Quote :

"Whether or not we drill in the Gulf or anywhere in the US has, at best, an infinitesimal effect on prices, please stop pretending it does. It makes no difference whatsoever because our oil supply is not nationalized and so international corporations soak it up and sell it back to us at market prices."

Well, thats not really the case. In fact, its one of the dumbest arguments I hear over and over again.

By your logic in reverse (to the extreme), if no countries drill more wells, then their lack of production will not affect price. I think we all know that isnt true. For prices to stay lower, all countries most continue to drill. We can thank Russian for single handedly delaying the oil crisis for about 15 years as a result of their drilling. They were producing next to no oil before the early nineties, and single handedly brought an additional 9 million barrels a day to production. They satisfied China's appetite for energy, which kept prices super low as supply was plentiful.

Drilling locally will rarely result in short term pricing differences, but will absolutely reduce the effect of supply constraints in the future, directly reducing the historical price we pay for oil.

[Edited on April 21, 2011 at 1:11 PM. Reason : .]

4/21/2011 1:10:50 PM

And the state GOP are trying to pass a measure that would force Gov. Perdue into an agreement with the republican governors of Virgina and South Carolina to set up off shore drilling off our coast. I hope she vetoes the hell out of it with a giant tar ball stuffed inside for good measure before sending it back.

4/21/2011 3:05:01 PM

^^ no, you see oil is the one commodity where supply has no effect on price.

4/21/2011 3:11:10 PM

I don't think anyone doubts that she'll veto it...not for a second. I sure wish she wouldn't though.

4/21/2011 3:12:00 PM

I respect you greatly as a poster and as a person, so please don't take any offense when I ask this but are you from North Carolina?

4/21/2011 3:13:10 PM

i would be against coastal drilling if we had plans for significant expansion of modern nuclear power.

4/21/2011 3:14:46 PM

oil is not the answer to any problem. Our goal is to find an artificially renewable and recyclable energy so abundant, it'll be practically free.


Like the air we breath.

But I'm sure they will tax breathing in the near future.

[Edited on April 21, 2011 at 3:18 PM. Reason : .]

4/21/2011 3:17:38 PM

It should also be mentioned that the GOP wants to open up leases for exploratory oil shale drilling. This alone should have folks very concerned...I mean if you value clean drinking water and such.

4/21/2011 3:18:14 PM

We need energy and we're gonna get it. If you dont want it to be coal and oil then you need to get behind nuclear.

4/21/2011 3:21:47 PM

No arguments there. Despite what the wingnuts want you to believe, modern environmentalists see the benefit of nuclear over the alternatives until more renewables come online to help with energy loads.

4/21/2011 3:27:20 PM

Coal and natural gas are getting closer actually.

Coal plants being built in the developed world are IGCC and other relatively clean technology types. These pretty much make the Sulfur and NOX arguments mute, all that's left is the CO2.

At the same time, natural gas has always been clean by it's nature (in regards to local pollutants) and less CO2 intensive, which I think is ultimately due to the fact that Hydrogen-Carbon bonds are higher energy state than Carbon-Carbon bonds. But the battle over the global warming impacts due to the methane are just starting.

I'm just despotic, but I really like the fact that we're shifting from coal to NG. The reason is because Methane is a faster global warming gas, which means things are going to get hotter, sooner, while having less long term effects and putting less CO2 in the ocean.

Humans will get around to problems exactly as they start hurting them personally.

4/21/2011 3:43:16 PM

really, our legislators want drilling off the NC coast? that is simply retarded. "hey everyone, let's ruin our beautiful coastline, so that maybe in 5-10 years when there's potentially some small amount of production online everyone's gas prices will be 1 cent per gallon lower!!!!" stupid ass state legislators. i'm convinced the dumbest people in the U.S. self-select into state politics.

4/21/2011 3:55:20 PM

The problem I see with methane is that the table has already been set by CO2 when it comes to greenhouse gases and their effect on climate change. By this point, some people are so brainwashed, myopic or just too lazy to realize that methane is a real threat and (I could be wrong here) doesn't have a sink like CO2 does with the ocean.

4/21/2011 3:56:04 PM

but isn't the point to combust the methane into CO2? or are we talking about small amounts of methane leakage in addition to the CO2 that's produced?

4/21/2011 3:59:33 PM

^^^ I seriously doubt offshore production would have much if any impact on our shoreline.

4/21/2011 4:53:16 PM

Yeah, ask the gulf coast's smelly, tar ball ridden beaches if there is no effect from offshore drilling. . .

4/21/2011 4:57:43 PM

Quote :

"The problem I see with methane is that the table has already been set by CO2 when it comes to greenhouse gases and their effect on climate change. By this point, some people are so brainwashed, myopic or just too lazy to realize that methane is a real threat and (I could be wrong here) doesn't have a sink like CO2 does with the ocean."

