The environment thread

[Balta1701]

We can't, so lets stop living that dream.

 

So I assume most here would find the argument that the ban on near-shore drilling, whic is forcing oil companies to venture out into deeper, more complex drilling areas (with inherently more difficult and complex repairs if anything were to go wrong), is not a good one?

If the numbers I believe in are right...it really doesn't matter. U.S. drilling hasn't been able to keep up with U.S. declines since the 1970's, so they'd almost certainly be drilling in deep water regardless of the moratoria, since the U.S. doesn't have enough oil to make up for the yearly production decline...and in a couple years, we'll be able to say that about the world. It's possible that we already saw the hint of that in the 2008 price explosion, which stabilized things temporarily by helping severely damage the global economy and pushed down consumption.

 

If Middle Eastern production slows at all, it really is game over. No amount of onshore drilling or miraculous new technology will make up for it.

[kapkomet]

BAN OIL. NOW.

 

(while everyone else uses it and we don't, because we're "progressive" in a sexy kind of way)

[StrangeSox]

We are, by a wide margin, the biggest user.

[kapkomet]

OHHHHH, yes, the 3% of the population and use 25% of a resource arguement. f*** that, we need to blow ourselves up. Now get off your oily made computer.

 

[Balta1701]

OHHHHH, yes, the 3% of the population and use 25% of a resource arguement. f*** that, we need to blow ourselves up. Now get off your oily made computer.

So what's your solution? Close your eyes and yell loudly with your fingers in your ears when we point out that things like the 2008 spike/collapse are exactly what you'd expect if the world is genuinely up against the supply constraint? Say "oh well" when an accident happens? Waste another trillion dollars invading the wrong country the next time that an oil-rich, corrupt country winds up giving rise to a terrorist organization that hits us?

[kapkomet]

So what's your solution? Close your eyes and yell loudly with your fingers in your ears when we point out that things like the 2008 spike/collapse are exactly what you'd expect if the world is genuinely up against the supply constraint? Say "oh well" when an accident happens? Waste another trillion dollars invading the wrong country the next time that an oil-rich, corrupt country winds up giving rise to a terrorist organization that hits us?

 

Oh, here we go again. GEORGE W BUSH@@@@@@@@!@#@$@$^!#$^

 

 

It's actually hilarious.

 

My solution is to do what makes sense. That's more then "wind power" can ever say.

 

I acutally have a solution, but it's too oily to talk about.

[Texsox]

Hands Across the Sand tomorrow at noon (local time everywhere). I'll be at beach access 18 on South Padre Island.

 

http://www.handsacrossthesand.com/

 

 

 

 

[Balta1701]

My solution is to do what makes sense. That's more then "wind power" can ever say.

 

I acutally have a solution, but it's too oily to talk about.

So basically your solution is to pretend that oil isn't a problem. (Note; not "Getting oil" or "importing oil" or anything else...every single step in the process causes problems)

[Balta1701]

There's our first possible storm forming that could head towards the gulf.

[Texsox]

There's our first possible storm forming that could head towards the gulf.

 

I am reading some reports here that there would be some benefits with a major storm. Mostly breaking up the mass and allowing more oxygen in. Of course there are a whole list of negatives.

[StrangeSox]

OHHHHH, yes, the 3% of the population and use 25% of a resource arguement. f*** that, we need to blow ourselves up. Now get off your oily made computer.

 

 

OHHHHH yes that fact that makes your point wrong, f*** that fact.

 

You are a master logician, kap.

[kapkomet]

So basically your solution is to pretend that oil isn't a problem. (Note; not "Getting oil" or "importing oil" or anything else...every single step in the process causes problems)

 

It's funny how you infer what I stand for when I never say what you say I do.

[kapkomet]

OHHHHH yes that fact that makes your point wrong, f*** that fact.

 

You are a master logician, kap.

 

 

Keep sucking off the 25% like a tick while b****ing about it.

[Balta1701]

Keep sucking off the 25% like a tick while b****ing about it.

At least in my world, I'm still of the belief that we already have the technology to be dumping oil and dirty energy in general. We just don't have the will.

[Balta1701]

Somewhere, there's a ridiculously cruel turtle soup joke to be made here. Kap?

Endangered sea turtles and other marine creatures are being corralled into 500 square-mile "burn fields" and burnt alive in operations intended to contain oil from BP's ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico, the Obama administration confirmed today.

 

The killing of the turtles – which once teetered on the brink of extinction – has outraged environmentalists and could put BP into even deeper legal jeopardy.

