July 4, Oil Independence Day. Sounds great. What year?
Thanks to my gorgeous friend Shirley
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Finally, Straight shooting!!!!
Electric cars? I guess not… that wouldn’t force the consumer to the pump every couple of days. We need to have gas stations… š
…gorgeous friend Shirley
Post a picture to prove it.
Is your wife jealous K.D.?
The reason there’s little or no drilling in the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf is that’s where most of our seafood comes from. Newt better consider that potential problem with ocean drilling.
The rest of his ideas ring true more or less, though the oil recently found in North Dakota is much more easily obtained than the oil in the Rockies he refers to, and with fewer environmental problems.
There are a lot of ads on TV and newspapers in DFW for the Barnett shale oil and natural gas found in Tarrant and surrounding counties. They’ve employed the big gun adverts, including Tommy Lee Jones et al.
Estimates for the economy boost are in the billions of dollars, so the oil companies are trying to get everyone used to the idea of drilling right in the middle of Ft. Worth and surrounding areas.
Holy drillbits, Batman! Just like Midland / Odessa, where there are pumpjacks in parking lots.
There is no shortage of oil. Demand and supply are not factors in this case. No empty supertankers are anchored off Saudi pen stocks, no queues of angry motorists are waiting to be satiated. The Chinese economy sources it’s oil from different fields. No greedy Arabs are pushing prices higher to pad their Swiss bank accounts. You have a Texas oilman in the Whitehouse, remember that oil was ~$20 a barrel when he came into office.
If we could just put Newt on a treadmill. And a piece of cheese cake hanging in front of him.
Oil off Brazil, the hardware to drill it isn’t available. Shale? All this oil is more expensive to get than the current batch, which means its going to cost more anyway. The strategic reserve doesn’t have enough oil to effect prices that much. Put off the agony….
Speculators? Thank you repubs for those “enron” energy market rules/deregulation that make this possible.
I can think of these sources of energy (in order of “greenness”:
1. Solar
2. Wind
3. Hydro
4. Geo-thermal
6. Bio-mass
6. Natural gas
7. Ethanol (from sugar or corn)
8. Oil and other hydrocarbons
9. Nuclear (fission or fusion)
10. Coal
As I see it, most environmentalists are in favour of 1 & 2 and against the rest.
On the other hand, of Newt’s 3-point-plan:
1. Release the oil reserve.
2. Drill for more oil
3. Fund alternatives
I think they’ll get support for 1&2, and then forget about 3.
‘a’ says Speculators? Thank you repubs for those āenronā energy market rules/deregulation that make this possible.
Who signed that into law? Your friend ‘BJ’ Clinton
I am old enough to remember lines of cars waiting to fill up and odd and even fill-up rules. I know what an oil shortage looks like. There is no shortage of oil.
Those arguing supply and demand take note. Allowing shale oil, off shore, or arctic drilling in no way guarantees the oil would stay in the U.S. or that the price would drop. The oil would enter the global market, and that market would expand. If there is no idle refining capacity in the U.S., the oil goes elsewhere and it makes it possible for others to consume more.
The marketplace for oil is bigger than it was in the 70s and some customers are willing to pay more. China and India are (so far as I know) paying the same price as everyone else. Their consumers may pay less because of government subsidy, but the country pays the going rate. Increasing supply means they will buy more. It does not mean the price will drop.
What to do:
Repeal all tax breaks and subsidies for refiners, marketers, and oil companies. They clearly are no financial danger.
The current system is as foolish as the farm subsidy program. Prices for oil and food are at all time highs, and both industries continue to receive tax breaks, subsidies, and price support payments. These only allow prices to go higher and the participants are not penalized for inefficiency; they may even be rewarded.
In the short term the oil companies would try to pass along the resulting loss of revenue. The most efficient of them would have a price advantage, and the entire industry would have to become more efficient in short order.
States should base car registration fees, at least in part, on Gross Vehicle Weight. You want to drive a huge vehicle, one that takes up more room on the road, causes more damage to the roadway, pay more.
