Do you agree with this?

[ZQ8Dude]

American Solutions - Petitions


I happen to agree with it...especially after hearing that china and other smaller countries are drilling just 60 miles off the coast of florida. why limit ourselves from what other countries will exploit?

[gfarce]

Hmmm, wouldn't it be a shame if we all did this and then found out that "big oil" had manipulated the market to get pressure on Congress to do just what this petition seeks?

I'm for independence through conservation and alternative sources, including nukes. When and if we need ANWR or more coastal exploration, they'll both still be there.

So mark me down as a "nay."

[baldheadeddork]

Err, about that Chinese oil drilling...

GOP claim about Chinese oil drilling off Cuba is untrue

WASHINGTON — As Congress has debated energy policy over the past several days, an unusual argument keeps surfacing in support of drilling off the U.S. coastline and in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Why, ask some Republicans, should the United States be thwarted from drilling in its own territory when just 50 miles off the Florida coastline the Chinese government is drilling for oil under Cuban leases?

Yet no one can prove that the Chinese are drilling anywhere off Cuba's shoreline. The China-Cuba connection is "akin to urban legend," said Sen. Mel Martinez, a Republican from Florida who opposes drilling off the coast of his state but who backs exploration in ANWR.

"China is not drilling in Cuba's Gulf of Mexico waters, period," said Jorge Pinon, an energy fellow with the Center for Hemispheric Policy at the University of Miami and an expert in oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. Martinez cited Pinon's research when he took to the Senate floor Wednesday to set the record straight.

Even so, the Chinese-drilling-in-Cuba legend has gained momentum and has been swept up in Republican arguments to open up more U.S. territory to domestic production.

Vice President Dick Cheney, in a speech Wednesday to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, picked up the refrain. Cheney quoted a column by George Will, who wrote last week that "drilling is under way 60 miles off Florida. The drilling is being done by China, in cooperation with Cuba, which is drilling closer to South Florida than U.S. companies are."

In his speech, Cheney described the Chinese as being "in cooperation with the Cuban government. Even the communists have figured out that a good answer to higher prices means more supply."

"But Congress says no to drilling in ANWR, no to drilling on the East Coast, no to drilling on the West Coast," Cheney added.

The office of House Minority Leader John Boehner defended the GOP drilling claims. "A 2006 New York Times story highlights lease agreements negotiated between Cuba and China and the fact that China was planning to drill in the Florida Strait off the coast of Cuba," said spokesman Michael Steel.

The China-Cuba connection also appeared in an editorial Monday in Investor's Business Daily, which wrote that "the U.S. Congress has voted consistently to keep 85 percent of America's offshore oil and gas off-limits, while China and Cuba drill 60 miles from Key West, Fla."

And on Tuesday, Rep. George Radanovich, R-Calif., wrote in the Modesto Bee that "China, thanks to a lease issued by Cuba, is drilling for oil just 50 miles off Florida's coast."

A spokesman for Radanovich said Wednesday that the congressman had read about a Cuban lease to Chinese interests in the 2006 Times article.

China's Sinopec oil company does have an agreement with the Cuban government, but it's to develop onshore resources west of Havana, Pinon said. The Chinese have done some seismic testing, he said, but no drilling, and nothing offshore.

Western diplomats in Havana tell McClatchy that to the best of their knowledge, there is no Chinese drilling in or around Cuba.

"I've never heard anything about this," said one diplomat from a country in the hemisphere.

The Western diplomats, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media about energy issues, said they believed there is no new drilling occurring off the coast of Cuba, just exploration.

This has been another episode of Dick Cheney Is A Lying Motherfucker...

[ZQ8Dude]

Originally Posted by baldheadeddork

Err, about that Chinese oil drilling...



This has been another episode of Dick Cheney Is A Lying Motherfucker...

sheesh figures i'd hear that regurgitate as fact on a stupid right wing radio show.

Anyhow, i still agree with drilling more in our country since IMO i think technology has improved to the point where oil production can safely be pulled off in areas where it might not have been able to in the past.

[ZQ8Dude]

Originally Posted by gfarce

Hmmm, wouldn't it be a shame if we all did this and then found out that "big oil" had manipulated the market to get pressure on Congress to do just what this petition seeks?

I'm for independence through conservation and alternative sources, including nukes. When and if we need ANWR or more coastal exploration, they'll both still be there.

So mark me down as a "nay."

but you're a dirty GW believing hippy.

I'm for alternate sources that are viable...and right now there is nothing viable. At this point it'd take people a good 40-50yrs for hydrogen/electric/etc cars to even make a dent. Not to mention electric car technology is no where near where it should be for the market.

And as long as no one wants to back ethanol, we need more oil.

[ImpulsePainter]

Originally Posted by ZQ8Dude

but you're a dirty GW believing hippy.

I'm for alternate sources that are viable...and right now there is nothing viable. At this point it'd take people a good 40-50yrs for hydrogen/electric/etc cars to even make a dent. Not to mention electric car technology is no where near where it should be for the market.

