Don’t Want To Drill Offshore Anymore? Fine.
With the fallout from the Macondo well blowout and the subsequent oil spill billowing in the Gulf of Mexico, we’re seeing a major – and in my judgement unfortunate – blowback against the “Drill Baby Drill” push for more energy exploration which gripped the nation (and was largely ignored by the political class) in 2008. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Florida Governor Charlie Crist, a pair of “Republicans,” have come out against drilling off their shores, and Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, who has been a vociferous advocate of offshore drilling, is now beset by opponents and no longer in a position to agitate for exploration. And of course, news over the weekend that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has shut down all new drilling anywhere until “safety features” can be reviewed has essentially made all three governors irrelevant to the policy discussion anyway.
It looks like the wind is out of the sails of offshore production as a result of the BP spill in the Gulf.
So be it.
If the lesson of the BP spill is that drilling in 5,000 feet of water stretches the limits of current technology and represents risks to life, property and ecology that we won’t accept – a lesson of dubious veracity, but for the sake of argument here we’ll temporarily absorb it – then perhaps it’s time to take a look at the energy alternatives available to us. Conservatives have never been tied to oil as the only energy option; even in the days of “Drill Baby Drill” the conservative mantra has been to embrace an “all of the above” energy policy.
The problem is, those running things nowadays aren’t pulling offshore oil off the table and replacing it with a viable alternative. Wind and solar energy, the Obama administration’s pet sources, aren’t viable and won’t be until technology advances far beyond current levels.
At the end of the day, there are four sources of energy which can meet our needs. They’re the same four sources we’ve had for a long time – oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear energy. Nothing else can be brought to market in sufficient volumes and at sufficiently low cost to meet the expectations of the market.
America needs 7.3 billion barrels of oil per year to meet current needs. That need can be expected to rise – in fact, it will need to rise three to five percent per year for our economy to grow at a rate which will keep our federal government out of bankruptcy. Current domestic oil production is about 1.9 billion barrels a year.
As Deroy Murdock notes in National Review Online today, onshore oil reserves in the United States total about 21 billion barrels – with 86 billion barrels available offshore. There are continuing discussions about the 1.5 trillion barrels of potential oil in the oil shale fields of the Rockies, though current technology to extract transportation fuels from kerogen is not complete.
So without the continued development of offshore oil, we have two choices – and the first one is unacceptable. Namely, continuing to import larger and larger amounts of oil from countries who see us as an enemy. Eventually, the hundreds of billions of dollars per year we are shoveling to the Venezuelas and Saudi Arabias of the world will come home to us in the loss of American power and influence – and with that loss will come the defeat of freedom across the globe.
The other choice is to begin to replace oil as a transportation fuel.
Thankfully, we have the ability to do just that.
The Fischer-Tropsch process, invented in Germany in the 1920′s, allows for the conversion of coal into liquid transportation fuel – a large percentage of Nazi Germany’s tanks and planes in World War II ran on fuels made from coal. In fact, at $55-60 per barrel coal gasification is a profitable venture. It’s not done on a commercial scale in the United States, although in South Africa coal is converted into transportation fuels on a wide basis.
America has an enormous amount of coal. With oil currently trading above $85 per barrel, all that is required to introduce coal-based transportation fuels is encouragement by the federal government.
If you don’t like coal, natural gas can dominate the energy market for the time being. There is over a quadrillion cubic feet of natural gas available domestically thanks to shale plays like the Haynesville and Marcellus fields, which represents over a 50-year supply at current rates of usage. And it should be remembered that when it’s profitable to extract a resource and it’s explored for, reserves of that resource tend to grow rather than shrink. Natural gas is cheap, domestic, burns more cleanly than coal or oil and it’s reliable. It might just revolutionize the energy market worldwide. And it can be used for a transportation fuel quite easily.
To effectively use coal-based or natural gas-based transportation fuels, however, something must be done to ease the pressure on those resources as they relate to powering the nation’s electrical grid. And that’s where nuclear energy comes in.
The Obama administration has made a show of permitting a nuclear plant here and there, but it has clearly not engaged in support of nuclear energy. It has continued the misguided policy of refusing to reprocess spent nuclear fuels as the French and Japanese (who get most of their power grids from nuclear energy) do. It has stood against using the safe facility at Yucca Mountain to store spent fuel. It has done nothing to ease Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations which can put a proposed nuclear plant through a 15-year ringer from initiation to going online.
Given the stances articulated by the current administration and the realistic possibilities available, a major disconnect is apparent. The pursuit of energy alternatives outside of the major four sources is – at present – a waste of time and money. And a permanent abandonment of offshore oil drilling without a full effort to exploit the domestic alternatives merely serves to needlessly enrich our enemies at American expense.
"The pursuit of energy alternatives outside of the major four sources is – at present – a waste of time and money." They're not just a waste of time, they're destructive to the economy, as Spain, Denmark and Germany have learned.
And compressed natural gas is an entirely viable alternative to fuels derived from oil. We just need a stronger infrastructure for it.
We must aggresively integrate natural gas and nuclear power into our energy policy. As I've said oftentimes before, solar and wind are science fair projects, and they should stay in the lab and be subjected to continued development before they are placed into the market with the heavy subsidies they require today.
