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Are you suggesting that a drill, baby, drill plan will not, in fact, lower gasoline to $1.05 a gallon, free us from foreign oil, and turn us into a land of milk and honey? I find it hard to believe that the entire Republican Party would lie to me like that.
I’m not aware that the Republican party has made any representations that the sole solution (or even the main solution) to the current situation is to drill for more oil. It’s part of a package. We shouldn’t be closing off any avenue.
Mind you, I haven’t seen any leadership from either side of the aisle in getting anything going. Sure, there’s been some attempts to raise the mileage requirements, but we need to pursue multiple avenues of both research and implementation and it’s not being done.
I drove through a wind farm this summer. I was spending a couple of days in camp in Wisconsin and on the way the expressway went through an area near Fond du Lac where there seemed to be about 50 or 60 wind turbines (that I could see). We need more of this. We need more R & D and implementation for natural gas in vehicles (a reasonably quick win) as well as hybrids. We need to get more nuclear plants up and running, and we can shorten up the cycle on those quite a bit when you realize that a significant part of that cycle is legal manuvering by die-hard opponents rather than actual design and construction. Hydrogen will take a lot longer to work out (there’s that distribution network issue), but get to work on it so that when it’s time comes it’ll be ready.
I have witnesses that when Bush was elected I said “We’re going to regret electing a Texas oil man.” I just thought there’d be more effective leadership on this issue from elsewhere. I’ve heard T. Boone Pickens get interviewed recently. What I heard made sense, although frankly I don’t think it goes far enough. I’m not a man who normally says “The government should spend money on …”, but in this case I think it’s a matter of national security, which is a legitimate object of Federal government.
It would make more sense to start mining baby poop. The technological investment would be small, since babies are quite productive and seem to be infinite in their capacity, while converting it to fuel would require only minimal tweaking of existing biofuel refining techniques. And in terms of consequences, it’s so pro-life! C’mon, Republicans! Baby poop!
I heard you made $30,000 last year, and that things were a little bit tight. I was going to send you a check for $360 to help you out – cover your car insurance for the quarter, or food for the month, or something – but now I understand that you believe that amount of help would be immaterial.
The fractions are the same.
If the 200K number isn’t big enough, we could always open ANWR. That’d be another 700K barrels a day (or a check for $1225) in the time frame on the graph.
Ron writes:
My response:
Ayup. I’m not opposed to drilling as part of a comprehensive energy plan. (Neither is Barack Obama.) But the GOP drilling plan isn’t part of a comprehensive energy plan. It is their energy plan. That is, to put it nicely, insane.
What’s past the cover, Amp? Do you know anything more about it than the marketing blurb that constitutes the cover? Also, the cover says “Speaker Newt Gingrich”. He hasn’t been Speaker of the House for a while, so how old is that book – or did they take liberties with his title? And finally, I’m unaware that Newt Gingrich represents or has the authority to speak for the Republican Party on this matter or any other.
I quite agree that a “Drill only” energy plan is a plan to fail. But drilling should be part of the plan. And as Robert points out, there’s more resources available that are currently subject to a drilling ban than offshore ones. How does that graph look if they’re all included?
Great idea, Kevin. We could set up collection bins at gas stations. Maybe even put fermenters at each one and pipe the result right into the natural gas lines.
Ron, the book is brand-new, and currently in bookstores. I haven’t read it, but I’ve heard Gingrich interviewed about it, and the “blurb” — by which you mean, the title and subtitle — accurately reflects what he says.
If you don’t think Gingrich is a significant, mainstream Republican, who often acts as a party mouthpiece, then we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
There’s no question that the Republican convention emphasized drilling above all other solutions. (The ludicrous “gas tax holiday” is still part of McCain’s proposed policy, but they didn’t talk about it much at the convention.) Nor is the Republican party currently proposing drilling ANWR — some fought to have it included in the GOP platform, but those folks didn’t get their way. (Not that I’d favor including ANWR, either. The benefits would be medium-term, smallish, and not worth the long-term costs.)
Tell you what, Amp: if you want to know what the Republican Party’s position is on energy, instead of depending on a book written on a for-profit basis by someone who hasn’t held an official elected or appointed position in either the government or the Republican party for years, how about if you actually take a look at the Republican Party’s official statement on the matter?
If you’d rather not read it, my summary would be:
a) Exploit existing domestic fossil fuels as much as possible to provide short-term relief.
b) Build new nuclear energy plants.
c) Take advantage of new solar, wind, geothermal and hydropower technologies by providing tax credits for development and exploitation of all of these.
d) Support the development and implementation of technologies that will enable coal-to-liquid and gasification production and carbon sequestration.
e) Exploit American natural gas resources and expand it’s use in transportation.
f) Work with Canada to develop hydroelectric power in their country and buy it.
g) Reduce demand for fossil fuels through using them more efficiently and by using other technologies for transportation.
