Obama to expand it. Yay Obama!

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/31/ ... tml?hpt=T1

Coming around - just a tad. A tad.

Nice to see some pro-active decisions before we reach another crisis point. It's inevitable, might as well do it expeditiously. Sorry about your beaches, I'm more of a mountain kind of guy anyway!

Haha, my sentiments EXACTLY!

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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.

I like this decision.

/applaud

I would like to know who the hell is advising him on this, given that he thinks seismic surveys will tell him where & how much oil exists.

Oops. forgot to sat I think this is a good move both politically and practically.

I'm pretty sure that it can be used in exactly that way, beings it's what they've apparently been doing for some time now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflection_seismology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_seismic

This is exactly the type of middle ground decisions I was hoping Obama would be making. He added fuel efficiency and alternative power incentives as well increasing our capability to produce our own oil. It's a great approach that gets the best of both sides and I fully support it.

I hope we see more policies like this. The only unfortunate thing about this is all the flak he's taking from both political sides, the liberals saying he's betraying the enviroment and conservatives saying it's too little too late. Can't anyone just say good job anymore?

Now that I have read more about this decision I am in the "why didn't you go all the way" camp. His action just opened up Atlantic areas for oil/gas exploration. This did not do anything for opening areas in the Gulf of Mexico (where Russia has already started the process to expand their oil/gas drilling) or in the Pacific.

I like that he has at least made this step. I wish that he would have done more.

(See, I don't automatically hate EVERYTHING that Obama does.)

Read a little more & not on Wiki. Seismic surveys will tell you the boundaries of the layers and whether a certain area has even a possibility of holding hydrocarbons. It will not tell you for certain that there is oil/gas and certainly not how much.

I think this does open a small part of the Gulf.

Map - http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/31/ ... mentalists

It gives them an idea of where to look for hydrocarbons. Beyond that, companies need to step in and do their own surveys to determine whether or not they are going to exploit that section of land after they've leased it. At least that's the way I understand how it is supposed to work.

Excellent move imo.

I tend to put this whole taboo we have about offshore drilling in the same category as our unwillingness to use nuclear energy. News flash - science and industry has advanced since Three Mile Island, and the same goes for drilling and oil platforms. There are always risks involved, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try and make an effort to become energy independent. I'm sure there are other ways we can go about energy independence as well - but this is at least a step in the right direction, and one method of getting there.

I guess I'm a little hesitant to drill in the Pacific just yet. A part of me wants to see how this works out first, and then go from there. I've visited my share of beaches, and I've always felt the Pacific beaches were a little more clean than those on the East Coast(I suppose in some cases, for obvious reasons, with the century+ of industrialization that went on over there in comparison to the West Coast). If things are looking better over there, I'm all for it. Let's start using the resources we have and at least make an effort to be efficient.

ugh, venen -- please don't refer to three mile island when you're intimating "nuclear disaster". If you want to refer to a nuclear disaster, refer to Chernobyl. TMI wasn't nearly as catastrophic as a lot of people think it was.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

It wasn't, which is part of my point. The fact of the matter is that it happened on United States soil, and because of that it tended to be forefront on Americans' minds when it came to the decision as to whether or not we'd more actively pursue nuclear power as a more viable source. Unfortunate that Chernobyl didn't/still doesn't get the attention it should? Sure. But if we're talking about sheer impact on our nuclear energy plans, I'd place my money on Three Mile Island.

If it happens in America, it's front page news. If it happens anywhere else, it's a small paragraph in the back of the paper somewhere. That's simply how it works.

Should be interesting. At the very least, we'll get to see which state governments engage in NIMBYism.

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Hope is the new black.

So, is a 6 month supply of oil for us worth all this?

Seems like it should be feasible to put enough precautions in place to make it pretty safe to drill. If we can safely drill it out, or at least within reason do so, why wouldn't we? They're our resources, it just seems massively inefficient to me to not utilize them. A few screwups here and there, regardless of magnitude, isn't going to change the logic behind that. A big spill means we screwed up, not that we cannot ever foreseeably put precautions in place that can work.

