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Weirdly enough, it was a YouTube comment that really hit home with me on this issue: How long ago was it that there was a substantial part of the North America

Weirdly enough, it was a YouTube comment that really hit home with me on this issue: How long ago was it that there was a substantial part of the North American population chanting "Drill baby, drill"?

gcv 16y ago
That same segment of the population still supports off-shore drilling. Environmental concerns don't matter to vocal members of the conservative movement until they actually start coughing up smog. On the other hand, liberal President Obama's drilling plan might actually collapse now. At least, one might hope that the oil industry can't successfully bribe Congress anymore — er, excuse me, make sufficiently large campaign contributions. (Blatant politics and off-topic for HN, I know. Sorry.)
- kmfrk 16y ago
  If Robert Reich is correct, the degree of dereliction of duty is horrendous: http://robertreich.org/post/604861772/bp-stands-for-bad-petroleum http://robertreich.org/post/604861772/bp-stands-for-bad-petr....
- orangecat 16y ago
  Well, perhaps if we had opened up ANWR there would be less need for offshore drilling. Or if liberals hadn't spent the last several decades demonizing nuclear power, apparently under the delusion the alternative is Living in Harmony with Gaia rather than coal and oil.
  - MichaelSalib 16y ago
    ANWR would need decades to begin production and even then would produce only modest amounts of oil. Nuclear power has proven to be extremely expensive; I am not aware of any country that generates a significant fraction of its power using nuclear power plants without massive investment and control by the state. Since the people generally opposed to government funding and control of industry on a massive scale are not usually liberal, your comment is of questionable veracity.
    - anamax 16y ago
      > Nuclear power has proven to be extremely expensive; I am not aware of any country that generates a significant fraction of its power using nuclear power plants without massive investment and control by the state. "control by the state" is a choice. Many countries have national oil companies, but that tells us only that they like national oil companies as other countries have private ones. The "massive investment" for nuclear power is well within the capabilities of many US companies. For example, at least three of the California utility companies can afford it. (PG&E has at least one. Sacramento used to and at least one of the LA basin companies is bigger than Sacramento's company.) Note that at least some of the "expense" is also a choice. We spend a lot of money on nukes that has nothing to do with safety or power production. I'll agree that nukes could be safer, but as long as we're spending money on things other than safety, I reject the claim that safety is a high priority. (And yes, some of those things are driven by folks who scream "safety".)
      - MichaelSalib 16y ago
        "control by the state" is a choice. Well, eating is a choice. And yet I choose to eat every day. The word 'choice' conveys very different meanings: everything we do is a choice, but many of our actions are highly constrained. After decades of nuclear power development, no one earth has successfully run a nuclear power system without massive government funding or control. That suggests that we don't know how to do such a thing. The "massive investment" for nuclear power is well within the capabilities of many US companies. Not in anything that looks like a free market. Right now, the federal government provides very large subsidies to nuclear power operators. As a result, we've had...no new nuclear power plants built in the last three decades. In the absence of the massive government subsidies we have in place now, I don't believe there are any utilities that could afford to build a nuclear plant on their own or secure the necessary financing. Note that at least some of the "expense" is also a choice. And yet nuclear power is very expensive all over the world. Nuclear power plants are almost always over budget and late no matter where they're built. When different people all over the world keep making the same mistakes, at some point, you have to consider the possibility that all these mistakes are not just random individual failures but reflect intrinsic properties of current reactor technology. We spend a lot of money on nukes that has nothing to do with safety or power production. I don't know what you're referring to here.
  - Tamerlin 16y ago
    Only an idiot would even suggest that. It's one of the few remaining wildlife refuges in the world that's still truly wild, and if we destroy it, we might as well just give up and admit that our grandchildren will be living in acrylic domes surrounded by a toxic hellhole.
    - orangecat 16y ago
      Again, the choice is not "despoil the environment, or live in a pristine world of magic and unicorns". We need energy, and lots of it. So we can continue our current lousy policies, or look for alternatives which while not perfect are clear improvements. I'm pretty sure that the entire drilling operation in a tiny portion of ANWR would do substantially less damage than this one spill.
      - Tamerlin 16y ago
        Drilling is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an improvement. It is rather a continuation of the lousy policies that we're already destroying the world with. The answer is not more drilling, the answer is better ways to produce energy. "I'm pretty sure that the entire drilling operation in a tiny portion of ANWR would do substantially less damage than this one spill." Until there's another spill... this is the real world; there WILL be more spills, and in place like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, all it would take is one.
  - abstractbill 16y ago
    Or if liberals hadn't spent the last several decades demonizing nuclear power... I've seen plenty of demonization of nuclear power, but (in my experience) there's a correlation with level of education (less education => more nuclear outrage) rather than a political left/right correlation. I'm genuinely curious about this. Are there any stats to back up your assertion that liberals demonize nuclear power?

