Arkansas Blog

One myth exploded is the one advanced by Mike Huckabee and...<<<

You know I just about fell from my office chair. I was using my aging brain to speed read like I once did and read that so quickly that it formed the mental message of an 'advanced Huckabee.' I thought 'WTF! Has MB lost his fine mind? ' I'll slow down.

Meanwhile there's T. Boone Pickens trying to up the value of his natural gas investments telling us we cannot drill our way out of this crisis. We must shift to natural gas powered transportation. What a hero!

Again, the only crisis is the Bush $ dollar. This oil bubble will end in 18-24 months. Most of us will be driving internal combustion engines for another 15 years. Media loves excitement, oil companies can really profit by creating crisis and Bush has screwed everyone's pooch with his reckless monetary policies. There is no oil shortage.
BHO nor McBush will be able to fix Bush's mess any time soon.
Oh the pain for the Neo-Con gain.

This morning I heard Bush saying that the Democratic congress is worsening the current crisis in oil, gas, food and housing by not "doing their job" and failing to enact legislation necessary to alleviate the crisis--such as off-shore drilling, among other things.

Uh, he failed to mention, of course, that it was his and administration's failed policies and unrelenting greed on just about everything that caused the crisis in the first place.

Hey max rather than repeating something from Kos or HuffPo why not check out what the MMS actually reported in 2007. taking facts out of context really don't work

You all really need to use updated information here is what the MMS reported as of June 20, 2007

As of January 25, 2007, MMS identified 125 spills of petroleum products totaling 16,302 barrels that were lost from platforms, rigs, and pipelines on the Federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) as a result of damages from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

Those spills did not occur due to loss of control of the producing wells.

There were no major spills (2,381 barrels per spill or greater) according to USCG official standards.

The USCG defines offshore spills of less than 10,000 gallons (238 barrels) as "MINOR"; offshore spills of 10,000 to 99,999 gallons (238 to 2,380 barrels) as "MEDIUM"; and offshore spills of 100,000 gallons, (2,381 barrels) and greater as "MAJOR".

According to a report on "Oil in the Sea" from the National Academy of Sciences (1995), far more oil enters the ocean from natural, underwater seeps than from offshore production platforms. In fact, the seeps introduce about 1700 barrels of oil a day into U.S. marine waters, which is about 150 times the amount from oil and gas activities.

Over the past 20 years, less than .001 percent of the oil produced in U.S. state and federal waters have been spilled.

The loss of oil from the Federal OCS wells themselves was minimal due to the successful operation of the safety valves that are required by the Minerals Management Service (MMS) to be installed on every well at least 100 feet below the ocean floor.

All facilities on the Outer Continental Shelf in areas threatened by the hurricanes are "shut in" prior to a storm's arrival, meaning that pipelines are closed and platforms are secured for heavy weather.

Oil losses were mostly limited to the oil stored on platforms that were damaged or oil contained in individual segments of pipelines that were damaged.

There were no accounts of spills from facilities on the OCS that reached the shoreline, or oiled birds or mammals, or involved any large volumes of oil to be collected or cleaned up.

The five largest spills were estimated to be between 1,000 barrels and 2,000 barrels. Two of the five spills may have only been a couple of hundred barrels. These five spills represent only 4 percent of all the spills but total 8,428 barrels and 52 percent of the total spillage. The table below provides more details

but i've never known the left to be worried about the truth
http://www.mms.gov/ SettingtheRecordStraight/ EstimatedOil%20SpillsAsaResultofHurricanesKatrinaandRita.htm

http://tinyurl.com/6yyan9

ARK. BLOG: Thanks, but ... you need to read more carefully.

1) My item provides a link to the MMS report.

2) I didn't do my math studies at OBU, but 16,000 barrels is somewhere north of a "single drop."

The biggest myth that you dumbocrats cite is that improving the supply of oil will not help the price. Unless of course you jackasses mean that you will use environmentalist whacko laws to prevent the oil from ever being extracted from the ground, and you will use other laws/lawsuits to prevent the oil from being refined. That report is full of half truths and downright lies.

O-dum-ba is definitely the second coming of Jimmy "no new energy" Carter. Dumbocratic policies are apparently to eliminate domestic supply and to then blame the oil companies for high gas prices.