 

Environmental organisations are demanding that the oil company stop blocking rescue of the turtles, and are pressing the US administration to halt the burning and look at prosecuting BP and its contractors for killing endangered species during the cleanup operation. Harming or killing a sea turtle carries fines of up to $50,000 (£33,000).

[kapkomet]

At least in my world, I'm still of the belief that we already have the technology to be dumping oil and dirty energy in general. We just don't have the will.

 

Sure we do - but that depends on your definition of "dirty energy". I'm sure everything's "dirty" that doesn't have wind or solar involved. And if that's your definition, it will not work, which is why it hasn't happened.

[Balta1701]

Sure we do - but that depends on your definition of "dirty energy". I'm sure everything's "dirty" that doesn't have wind or solar involved. And if that's your definition, it will not work, which is why it hasn't happened.

The Nuclear thing again? Seriously?

 

I was at a talk by Senator Alexander (R-TN) 2 weeks ago. One of his big selling points for nuclear compared to solar was that the footprint of Nuclear plants, including the size of mines and such, was smaller than anything else, and exponentially smaller than Solar. One of the many Ph.D.'s in the crowd got up and tried to take that away from him by asking "so if we're worrying about footprint sizes, why not mandate, especially in the sun belt, at least solar water heaters be placed on roofs, as has been done in many other countries?" That gets rid of the footprint issue entirely, since you've already built on the space. Alexander's response was to repeat his talking point about how large Solar's footprint is.

 

Anyway, I could live with natural gas and limited nuclear a backup combined with wind and solar and I think if we'd spent the money on it that we'd spent on Iraq, we'd be there right now. That does require a significant increase in safety regulation on unconventional natural gas though. It could have been done though if we'd wanted to.

[kapkomet]

Here we go again, George W. Bush is the entire fault everything wrong has happened. Get over it.

[lostfan]

Here we go again, George W. Bush is the entire fault everything wrong has happened. Get over it.

Here we go again, Barack Obama is the entire fault everything wrong has happened. Get over it.

 

(too easy. sorry.)

[CrimsonWeltall]

The War in Iraq has been an epic success and had we not spent the money there, it would have just gone to welfare for crack addicts.

[kapkomet]

Here we go again, Barack Obama is the entire fault everything wrong has happened. Get over it.

 

(too easy. sorry.)

 

 

For the last two years, of course, considering that he's done everything wrong that he could have.

[Balta1701]

Perhaps the most ambitious cleanup effort yet..

 

A private effort to raise money to hire 100 people and buy 100 vuvuzelas and have them play all day outside of BP's corporate headquarters.

[Balta1701]

McClatchey on the Jones Act topic

From former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to Arizona Sen. John McCain to junior members of the House of Representatives, conservative Republicans have accused President Barack Obama of failing to do all he can to help clean up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill because he hasn't waived a U.S. maritime law called the Jones Act.

 

That statute, established in 1920, requires that all goods transported between U.S. ports be carried on U.S.-flagged, U.S.-built and U.S.-owned ships crewed by U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Critics say that's needlessly excluded foreign-flagged vessels that could have helped.

 

"It's a little shocking to me that a president that has such a multinational orientation as this president didn't immediately see the benefits of waiving the Jones Act and allowing all of these resources to come in," former House Majority Leader Richard Armey, R-Texas, said in remarks to Newsmax.com, a conservative website.

 

Armey and the other Republican critics are wrong. Maritime law experts, government officials and independent researchers say that the claim is false. The Jones Act isn't an impediment at all, they say, and it hasn't blocked anything.

 

"Totally not true," said Mark Ruge, counsel to the Maritime Cabotage Task Force, a coalition of U.S. shipbuilders, operators and labor unions. "It is simply an urban myth that the Jones Act is the problem."

 

In a news briefing last week, Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said he'd received "no requests for Jones Act waivers" from foreign vessels or countries. "If the vessels are operating outside state waters, which is three miles and beyond, they don't require a waiver," he said.

...

 

FactCheck.org, a nonprofit website operated by the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center, analyzed claims that failure to waive the Jones Act is blocking foreign-flagged vessels from assisting in the Gulf. It concluded last week that "In reality, the Jones Act has yet to be an issue in the response efforts."

[Texsox]

For the last two years, of course, considering that he's done everything wrong that he could have.

 

Just like you predicted when he was elected!

[Balta1701]

The House passed a bill giving the committee investigating the BP Spill subpoena power by a 420-1 margin.

 

That same bill is hung up in the Senate by Sen. DeMint, who has a hold on it.