Use the funds generated to improve existing roads. Wider lanes and shoulders, better lane markers and traffic management, not routine maintenance or new roads.
Concerted efforts have succeeded in changing the perception of smoking from a right of passage to a bad habit. Drunk driving–never a good idea–went from an tolerated evil to a recognized crime.
Mass transit is seen as an evil to be used only by the poor or those unable to drive. That perception needs to change. Make the Internet and AC power available on buses. Mandate that buses go where people now park–airports, train stations, major employers, entertainment districts, and time the routes sensibly. Give people a reason to take the bus. Same thing for rail service. Provide alternatives and stop making them unattractive.
In short, conserve the oil we have, demand that the oil companies pay their fair share and not rely on public money, demand that those who use the most pay the most, and provide attractive alternatives to driving.
Leave the oil where it is. Well need it soon enough.
Just think, by 2030 most of our oil will come from oil fields not yet in production. In the Newt guy’s speech, as elsewhere, energy conservation isn’t really put on the table for discussion.
No one thing will solve our problems. We need a combination of ideas. Solar, wind, and nuclear for power. Cheaper hybrids, coal gassification, oil shale research, and drilling for our cars. Everything will ALWAYS be 10-15 years away if we don’t start now…
> Give people a reason to take the bus.
This borders on absolute impossibility.
1) Buses are fucking time inefficient for passengers. The vast majority of people who take buses don’t have any kind of schedule.
2) Buses are impractical. How does one grocery shop with a bus? Or buy furniture or semi-bulky items.
3) Due to the ownership of cars, people commute.
Buses only work for high population density countries where there isn’t land to park cars or poor countries.
Consequentially, no amount of pushing buses will ever work .. mostly due to the time-inefficiency factor.
Good ideas, no morals- he could be a democratic president! Go, Newt, go!
There’s one way to improve the economy: make it mandatory that all former Fed chairmen have a “gag order” and can’t give any speeches until they die. That will prevent Alan Greenspan from shooting off his big mouth during a speech in Europe saying that the US economy is on the brink of recession and there’s no end in sight. Alan, please go sleep with your perky anchor-babe, stay home, and SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!!
#15 – HMeyers
You sound like a drug addict, justifying his need for drugs.
Just face it. Most people in cities don’t need to drive to work. Nobody says that you can’t have a car at home. It’s up to you to do your part.
Damn, I wish he had run instead of McCain. Unfortunately, he has either bought into the Global Warming sham or is playing to the GW alarmists.
I agree that the speculators need to be reigned in. They are creating a feeding frenzy that does not reflect either demand or supply. Demand has gone up only slightly in the last year and supply has not changed from what I can gather. The price should not have fluctuated as wildly as it has.
Anyway, to reflect on the comments of protecting the offshore fishing, guess what? There have been offshore drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico for decades and Gulf shrimp are as tasty as ever.
Also, that argument falls short in that by not drilling offshore (so as to protect the food supply), we will now convert vast quantities of grain stock from food into fuel. The net result would theoretically be the same – higher grocery costs.
Besides, the fish population would not be affected in the slightest. The fish are in no more danger than the caribou were supposedly endangered by the Alaska Pipeline. Actually, the caribou like the pipeline because it keeps them warm in the winter. And anyone that has ever scuba dived off of an offshore drilling rig will tell you that the area around a rig is teaming with fish due to the artificial reef effect that they create.
Let the oil companies drill. Break the will of the speculators. AND fund nuclear, bio, solar, wind, hydro, natural gas, etc, etc, etc. Sounds like a winning formula. Go, Newt!
Oh, and remove the silly summer gasoline blends that choke the production and distribution capacity of the existing refineries or allow the creation of new refineries. Simple, but the Dems will never let it happen in an election year.
#18 – Jim in Seattle – …prevent Alan Greenspan from shooting off his big mouth during a speech in Europe saying that the US economy is on the brink of recession and thereās no end in sight.
Being lied to will save the economy. Where did you learn that? By listening to Bush?