It not like there is no available areas for off shore drilling right now. There is a lot of it..

ANd what do we hear about that? Nada, neither crickets or drilling. Bushco has such control of the media... they just let Bush talk endlessly about a moot issue. All pro more drilling people and media should be asking... SO why the hell aren't you drilling now?

Max,
Did you read the report. It says the impact to the environment was minimal with only 25,000 barrels of oil spilled. A super-tanker can carry over 3 million barrels so the total spilled is very little when you look at it. The way the report is done one spill could have resulted in only one barrel so the number of spills really don't mean much since there were over 3500 rigs exposed to the storms.

ARK. BLOG: You are refusing to address the point. The point is that an amount of oil equivalent to the Exxon Valdez was spilled, counting on-shore and off-shore, albeit over a much wider area. I'd agree that the impact wasn't huge, as these things go. So why don't the Huckabees etc. of the world tell the truth, instead of lies. Because exaggeration sounds so much better, even if it is dishonest. 25,000 barrels is more than a single drop. That's the direct quote formulation he and others were handed at the GOP Talking Point Factory. It just happens to be WRONG. And now that no one can say they didn't know otherwise, a LIE.

Fact #1 - Oil production cost
Here's what the price of a barrel of oil needs to be for different sources of petroleum to be profitably extracted:

- Accessible land: $19
- Shallow water: $20-60
- Deep water: $60
- Shale mining: $30-50
- Oil sands: $50-60

Current price per barrel: $145

Sources: U.S. Govt. CERA, Rand, EnCana

Fact #2 - Environmental Effects
Offshore oil production involves environmental risks. Most notably oil spills, both from oil tankers transporting oil from the platform to onshore facilities, pipelines doing the same and leaks and accidents on the platform. There is also the impact of produced water, which is excess water from well drilling or production and which contain varying amounts of oil, drilling fluid or other chemicals used in or resulting from oil production. The platform is typically given an allowed quota of produced water that can be emptied in the ocean. According to the Committee Against Oil Exploration, a Gulf of Mexico rig dumps about 90,000 tons of drilling fluid and metal cuttings over its lifetime, with its wells also contributing with heavy metals. The platforms themselves also present a problem when discontinued.
Source: Wikipedia & Committee Against Oil Exploration

Fact #3 - Workability
Even if offshore oil drilling is done, it will be 2013 before production can start and 2026 before these sites could even have an impact on oil prices and that impact would still be negligible.
Source: Bush's own Energy Information Administration

Severus,

Still in the throws of Bush withdrawal I see.

Propagandists use the name-calling technique to incite fears and arouse prejudices in their hearers in the intent that an invoked bad name will cause hearers to construct a negative opinion about a person, group, or set of beliefs or ideas that the propagandist would wish hearers to denounce. The method is intended to provoke conclusions and actions about a matter apart from an impartial examinations of the facts of the matter. When employed, name-calling is thus a substitute for rational, fact-based arguments against an idea or belief, based upon its own merits.

click on handle for a short fix

I'm not worried so much about the potential environmental issues as I am that going to all the effort for an unknown amount of oil is time wasted. Better to start moving now toward alternate cleaner sources. I do not hold faith that this government can focus on more than one thing at a time. If we try to look for more oil and say we are going to invest in alternatives at the same time is lip service. What will happen is oil will get all the money, and the alternatives will get the table scraps. I do not have faith that our government will direct a respectable, significant and major portion of research money to the best plan for the future energy sources. Oil is not the best plan. Conserve what we have being drilled now and move on.

Estimates a month ago were just over 2 years supply of domestic oil.
Then, others say they don't know how much.
Bush today said 10 years. ( The month before he said three )
He doesn't know. no one knows. New Oil is harder to get to ( read more expensive), its nasty, it pollutes its a hold over from our industrial age.
Any oil drilled in the US today goes on the open market. Any oil drilled tomorrow goes on the open market. Get over thinking the gas station down the street will one day factually advertise that they " only sell good ole' USA gasoline." No such thing.

On the other hand, we do know how much energy solar can create. I read this week that many many semi conductor companies for PCs - Intel being one - in the world are putting their newest and latest investments in smart solar technology. Those companies indicate the advancement of smart solar technology will out pace by 60% the advancement rate that PC semi conductor development had the past 30 years or so. They attribute that rapid development cycle onthat fact that developing smart solar technology is a piece of cake compared to its application
in PC hardware.

