Support The American Energy Production Act of 2008 (S.2958)

is thumbing still free???????????????????????????????

 

No No No ! It's not a conspiracy "deal" at all. It's about the facts contained within the bill itself.

You done a good job of bringing it into the forum. For that, I say thank you very much. But please don't expect us to accept it at face value. There's more to this bill than just "energy". Although it is the focus of this bill, and broadly so. It's not the entire bill.

I'm sure the Republicans are trying to get a jump on things and that's a good thing. They're just jumping too soon, in my opinion. I say lets give it another week to get public opinion behind them. Then they can drive a bill through committee without all the fluff being included to bait Democratic support.

Surely you have been on this earth long enough to understand. ANY loop hole in a law/bill will be taken advantage of by most if not all of our fine Congressional members who speak the language of Legalize. There must be NO loopholes that can be perceived as "perks".

 

gosh i hate to be the one who says this as i am really no tree hugger. Oil shale is not very efficient, has some very serious negative effects on the environment, and has to go through serious processing to be made into fuels. It has a high sulfur content which has to be processed more. Drilling in ANWR is a HUGE mistake. The oil companies in Alaska have already proved they don't care about the environment (see Exxon Valdez and leaking pipeline). Instead, let's spend some cash on improving MPGs, improving/perfecting alternative fuels (ie fuel cell tech). There are no guarantees that with this energy bill that fuel costs will go down, as the oil companies and speculators are making too much money right now. The only way to actually bring these costs down are to reduce/eliminate oil use.

 

That will never happen in your lifetime or your grandchildrens lifetime.

And here is exactly why.

World production is almost equal to world usage at this very moment. China is expected to expand it's use by 10% annually over the next 12 years. Do you think the US can reduce it's usage by 120%, to offset the Chinese?

Even if we could. It wouldn't effect the "so-called" global warming issues. Nor would it reduce global consumption of oil.

India is growing at almost an equal pace as China. And has openly stated it will abide by NO treaty which restricts it's country from future developement.

Unless we punch holes of our own. Somebody will be rationing or out of oil within the next 20 years, if not sooner.

 

the problem is that even if drilling started in ANWR today nt 1 drop of oilwould hit the WORLD market for 10 years, they would have to explore, where to drill, then drill test wells, then add onto the pipeline from prudole bay....how is any of this gona help us today?....the only people who really want to drll is the oil companys who get to sell this oil on the world market for huge profits, and the congerssmen who are in the oil comany's pockets

from what ive read there is only about 200 million to 2billion RECOVERABLE barrels of oil in ANWR and the US uses 500 million barrels of oil a year
you do the math....10 years ago oil was selling somewhere around 25-30 a barrel, today its over 130, imagine what the massive profits at this rateit will b WELL over 300 when it starts selling in 10 years

 

this isn't a quick fix bill, and we won't see immediate results. Bush/Cheney and their oil loving friends have been fighting for this a long time. Gotta make some money when their out of office

 

In 2006, daily consumption of gasoline alone was 388.6 million gallons per day! No amount of drilling in Alaska or elsewhere is going to make a serious dent to make up for our consumption on a daily basis.

Yes, we do need to find other oil fields to tap. But we also need to find alternative sources of energy that provide the same level of power output we currently need for transportation needs. Unfortunately, I don't see anything bright and promising on the horizon that will alleviate our need for oil.

 

OK..

Let me start by ignoring all the money issues here - who gets what and does what to whom. I want to address the core issue: Supply

Face it, Danc694U is right. To a point. Even if we DO drill and extract more oil, the supply is *finite*. The most optimistic projections have the world supply of crude oil being effectively exhausted in less than 100 years. The most pessimistic put it at about 25 years. Exhausted means GONE. NONE LEFT.

At present, there are no alternative fuel systems that provide sufficient energy conversion to be cost effective for heavy loads. Hydrogen (which I like - in any flavor) is suitable for lightweight use - automobiles and motorcycles, but doesn't provide sufficient power to be useful hauling heavy loads at any kind of reasonable speed. No mention need be made of silliness like electric.

There is, however, a current product which can be used with little to no infrastructure modification. It can be delivered by the current stations, and used in current trucks. I refer, of course,to biodiesel. It's even already commercially available in some truck stops (though usually as a bio/petro mix, rather than pure bio)

It's cheap, easy to manufacture, and eminently replenishable. ANY fat product will work as source.. veggie, animal, fish.. toss it in the hopper, add a few chemicals here and there. and out comes biodiesel that is fully usable in today's vehicles. (yes, it's a bit more complicated than that - but really, only a bit)

Even better, biodiesel burns much more cleanly than petroleum based fuels. The only by-product of which I am aware is glycerin (and, if you start with contaminated oil from, say a restaurant, anything that was in that oil to begin with). Glycerin is in all KINDS of products (say, soap...), so you have a ready market not only for your fuel, you have a market for your waste, as well.

Why isn't big-oil really looking into biodiesel? I imagine they are, sort of - but not really hard at this point. Remember, fuel is only a part of what is processed out of petroleum. Medicines and plastics are also a significant output - and I don't know that either can be refined from biodiesel. Ergo, the profit margin isn't there. yet

Looking at the price of vegetable oil at the supermarket, I estimate that a gallon of biodiesel would cost about 2 dollars to produce. Of course, I'm guessing on how much the raw oil can be had for. Probably a lot less, since it need not be food grade. The hard part is going to be building the "refinery". Sufficient quantities can easily be produced at home - for home use. Producing 20,000 gallons (I'm guessing how much an average truck stop might need in a day) a day is going to require significant investment, and I'm not sure which of the processes available is most suitable for large scale work.

Significant investment from OUR point of view. I'd be surprised if it would cost more than a few million - far, far, less than a new refinery for petroleum products.

Sorry - got on my soapbox. Again. But face it - petroleum is going away.