Now, there’s been a lot more talk than action on some of this up to this point, and I have my reservations about some of it (notably the negative consequences of trying to exploit hydroelectric power on rivers and ecologies). But things have to change in any case, and once we get the oil man out of office I think they will regardless of who his successor is.
So I really don’t care what Newt Gingrich says. If you want to know what the Republican party’s position is, there are far more authoritative places to go.
Ron – according to Federal Election Commission data, the oil/gas industry has given about four times as much money to McCain as to Obama – a ratio that’s even more skewed considering that Obama’s total donor haul is over twice the size of McCain’s. So if you’re keen on not electing an oilman this year, you know what to do.
a) Exploit existing domestic fossil fuels as much as possible to provide short-term relief.
Are you willing to pay for those domestic fossil fuels? Both monetarily and in terms of what oil drilling does to the land? Because drilling seriously damages the area being drilled under and contaminates nearby land and groundwater. These problems can be minimized by careful planning and execution, but not completely eliminated. And while the danger of ruining the fertile farmlands of west Texas may sound like a joke (heck, it is a joke), the danger of destroying the wildlife of Alaska is quite real and nontrivial.
Also note that fossil fuels are nonrenewable. So exploiting them today means not having them available for a later emergency. How about a little conservation for the short term? Do you really need that SUV to haul yourself (and no one else) around the streets of Manhattan*? Relatively few off road situations in Manhattan…
*For example. Lots of SUVs on the streets of Manhattan. God knows why. Walking is faster. Literally. I’ve passed cars while walking. And laughed at them when I did so.
Are you willing to pay for those domestic fossil fuels? Both monetarily and in terms of what oil drilling does to the land?
Domestic oil costs money and damages the land? That can’t be true. I talked to the Republican Party today, and they assured me that domestic oil was produced by petting friendly little kittens and then gently wiping the oil from one’s hands into a big barrel. A barrel full of rainbows.
I think that most of us over on the neanderthal side of the force are aware that domestic oil drilling isn’t free, and doesn’t produce magical fairy kingdoms as a side effect.
Which is why you will never hear Republican hordes gleefully chanting “Drill, Baby, Drill!” at one of their conventions.
See, when I feel the need to advocate something which is distasteful but unfortunately necessary, I make sure to wave a little flag and chant about it while jumping up and down and gibbering like a six year old at 5am on Christmas morning. But Republicans are, like, totally different.
I think that most of us over on the neanderthal side of the force are aware that domestic oil drilling isn’t free,
Well, then, stop whining about the price of gas: you want the oil, pay for it. And stop pretending to be shocked, just shocked, when people point out that drilling isn’t the best possible thing for the environment. Even as a short term solution drilling isn’t all fluffy bunnies and rainbows. (Except those forming when sunlight hits oil polluted water.) Dump the car already! (Yes, I am a smug Manhattanite who hasn’t the slightest idea how hard that would be out in the Real World. So what? Join us! Come to the dark side of latte liberalism, subways, and high population densities…it’s really much more fun than life in the car cities of the southwest. I can say having lived in both.)
When have I ever done either of those things, Dianne?
Awesome!
Tell you what, you find me a 3 bedroom/2 bath house in Manhattan (or San Francisco) that lets me keep pet ducks and has space for a vegetable garden for $900/month, and I’m in.
Look, I’m down with high-density living, but right now it costs more to have less space, and I just can’t afford it.
—Myca
RonF said:
This is the part that kills me… Half of that stuff is the stuff the RNC has been mocking Al Gore about for the better part of a decade.
I’m not saying the Dems are as “green” as they could be, but they’re “greener“… infinitely moreso than the oil-corp-dominated Republican party.
And now, when things are desperate, suddenly now the ol’ GOP is suddenly down for some alternative fuels and renewable energy… But they’re still touting “drill more oil” as some kind of cure for the reliance on OIL.
That last part? That’s exactly like saying “Let’s get this smack addict off the heroin” and then giving him more heroin.
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When have I ever done either of those things, Dianne?
My apologies. You didn’t. I meant it as a generic “you” as in “a typical person” but I clearly screwed up the comment.
Tell you what, you find me a 3 bedroom/2 bath house in Manhattan (or San Francisco) that lets me keep pet ducks and has space for a vegetable garden for $900/month, and I’m in.
Check mid-Harlem. 145th Street or so. You can probably get a brownstone or at least a floor for that much in that area, with space for a garden (if you picked the ground floor). You might have to keep the ducks in Central Park, though.