It sounds more and more like some offshore oil drilling is going to happen.
Congress can’t be like “mountain sheep, standing back and butting heads” over drilling, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said today. Reid, on a conference call with T. Boone Pickens about their National Clean Energy Summit to be held Tuesday in Las Vegas, praised the recent Senate compromise that would allow some drilling as near as 50 miles from shore.
There are a number of well-known problems with offshore drilling: It probably won’t make any sizable dent in the oil market, the oil wouldn’t be available for the better part of a decade, and there’s already a shortage of oil rigs to do the drilling, plus any leaks or other environmental hazards that drilling could create. But a compromise on drilling could be necessary to get what Reid repeatedly praised today as the real key to promoting alternative energies technologies—tax credits. As we covered on Monday, the renewal of solar power tax credits is being held up in the Congress by the current drilling deadlock.
The question at hand is how far Congress will allow new drilling to go. “It’s not a black and white issue,” said Reid, who says he might be open to some drilling. Pickens, the billionaire oilman, has no such restraint. Though he has repeatedly said the U.S. can’t drill its way out of the energy crisis, Pickens says he supports new drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and any other available land—anything to reduce the amount of foreign oil imported into the U.S.
Reid and Pickens pledged to look at any and all possible energy sources at their Tuesday conference, which will feature former Pres. Clinton, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and several governors. “We’re going to talk about anything anyone wants to talk about,” Reid said, including nuclear power, solar, wind, natural gas, and what the government can do to encourage their development. After the talks, the organizers plan to submit their plan to both political parties’ fall conventions.
Hopefully, their plan for the country’s energy future will be seriously forward-looking—including major investments or tax credits for renewable energy and steps to move away from fossil fuels—especially if it comes at the cost of more oil drilling.
Image: iStockphoto
August 15th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
The whole drilling thing is pretty unfortunate. Since the entire oil industry revolves around futures and speculation, there’s a good chance that this may reduce oil prices. That’s about it.
It won’t really make any progress towards a solution, and in all honesty it will probably slow things down. If congress and the publec are convinced that this brilliant plan will solve all of our problems, support of actual solutions will suffer.
Too bad we don’t have something short term solution that can safely provide both power and hydrogen for fuel cell cars. You know like this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_high_temperature_reactor
August 16th, 2008 at 9:28 am
Drill here… drill now… or be voted out of office.
August 16th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Pelosi and Co. must use a different dictionary than the one I own. In mine, “compromise” does not mean “bend over backwards and let your opponents have their way.” I swear, if this Congress does any more compromising with the Bush administration, they’ll be needing that oil…for lubrication.
August 17th, 2008 at 10:21 am
If you write for Discover, maybe you’d like to put in a bit of effort on this article to ‘discover’ something.
Point by point:
“It probably won’t make any sizable dent in the oil market” - Define sizable. Maybe Bush’s revocation of the Executive Order was purely coincidental with the continuing drop in oil prices since the announcement, but maybe the market is more complex than your simple dismissal supposes. What happens when more product is injected in a tight market, anyway?
“the oil wouldn’t be available for the better part of a decade” - Define ‘better part.’ You might even want to talk to the spawn of the devil and interview a few oil hunters. You know, the guys who actually do this for a living. They would tell you, as they have others, that some new fields adjacent to old would add product in less than a year. Others would take longer, but what of it? How long before wind and solar add, say, 2K megawatts to our supplies?
“there’s already a shortage of oil rigs to do the drilling” - again, did you talk to any body in construction? What happens in that market thing when there’s a demand for a rig? How long to build?
“any leaks or other environmental hazards that drilling could create.” - Santa Barbara, OMG! Please tell me how many domestic blowouts have taken place since then? How about spills in countries that now allow such drilling, but don’t provide the protections that the US does? Does ‘environment’ in your definition actually mean ‘my neighborhood’ or what?
Please do a little work on this and try for a little depth and nuance.
August 17th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
Its a dead end technology. Yes it was great while it lasted, but now we are on the brink of posioning our planet to extinction to continue down a failed road. Is it going to take a second Revolution to get the point across? Instead of 2 billion for a new oil platform-use to build a wind farm. Its not as hard as the politicians are making it out to be if they would listen to the people instead of King Coal and Prince Oil. Where is the democracy? If you see it, let me know so I go get a photo of it for sentimental sake.
August 18th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
[…] their vocal minority constituency, the Green movement, while appealing to the broader public who want energy independence ala Picken’s style–that is to say: do everything. Drilling off-shore, drilling in ANWR, […]
September 12th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
John McCain to support drilling in ANWR, biggest news from Palin/Gipson interview.
http://strategicthought-charles77.blogspot.com/2008/09/john-mccain-to-support-drilling-in-anwr.html