gcv 16y ago

That same segment of the population still supports off-shore drilling. Environmental concerns don't matter to vocal members of the conservative movement until they actually start coughing up smog. On the other hand, liberal President Obama's drilling plan might actually collapse now. At least, one might hope that the oil industry can't successfully bribe Congress anymore — er, excuse me, make sufficiently large campaign contributions. (Blatant politics and off-topic for HN, I know. Sorry.)

kmfrk 16y ago
If Robert Reich is correct, the degree of dereliction of duty is horrendous: http://robertreich.org/post/604861772/bp-stands-for-bad-petroleum http://robertreich.org/post/604861772/bp-stands-for-bad-petr....
orangecat 16y ago
Well, perhaps if we had opened up ANWR there would be less need for offshore drilling. Or if liberals hadn't spent the last several decades demonizing nuclear power, apparently under the delusion the alternative is Living in Harmony with Gaia rather than coal and oil.
- MichaelSalib 16y ago
  ANWR would need decades to begin production and even then would produce only modest amounts of oil. Nuclear power has proven to be extremely expensive; I am not aware of any country that generates a significant fraction of its power using nuclear power plants without massive investment and control by the state. Since the people generally opposed to government funding and control of industry on a massive scale are not usually liberal, your comment is of questionable veracity.
  - anamax 16y ago
    > Nuclear power has proven to be extremely expensive; I am not aware of any country that generates a significant fraction of its power using nuclear power plants without massive investment and control by the state. "control by the state" is a choice. Many countries have national oil companies, but that tells us only that they like national oil companies as other countries have private ones. The "massive investment" for nuclear power is well within the capabilities of many US companies. For example, at least three of the California utility companies can afford it. (PG&E has at least one. Sacramento used to and at least one of the LA basin companies is bigger than Sacramento's company.) Note that at least some of the "expense" is also a choice. We spend a lot of money on nukes that has nothing to do with safety or power production. I'll agree that nukes could be safer, but as long as we're spending money on things other than safety, I reject the claim that safety is a high priority. (And yes, some of those things are driven by folks who scream "safety".)
    - MichaelSalib 16y ago
      "control by the state" is a choice. Well, eating is a choice. And yet I choose to eat every day. The word 'choice' conveys very different meanings: everything we do is a choice, but many of our actions are highly constrained. After decades of nuclear power development, no one earth has successfully run a nuclear power system without massive government funding or control. That suggests that we don't know how to do such a thing. The "massive investment" for nuclear power is well within the capabilities of many US companies. Not in anything that looks like a free market. Right now, the federal government provides very large subsidies to nuclear power operators. As a result, we've had...no new nuclear power plants built in the last three decades. In the absence of the massive government subsidies we have in place now, I don't believe there are any utilities that could afford to build a nuclear plant on their own or secure the necessary financing. Note that at least some of the "expense" is also a choice. And yet nuclear power is very expensive all over the world. Nuclear power plants are almost always over budget and late no matter where they're built. When different people all over the world keep making the same mistakes, at some point, you have to consider the possibility that all these mistakes are not just random individual failures but reflect intrinsic properties of current reactor technology. We spend a lot of money on nukes that has nothing to do with safety or power production. I don't know what you're referring to here.
- Tamerlin 16y ago
  Only an idiot would even suggest that. It's one of the few remaining wildlife refuges in the world that's still truly wild, and if we destroy it, we might as well just give up and admit that our grandchildren will be living in acrylic domes surrounded by a toxic hellhole.
  - orangecat 16y ago
    Again, the choice is not "despoil the environment, or live in a pristine world of magic and unicorns". We need energy, and lots of it. So we can continue our current lousy policies, or look for alternatives which while not perfect are clear improvements. I'm pretty sure that the entire drilling operation in a tiny portion of ANWR would do substantially less damage than this one spill.
    - Tamerlin 16y ago
      Drilling is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an improvement. It is rather a continuation of the lousy policies that we're already destroying the world with. The answer is not more drilling, the answer is better ways to produce energy. "I'm pretty sure that the entire drilling operation in a tiny portion of ANWR would do substantially less damage than this one spill." Until there's another spill... this is the real world; there WILL be more spills, and in place like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, all it would take is one.
- abstractbill 16y ago
  Or if liberals hadn't spent the last several decades demonizing nuclear power... I've seen plenty of demonization of nuclear power, but (in my experience) there's a correlation with level of education (less education => more nuclear outrage) rather than a political left/right correlation. I'm genuinely curious about this. Are there any stats to back up your assertion that liberals demonize nuclear power?