Quoted from Leo's Facebook.

With the newer technology, they could restrict the oil companies to subsea wells and run pipelines out far enough so as not to create a permanent structure within eyesight of the beach. Yes, you'll have drilling rigs off the coast while they initially drill the wells, but once that is done, they can be out of sight, out of mind.

So what's the big problem?

I think that there are visions of oil spills hitting beaches (not unlike the Valdez cleanup), as well. Separate from any environmental concerns, it seems like the question of Florida drilling pits two large industries - energy and tourism - against each other.

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Hope is the new black.

Well, fortunately, Florida is part of the United States, so I'm sure they'll have no problem putting the good of the country before themselves.

Bearne is absolutely right. The problem is that the reward isn't worth the risk.

It's been said that it would take about a decade bring new rigs online. After that, we'd see merely a few cents (less than five, iirc) per gallon difference in price. The argument didn't work when gas prices were breaking $5/gallon. Now they're debating it at just over $2?

The most ridiculous part, politically, is that some people (like the Congressman on video in the Cuba thread) pushed the bill relaxing drilling standards in Washington based on the notion that it would be left to the states and Florida legislators would never allow it. To me, that's the aspect of Sen. Nelson's comment I found most important: Don't trust politicians when they're passing the buck.

Xan, all the talk about seeing rigs from the shore is rhetoric. It's really not about seeing the structures. That's just political code for pollution, which is the major concern. Most people, when they think about seeing rigs, they think about smoke and oil. They think about everything else they associate with seeing oil, from the stains on their driveways to the Exxon Valdez.

My personal position is that not prolonging our dependence on oil by continually opening new supplies is good for both Florida and America. Opening our shores does more to ensure the status quo for the oil industry than it does to lower prices in Florida or elsewhere in America.

I should also mention, that came from Twitter, originally.

Will be interesting to see what gas prices do this spring/summer after the ridiculous prices of last summer.

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Zinky, Lvl 60 Warlock
Thunderhorn, WoW

Leo, while I can totally apprciate your position, our oil supply is finite. We, as a world community, will need oil in one form or another to power our cars, our homes, our businesses, etc. for at least the good next century.

What is going to happen when the Middle East gets a wild hair up their ass and turns off the supply? What if they run out in 40 years? All this talk about, "It is going to take 10..15...20 years to get new rigs up and producing oil," was probably said 10...15...20 years ago. We could probably have these rigs producing oil right now if those with political influence didn't have the power the shelve it all this time.

In another 20 years, what could we have? A much lower dependancy on foreign oil, increase of jobs for Americans (oil industry, environmental industry, etc.), and the Middle East would not longer have us by our proverbial nuts.

We can't have any of this unless we drill now, and not just off the coast of Florida, but wherever we can. Sure, nobody wants oil staining their driveway...but nobody wants to rely on foreign oil until their suply runs out and we are all runnign dry because we failed to act decades ago.

I WISH the whole world could run on sunlight, water power, and wind. That's just not the way it works, as nice as it would be if it did. We need to start drlling now for the future; not for today and not for next year, but for when we are going to need it in another 20-30 or so years when the Middle East's supply starts drying up and there is no place else for us to turn but inward. I want a plan in place now. I do not want to wait until there is no more supply and then come up with an idea that will take decades to implement.

If it takes ten years to bring a supply online, and demand will continue to grow, the time to begin worrying about future supply is not when it begins to become a problem. It's not just oil either, electricity generation suffers from the same lack of forethought.

We said it would take 10 years 10 years ago.

It's absolutely inevitable. Don't we all agree on that? I mean, do you see a future where the globe is tapped out of oil - except for coastal Florida? It's preposterous.

'Not in my backyard' syndrome.

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There's definitely a NIMBY component to the argument, but it's not the whole argument.

Yes, the time to solve the problem is before it comes to a head, and we are going to have to get creative to prosper in the 21st century.

We can't have this discussion and only talk about oil. Oil is just one part of our energy portfolio, and it doesn't have any intrinsic advantage over all the others. The only thing it has going for it is price -- and that fluctuates. Eventually, that will no longer be in its favor.

