My answer – drill now in Anwar , off shore, in the mid west under the 4 corner states area, in Russia (get the Ruskies going on their own untapped fields) Help China find where their Big field is under the Goby desert.

I like the above ideas but this is just kicking the can down the road. Once alternative fuels are developed and replace our dependence on oil then the above need will vanish. And from that day forward energy will be a given not a need.

I guess that I don’t understand your humor. When do you suppose we will never need oil? Alternative fuels are required to free us from “Foreign Oil” dependence, not “Oil” dependence. And when we say “Foreign Oil” we are primarily focused on middle eastern oil. We are decades from even coming close to 50% oil/alternative fuels, not allowing for any break throughs. 

USGS estimated that between 5.7 and 16.0 billion barrels of technically recoverable crude oil and natural gas liquids are in the coastal plain area of ANWR.

The actual numbers I’ve seen from the Alaskan division of the USGS places those figures at 9.2 billion to 27.0 billion barrels of normally recoverable crude oil. Now, whether that number is the lesser or the greater of the 2 is immaterial to me. Why?

Oil is a world commodity and as a result the oil will be auctioned off in the world market .

Naive to the extreme.

Yes, crude oil is a commodity as are it’s byproducts Gasoline and Diesel. Evidently you do not understand how the Commodity Markets work. Market prices are set by how crude and its products are traded.

No, oil is not auctioned off in a world market. Contracts are signed by oil producers to oil consumers such as independent companies in the USA, China, India, Japan, etc. China may own it’s companies but here in the USA we have something called the free market system. It is that system, held not only here in other countries as well, that historically keeps crude prices relatively low.

If and only if the US is willing to pay the price will we get any of it.

The U.S. doesn’t buy oil. Independent oil companies do. If an oil company owns an oil producing well they may not put that oil out onto the market. The well’s out put is considered when the markets determines it’s price per barrel when it’s volume is added to the other producing well’s throughout the world as it relates to the demand for it. Now come on, this is basic commodities and economics 101.

The United States consumes 20.68 million barrels per day or 7.5 billion barrels per year. If we got all the ANWR oil it would supply the US with oil for only 2.1 years . ANWR is not America’s saving grace.

My, oh my, the acrobatics you use. Let’s see if I can get you to see some kind of logic without writing a novel.

1). Using an updated fuel consumption figure I have, the USA uses 21.98 mbd. So, for sake of argument and to make the math a little simpler let’s agree that the consumption is at an even 22mbd.

2). We import 60% of our oil, or 13.2mbd.

3). Roughly 12% comes from the Persian gulf, or 2.64mbd.

4). The most we would be able to produce from ANWR is about 2mbd.

5). Now, while this does not totally free us from middle eastern oil it is enough to free us from the combined shipments from Saudi Arabia and Kwait.

6). Using the lowest numbers from your figures 5.7gb’s, that oil would last 7.8 years

7). If, on the other hand, my scientists are correct and we use their highest numbers of 27gb’s that oil will last us 37 years. All without resorting to enhanced oil recovery.

I’ll be honest here. I tend to go with the Alaskan estimates because it is their information that oil company’s use before they determine if a location has the potential for payback before they drill. It behooves the Alaskan USGS office to be as accurate as is humanly possible because if they are not then the oil companies will go else where.

Get all of that production going while at the SAME TIME pressing forward with

1)alternative feed stocks for oil to make bio-diesel from,

2)using fields of hybrid feed stocks that currently out produce food stocks to make Ethanol

3)while using solar energy to manufacture the ethanol instead of oil/gas.

4)build more wind turbine in wind rich areas

5)while building vast storage array’s to store the peak output of both wind and solar

6)build re-designed nuke plants.

I like the above ideas and I believe that these suggestions are already in play.

I disagree. Some are starting but the majority are not.

That’s just the start but has to be done with cheap oil or it can’t be done without destroying the economies of entire nations.

I agree that the price of oil must stay economical during this transition phase. If not then panic could set in and crash the world’s economy.

Agreed

Obama has destroyed the U.S. economy

No he hasn’t.

He hasn’t? What planet are you from? He has taken the deficit from that idiot Bush which, at the time was $2.6 trillion and has heaped up another $4.8 trillion on top of that. The money supply is gone. Obama has to begin to print money. Devaluing the US dollar even more. China now owns 60% of our debt.

Banks that are hording cash and drying up credit are destroying the U.S. economy.

Do you not understand basic economics? The reason we are in this mess is because banks were ordered to free up credit. In 2005 a Democratic Congress passed a number of bills designed to free up credit. These bills were piled on top of a general freeing up of credit that another Democratic Congress passed in 1987.

In 1987 the congressional bills told banks how they may solicit the public to apply for credit cards. They did and public consumer debt grew.

In 2005, Barney Franks, Maxine Waters, Hillary Clinton and a mass of other Democrats passed the Fair Housing Financing Act ordering Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to approve home buyers any way they could. The Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM’s) was reborn. Home buyers who could not otherwise get approval for a 30 year conventional loan could get approval on these ARM’s if the lender only looked at the payment on the first year before the adjustment. There were 3 different types, the 2 year, the 3 year and the 5 year ARM’s.

A whole bunch of people bought into these things and now we are reaping what they sowed. These people had no business buying a home because they didn’t have the income to support it. The 2 year ARM’s hit in  2007 and started the fall in the markets when those who had the 2 year ARM’s couldn’t make their payments. Bank repo’s shot up and housing values dropped.