And as long as no one wants to back ethanol, we need more oil.

Not to come off as an attack on your statement, but the electric and hydrogen cars are kind of a crock of crap I think, unless they are run off of solar panels on your own roof, I see no point in it, other than transferring your reliance from oil, to coal (although the coal plants have about 40% efficiency, whereas cars have about 10-15% iirc). They still have to get the electricity from somewhere, and it's that source that we need to change.

Ethanol in itself has a more economic problem, rising costs of meat, grain, and reducing the amount of food that can be supplied to people in need. And from what I hear, it does a number on quite a bit of engines, and especially screws over boats that are required to use it, because something to do with the water and ethanol mix funky together or something, not quite sure on it though.

It's hard to believe how the motive for more money can make such an obvious and necessary task to become so hard, and painstakingly long.

[baldheadeddork]

Originally Posted by ZQ8Dude

sheesh figures i'd hear that regurgitate as fact on a stupid right wing radio show.

Anyhow, i still agree with drilling more in our country since IMO i think technology has improved to the point where oil production can safely be pulled off in areas where it might not have been able to in the past.

I'm not against drilling in ANWAR, I'm just ambivalent because we're talking about a small field compared to how much oil we use in the US. The USGS estimates the is between four and twelve billion barrels of oil at ANWAR. That sounds huge until you realize we use 600 million barrels a month. We will use up all the oil we could get out of ANWAR in as little as seven months, and no more than nineteen months.

Drill in ANWAR now or later. It doesn't matter. Same with off the coast of Florida and everywhere else. But don't believe for a second that it is going to solve anything. It is literally a band aid when you need a tourniquet. Even if you want to look at meeting America's energy needs just ten years from now you have to start looking beyond oil.

Why then are the energy companies pushing so hard to get an ANWAR deal now? Money, and lots of it. At $120 a barrel the market price of the oil in ANWAR is $1.26 trillion dollars. This oil is on federal land, so the royalties for this oil will have to be negotiated with the federal government. If the oil companies can get a deal now with the extremely friendly Bush administration, they would certainly get a royalty rate that would put hundreds of billions of dollars in their pockets compared to the deal they are likely to get from the next administration.

That's why the oil industry supporters in Congress and the administration are screaming that the sky is falling. If they get an ANWAR lease now or six months from now means less than nothing to the energy future of the US. But a lease now would hugely increase the profits they'll make on the field when it does start producing sometime after 2012.

[baldheadeddork]

multiple post

[baldheadeddork]

multiple post

[ZQ8Dude]

Originally Posted by baldheadeddork

multiple post

holy triple post.


Now ANWAR aside, shouldnt we open the idea to surveying and trying to find oil in our country? We're only gonna get fucked harder if we don't figure this out.

[ZQ8Dude]

Originally Posted by ImpulsePainter

Not to come off as an attack on your statement, but the electric and hydrogen cars are kind of a crock of crap I think, unless they are run off of solar panels on your own roof, I see no point in it, other than transferring your reliance from oil, to coal (although the coal plants have about 40% efficiency, whereas cars have about 10-15% iirc). They still have to get the electricity from somewhere, and it's that source that we need to change.

Ethanol in itself has a more economic problem, rising costs of meat, grain, and reducing the amount of food that can be supplied to people in need. And from what I hear, it does a number on quite a bit of engines, and especially screws over boats that are required to use it, because something to do with the water and ethanol mix funky together or something, not quite sure on it though.

It's hard to believe how the motive for more money can make such an obvious and necessary task to become so hard, and painstakingly long.

I never said i supported electric/hydrogen cars. For the most part i feel they are worthless, but if you were to introduce both types it would take a good 50yrs before they might become viable...for some people.

Ethanol is something that needs more research. Its not viable now, but it has the best chance of becoming viable.

The things i've read is that many modern engines are built with more of a tolerance to the effects of ethanol since we use a small mixture of it in some areas.

[baldheadeddork]

Originally Posted by ZQ8Dude

Now ANWAR aside, shouldnt we open the idea to surveying and trying to find oil in our country? We're only gonna get fucked harder if we don't figure this out.

Sure, but we shouldn't confuse that as being a solution, and we should be incredibly suspicious of anyone who wants to sell it that way. The age of oil is ending - period. Any oil company who wants to look should be allowed to go ahead, but our national priorities (including any government subsidies, tax breaks or low royalty rates) should be focused on whatever is going to power us when the oil does run out. The current ANWAR lease bill doesn't do that.

[silent_R1]

the bad part of ethonal is the fact that corn is VERY thirsty. So, then we have to start looking at other problems which may occur later on.

I am all for alternative sources, recyclable energy, renewable, etc. I'm not so sure now that ethonal is it though.

I know oil isnt' it. I do wish the car companies would hurry up and get off their asses and start making some other type of viable vehicle which doesn't cost your first born to purchase.

[SXSMITH]

Just get a bike that runs on this.

Radioisotope thermoelectric generator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia