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What blather. Two points: (a) oil is fungible. Fungible, FUNGIBLE. (b) offshore drilling, will help, and nobody is proposing that it is a solution. Nuclear

What blather. Two points: (a) oil is fungible. Fungible, FUNGIBLE. (b) offshore drilling, will help, and nobody is proposing that it is a solution. Nuclear and solar electricity and better batteries are the solution. Drilling our own oil resources will help us while we get there.

sh1mmer 18y ago
I disagree that drilling will help. The key point of the article is that it was a cultural rather than a resource based shift that helped Denmark become energy independent. I read a recent estimation that America has enough oil for 3 years at it's current rate of consumption. Unless consumption is dramatically reduced drilling is just going to tap out a resource that would be best saved for a real emergency. Europe has been coping with smaller more efficient cars, and driving habits for decades. American can too.
- DanielBMarkham 18y ago
  Your comment has the feeling of a moral judgment or a best-guess seat-of-pants decision, ie, that since Europe has been coping with smaller and more efficient cars, we can too. I've always found myself too ill-equipped to make decisions on how markets can or should operate (that is, unless the market is obviously broken, in which case somebody must do something) So I take it you're happy we haven't drilled any of our resources, haven't built a refinery in decades, and haven't built a nuclear power plant since the 1970s? That we continue to _not_ reprocess spent nuclear fuel? That due to these policies our oil output now is the same as it was in the 1940s? I'm trying not to badger you, but are you saying that because we've basically forbidden the energy markets to work efficiently inside our country, energy prices are going high, and it's a good thing because maybe the culture will shift like Denmark? Couldn't you just picket or something? Seems like a terrible waste of American's lives just in order to make the culture more to your liking. And please don't argue that the culture must change because energy is so scarce -- it's a circular argument.
  - natrius 18y ago
    "Seems like a terrible waste of American's lives just in order to make the culture more to your liking." He clearly said that the goal was energy independence, not a change in culture. The change in culture is a means to that end. Drilling offshore now isn't worth the potential environmental damage or the sacrifice of the future value of that oil when it becomes more scarce. I don't think that oil is enough to tide us over until we don't need oil anymore, especially since the oil will be sold on the global market. It will barely lower oil prices in a decade. Are those sacrifices worth it? I don't think so. With or without new offshore drilling, we will lower our energy consumption by necessity from now until we're off of oil. It will be too expensive to continue on our current course. The current focus should be on solutions that will make that transition period less painful, not on solutions that will make us use more oil and further our dependency on it. I agree with you on all the nuclear stuff.
    - DanielBMarkham 18y ago
      "Are those sacrifices worth it? I don't think so." What sacrifices? I won't use the term "straw man" but I'd at least like to humbly suggest you've made a whole slew of assumptions about what might or might not happen. Most of these I take issue with. I'm not crazy about oil. Personally, I'll be happy when we're off it. But, like I said, I don't sit around taking my personal feelings and try to control world markets with them. Seems kind of, well, presumptuous. If we can drill for oil offshore, and it's there, and we need it, I say have at it. There are all sorts of _possible_ dangers and warnings, but the markets indicate that there is a real, tangible need that's not going away. Hey. I can pay for gas at 20 bucks a gallon. Not crazy about it, but I'm not letting it change my behavior. The people impacted are third world countries -- mostly the poor. I would think that "screwing the poor to make the world a more pretty place for me" wouldn't be much of anything to be proud of. Note that I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, just trying to figure out where the limits of your argument lie. Would you agree with the statement above? Or would we immediately move into a wealth redistribution discussion?
      - jacobolus 18y ago
smanek 18y ago
Offshore drilling won't really help. It'll take nearly a decade to get operations running, and our best estimates suggest that it will supply ~1% of our daily oil demand. http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/otheranalysis/ongr.html http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/otheranalysis/ongr.html "The projections in the OCS access case indicate that access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030."
- DanielBMarkham 18y ago
  So your position, and I see you have a doe report, is that "drilling for oil does not help oil prices" The nice part about this is, once you accept the logic (or lack thereof) it makes total sense why we haven't drilled in the last 30 years. You see? Drilling for oil doesn't help supply any. Why if we had drilled 30 years ago we'd still be in the same situation we are today. I wonder if the doe could make some estimates on other commodity prices 30 years into the future. I'd like to get in on some of that action.
  - smanek 18y ago
    I'm saying that even if we could magically get at all that offshore oil tomorrow, it wouldn't make a difference. It's only going to provide an extra 200,000 barrels a day. America currently uses over 20,000,000 barrels a day - and current world production is on the order of a 100,000,000 barrels a day. Increasing production by 0.2% isn't going to change anything. Hell, remember about a year ago when when OPEC increased production quotas by 300K/day? Oil prices held steady for about a week, and then started increasing again. It did practically nothing at all. I'm saying that the minuscule benefit off shore drilling will provide is more than outweighed by negative impact.
    - DanielBMarkham 18y ago
      I'm saying we were idiots for not drilling for the oil thirty years ago, and we continue to be idiots by not drilling for it today. To do something not in your best interest is foolish and idiotic. No. It is not the answer. I don't recall anybody saying it was. "We cannot drill our way out." Sounds good. But it's just a slogan. Get beyond it to realize that we have to use every tool in our arsenal, not give up on logic and common sense. 1 percent of something is something, not nothing. Little bits add up. I can probably find 10-1 percent differences that have been sitting on the table for decades. Easy.
stcredzero 18y ago
Oil is not completely fungible. There are different grades of crude. Natural gas is a bit more fungible. Once it has been processed to whatever standards apply it is completely fungible. Power is even more fungible.

sh1mmer 18y ago

I disagree that drilling will help. The key point of the article is that it was a cultural rather than a resource based shift that helped Denmark become energy independent. I read a recent estimation that America has enough oil for 3 years at it's current rate of consumption. Unless consumption is dramatically reduced drilling is just going to tap out a resource that would be best saved for a real emergency. Europe has been coping with smaller more efficient cars, and driving habits for decades. American can too.