In the near term convert to natural gas. A greater majority of combustion engines can accept the conversion. (Just ask the people in Montana paying the equivelant of 65 cents a gallon for natural gas and getting an equivalent mpg of 60 miles.)

At the same time dump money, money and more money into things like hyrdrogen fuels, source production of hydrogen, more efficient batteries, better electric motors, solar charging.

The technology is there for solar. It, among other alternatives, need incentives more than drilling for more oil does. Make solar so cheap to manufacture and install that plug in EVs or hybirds can charge from the home's solar grid. Gas stations and parking lots should be fitted with solar arrays to charge up EV and plugin hybrids away from home. If cities in cold weather climates can run a network of outlet boxes in parking lots for car blocks to plug into and stay warm in sub 0 temps, so to can solar arrays power high voltage outlets for charging plugin hybrids or EVs be it a trip to the store, church, work - anyplace.

Lets take our technology and divert it entirely away from more oil exploration. Its time for oil dependance to go away. Foreign or domestic. If we can successfully phase out an obsolete car AC refridgerant over a decade ago, and in the next decade phase our obsolete R22 home AC refrigerant we can phase out gasoline in 10 years to all but the smallest of uses.

Don't feel sorry for the oil companies. They can redo their business models and dub themselves a real energy company and then get into the alternatives whole heartedly.

I think your argument that oil exploration is going to cause environmental harm is largely falling flat because of the revelation that oil seeps into the oceans natureally at a much higher rate than that of any oil spill ever. If you couple that with the fact that through oil shale and modern technology it is likely we could see more supply a lot sooner than ten years.

Not to mention if we had been doing this 10 years ago we wouldnt be in this situation today. Thank you Clinton, thank you Bush Sr.

At the link.

Thank you Clinton, thank you Bush Sr.<<,

Thank you Ronald Reagan
Thank you Jimmy Carter

blah, blah, blah,

Answer why the 68 Million acres leased and approved are not being drilled??? Step up to the mic like a man.

I find it odd that CJ has faith that modern technology will help find a solution to getting more oil but doesn't think it capable of helping us to overcome our dependency upon oil, known to be a limited resource. Oil dependency is a dead end street.
The real short-sighted thinking is the idea that more oil will solve the problem. In the long run and for the sake of the following generations, we must free ourselves from our oil addiction. You need to think strategic, not tactical.

"Answer why the 68 Million acres leased and approved are not being drilled??? "

Thats pretty simple, because there is no oil on those leases.

"I find it odd that CJ has faith that modern technology will help find a solution to getting more oil but doesn't think it capable of helping us to overcome our dependency upon oil, known to be a limited resource.Oil dependency is a dead end street"

It's no more a dead end street than say wind or solar power.

I am sympathetic to the argument that we should get off the oil dependency bandwagon, except that people who argue that point seem to have no concept of actually how much the oil economy has provided us and how vast it is. Look maybe in the next 100 years we will find the next energy resource that will allow that but for right now oil provides us with energy, lubrications, plastic, medical technologies, almost everything you come into contact with on a daily basis was either made distributed by or manufacture through energy which was derived from oil. It is our most viable energy building block.

But what will we do in the mean time ? We have plenty of oil here. Why arent we using that vital resource ? It doesnt make sense not to. Wind and solar power cannot suplant or energy needs (weve been over this before) Ethanol has proven to be a scam which is robbing us of vital food acreage and is actually contributing to the degradation of the rain forest and making the global hunger problem far worse. Not to mention raising the cost of actual fuel.

So do we sit on or hands and blame the mean ol oil companies for a problem we boxed ourselves into by denying them the means to deliver cheap oil ? And on what environmental grounds ?

I believe the free market and the entreprenurial spririt will solve the oil dependency problems as you eluded too. But in the interum we must be smart enough not to artificially limit ourselves by placing outdated restrictions based on false assumptions about oil.

In a sense, you're defending gluttony or addiction, CJ. Rather than face the reality of your problem, you cry for another fix or some more.

