offshore drilling? Options

[brooklyneast05]

offshore oil drilling is the hot topic at the moment it seems. are you in support of it or are you against it? why or why not? is offshore drilling the answer to our energy crisis?






i'm not really in favor of lifting the ban on it because i don't think it's the answer. i don't think it's going to help that much. i think we need to move away from not only foreign oil dependency, but oil dependency in general. i know a ton of people are in support of it, but i really only think they are because they somehow believe that this going to make their gas cheaper. i don't think this will significantly decrease gas prices.

[coconutter]

I'm not saying over 1000 years fixing air tire pressure properly will be more fuel efficient than offshore drilling. The people they were interviewing on NPR calculated that by the time we'd strike oil offshore, we would already save the 5-10% of overall oil we would receive from offshore drilling by having proper air tire pressures.

Offshore drilling isn't inconceivable with the proper restrictions, but it's almost a waste of time and money. We could start working on new technologies and continue use of foreign oil, by the time we actually start noticing a difference in gas prices.

[Reidar]

I'm not saying over 1000 years fixing air tire pressure properly will be more fuel efficient than offshore drilling.

I didn't say you did. That was a hyperbole to exemplify how anything can fit under "in time and theory".

The people they were interviewing on NPR calculated that by the time we'd strike oil offshore, we would already save the 5-10% of overall oil we would receive from offshore drilling by having proper air tire pressures.

This is what you aren't quantifying: "...oil we would receive from offshore drilling."

Do you know much that would be?

The Green River oil shale formation could produce at least 800 billion barrels of oil alone, enough for over 100 years at our current rate of consumption (20 million barrels per day). Tire inflation could improve gas mileage by about 3%, which would relate to about 600,000 barrels of oil a day at the most absurdly optimistic extrapolation.

Offshore drilling isn't inconceivable with the proper restrictions, but it's almost a waste of time and money. We could start working on new technologies and continue use of foreign oil, by the time we actually start noticing a difference in gas prices.

And while you're doing that, you stimulate the market and bring the people you're trying to help up to speed by extending their economic lifelines through drilling until the years it would take to mainstream said technologies pass.