The 3-year ARM’s hit and suddenly we find that Bush says we have to have a stimulus plan, quick. No effect on the economy. Obama takes office, claims another stimulus plan is needed. It is passed quickly and along with it some rights were put in danger. He said that the unemployed rate would to 9% if we didn’t pass his stimulus plan. No effect on the economy, it continues to plummet and unemployment is at 10.2%, officially. In January the 5 year ARM’s are going to hit and there are 3 to 5 times more of those that the other 2 combined.

The only thing banks are doing is trying to regain some liquidity so that they won’t get caught up in the up-coming “Bank Holiday”.

I am beginning to believe that the god’s on Mt. Olympus are upset that Obama got elected…

I don’t know about the God’s on Olympus but I am ashamed to have an avowed communist as my president. He is dismantling this country bit by unconstitutional bit. The week he was going to be elected he told a gathering of his supporters that he was going to fundamentally change the U.S. Constitution. He hates this country.

and their puppets in the Republican Party are no longer in power.

Republican Party – R.I.N.O. There are precious few conservatives left.

Like spoiled children they are punishing us all for self-serving reasons.

Such as?

  So, unless he pulls his head out of his ****, gets off of this health care fiasco binge,

A healthy populace is a prosperous one.

Oh? I totally missed it. I was assuming that I was taking with a fellow American who believes in individual freedoms, individual responsibility, individual rights and the Constitution of the United States of America. I didn’t realize that you were a Marxist. Or are you a Maoist?

I think you are arguing this issue from both ends of the stick.

Politicians have been doing this for centuries. I don’t understand the concern. I also find value in the alternative fuel scenario as well. I just don’t think that the environmentalist crowd has considered, even to the slightest degree, what this will cost us and U.S. industry and commercial interests.

You admit that we are reaching peek oil and then you say there is an infinite amount of oil,

Actually I am admitting that we have already reached peak. What I don’t understand is where do you get the idea that oil is finite. There is no firm conclusion because there are too many variables to look at and each one can counter or complicate the theories of finite or ongoing production.

we just need to find ways to pump it out of the ground.

Yes, that is what I said. Every oil well in America that has existed since the 1800’s has been tapped and capped except for the current producers. Some of the wells have refilled to some degree or another, and 2 in Oklahoma were under pressure. The question is why.

A number of theories exist as to why.

1)      Oil seepage from the parent rock finding it’s way to the well’s fissures.

2)      Oil is being produced, Abioticly, deeper underground and is seeping up into the wells.

3)      Oil is being produced, organically, from within the well itself.

4)      Oil is being produced though some weird chemistry currently unknown to us.

5)      Oil is being produced by a combination of all of the above.

There are too many variables and too many unknowns.

Most of what you say I can agree with but the notion that oil is limitless is folly.

I do not agree that oil is limitless in the pure meaning of the word. The world itself has a finite value but I will argue to the death that we will not be able to consume it. It is, to us, limitless.

Crude oil falls within that realm. Now will its acquisition still be feasible for us to continue using it? No! When will that occur? 100, 200, 500 years in the future? That is the unknown value and is, by extension, the reason why people who are being forced into accepting the lies of “Oil is coming to an end, we have to use alternatives now” crowd. The alternative fuels industry is perpetuating those lies so that they hoist upon us expensive fuels that don’t make any sense at all. Bio-Diesel and Ethanol fuels are the only fuels, right now, that makes any sense at all, but both use food crops and their production is costly.

Apparently no one thinks about this stuff because when I get down to the brass tacks of it all people suddenly say –“OH, I didn’t know that.”

My answer – drill now in Anwar, off shore, in the mid west under the 4 corner states area, in Russia (get the Ruskies going on their own untapped fields) Help China find where their Big field is under the Goby desert.

Get all of that production going while at the SAME TIME pressing forward with

1)alternative feed stocks for oil to make bio-diesel from,

2)using fields of hybrid feed stocks that currently out produce food stocks to make Ethanol

3)while using solar energy to manufacture the ethanol instead of oil/gas.

4)build more wind turbine in wind rich areas

5)while building vast storage array’s to store the peak output of both wind and solar

6)build re-designed nuke plants.

n oil is any substance that is liquid at ambient temperatures and is hydrophobic but soluble in organic solvents. Oils have a high carbon and hydrogen content and are nonpolar substances. Almost all oils burn in aerosol form generating heat , which can be used directly, or converted into other forms of fuels by various means.

Petroleum (L. petroleum, from Greek πετρ?λαιον, lit. "rock oil") or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid found in rock formations in the Earth consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights, plus other organic compounds .

The proportion of hydrocarbons in the petroleum mixture is highly variable between different oil fields and ranges from as much as 97% by weight in the lighter oils to as little as 50% in the heavier oils and bitumens .

Petroleum is found in porous rock formations in the upper strata of some areas of the Earth 's crust .

Wow, I am impressed. Got the encyclopedia version and everything. Except that wasn’t the question. Maybe I didn’t make myself clear.

What do YOU think crude oil is?

Since you’re at it lets discuss WHERE the crude came from in the first place.

Here is a hint. It is NOT a fossil fuel since the location of the rock strata all crude is generally found in is below the strata where life existed when that rock was on the surface. No fossils are found there.

At current consumption levels , and assuming that oil will be consumed only from reservoirs, known recoverable reserves would be gone around 2039 , potentially leading to a global energy crisis .

I love it when academia acts like scientists. Their panties get all in a twist over their own neo-science. There is more easily recoverable oil and gas, untapped, right now sitting under Anwar than has been used in the last 50 years by all of the vehicles all over the world. There is an equally large oil field sitting under the Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona landscape, untapped. There are untapped oil and gas fields sitting off of the east and west coasts of the U.S. and in the Gulf of Mexico.

Just  what do you think crude oil is?