When facing a change like this, the politically expedient move is to lower the price of the already cheap commodity. It makes people feel better about the price while dragging out increases over a longer period of time.

But the long-term economically sound decision is to make the investment in that commodity's substitutes. Doing so creates more competition in the surrounding market, in this case, the overall energy market.

I don't want to speak for anyone else, but I'm all for offshore energy. Florida's coasts are ripe for wind, hydro, and other renewable sources.

Our ultimate goal has to be keeping the cost of energy at a reasonable level and with an ever-dwindling supply of oil, it's vitally important to create viable alternatives.

we need a multi-pronged approach (I have said this many times before)

1) We need to drill our oil to further reduce our dependency on foreign suppliers.
2) We need to develop the next generation of mobilization. Not just for cars and trucks because wind, solar, hydro, bio-diesel, and the like are not going to power aircraft or spacecraft.
3) We need to develop the next source of energy or expand the use of nuclear power generation.

If we are doing 2 & 3 then why do you we have do do #1? It will take longer to develop 2 & 3 than it will to bring our oil to market. We must do everything we can to reduce our dependency on foreign suppliers. If we don't then we are "over a barrel" when it comes to spikes in cost. When our current primary means of power increases in cost then additional funds to make 2 & 3 don't go as far.

Just to niggle - the big advantage oil has over other energy sources isn't its price (coal [$1.20/GJ] and natural gas [$9.50/GJ] are cheaper than crude oil [$11.50] per unit of energy), it's oil's energy density. A fun back-of-the-envelope calculation: let's find the power flowing through your hand when you're filling up your gas tank.

Energy density of gasoline = 130 MJ/gallon
Gas tank size = 18 gallons
Time to fill gas tank = 3 minutes = 180 seconds

130 MJ/gal * 18 gal / 180 s = 13 MW

13 megawatts? That's the average output of a community-scale power plant. No other energy source can compete with that energy density (excluding biofuels, which come close but carry their own drawbacks). It's why liquid fuels are such a valued commodity, and why electric vehicles have such a significant barrier to entry in the car market.

P.S. Nice line about offshore energy, I might have to steal that

I'm about ready to put a sail on my Accord...and solar panels on the roof to run the radio.

lol bello... the solar panels are actually a reasonable idea, though expensive

noojens: Please do. It's a position that needs far more attention that it's received so far.

I should have used the word cost instead of price. Cost more often invokes all the resources required for complete usage, whereas price is typically used for a single item's purchase value.

And you bring up another good point: there's much more to oil's success than the price of the fuel. Convenience and portability can't be overlooked, but can be competed with.

So back in the late 80s and most of the 90s, Chevron and some other partners ran some tests on Destin Dome 25 miles south of Pensacola. During this test, the area was found to hold up to 2.6 Trillion cubic feet of natural gas. After the testing was done and applications for actual production were submitted, the Florida Government threw a fit and had the request denied. It was resubmitted to the federal government and President Clinton created the stipulation that production could go ahead as long as the commerce department approved the request, but it also had to be approved by the EPA. The two agencies played against each other saying one would approve after the other did until the back and forth game eventually ended when Bush Jr came into power. Bush Jr proposed buying back the leases from Chevron and the other companies rather than let them be developed. That one location houses enough natural gas to provide heat for every home in Florida for 16-20 years.

I've known about Destin Dome pretty much ever since I started working for Chevron. It's a fairly hot topic to this day. I gathered most of that information from press releases and other searches.

I agree that we need clean energy sources for our future. I also know that there are way more uses for crude oil and natural gas than powering our cars. We are going to need crude oil and natural gas for quite a while. Why do we continue to pour money into foreign governments when we have resources here that are untapped? Why don't we allow these resources to be tapped and put Americans to work tapping them? Not drilling our reserves may be the popular political stance right now, but when this whole "Clean Energy" idea doesn't produce near the number of jobs the government likes to try and project, along with more and more Americans out of work, what do we do?

There's a reason Fark has a tag.

We need all go, no quit, big nuts Harry Stamper on the job.

1.21 Jigawatts!

Aren't solar panels a limited resource as well?