It is unreasonable to continue consuming oil at our present rate and not expect the end to come to this limited resource. If you think the withdrawal pains are bad now, just imagine what it'll be like then if we don't control it better.

Like it or not, the the oil road has an end. That's why it's called a limited resource. Your solution will only get us to the end of it faster.

Gluttony or addiction ?

No, its called reality.

Like it or not it is a resource that has perhaps hundreds of years left to it by the most conservative estimates. I think we have some time. The sky is not falling.

If the sky is not falling, then why do you demand more oil as if it is?

You contradict yourself. "There's plenty" - "We need more."

I will not deny how much the use of oil pervades our economic structure. That doesn't mean we need to let it continue without adjustment or change. We need to reduce our reliance on it. This is a theme I'm even hearing from a conservative talk show host like Monica Crowley and others.

What appears to have missed your radar is the first fact I listed in my earlier post. At the current price of oil, there is no profit in extracting it from new sources. You talk reality, yet you are ignoring the realities you don't want to acknowledge.

It is a reality that we waste too much, consume too much, and abuse our resources too much. It is a reality that we are not good stewards of our resources, our land, our water, our children, etc. But, to say that we ought to let consumption go unchecked and call that reality, that is gross negligence.

An addict can always say that he "needs" more. A glutton can always ignore the consequences of poor diet and no exercise. To say they need to be kept assuaged and pampered is not what we call reality where I come from.

What really is bothersome is the notion that Americans are not tough enough to face such demands and must always take the easy way out. There'll always be tomorrow is a sluggards way of avoiding responsibility.

There are a lot better solutions to saving money and reducing oil consumption than taking the questionable route of offshore oil drilling. The question is whether or not Americans have the will and courage to buckle down and make a few changes in how they live.

Let's put the "conserve" back into conservatism.

"You contradict yourself. "There's plenty" - "We need more.""

I am not contradicting myself, My point is that their is plenty in the ground here, so why do we suffer so needlessly? Simple supply and demand say that if you up the supply (here) the price of fuel will go down. It will create many more American jobs, plus it's less transportation costs (on everything) we will have to pay. And much less risk to the environment from shipping dangers.

I am shocked (although i shouldnt be) to see the lack of empathy from a party that proclaims to be about "feeling the pain" of the poor when high gas prices impact them the most !

Also your claim that conservation is the way out of this is a flawed argument, states are already seeing loss of revenue do to gas taxes and are now looking for "other ways" to replace that lost revenue. The argument that we "cant drill our way out of this," is absurd on its face. Anyone who understands markets know that when you increase supply price goes down. It might even do that immediately contrary to the lefts matra that it will take "ten years" to see any benefit as markets react to the potential news that new oil fields have been opened up.

I just don't understand the lefts radical demonization of an industry that brings us our most vital resource. Bitting the hand that feeds you ?

Radical environmentalism and failed notions about the nature of the oil business have us in the current situation. Bush Sr.'s proclamation to be an "environmental president", coupled with Clinton's inability to see further down the road than his own ego and congress inability to do anything has exacerbated this problem. Once again government is the problem.

No the sky is not falling there is plenty of oil here, but if you want to decrease the price of gas and other products that rely on shipping (which is pretty much everything) then opening up more oil fields to exploration and drilling (by American companies and workers) is the way to do it. The way I see it how can we demand the Saudis increase production when we aren't willing to do it ourselves ?

We simply can't stop using oil, it is a very large part of the world economy, untill we have a viable replacement fuel which is cost effective enough to use instead of oil, oil is king. Sorry but it is. Ignoring its impact on our economy is dangerous and irresponsible. Its a good way to keep this economy going in the wrong direction.

But hey, if you want 6 dollar gas then fine.

In 2005, the US Department of Energy published a report titled Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, & Risk Management. Known as the Hirsch report, it stated, "The peaking of world oil production presents the U.S. and the world with an unprecedented risk management problem. As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking."