Just seems to me like it should be possible to make a better system where we can automatically shut off those valves by multiple means, and from what I've read it sounds like some precautions that should be standard were not in this situation.

no point in stopping. people will have a hard on for the oil spill and environmental impact... until gas goes to $4 again, in which case we'll be in the same position.

offshore drilling is inevitable. it's going to happen.

You can have your oily beach's and we will stick to our sticky tarsands.

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Jake Rivers - Senex Legio
Get off my Lawn alliance

I had that hard on for environmental impact even when gas was $4 a gallon. In fact, if you remember, I pointed out that $4 a gallon was a good thing overall even though it hurt on an individual level, because it forced us to look for alternatives. I wouldn't mind seeing $7 a gallon, frankly.

So $4 gas was, what.. 2 years ago?

How much progress have we made on alternatives in those 2 years?

Uh.... in those two years it *wasn't* $4 gas, so discussion and progress was slow. I pointed out that we talked and did more about such things when it *was* $4.

… It’s BEEN happening for decades… right off the Gulf Coast

Considering the hundreds of off shore oil rigs, exploration drilling, regular drilling, and pumping oil, for thousands if not millions of hours for the last 20, 30, 40 years or more; this accident was WAY over due.

Accidents of this magnitude are a statistical likelihood the longer an industry goes along, FOR ANY INDUSTRY, of this size. Not just Oil Rigs and drilling.

I don’t see people suggesting we find another way to fly when a plane crashes and kills a couple hundred people, sometimes more than once a year.

Sure the “impact” of a plane accident (pun intended) isn’t as far reaching economically, and environmentally. But the Oil industry for drilling, pumping and transportation has a FAR better record for accidents than Planes crashing; or car accidents, and recalls for instance.

This one accident is a disaster yes. But hardly telling on the impact it has on the industry and the world.

Those Gulf Rigs are sea life HAVENS, they encourage plant growth, below and on the rig supports, and fish and local sea life flock to them for safety and food that it brings via other sea life. Not to mention the fishermen who adore them for that very reason.

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"People sometimes say that ideas cannot be stamped out by force. The Albigensian Crusade proves them wrong. Ideas can be stamped out by the elimination of everyone who holds the ideas." - Quote :"Middle Ages" by Morris Bishop.

anyone who says they would pay $7 a gallon for gasoline sure the hell don't own a car, or drive it anywhere that would amount to anything

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Jake Rivers - Senex Legio
Get off my Lawn alliance

its still over $4 a gallon here (never went down), now the dollar is on par, its easy to figure out, 1.12/litreX3.8litre to a gallon is $4.25, glad I can run over to Minnesota to buy my gas at $2.90/gal

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Jake Rivers - Senex Legio
Get off my Lawn alliance

See, you're missing the point.

I'm not sure anyone knows what your point is.

Either way, it's probably irrelevant. I mean... you may be willing to pay $7 for gas, but you're about as big an outlier as outliers get. The general public won't, and $7 gas will make everyone forget about the oil spill.

I'm not saying it's right, but that will happen. Better to just suck it up and do what everyone knows is completely inevitable.

Or they live in Europe or something equally insane, right?

Fribur's point, as I understand it, is that we Americans already guzzle gasoline and other oil products like there's no tomorrow. We just consume and consume at astounding rates and why not? It's cheap and convenient, right?

There's nothing to encourage us to be more conservative and frugal with our usage of gasoline and nothing encouraging us to find a better alternative. Fifty years from now you'll probably still see people going on cross-country road trips in their gasoline-drinking RV and not having a care in the world.

So we just keep on keeping on and never take alternatives all that seriously. Mostly because we're a very short-sighted society and we don't think about the future until we're stepping on it.