Stick the solar panels in Arizona, replace your gas tank with a big ass lithium-ion battery, and lose the sail -- Bello in 2020!
Talk about an underwhelming statistic - Florida's the least-heated state in the nation (604 HDD annually, over 1000 lower than any other state). That same 2.6 tcf volume of gas could provide electricity for all the homes in Miami for... 34 days!

Fun with statistics.
Pure silicon is a limited resource, with stiff competition from the semiconductor industry. It's why thin film PV companies like First Solar ($9B gross last year) are able to produce panels cheaper than their wafer silicon competitors. Look to CdTe and CIGS thin film PV to dominate the market in the coming decade.

Or the whole country of Canada for an entire year.

"HELL YEAH, LETS DO IT!!!!... Oh in MY backyard? NO WAY DUDE!

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"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henry Louis Mencken
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VEGETARIAN -Noun (vej-i-tair-ee-uhn): Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride.

Source?

Good point!

1. HDD database
2. Residential electricity use per capita in FL
3. Population of Miami

Energy density of natural gas and mean conversion efficiency of U.S. natural gas power plants from Energy Systems Engineering, Vanek and Albright, 2007.

What the hell is that first link? Alaska has had 11057 heating degree days in the past 12 months? Hawaii had zero HDD in the past 12 months, so your statement is incorrect.

Did a little research on HDD.



Anyway, your second link shows that average use per capita of natural gas in Florida is 1 million btus. 1 million btus divided by 1,020 btu per cf of natural gas is approximately 980 cf per capita. 980 cf times 18 million people (Census 2007 estimate) and we get 17.64 billion cubic feet per year. 2.6 trillion divided by 17.64 billion is 147 years. That's interesting.

Most homes in Florida are heated currently by electricity. (87 percent according to your data)

The oil companies could have chosen to explain things by saying that they could provide Florida with natural gas out of that one field for 147 years according to the data you provided and a conversion of cf of natural gas to BTUs. Why did they choose to assume conversion of those 87 percent of houses to gas heat and only mention 16-20 years. Interesting as well.

Somewhere the data is wrong. I thought maybe it was my math, but I double and triple checked. Maybe someone can point out a mistake I missed.

You're right about HDD calculations - HDD databases use 65F as their base temperature, and assume 10F of gains from lighting, appliances, inhabitants, etc. Bases can be adjusted to reflect improved insulation, different temperature setpoints or different internal gains. Base-65 HDD tables are still a useful tool for simple calculations (like the ones we're doing), which is why they're the industry standard.

I checked the data I linked earlier (admittedly the result of a quick google search) against the ASHRAE tables (copyrighted, but available at your local library), which also provide city-specific data. Miami's annual total in 2007 was 141, all locations listed in Hawaii totaled 0 annually, and Alaska's average was in the range cited in the last link, with Fairbanks having an annual total of 14,279. So I'd say the previous link's accurate enough for our purposes.

I checked your math, and your calculations are fine - and your result agrees with the "heat for 16-20 years" figure you quoted earlier. My point is that it's a misleading figure, for two reasons. First, the gas in that reservoir won't be used to heat homes in Florida (at least not more than a few percent of the 2.6 tcf). It'll be used for one of two purposes, depending on regional gas prices: 1) to provide peak power to major urban centers (which may or may not be anywhere near Florida), or 2) to heat homes (again, likely not in Florida). I used Miami electricity supply as a counter-statistic because it's a more realistic use of that resource.

Second, saying you can provide heat for Florida is just kind of vacuous - it's like saying you can provide for all the air conditioning needs in Antarctica for a millennium. Okay, that may be true - but who cares?

All that being said, I'm not strictly opposed to drilling that reservoir (I'd have to learn more about the economic and environmental implications to take a firm stance one way or the other). Natural gas is a relatively clean fuel, and it's extremely valuable for meeting peak electrical loads. As intermittent power sources like wind and solar get integrated into the grid, the need for peaker plants will only grow. Natural gas isn't going anywhere, and I agree that we might as well get it from domestic sources.

I just think we should weigh the costs of domestic drilling (in Florida or elsewhere) against the actual benefits - not some misleading stats delivered by the people who stand to profit from exploiting those resources.

Electric cars are the present/future.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/magaz ... wanted=all


And here's his TED talk on the technology/company:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/shai ... _cars.html