Posted on 11/10/2001 4:44:11 PM PST by Pokey78
BZZZZZZZZZZZZT!!!
Wrongo! We only "can't do without it" if we refuse to develop our own resources. It is a political problem, not a technical problem. Nuclear can provide the bulk of the necessary substitution and many uses of oil are easily replaced by cheap electricity. Even the resulting demand for copper can be replaced with high temperature superconductors and liquid nitrogen requiring... electricity. Many material needs can be replcaced with technology and energy.
I work at a refinery & we're full to overflowing.
That why prices are down & need to come down a lot more.
Every tank in every tank farm is bursting with product looking desperatly for a market right now like an old man with a prostate problem looking for a urinal.
The Iraqi mouthpiece said as much during the Gulf War. When asked if Iraq would withhold oil from the U.S. He said "What do you think we are going to do with the oil? Drink it? No, we are going to sell it to you!"
Thanks for keeping us from relying on the opinion pieces of 'news journalists.'
All they would have to do to lose it is drop the price...
Wrong. America has repeatedly shown that when crunch time comes, we WILL find a way to get the job done, no matter what the obstacles. If push comes to shove and we're asked to do with less oil so that we can wage war properly, we'll do it. We'll install solar, we'll consume less, we'll carpool, we'll give more business to corporations that are doing the best job of avoiding using petroleum products, we'll drill the heck out of any oil-head within 1000 miles of our shores, we'll find workable substitutes, we'll share home remedies with friends and strangers alike...
In short, we'll do what it takes to stick it up their @$$e$, until we win and we take over whatever resources we want as a reward for our sacrifices.
Right on -- nothing but.
The Libs and darter snail crowd would still rather have America held hostage to the murderous and unholy alliances of Iraq and Saudi Arabia than to have this "precious" wasteland utilized.
I'm all for the ecology, but here we can kill two birds with one stone -- we can carefully drill for oil into 600,000 square miles of Alaska's still largely untapped reserve and become energy self-sufficient, while at the same time ruining the oil-based economies of the afore mentioned b@stard terrorist-sponsoring states.
It seems to me that congress should have stated acting on this pronto, but partisan politics in the Senate is keeping us under the thumbs of the Arab Royals and having to tip toe around them to keep the oil flowing.
We need immediate action for the good of the nation from our representatives, not politics! My God, you would think they would KNOW this!
It is all about money and power though, not the good of the country.
Prices are not going to be anything like curent prices for very long. So spending the money on a processing capability to recover reserves from oil shale and sand is likely to be a wise investment right now. Another remedy that the author may not be aware of is a process in the testing phase for a new type of tertiary treatment that involves pumping natural gas steam under high pressures into existing depleated formations. As everyone knows, with the maximum treatment previously available, we only recovered about 50% of the reserves before we abandoned production. So as many reserves as have been recovered in the US are now available to recover again, given a sufficient commitment of capital and other resources.
However these are very high risk economic activities. Long term, twenty or thirty years out, the world is in fact awash in oil from the Caspian Sea and the Middle East. New technologies are close that will provide great substitutes for hydrocarbons.
The reasons the Major Oil Companies have left the United States are tax policy and political climate. Domestic energy is no longer an attractive economic activity except for small producers who can focus on Natural Gas.
There needs to be an economic incentive to the developers of these resources that does not depend on the short term tax whims of the US Congress.
In almost any event, you can plan on $5.00 at the pump in the not far distant future if we are very lucky--$17.50 if we are not.
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