I think what your not thinking about is all of the other costs that rise because gas rises and then they don't come down when gas comes back down.

That's a part of our commerce system that we're going to have to face eventually, anyway.

We're extremely reliant on the current system of super cheap gasoline for the lifestyle and product costs that we have now, and that's going to come to an end someday whether we like it or not.

In short, your point is correct, but it's just more of an argument to lower consumption and aggressively pursue alternatives.

My point is even more simple than what's been said before: Americans don't take anything seriously until it hits their pocketbooks. As was already said, we are extremely short-sighted, and one day that short-sighted outlook will bite us in the ass. Raise the price of gas, and all of a sudden we're looking for alternatives. Our current low price ignores the economic reality of the damage we're doing to the environment around us.

And guess what? $7 a gallon for gas would suck for me too. I don't even know if I could afford it. But see? That's the point: finally I'll get off my ass and consider biking to work instead of driving.

I count 3096 Oil Platforms in US waters. Well really that's just in the scale band 3 ENCs (Electronic Navigational Charts), I'd have to point clip the other scale bands for a real count.

Sorry you can't talk about the number of things at sea without the charting database chiming in. :p

We're almost to the point where fully electric cars can be in the budget of most Americans, for one.

Fully electric cars don't even begin to solve the problem though.

Our aging power infrastructure will have problems supporting them once they become even close to mainstream, and our current power infrastructure depends too heavily on coal/oil plants.

Gas prices are only one part of the problem. EVERYTHING in this country is falling apart because no one wants to spend money, be they private enterprise or private citizen.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

We don't have any money to spend anymore. We spent it all on plastic taco holders, and antifreeze flavored toothpaste. I hear China is building a $300 billion high speed rail system though.


Maybe someday in the future Chinese social studies books will have pictures of NYC with a bunch of Americans on bicycles.

yeah, and that 300 billion dollar rail system is basically being built with our money, which is the shitty part =/

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

Not on important stuff, at least. We LOVE spending money on bullshit, though.



It's not China's fault that we're a society of mindless mass consumers. =(

Actually... we spent a fuckton of our money on bombing Iraq. I can't help but harp on the utter tragedy of it all. We could have rebuilt every bridge in America, put up the world's awesomest sky scrapers, and paid for health care for 10 years.

Pretty heart breaking when you really digest it.

Van, it's just one example of something solid.

The most important thing though, isn't solid. It's the mindshare that's been gained by the green movement. We've passed the tipping point. People are considering the issue in their daily lives. The fact that fully electric cars are soon to be rolling out just illustrates that.

Obviously, there's still a long way to go, but we're at a point now where the concepts learned will never be forgotten.

I bet we are already paying well over $7.00 a gllon already if you count the hidden subsidies, taxes waivers, and other expenses that the goverment uses to help keep the price of gas artificially low.

If you add in the indirect costs associated with the pollution generated by the gasoline, it becomes even higher.

Nautical Chart of the area:
http://www.charts.noaa.gov/OnLineViewer/11366.shtml

I've got some with today's spill forecast but none in that viewer yet, hold on.

I'm not upset about Obama supporting drilling.

What bothers me is the amount of money it cost to get the political support(this isn't just against Obama but all politics). That money could have been used to engineer minimizing the impacts and more/better fail safes of these rigs. Nasa style.

It was about that much in Europe in 2003-05. Different driving habbits, but they still own cars..

We heavily tax gas, it is artificially high.

Different driving habits are exactly why some people want gas prices to be higher in America. It would deincentivize driving, increase reliance on mass transit, and encourage building more mixed-use communities in urban centers.

And would take a financial commitment similar to the building of the interstate system, if not significantly more. Do you see that on the horizon?

I don't see a major government expenditure being pushed through. These are different times, and not just economically. It's no longer seen as politically viable to deploy major initiatives. People expect private industry (or some public/private combination) to get things done. That, yes, I see happening... but slowly.