[Rhodes22-list] McCain Seeks to End Offshore Drilling Ban(political)

[Rob Lowe]

Brad,
You run and I'll consider.  I agree with most of your comments here.
Without a doubt, inaction by either political party, whether by Congress or
the Executive Branch has greatly contributed to the current situation.  I
always thought an outright ban made no sense what so ever.  We can drill in
the Gulf off La but not off Fla?  Of course is was Jeb Bush who got brother
George to remove the coasts of Florida from the offshore lease auctions
before the outright ban went into effect.  One of those NIMBY things I
guess.

Once one comment on the nuke thing, while you are correct that shale oil
takes a lot of energy to produce, it takes a lot of energy (oil) to produce
nukes.  I've never seen an energy balance on nuclear energy before.  I'd be
curious to see the numbers.

But what we do need is some leadership to attack the situation.  Supply,
conservation, renewables, solar, wind, and so on.  And we're not likely to
see that from anyone.  Americans are the most energy wasteful citizens of
the planet.  Who's going to tell Americans to buckle down and stop being so
wasteful?  No one after what Carter went through.  You'd think that him
putting on a sweater and turning down the thermostat were treasonous.  So
we've had 30 years since then to make some improvements and to set a
different course.  The political leaders failed.  The market will not.  I
have little sympathy for those bitching about fuel prices when they buy
vehicles that get 10 miles to the gallon and live two hours from their
obs.  - rob


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brad Haslett" <flybrad at gmail.com>
To: "The Rhodes 22 Email List" <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2008 5:05 AM
Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] McCain Seeks to End Offshore Drilling
Ban(political)


> Mike,
>
> We have an energy policy now? All this time I thought it was "let's hope
> this changes".
>
> Let's do a quick review.  Nixon reacted to the 1973 embargo by fixing
> prices.  That really worked, we got long lines at the gas station. He
> developed other "issues" and Ford took over. Ford supported increased
> offshore drilling, expanded use of coal, more nukes, more refineries, and
> synthetic fuel production - all ideas that got shot down in the Congress.
> Carter pretty much said the same thing as Ford but added solar panels to
the
> White House (they're now at the Carter library) and told everyone to wear
> sweaters. Reagan pretty much ignored energy except for de-regulating the
> natural gas industry.  Bush 41 suggested opening up ANWR, ease regulations
> on nukes, promote renewables, and build more gas pipelines. Clinton said
we
> could be energy independent without nukes or ANWR through natural gas. The
> price of natural gas skyrocketed, but otherwise Clinton ignored the issue
> but for taking 1.7 million acres of coal off the market in Utah. Bush 43
> fell prostrate before the Corn God (ethanol) and jaw-boned a line of
> thinking along the lines of Ford and his father, but in the long,  did
> pretty much the same as his predecessors in the previous 40 years,
nothing.
>
> Now let's take a look at the future.  Suppose some of the more
inarticulate
> members of Congress get their way. Congressman Maxine Waters (D-CA) wants
to
> nationalize the US oil companies (actually she started to use the word
> "socialize" a few weeks ago, couldn't think of the right word, then said
> "we'll take over and run your company")  So you're a US oil company exec
> being forced to listen to this idiot in a sub-committee hearing and you're
> thinking, "great, we can't drill here, we can't drill there, and they want
> to seize our remaining reserves and sell them below market until the
shelves
> are bare". Oil from shale requires lots of energy (nukes), oil from coal
> requires lots of energy (nukes), oil from tar sands requires lots of
energy
> (nukes), ethanol is a wash and an environmental disaster (plus it makes
the
> Cheerios expensive), so there you have it.  Our energy policy is to hope
the
> Middle East "plays nice" and change their backward ways on their own.
>
> I have my own reservations about the ANWR reservation because we'll need
> that oil at some point for defense.  I'm not worried about the 14 caribou
> who might bitch about the 1/10 of 1 per cent of land they won't be able to
> graze on and everyone who talks about the place being "pristine" has never
> been there and will never go in their lifetime.  We didn't spill a single
> drop of oil in the Gulf of Mexico during Katrina so drilling the East
Coast,
> West Coast, and off the Coast of Florida seems to make sense. Who knows,
we
> might find something big like Brazil recently did.  Of course, Brazil is
> spending $30 Billion (with a B) on that project (that oil ain't exactly
> cheap) and I'm thinking the average US oil exec is is wondering, "If I
risk
> $30 Billion on a project and it pays off, will these bastards seize my
> 'excess' profits?"
>
> Here's the bottom line and it isn't pretty.  There's only so much oil in
the
> world and most of the cheap and easy stuff is in countries that don't like
> us.  We'll never run out of oil (despite the  understood decline of known
> reserves) but the stuff gets increasingly expensive to find and extract.
> Most of the replacements for transportation fuels from coal, shale, tar
> sands, etc. require lots of energy to produce (nukes) and have serious
> environmental side effects.  Solar and wind have only a negligible effect
on
> the whole equation. Everyone wants a Manhattan type project for some
> 'mystery shit' type replacement, say hydrogen, which whatever the outcome,
> probably will require vast amounts of energy (nukes) to transform another
> form of energy into transport fuel.
>
> Make me the President for one day and I'll solve this problem.  President
> Haslett to the Nation: "Boys and Girls, you're in deep shit whether you
know
> it or not.  I'm going sailing tomorrow so I don't have a lot of time to
> explain this to you.  We're going to pass out licenses to anyone who has
the
> money and the responsibility to build nuclear power plants, and if one
ends
> up in your backyard, tough.  We're drilling off of every US coast.  BTW,
the
> fishing is really good near the platforms.  Quit bitching about the price
of
> gasoline.  I'm passing a new tax law so the cheapest it will ever be is $3
> per gallon and it will rise 10% per year for the next 40 years. When gas
> gets to 6 bucks a gallon some kid will find a cheaper substitute tinkering
> in his garage since that's how we got in this mess to start with.  If
crude
> oil gets really cheap and the federal government hauls in a butt-load of
> money on the "differences tax", we'll retire the debt with it so don't get
> all greedy about some new 'gubment' cheese program or anything like that.
> There's still plenty of work to be done in this country and Lord knows you
> folks are creative about finding ways to get other people to do it for
you.
> You people have had it too good for too long and if you don't like my
> program you can kiss my ass and vote for hope and change, whatever that
is".
>
> Wanna be my campaign manager?
>
> Brad
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 11:07 AM, Michael D. Weisner <mweisner at ebsmed.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Here it comes Rhodies, the man just erased 8 years of energy position.
> > Drill our way to a lower price for gas!  Oh, yes, build nukes, too.
> >
> > I guess the polls indicate that no one will get out to vote if the high
> > cost
> > to fill the tank renders the trip unnecessary!
> >
> > AAA has reported that people are running out of gas at increasing rates
> > simply because they cannot afford to fill the tank and try to drive to
and
> > from work anyway.  They are recording the events since some people have
> > been
> > running out of gas regularly just for the free gallon of gas from AAA.
> >
> > McCain Seeks to End Offshore Drilling Ban
> >
> > http://tinyurl.com/3julmd
> >
> > or (the original)
> >
> >
> >
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/16/AR2008061602731_pf.html
> >
> > Mike
> > s/v Shanghai'd Summer ('81)
> > Nissequogue River, NY
> >
> >
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