Time to set the record straight: whatever, whichever politician said that gas prices are not coming down was right. Offshore drilling is a good idea, but it will not bring gas prices down.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m all for drilling for oil in our own backyards. When I first moved out to California, I was enchanted by all of those oil derricks pumping, pumping away in the beautiful hills of Huntington Beach, down along the beach paths and even on the beach dunes themselves. It made California look like the golden El Dorado that I had always imagined: golden roads lined with cool-looking cars and all of the oil we needed right under our feet. And yes, I was also expecting bikini-clad girls to pump my gas and sell me my milk from those roadside milk stands (I saw pictures of this put out by the Orange County Chamber of Commerce). I’m sure the girls and the pumping action of the derricks was some sort of Freudian juxtaposition that made me drive out to California all the faster.
So why don’t I support the drilling now?? Because once the oil is out of the ground, it is immediately put out on the international market where China can bid on it, along with every other gas-thirsty country that is finally making its way out of the Third World. We would be competing with them for our own gas. And make no mistake about it: it’s our gas. It is coming out on nationally-owned areas (offshore or the ANWR in Alaska) and the oil companies are getting a low-risk, fantastic return on investment. If that is the case, they can afford to lose a little bit of profit by selling that gas DOMESTICALLY, ONLY. Does that sound socialistic, the first hints of nationalized gas production?? You bet your sweet light-crude that it does!! But if you’re going to drill in my backyard, and I own the land and mineral rights, you have better pay me off by at least selling me the oil at a domestically-competitive price.
But I’m also realistic. Using oil to power our cars is a technological dead-end. With all of the Chinese, Indian, Polish, Russian, etc. etc. economies finally coming out of the Dark Ages and increasing the number of privately owned cars, we are going to be running out of oil soon (peak oil production). So where’s my nuclear-powered car?? If all of those Disney documentaries in the 1950’s promised plenty of energy in the future, how come I have to use my bicycle to go to the library and to the store??
The anwer of course is that we can’t trust the average person to drive a quarter of critical mass around in their engines, waiting for some terrorist to figure out that (4) times (1/4) equals (1). Boom. And I can hardly imagine the bad traffic created when the radioactive cleanup team cleans up the pieces from your average 4 accidents per freeway per day.
We need to use nuclear power to generate the electricity to provide the hydrogen to run the cars. Simple enough, please give me my new-model 2010 hydrogen-fueled SUV. In Earth-Friendly Green, of course. And feel free to stick as many oil-sucking straws in the California Offshore until then.
or,
and this is just an alternate option to consider,
we lower the population of the planet by 80% in the next 5 years, thereby solving all the problems imagined or real that we face due to over-consumption of limited resources, and any possible impacts that may have on the environment.
How do we do that? Well, I don’t have all the answers, but I do know what the problem is and that is a good starting point in my book. There are just too damn many people. Lets get rid of most of them and see how bad off we are then. Someone else figure out how best to accomplish “the balancing”……Ok, that is BS, I can’t just throw out a problem like that and expect someone else to solve it. Put me in charge and I will take care of it myself, I promise,
Oh, and don’t worry, oil extraction will be federalized within the next 10 years. It won’t be done for any good reason, just to get votes, by idiots not understanding any issues other than how to manipulate the fools that vote them into office (srsly, have you seen the candidates we have to choose between, blame the voting public for down-selecting to them). Most Americans will “think” this is a good idea, and then promptly ignore the fact that the price doesn’t drop, as they go back to worrying about who is going to win on American Idol.
Well, you are right about too many people to feed. The world will not be able to support our current population if we lose the ability to create petroleum-based fertilizers to keep the “Green Revolution” going. And then we have mass starvation and the beginnings of the 80% solution you mentioned.
But I am not ready to start eating Soylent Green ala Charlton Heston in the movie of the same name (I am not saying anything else; no movie spoilers in this thread !) so we’d better find a different solution. I am for making beef consumption really expensive. This would create a dual solution: more rich people dying of clogged arteries and leaving their monies to the peoples of the world, and more healthy eating for the less fortune (ie: most of us). If we start consuming grains instead of grains-turned-into-a-little-beef we’d all be better off. Don’t forget that the Roman legions conquered the known world eating nothing but porridge and oatmeal.
I would like to study hydroponics and find out if there is an efficient way to grow my own veggies at home. Fresh and unspoilt and full of flavor. With plenty of nuclear energy to provide the lighting, water purification, etc. we should be able to make it work.