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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (71700)	6/11/2008 8:14:01 PM
From: Sea Otter	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 542148

If we had ANWR, nothing fundamental would change. Simple math. - ANWR has a mean estimate ~7B barrels of oil. - The US consumes ~25M barrels of oil a day. - Thus, ANWR represents 280 days of US oil use. So we could suck ANWR dry and it would buy us less than a year of US consumption. But it's much worse than that. Oil is a fungible resource - it is sold on the world market. All that ANWR oil will get sold to Asia as well as to Virginia. (For instance, right now most of Alaskan oil actually is exported to Japan). World consumption is now around 85M barrels day. So doing the math, ANWR would be sucked dry in about 3 months at that rate. I don't oppose ANWR. They can pincushion the place for what I care. But some hold it up as some kind of panacea to solve our energy problems, which simply isn't the case. Those who cry "there would be no energy crisis if only we drilled in ANWR" haven't looked at the basic facts. The oil firms themselves don't even make that claim. en.wikipedia.org

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (71700)	6/11/2008 10:58:54 PM
From: KonKilo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542148

If Clinton had not vetoed ANWR it would be in production today. Your understanding of the situation is simplistic. A couple dozen Republicans routinely oppose drilling in the ANWR, enough to derail it each time it comes up for a vote.

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (71700)	6/12/2008 1:07:39 PM
From: Katelew	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542148

I've already stated several times that I prefer the US preserve all its natural resource for the time when peak production becomes reality. Drilling ANWR will not bring down the price of oil. Right now, supply of oil is OK and demand is falling slightly. Prices are running on a combination of speculative excess, i.e. too much money chasing a limited number of contracts each month, on top of the fact that oil probably is a finite resource. I agree it is a multi-faceted situation that requires a multi-faceted solution. Interestingly, today Joe Lieberman announced he thinks several of the institutional players....ETFs were mentioned.....should be forced back out of the commodities arena. I would prefer things go step by step in a judicious manner. First, reduce the amount of speculative money and see where the price settles in. As for Clinton stopping ANWR drilling, when Reps controlled all three branches of government, why wasn't drilling instituted? Was any legislative effort made? I am ignorant on this issue. Freeing ourselves from foreign oil.....hmmmm, on balance yes, of course it's a worthy goal. It's ironic watching US oil traders drive the price of oil ever higher to the benefit of some of our 'enemies'. OTOH, nothing defuses old hatreds between nations better than does prosperity so this flood of oil wealth to the ME could prove net beneficial. Dubai may just be the bellweather. All eyes in the ME are on Dubai.