Posted on 06/19/2008 7:51:34 AM PDT by SmithL
I am not sure why you would choose to reprimand my use of a perfectly legitimate word. Like it or not, our economy, food supply, transportation, medical equipment, plastics, etc. are based upon crude oil. Maybe you would prefer the word “finite” in reference to the world’s oil supply? It does not matter to me. My post was not establishing a position but, rather, intended to spark a conversation. Utopianism is a red herring. I have not uttered a word about it.
My father spent his entire life in the oil industry. I started visiting refineries with him when I was 4 years old. He believed in peak oil and predicted in 1985 that we would run into shortages around 2010. He wasn't a refinery worker, he was senior management.
My reply to you was in no way meant as a reprimand to you. My point was impersonal and precise: The word "inexhaustible" is a word without value — an "illegitimate" word, if you prefer. Nothing — ABSOLUTELY NOTHING — is inexhaustible in the physical sense, so the word can really only be employed in a philosophical sense.
So who exactly employs it in the philosophical sense? Yes, you guessed it: the liberals. My suggestion to you and other honest FReepers is to deny them this word. Once they bring it out of their obfuscatory verbal arsenal, then they've set the parameters of debate. And not you. It's a loaded word, in other words.
Now as for the word "finite," I have no problem with that word. It doesn't come pregnant with implications that the word "inexhaustible" does. Our oil supply is indeed finite. Now let us begin the debate there.
Hope that clarifies things. My response was in no way a reprimand. I thought it was a great question, in fact.
The tag line “no good for Washington to permit drilling in the Alaskan refuge because Americans wouldn’t see any oil for 10 years.” needs to be refuted and is not backed up by any historical facts.
I worked for one of the companies who built 153 miles of the trans-Alaska pipeline and with many of the guys who were there.
Facts:
Pipeline current capacity < 800,000 bls/day
Design capacity 2,100,000 bls/day
Original oil found confirmed March 1968
Legal delays to pipeline construction 1970- July 17,1973
Pipeline construction March 1975 to May 1977
First oil to pipeline June 20,1977
Pipeline length 800 miles
Distance from pump station #2 to ANWR 50 miles
Fact is that we could easily be pumping more than 1,200,000 bls/ day in the existing pipeline just as fast as the oil field is developed. Counting the 3+ years everything was in the courts, it still only took 10 years to get the oil out.
So what you are saying is 50 miles of pipeline would start sending oil from ANWAR?
(Cool!)
I agree. I think this is an Operation Chaos stunt. Notice the Hillary sign in the window, and the handwritten sign below the Obama 08: “New Energy Policy”.
I put a tongue-in-cheek entry into my blog that it looks like Obama now has the Amish vote. There were some that thought I was serious...
They are right about not being able to drill out, but they are wrong about everything else. They need to build coal to liquid plants with total output of 12 million bpd. How many, how long, and how much?
There isn't a stich of sincerity in a mantra like this; it's pure manipulation.
(Cool!)
That's got me primed to go lay pipe.
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