"Opening up ANWAR and drilling offshore are only stop-gap measures to be sure, but would an announcement that we intend to begin exploration not have an effect on the current speculation that is driving the cost of a barrel of oil through the roof? Hopefully that would help get the price headed in the other direction."
Watson In The Adirondacks - "What Are We Waiting For?" - June 10, 2008
Well boys and girls, Uncle Watson actually got something right as a prognosticator. President Bush lifts the ban on offshore drilling and look what happens to the price of a barrel of oil - the biggest weekly drop in oil prices ever seen. You can click on the title of this piece and be taken to an article on Breitbart.com that examines the drop in the cost of a barrel of oil.
Imagine what would happen if we could get Nancy Pelosi and Diane Feinstein to shut up, or hope beyond hope, actually put the needs of the American people ahead of darter fish, spotted owls and polar bears. I love the creatures of this earth as much as anyone (except for "skeeters" and "no-seeums"), but I'm inclined to put the economic needs of my fellow human beings and the security of our country at the front of the line, and the creatures come in a distant second.
If lifting the ban on offshore drilling can have this kind of impact, imagine what an announcement heralding the fact that we were going to explore, just explore, ANWR would have. Even cognizant of the fact that drilling would be a ways off into the future, just the fact that we were going to start to explore there should have a similar impact as the lifting of the ban on offshore drilling.
Al Gore's new proposal:
The major flaw here is that nuclear power stays at current levels. We need to increase the percentage of nuclear power, not keep it the same. The salt mines will provide the space necessary to store the used fuel until a new means of disposal is discovered. If I were really cynical, I could opine that we'll be storing nuclear waste in the Middle East soon if we let Iran develop it's "peaceful" nuclear program.
Here's a link to an article on Texas and what they intend to do with wind power:
I guess you could say I have one foot on the "green wagon" and the other "on the ground". I totally embrace alternative forms of energy of every kind, but when I listen to Speaker Pelosi or Senator Feinstein list "safe nuclear" and "clean coal" among their list of options, I hear the subtle undertones and meaning of "safe" and "clean" that indicate nuclear and coal power generation will only be given lip service. They also want to keep ANWR off limits and don't want offshore drilling to commence, even though the ban imposed by Bubba has been lifted.
Unless we do everything within our power to tap ALL of our own resources, we will continue to "spit into the wind" as Jim Croce once intoned.
We have some of the finest intellects in the world working on alternative fuel sources and cleaner ways to use carbon based fuels.
We have the resources.
All we lack is a unified approach that uses ALL of the tools in our tool box.
I've been checking http://www.pickensplan.com/ on a regular basis since I signed up, but there's not a lot of new info as yet. My hope is that when an individual citizen is willing to put their money where their mouth is, this will set an example that might persuade some of our more recalcitrant politicians to open their eyes and set aside politics to ensure the health and security of our economy and our nation.
I got one prognostication right, but I'll never predict that politicians have much of anything on their minds other than being elected and re-elected. Like T. Boone Pickens says - we, the people, are capable of solving this problem if we can get the politicians the hell out of the way.
2 comments:
Elementary, my dear Watson! It is all perception. If the speculators (by the way, one of the biggest of the oil speculators is CalPERS. Talk about eating your young!)see the Federal Government doing something with this problem beyond silly season political posturing, the bubble will burst. There will be tulip bulbs for everyone.
By they way, the French, for whom our Neolib brethern have such high regard, develop a major portion of their energy from nuclear power. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France
dear watson,
i'm sorry to somewhat burst your bubble (ba-dum ching), but i think a little more caution might be in order before you so fervently proclaim your rightness. bush's rollback of the presidential drilling moratorium amounts to little more than the "political posturing" sir charles alluded to: there's still a congressional moratorium in place, no drilling can happen unless that's lifted too, and the chances of it being lifted anytime soon are practically nil. i for one have a hard time believing that the oil marketeers haven't already taken this into account. in other words, bush's announcement will have zero impact on policy; how could the people who care about this for a living ignore that?
that said, maybe i am giving the oil folks too much credit, and i'm certainly in no position to hazard any other guesses as to what happened to the price of oil last week.
Post a Comment