Offshore drilling will BARELY bring down gas prices!!!!

So far the Republicans have been trying to convince people that offshore drilling is the answer to all our gas problems. What's funny is millions of people actually believe what they're saying. If you read the article below you'll find that more offshore drilling will bring down gas prices by A FEW CENTS. Not exactly what you were expecting....huh? But then again, why would a middle-class person believe a Republican candidate in the first place? It's not like they understand what we're going through.

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1815884,00.html

 

Even the "mention" of offshore drilling in the Gulf (especially) will bring down gas prices.

 

Very true Bakai.

Obama and McCain are pro-drilling and I expect the gas prices to drop after the election.

 

A little change in pocket doesn't make an energy policy.

 

There is enough oil in the Gulf Of Mexico to sustain the US for decades. Perhaps longer.

 

An Oil rig off the coast of Florida will be a welcome site.

 

No, it will be so far off that curvature of the earth will prevent its view. A balance and compromise will be in order.

 

From the same article:

At current price of around $100 per barrel, 75 billion barrels would be worth $7.5 trillion....10 times the $700 billion bailout package.

I think even if offshore drilling doesn't bring down oil price, it could mean significant savings for US.... money that otherwise would have gone to the Arab oil producers....

 

Offshore drilling is quite obviously part of the solution, at least until we can find a viable alternative, which may take 20 years or more.

The problem is that the wacko environmentalist lobby is trying to choke off our access to domestic oil to force us to use wind and solar. No other country in the world is that stupid, and all the major powers in the world are aggressively developing sources for oil--both foreign and domestic. Russia and China will very likely be drilling off of the USA coasts in the near future. Does anyone think that they will be as concerned as we are about polluting our coastlines?

Wind and solar does not replace oil. The bigger problem is that neither wind nor solar are currently cost-effective and there isn't a clear plan in place to move us in that direction. If the Democrats want to force us into using wind and solar, they should put together a comprehensive plan to do so. I have not seen any plan, but I see plenty of obstructionist activity that is making us more dependent upon foreign sources, which is draining cash from the country and keeping us dependent on unstable sources. Choking off the domestic supply cannot possible solve the problem.

I'm a big fan of solar and wind power, but neither will ever solve the problem. Both are supplemental sources and neither replaces the need for oil for transportation. Solar only works during the day and wind only works when the wind is blowing. I'm not a big fan of most things that France does, but they have moved aggressively to nuclear for their domestic power, which was a very good plan.

The best long term solution for our home and industrial power generating needs is currently nuclear supplemented by wind and solar. However, oil will still be needed to run our transportation. There isn't anything in the foreseeable future that will eliminate the need for oil. Restricting the supply just keeps the prices high.

Keeping oil prices low and eliminating the need for foreign oil helps keep our economy strong and stable.

I for one would like to see our politicians start to work for America instead of the lobbying groups they are so subservient to.

 

Absolutely, but the problem is that fusion has not yet been developed and quite possibly may never be viable. We should be developing technologies like that, but we still need energy sources while we are trying to get there.

Choking off the domestic supply is not the answer. It is a major part of the problem. The solution is to pump all that you can in the short term until you have an alternative.

BTW, I have talked to people in the oil industry. Increasing domestic drilling would not take 10 years to bring down the prices, as the Democrats keep saying. Once you know where the oil is, you can be pumping oil in less than a year. What can take 10 years is getting through all of the government regulations that have been imposed by the environmental lobby's servants in our legislature.

Wouldn't it be great to be able to flip the bird to the Middle East countries when it comes to oil? Think of all the problems we could solve if the cash flow to those countries was cut off. It may be unrealistic for the next 20 years or so, but this is the real goal we should all strive for.

 

How do you figure?

 

I would strongly disagree with your assumption that Republicans believe more drilling (whether in ANWR or just offshore) is the solution to the problem. I think the Republicans stance, including John McCain's is that we should never eliminate anything that would help the situation off of the table, even if it is a temporary fix. We should do all we can to keep prices down, or lower them, until we can get our country converted to other types of technology (wind, solar, natural gas, and/or nuclear).

I think there are some fundamental flaws in the article you have there. First off, the hopes of drilling in ANWR is that we can use more of our own oil and less of the rest of the worlds. The article makes an assumption that we would continue to use the same amount of oil from the rest of the world. Also, we have actually lowered our demand for oil in the last year. While it isn't where it needs to be (using other technology will help), it certainly shouldn't go up as time goes on as the article indicates that it would. The American people, I think, are ready for a big change. The government will and should continue to push new forms of technology. I am not in favor of eliminating solutions, even if they are temporary.

 

Many of the people who vote for this reason however believe that. I can't even count how many times I have talked with people who think we have enough oil in this country to sustain us for decades, if not centuries that we can get to. Totally ending our reliance on foreign oil, they actually believe this, everything I have ever read it is far from the case.

 

GRIM, I agree, there are probably some out there that believe that. I don't think that "Republicans" in general, as the OP suggested, believe that though. They just don't want to eliminate things off of the table, including more drilling.

 

Did anyone read the article I posted in this thread?

 

One of the reasons that we are in this oil price pickle is because of the ban on offshore drilling that has been in place for so long. If it had been dropped 10 years ago, we might not be in this situation today.

The longer we wait, the further out the solution becomes, even if it is only a partial solution to the problem.

The real problem is that we do not have a real good alternative.

From what I've read about the Chevy Volt electric vehicle, it looks real disappointing. Only 40 miles between charges, they had to go to a hybrid design that uses a gas engine to charge the batteries to extend the range, no AC for warm climates, and I don't know what they are doing about heat for the cold climates. Electric cars do not look like the solution unless battery technology dramatically improves.