"Drill, Baby! Drill!" Revisited

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During the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, the cause of expanding exploration for oil off the U.S. coast was bolstered by Republicans under the slogan "Drill, Baby! Drill!" The idea was that, if the U.S. could tap its own reserves, it would alleviate some of the pressure on consumers at the gas pump. Democrats preferred to research alternative and renewable sources of energy. A few weeks ago, seemingly out of the blue, President Barack Obama proposed greatly expanding offshore drilling off the coast of the U.S., embracing the mantra of, "Drill, Baby! Drill!" The timing, as it turns out, couldn't have been worse. The recent BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has proven to be an environmental disaster, exactly the scenario much of Obama's Democratic base feared. Yet since Obama proposed it, doesn't the Democratic Party now in a sense own "Drill, Baby! Drill!"? Will this allow Republicans to cast themselves as champions of the environment come November?

Also, let's talk about the politics of oil and energy more broadly. Why are we wanting to expand our dependence on oil in the first place? Why aren't we working more vigorously to remove it? It's both an ecological issue and one of national security—and also just plain economics. We need to get off oil.

Because there is an unhealthy alliance between the car producers and the oil companies? <.<

I don't see why not drill. There can be spills but that can happen anywhere. May as well use our own oil rather than Iran or Venezuela's which pretty much the only alternative at the moment. I can see why some would be against doing in the gulf or along the coast where people live but I don't get the problem with drilling in ANWR since it's basically wasteland.

The oil won't be produced for years. And what you regard as "wasteland" regarded as pristine wilderness protected since the 1960s.

Sure doesn't look pristine to me lol. Better there the somewhere people live. I don't see the problem with it not being produced for years, better then than never. We'd have it by now if we were drilling there 20 years ago. I just don't see much of an argument against it.

At this moment we have no better fuel source for our automobiles than hydrocarbons. So its going to be natural gas or a petroleum derivative. We do not have the infrastructure to power our cars with natural gas, so its going to be diesel or gasoline.

Whatever fuel source we use has to have a high enough energy density to be practical. At this moment it means either diesel or gasoline.

Hydrogen is not yet practical since there is very little free hydrogen. Most of it is locked in as water or hydrocarbons.

ruveyn

Regarding spills, the history of the Exxon Valdez and its following shortcomings are rather indicative of what the priorities in the USA are. <.< -cough cough-

for the sake of our children's children, why are we as a [human] race not working harder to find a practical energy source less finite/precious than oil? i suspect that some chemists would say that oil is a precious resource not for mere fuel but for the manifold non-fuel-related products obtained using oil, for which there is no other useful and/or economical substitute ingredient. WP chemists, SPEAK UP!

I love how you use a term like "wasteland" - usually meant to describe a scrapeyard, the site of a nuclear meltdown, or some place where the earth's been salted - to describe the tundra of ANWR - where mosses that arctic mammals rely on. It's also habitat to polar bears.

http://www.boneheadcompendium.com/mod/c ... /index.php

Forests aren't the only thing that can be describe as "pristine". You might want to study some biology before describing arctic tundra as "wasteland".

Because it's more expensive than other energy sources, it will destroy local ecosystems, and it's only a short-term solution to a long-term problem. "Oh, let's just use shale oil!" Yeah, great, if you like paying $5/gallon for gas go right ahead and try to use the domestic oil supplies. And then we have the recent oil spill which is going to cause some serious problems in the Gulf. And who's responsible for cleaning that up? You know there is no chance in hell BP will actually pay the full cost of what they screwed up. We have a classic tragedy of the commons here. BP is profiting, meanwhile the taxpayers will have to come in and clean up the mess they made. Typical corporatist nonsense, socialize the cost and privatize the profit.

What we need to do is invest in technological development—an energy Manhattan Project—and in the meantime try to mitigate the energy crisis by energy conservation and diversification of power sources. Our automobiles currently have no viable alternative to fossil fuel (electric cars still need more development) but for our other energy needs we can (and should) diversify and use a mix of wind, solar, fossil fuel, nuclear, geothermal, hydroelectric, etc.

Honestly, polar bears are not such a vital part of the global ecosystem. It still frustrates me that conservationists seem to care only about big mammals, birds of prey, and a few other selected species, most of them from kingdom Animalia and 100% of them from the eukaryotic domain. I would be much more concerned about global microbial biodiversity, but no one focuses on that because "they all look the same to us" and we don't even have a good notion of the scope of diversity in either bacteria or archaea. Heck, we know essentially nothing about the archaea, and that's an entire domain of life. It's as broad a grouping as the one that includes all plants, animals, and fungi, and we have very little clue what's in it.

Point taken.

I'm still curious, though, if Americans from the Midwest or South, or East aren't taught a lot about arctic ecosystems. As a resident of the Great Province of Manitoba I recall learning about Arctic "food webs" as early as Grade seven. While I wouldn't say the knowledge was 100% accurate or very deep, I still can't believe their are people who look at a flat, costal, moss filled plain and declare it nothing but "wasteland".

I agree we should find an alternative to oil but in the mean time...

I understand there is a whole arctic ecosystem but it's preferable to drill there than far offshore in deep waters in the Gulf or the coasts of our major population centers at least in my opinion. I don't know if it's easier to do it one place or another but would you agree with that? It'd probably be a lot safer to drill onshore in ANWR than offshore in deep waters where you have to send special submarines a mile down to try to fix it's so far down.

Well we need to drill anyways despite this accident. Blowouts happen on all wells and for some reason the blow out preventer failed
in this case.

Our oil money supports terrorism and Foreign national hedge funds. Both are against our national interest.

Even if we went hog wild drilling offshore, we could not pump enough oil to meet current demand. And the fields they plan on drilling are tiny. We must cut oil use. So since 48% of US oil is used in car gas, if we push electric cars that is a 48% cut in oil use. Next is diesel, we can make some cuts in using city elec trucks, but that will
only help say 5% of over all use. Long haul trucks must still use diesel.
The rest is jet fuel, plastics etc. Things we cant really cut.

So if we go elec cars and drill in USA, we can be energy independent.

natural gas or hydrogen cars are all impractical. Elec cars are here, work, and the filling stations are everywhere!
Commercial nat gas works for busses or city trucks, but for cars it is impractical.
Ethanol links the food corn to the energy market and spikes food prices, we must stop that and go Electric.
That or end the tariffs and import sugar cane ethanol from the tropics.

Another thing that would help some is building a national high speed train system to cut down on jet fuel.

Pave North America over with fast breeder reactors. Not a bit of CO2 will be produced by their use. But the Eco-Phreaks hate nuclear fission. They want us to live the simple life and dwell in grass shacks and eat nuts and berries.

ruveyn

Since when?