And oil will remain a player, too. If we don't produce it, somebody else will.
"The pursuit of energy alternatives outside of the major four sources is – at present – a waste of time and money." They're not just a waste of time, they're destructive to the economy, as Spain, Denmark and Germany have learned.
And compressed natural gas is an entirely viable alternative to fuels derived from oil. We just need a stronger infrastructure for it.
We must aggresively integrate natural gas and nuclear power into our energy policy. As I've said oftentimes before, solar and wind are science fair projects, and they should stay in the lab and be subjected to continued development before they are placed into the market with the heavy subsidies they require today.
And oil will remain a player, too. If we don't produce it, somebody else will.
1. Canada and Mexico are the largest supplies of oil to America.
At this point in time, there is no infrastructure for compressed natural gas. The Federal Government is out of money, and unemployment is over 10%. The big players in Natural Gas have not built the infrastructure, but are trying to convince state and local governments to foot the bill, and shoulder the risk.
Even if the infrastructure were in place, the fleet would either need to be replaced or converted, again, this being a time in our economy where most people are trying to save their money, not spend it on a new car or converting their old one.
Many CNG supporters argue that natural gas is far cheaper than gasoline. At this point they may be right, but when demand for CNG spikes, that price per gallon will spike as well. (Not to mention all the taxes which will be levied.)
Finally, would this oil spill have happened if oil companies were allowed to drill onshore instead of having to resort to offshore drilling? Onshore is far less dangerous and could be more easily contained.
There is a question as to how much oil we really have onshore.
The savings and domesticity of natural gas will pay for its implementation as a transportation fuel. As for the price spike, the good news there is that with the amount of supply available production can be brought online quickly to supply rising demand. We have some 50 years or more of known reserves and that's merely the tip of the iceberg.
1. Canada and Mexico are the largest supplies of oil to America.
At this point in time, there is no infrastructure for compressed natural gas. The Federal Government is out of money, and unemployment is over 10%. The big players in Natural Gas have not built the infrastructure, but are trying to convince state and local governments to foot the bill, and shoulder the risk.
Even if the infrastructure were in place, the fleet would either need to be replaced or converted, again, this being a time in our economy where most people are trying to save their money, not spend it on a new car or converting their old one.
Many CNG supporters argue that natural gas is far cheaper than gasoline. At this point they may be right, but when demand for CNG spikes, that price per gallon will spike as well. (Not to mention all the taxes which will be levied.)
Finally, would this oil spill have happened if oil companies were allowed to drill onshore instead of having to resort to offshore drilling? Onshore is far less dangerous and could be more easily contained.
There is a question as to how much oil we really have onshore.
The savings and domesticity of natural gas will pay for its implementation as a transportation fuel. As for the price spike, the good news there is that with the amount of supply available production can be brought online quickly to supply rising demand. We have some 50 years or more of known reserves and that's merely the tip of the iceberg.
This is a great discussion, but where is it going? The eunechs in DC are afraid to make the people face up to the facts ( which are so nicely laid out here ) so to me the only real answer lies at the ballot box. So argue all you want but our main job should be to get the people elected who have the values, principles, intellegence, and gumption to sell these issues to the people and get the USA on a sustainable growth path.
This is a great discussion, but where is it going? The eunechs in DC are afraid to make the people face up to the facts ( which are so nicely laid out here ) so to me the only real answer lies at the ballot box. So argue all you want but our main job should be to get the people elected who have the values, principles, intellegence, and gumption to sell these issues to the people and get the USA on a sustainable growth path.
Natural Gas, Im sure some engineer person has already come up with the idea to build a Gas Turbine Generator that could produce enough current to supply a descent sized house. But if you built one, and it worked …… do you think you could ever get a patent for it? I seriously doubt it, and most people know why.
Back in the 70's General Telephone in Fla. ran ALL of thier service vans on Natural Gas. That was the days before fuel injection. If a fuel injected car could be converted to NG, then, we have a viable soultion to the fuel "crisis"
That leaves PLASTIC ….. take a look around the room …… how ya gonna replace alllll that plastic.
Well for starters, go back to glass! How many are old enough to remember the .05 cent (went up to .10 cents) returnable bottle. I miss them old Mountain Dew bottles with the kewl paint logos. I also love to watch anti oil activists argue, while they drink water from ….. an oil bottle!
There is a gigantic plastic mine in or near every city in America.
Natural Gas, Im sure some engineer person has already come up with the idea to build a Gas Turbine Generator that could produce enough current to supply a descent sized house. But if you built one, and it worked …… do you think you could ever get a patent for it? I seriously doubt it, and most people know why.
Back in the 70's General Telephone in Fla. ran ALL of thier service vans on Natural Gas. That was the days before fuel injection. If a fuel injected car could be converted to NG, then, we have a viable soultion to the fuel "crisis"
That leaves PLASTIC ….. take a look around the room …… how ya gonna replace alllll that plastic.
Well for starters, go back to glass! How many are old enough to remember the .05 cent (went up to .10 cents) returnable bottle. I miss them old Mountain Dew bottles with the kewl paint logos. I also love to watch anti oil activists argue, while they drink water from ….. an oil bottle!
There is a gigantic plastic mine in or near every city in America.