Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joe NYC who wrote (357480)	11/8/2007 7:38:09 AM
From: RetiredNow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1573135

Hi Jozef, I'm just a business man with an operations and statistics background. I think in terms of permanent solutions to problems. ANWR drilling fails several of the tests I use when I help companies solve difficult problems: 1) it's a short term solution to a long term problem, meaning it does not solve the root cause. Rather, it attempts to address the symptom. High prices are a symptom. The root cause is our oil addiction and over-consumption. You don't help a heroin addict to get clean by giving him more heroin. 2) that short term solution comes with some pretty heavy risks, such as it could have serious PR side-effects such as heavy damage to the local environment; damage to the local environment has real costs, as previous lawsuits have proven expensive to companies like Exxon. Factor it in. It will happen. 3) choosing that solution fails to take advantage of the Pareto Principle, meaning spend your money on the 2-3 solutions that have the biggest impact on the problem...make sure you get the biggest bang for the buck. ANWR drilling add 1-2mbpd, but moving to plug-in hybrids can cut oil demand in the transportation sector by 10-11mbpd. More bang for the buck Something else to think about. Another trick of the trade...let's do some assumption busting. You say ANWR drilling is something we could spin up quickly. The truth is that finding and drilling new oil fields, even in ANWR, takes around 10 years from prospecting to pumping and selling. That's really not a short term solution. Moving to a plug-in, hybrid transportation economy could be done in 10-15 years if the right laws were in place. 50% of the population cycle through cars ever 3-4 years. 80% of the population does it in 10 years. 90% in 15 years. So in the same time frame, we could cut our consumption of oil in the transportation sector by 75%, and do it as part of the natural refresh cycle of the automobile. ANWR drilling would have some benefits, but no where near what addressing consumer demand would have. I know it's hard to accept. All of us Americans have been taught from the day we were born that we can have voracious appetites for everything in our lives and not bear any of the consequences. Unfortunately, that simply isn't true. If you eat too much, you get fat and die of a heart attack. Consume too much oil, and you see the rise of dictatorships, terrorism, unstable countries with freaky ideologies becoming dominant, global warming, falling dollar, unstable US economy, and you have to fight wars to continue to secure your oil supply. For the $650B we've already spent in Iraq, we could already be off the oil. It's all about getting the biggest bang for our tax dollars. Getting off the oil is an imperative for this country if we are going to secure our future. It's a no-brainer for anybody using their thinking cap.