holds up to 20 billion barrels of crude, or offshore, where another 30 billion await.”
o “The U.S. uses about 21 million barrels of oil a day. But only 8 million come from our own sources. That leaves a 13-million-barrel-a-day deficit that, at $126 a barrel, will cost us $600 billion to plug this year. That’s more than two-thirds of our total trade deficit.”
Just the opening of these areas for oil harvesting would cause a precipitous drop in oil futures and, one may assume, some pass-through to fuel prices.
StuBob: The answer is, as others have stepped in to tell you, there are a lot of ideas and have been for a very long time. But they have not been developed very far because the same people who are now panicked and insisting we have to destroy one of the last remaining wildernesses in our country have spent the last 20-plus years fight every effort to conduct research and development of them.
When the oil supply is reasonably plentiful, you denounced efforts to develop alternatives as a needless “liberal” scheme to spend tax money. Now that oil supplies are short, you are screaming about the “liberal” plot to (gasp!) conserve the wilderness.
The only answer you have is: destroy more.
I have no problem with waiting to tap our oil resources until we can get a better price.
Anwar is some pristine wilderness that’s going to be ruined? Look at a map of any region of the US, and you’ll find that protected “wilderness” is any region so arid, rocky, hilly, and off the beaten path that nobody wants to built a Walmart there. Anwar is a prime example. Nobody goes there. It’s a very unpleasant, inaccessable place.
Back when Tricky Dicky ruled the world, there was another gas crisis. Somebody asked Milton Frieman what to about it. He said “do nothing.” The market will take care of it, raising the price of gas until supply meets demand. He was asked “What about the poor”, and he replied “The poor? they’re always messing everything up. Give them money!”
There may only be a year’s supply of oil in Anwar, but they can’t extract it in a year. Oil is a globally traded commodity, and all we’ll do is slightly increase the world’s output for a decade or so. The US won’t reap much benefit, except for the transportation cost.
Whether gobal warming is happening, and whether it’s caused by man or other causes, I have trouble feeling sorry for people with beach-front property. We’d be much better off concentrating on water management and power generation world-wide. People do adapt, and several generations is more than enough time.
Everybody talks about the balance of nature. How about a model? Try balancing a coat-hanger above your palm with the hook in your palm. Now try balancing it below your hand, hanging it from your finger. Which is a better model of nature? Your answer says alot about your stand on the issues at hand.
I’ve seen nature swing like it’s hanging from a finger. The problem isn’t saving the earth. It’s saving ourselves. We are a bit more fragile.
As I listen to debate about our energy options, it becomes clear that there is a down-side to every option that can be attacked, so we do nothing.
The true cost of automobile use is not reflect in the cost to the driver. Various branches of the government spend a fortune on roads, police, ambulances, etc. which could only be paid by the drivers themselves with a fuel tax around $8/gallon. Drivers are getting a great deal at the expense of the whole population. No surprise. Drivers are a majority of taxpayers and voters.
An average driver drives about 10,000 miles/year. At 20mpg, that’s 500 gallons of gas. At $4/gallon, that’s $1000/year more than when it was $2 a gallon. I pay that much for auto insurance. And what are average car payments? Maybe $3000/year? Let’s all cry for the poor drivers. It’s the end of the world.
The Prius would go way further on a gallon of gas if Toyota had made the batteries bigger and built in a power cord. But Toyota marketing thought it wouldn’t sell. We’d need nukes to make the electricity to make it a viable solution, and we can’t have nukes belching - what was it again? - Oh, yeah. Warm water.