DanielBMarkham 18y ago
Your comment has the feeling of a moral judgment or a best-guess seat-of-pants decision, ie, that since Europe has been coping with smaller and more efficient cars, we can too. I've always found myself too ill-equipped to make decisions on how markets can or should operate (that is, unless the market is obviously broken, in which case somebody must do something) So I take it you're happy we haven't drilled any of our resources, haven't built a refinery in decades, and haven't built a nuclear power plant since the 1970s? That we continue to _not_ reprocess spent nuclear fuel? That due to these policies our oil output now is the same as it was in the 1940s? I'm trying not to badger you, but are you saying that because we've basically forbidden the energy markets to work efficiently inside our country, energy prices are going high, and it's a good thing because maybe the culture will shift like Denmark? Couldn't you just picket or something? Seems like a terrible waste of American's lives just in order to make the culture more to your liking. And please don't argue that the culture must change because energy is so scarce -- it's a circular argument.
- natrius 18y ago
  "Seems like a terrible waste of American's lives just in order to make the culture more to your liking." He clearly said that the goal was energy independence, not a change in culture. The change in culture is a means to that end. Drilling offshore now isn't worth the potential environmental damage or the sacrifice of the future value of that oil when it becomes more scarce. I don't think that oil is enough to tide us over until we don't need oil anymore, especially since the oil will be sold on the global market. It will barely lower oil prices in a decade. Are those sacrifices worth it? I don't think so. With or without new offshore drilling, we will lower our energy consumption by necessity from now until we're off of oil. It will be too expensive to continue on our current course. The current focus should be on solutions that will make that transition period less painful, not on solutions that will make us use more oil and further our dependency on it. I agree with you on all the nuclear stuff.
  - DanielBMarkham 18y ago
    "Are those sacrifices worth it? I don't think so." What sacrifices? I won't use the term "straw man" but I'd at least like to humbly suggest you've made a whole slew of assumptions about what might or might not happen. Most of these I take issue with. I'm not crazy about oil. Personally, I'll be happy when we're off it. But, like I said, I don't sit around taking my personal feelings and try to control world markets with them. Seems kind of, well, presumptuous. If we can drill for oil offshore, and it's there, and we need it, I say have at it. There are all sorts of _possible_ dangers and warnings, but the markets indicate that there is a real, tangible need that's not going away. Hey. I can pay for gas at 20 bucks a gallon. Not crazy about it, but I'm not letting it change my behavior. The people impacted are third world countries -- mostly the poor. I would think that "screwing the poor to make the world a more pretty place for me" wouldn't be much of anything to be proud of. Note that I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, just trying to figure out where the limits of your argument lie. Would you agree with the statement above? Or would we immediately move into a wealth redistribution discussion?
    - jacobolus 18y ago

smanek 18y ago

Offshore drilling won't really help. It'll take nearly a decade to get operations running, and our best estimates suggest that it will supply ~1% of our daily oil demand. http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/otheranalysis/ongr.html http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/otheranalysis/ongr.html "The projections in the OCS access case indicate that access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030."

DanielBMarkham 18y ago
So your position, and I see you have a doe report, is that "drilling for oil does not help oil prices" The nice part about this is, once you accept the logic (or lack thereof) it makes total sense why we haven't drilled in the last 30 years. You see? Drilling for oil doesn't help supply any. Why if we had drilled 30 years ago we'd still be in the same situation we are today. I wonder if the doe could make some estimates on other commodity prices 30 years into the future. I'd like to get in on some of that action.
- smanek 18y ago
  I'm saying that even if we could magically get at all that offshore oil tomorrow, it wouldn't make a difference. It's only going to provide an extra 200,000 barrels a day. America currently uses over 20,000,000 barrels a day - and current world production is on the order of a 100,000,000 barrels a day. Increasing production by 0.2% isn't going to change anything. Hell, remember about a year ago when when OPEC increased production quotas by 300K/day? Oil prices held steady for about a week, and then started increasing again. It did practically nothing at all. I'm saying that the minuscule benefit off shore drilling will provide is more than outweighed by negative impact.
  - DanielBMarkham 18y ago
    I'm saying we were idiots for not drilling for the oil thirty years ago, and we continue to be idiots by not drilling for it today. To do something not in your best interest is foolish and idiotic. No. It is not the answer. I don't recall anybody saying it was. "We cannot drill our way out." Sounds good. But it's just a slogan. Get beyond it to realize that we have to use every tool in our arsenal, not give up on logic and common sense. 1 percent of something is something, not nothing. Little bits add up. I can probably find 10-1 percent differences that have been sitting on the table for decades. Easy.

stcredzero 18y ago

Oil is not completely fungible. There are different grades of crude. Natural gas is a bit more fungible. Once it has been processed to whatever standards apply it is completely fungible. Power is even more fungible.