Conclusions from the Hirsch Report and three scenarios
World oil peaking is going to happen, and it will be abrupt and revolutionary.
Oil peaking will adversely affect global economies, particularly those most dependent on oil.
Oil peaking presents a unique challenge ("it will be abrupt and revolutionary").
The problem is liquid fuels (growth in demand mainly from the transportation sector).
Mitigation efforts will require substantial time.
20 years is required to transition without substantial impacts
A 10 year rush transition with moderate impacts is possible with extraordinary efforts from governments, industry, and consumers
Late initiation of mitigation may result in severe consequences.
Both supply and demand will require attention.
It is a matter of risk management (mitigating action must come before the peak).
Government intervention will be required.
Economic upheaval is not inevitable ("given enough lead-time, the problems can be solved with existing technologies.")
More information is needed to more precisely determine the peak time frame.
Possible Scenarios:

Waiting until world oil production peaks before taking crash program action leaves the world with a significant liquid fuel deficit for more than two decades.
Initiating a mitigation crash program 10 years before world oil peaking helps considerably but still leaves a liquid fuels shortfall roughly a decade after the time that oil would have peaked.
Initiating a mitigation crash program 20 years before peaking appears to offer the possibility of avoiding a world liquid fuels shortfall for the forecast period.

The above was from Wikipedia.

If you click on my name, you will get a report on a debate held in Texas oil country by opposing experts. The topic of discussion was world oil supply. It was done in 2002.

What I found as I researched was how inexorably we're tied to oil, how much time is needed to adjust to changes in oil production and avoid economic collapse, how much more the demand for energy is growing and the problems such a demand will cause without alternative energy sources to pick up the slack when oil becomes less available, etc.

OPEC's supply is known. At current consumption rates, it will be used up in 40 years. And, this is without an increase as population increases or energy needs change. Your 100 years figure is an outlier number - something Pollyoilanna would come up with.

There are many gloom and doom types who make a somewhat plausible argument that the cultural and economic consequences of the decline in oil availability will be severe. Some even agree with the coming problem but believe in the adaptability of humankind. Charles Featherstone of the Mises Institute makes an interesting argument in a paper on Peak Oil. You might like it.

Time is running out whether you want to believe it or not.

That study on "peak oil" is old my friend. It fails to take into account the discoveries made in the last three years. Im afrain that "peak oil" is a red herring issue. 40 years of oil left ? They were saying that 30 years ago.

Many new oil discoveries have taken place since that time (and gas price) Brazille recently found a huge oil reserve, the huge Tupi field. Tupi alone almost doubled Brazil's oil reserves.Other nations have also found new vast oil reserves Mexico, China, Venezuela, India, Russia, and The United States and Canada.

The U.S. Geological Survey found that, "Estimates are anywhere from a conservative 25 billion barrels of oil in place, to a high estimate by the United States Geological Survey of 400 billion barrels of oil in the Bakken formation. Not only is the oil plentiful, but it's high quality too, 41 degree light sweet crude. The Bakken formation is a formation of black shale, siltstone, and sandstone. The formation lies beneath the Mississippian formation, Saskatchewan's current source of light sweet crude. The Bakken formation is situated beneath southeastern Saskatchewan, southwestern Manitoba, and North Dakota."

The US imported about 14 million barrels of Oil per day in 2007 , which means US consumers sent about $340 Billion Dollars over seas building palaces in Dubai and propping up unfriendly regimes around the World, if 200 billion barrels of oil at $90 a barrel are recovered in the high plains the added wealth to the US economy would be $18 Trillion Dollars which would go a long way in stabilizing the US trade deficit and could cut the cost of oil in half in the long run.

Peak oil advocates claim that the world is running out of oil unless the West gives up its energy-consuming lifestyle. Like global warming and population-bomb Malthusianism, it's essentially junk science because it operates on a static model. Crucially, it leaves out the politics of whether oil companies are allowed to discover or not.

The peak oil argument also leaves out major advances in technology like coal gasification and improved methods for finding untapped oil reserves.The most important reason for rejecting the "peak oil is here" argument, however, is that current production reflects investment decisions taken years ago, when prices were much lower. It was only just over three years ago that oil rose above $40 a barrel. A few years earlier it was $10-$11. Higher prices will bring more output on stream. A new study by Germany's Energy Watch Group, which said the peak was in 2006, makes the astonishing admission that it took no account of prices.

Hell in the north sea alone analyists are saying that there is 100 years left of oil. So no I think my statement was quite correct.

I guess will just agree to disagree. The experts are disagreeing also so we can too. I'll continue to check and research.