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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 ba

by 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
  We should be able to save a heck of a lot more oil than we can drill through revolution in our ways of doing things. If we replaced almost all of the petroleum fueled commuter travel for trips under 25 miles, this would probably have a much bigger impact on retail gasoline prices than drilling. If we pushed for a shift from petroleum feedstocks for the chemical industry to methanol, this would also potentially have a bigger impact. Note that both of these are achievable with technology we already have.
  - gills 18y ago
    So do it. Nobody is preventing you from putting your money where your mouth is and placing your ideas or technologies for energy efficiency on the market. I, for one, am sick of reading this noise of "we should X" or "if only we did Y" (I would posit that is the source of the general dislike for political threads on HN). If [any of] you really believe in what you are saying, do something about it. On the other hand, if you believe oil-less technologies will only work in conjunction with government intervention of the oil markets, maybe you should stop preaching about them until the market reaches a point where oil is more expensive than the alternatives. Here's a [random] energy-saving idea. Internet businesses with a 12-hour business day. The downtime each day without drives, networks, CPUs, monitors, etc. running will save a bunch of power.
    - stcredzero 18y ago
      I'm driving a fixed up old Mercedes 300 diesel and running it on biodiesel. (B-100 in warm weather, B-80 in the winter.) I'm also switching to an electric company that can sell me only electricity sourced from wind and hydroelectric. (Through the magic of fungibility, of couse.) So as far as being my own personal Denmark, I'm doing as much as I think I can be expected to at the moment.
      - gills 18y ago
        awesome :)

by smanek 18y ago

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
We should be able to save a heck of a lot more oil than we can drill through revolution in our ways of doing things. If we replaced almost all of the petroleum fueled commuter travel for trips under 25 miles, this would probably have a much bigger impact on retail gasoline prices than drilling. If we pushed for a shift from petroleum feedstocks for the chemical industry to methanol, this would also potentially have a bigger impact. Note that both of these are achievable with technology we already have.
- gills 18y ago
  So do it. Nobody is preventing you from putting your money where your mouth is and placing your ideas or technologies for energy efficiency on the market. I, for one, am sick of reading this noise of "we should X" or "if only we did Y" (I would posit that is the source of the general dislike for political threads on HN). If [any of] you really believe in what you are saying, do something about it. On the other hand, if you believe oil-less technologies will only work in conjunction with government intervention of the oil markets, maybe you should stop preaching about them until the market reaches a point where oil is more expensive than the alternatives. Here's a [random] energy-saving idea. Internet businesses with a 12-hour business day. The downtime each day without drives, networks, CPUs, monitors, etc. running will save a bunch of power.
  - stcredzero 18y ago
    I'm driving a fixed up old Mercedes 300 diesel and running it on biodiesel. (B-100 in warm weather, B-80 in the winter.) I'm also switching to an electric company that can sell me only electricity sourced from wind and hydroelectric. (Through the magic of fungibility, of couse.) So as far as being my own personal Denmark, I'm doing as much as I think I can be expected to at the moment.
    - gills 18y ago
      awesome :)