Believe it or not, I just got a call from a Gingrich staff member asking me to make a donation to him so that he could take his new bill on energy to Congress. For a donation of $100 or $200 you will receive an autographed copy of his new book and a bumper sticker. What a snake oil salesman. After watching this video I was thinking he might be an alright guy, but he’s just a politician. I guess if you can’t get your payoffs from the oil companies then you should get them because of the oil companies.
Drill all you want, release the oil reserve, the price isn’t going down because supply has not been a factor in a long time
Newt Gingrich is an IDIOT!!!!
1. The US uses 20 million barrels a day, our “Strategic Reserves” is 800 million barrels
Do the math people thats 40 days of reserves!! Once we use it, its GONE!! The strategic reserves will only be used by the military or emergency services. Using the strategic reserves to lower the price of gas is quite possibly the dumbest suggestion anyone can make.
2. As soon as anyone mentions “Shale Oil” I immediately know that person is an idiot. Bottom line it is impossible to get the oil out of the shale without expending more energy to extract it than you get from the resulting oil you produce. It is what we call the EROI problem (energy return over input) and any EROI less than 1 is completely worthless.
By the way it is not illegal, Exxon is trying it on an experimental basis, but is not very hopeful.
The oil off the coast of Brazil is currently unproven reserves. A couple of successful wildcat wells have been drilled, and some are speculating that there is a huge pool in between the wells, but no one has proven it yet. And btw it is Brazil that says whether people can drill there.
All of the other places he mentioned have environmental or economic concerns that may prevent exploration.
3. The only one that makes sense is this point, but it relies on technological advancements that may or may not ever come to be. All forms of ethanol and biofuel either eat up resources we need for food, or are highly experimental. (The only one that shows promise is Algae based biofuel, but that is the experimental one)
Hydrogen has an EROI below 1, and because it is significantly more volatile than gasoline, we have no really safe way to transport it.
The proven technologies are solar, wind, geothermal, and nuclear. They produce electricity, not fuel. Luckily electric engines are more efficient than internal combustion engines (just look at trains, they run on electricity — with diesel powered generators that can be replaced with electrified rails).
The Barnett Shale has huge reserves and is a pain in the ass to get at. It involves hellacious horizontal drilling coupled with the biggest field fracking operation ever considered. Possible but nasty.
One thing he didn’t bring up was investor and corporate tax incentives around traditional oil investment vs alternatives. I sunk some money into a company developing hydrogen stack scrubbing technology which extracted 99% of the hyrdrogen and converted it to hydrogen fuel. They even had buyers in California and the Middle East. It was especially effective around coal and cogen.
Couldn’t get enough investment capital to build it out since the payout on oil and gas investment returned twice as fast based on capitalization and tax breaks that works to the advantage of large oil companies. If the playing field was even then they would have a had a chance.
The real reason that oil, and other commodities, are so expensive is that the dollar has lost HALF IT’S VALUE since the year 2000.
Why is this not being talked about?
And drilling for more oil won’t solve the problem. We aren’t having a supply issues. I have yet to see lines at any gas stations.
JPV, that’s a good point. The speculators (thank dog for market liquidity š ) are also betting against the US dollar. It’s rare that anyone takes on a commodity position, especially in energy, without hedging against the financial risk. That aids the USD weakness.
Most of this is BS and wishful thinking.
1. Shale oil is still too expensive to get.
2. If offshore drilling were given the greenlight tomorrow it would be AT LEAST a decade before the first drop hit the mainland.
3. The strategic reserve is there for a reason. NOT to teach some speculators (good Republicans all) a lesson. At best a factor in the market for one quarter.
Newt is slimy, short sighted and wrong.
Malcolm, you’re not suggesting that this was political pandering? I am shocked, truly shocked…
#5, the oil rigs in the Gulf are where the shrimp fishers go in Louisiana.
#24 ArianeB,
They’re not after oil in Ft. Worth, but natural gas. The no. of new wells S. of Ft. Worth is staggering. Tiny bedroom towns now awake to “the sound of money.”
But you’re right, recovery of oil from some shale reserves is quite difficult.
Natural gas seems to be a lucrative investment.