This is incorrect actually. I don't know how myself, I'm not a chemist of a eco-physicist or whoever does this, but I do know that Methane is "metabolized" in the biosphere. So is CO2, but CO2 is more about the balance of flows rather than simple removal.

Methane somehow, somewhere, gets eaten by something. It's radiative forcing is like 40x that of CO2, but the total effect is like 20x because of the shorter resonance time - this is the reason for the faster warming effect.

Quote :

"but isn't the point to combust the methane into CO2? or are we talking about small amounts of methane leakage in addition to the CO2 that's produced?"

Leakage of unburnt stuff. No one does this intentionally, but you can't bake a cake without spilling some stuff... The issue is that Methane is so potent that just 1-2% puts NG on the same playing field as coal.

The other danger is that no one is looking after, or otherwise bothering with the environmental problem of leaked methane right now. The numbers for methane leakage are like 0.5 to 3%, just insane errors. And then no one even has a good idea what the number for fracking is, but we know it's a lot more.

Papers are already claiming that fracking is one the same level as coal. The worst case scenarios put it at like 2 times the impact. Seriously, depending on the route we take for NG exploitation, in the next 40 years we could screw our environment like you've never even considered. Not to mention certain delightful positive feedback switches we can hit along that path.

But I'm done trying to argue this. Go, frack all the shale basins you can find. The more the better, and the more leakage the better. The faster we screw up the Earth the better chance we have to save it from total destruction because people will get serious about what we have for real solutions.

Quote :

"really, our legislators want drilling off the NC coast? that is simply retarded. "hey everyone, let's ruin our beautiful coastline, so that maybe in 5-10 years when there's potentially some small amount of production online everyone's gas prices will be 1 cent per gallon lower!!!!" "

It won't make gas cheaper, you're lumping all energy together.

But here is the key: our beautiful coastline

You know, I hate calling myself an environmentalist, but I guess I am. Wind power has amazingly few environmental problems compared to just about any other technology. I feel sorry and outraged for the people with the big darn shadows going over their kitchen window and rattling caused by the low frequency noise, but offshore wind? The problem is that it's not pretty? If that's all it's got going against it, I say line the entire East coast with these things.

4/21/2011 5:17:35 PM

Quote :

"Yeah, ask the gulf coast's smelly, tar ball ridden beaches if there is no effect from offshore drilling. . ."

As I understood it, the gulf coast has always been tar ball ridden due to the geology of the gulf, just as oil has always seeped into some rivers and lakes of Pennsylvania (farmers and fishermen found it a nuisance and complained about it back in the 18th century).

As I understand it, human oil spills are rare in the gulf and (usually) represent a tiny fraction of the natural seepage into the gulf, recent events not with-standing.

4/21/2011 5:24:31 PM

Links plz

4/21/2011 6:23:53 PM

The GOP filibustering the closing of the Enron Loophole has allowed the price of gas to rise.

Face. You can thank your republican Senators for fucking you up the ass.

4/21/2011 7:13:37 PM

Dude, are you trying to be the resident idiot? Like, actively trying? Or is it just who you are?

4/21/2011 7:42:42 PM

The "Enron Loophole" allows speculators to blow up the the price by 25%.

4/21/2011 9:20:24 PM

b-b-b-but Clinton did it!

Quote :

"The "loophole" was enacted in sections § 2(h)(3) and (g) of the Commodity Exchange Act, 7 U.S.C. as a result of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, signed by U.S. president Bill Clinton on December 21, 2000."

4/21/2011 9:42:51 PM

^^ If speculators are making the market price too high, then where are they hiding all the excess supply?

4/21/2011 11:02:50 PM

^ it's not excess supply, it's excess demand.

Quote :

"in the gasoline futures market, the demand for this "paper gasoline" by speculators is seven times that of the actual world-wide consumption of gasoline products."

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2011-03-31/news/fl-cmcol-gas-prices-regulation-mishra20110331_1_gasoline-prices-market-speculators

4/21/2011 11:07:59 PM

^^ Supertankers.

4/21/2011 11:13:23 PM

^^ Excess demand, to where? At some point they must accept delivery of the oil somewhere or they have had no real impact on spot prices.

^ really? Where are they parking them? It takes a lot of money to keep a supertaker just floating there, especially when it seems your market idea is to buy oil high and sell it low after you paid to store it for awhile.

4/21/2011 11:18:14 PM

The idea is to buy, hoard, and sell higher.

Google 'JP Morgan' & 'supertankers'.

[Edited on April 21, 2011 at 11:35 PM. Reason : 3]

4/21/2011 11:34:05 PM

^ why bother buying and hoarding? nature stores crude oil for us right in the ground (at not charge). If gas futures rise high enough relative to spot prices, it will become more profitable to leave the oil for now in hopes of refining it into gasoline tomorrow for a much higher price.

thus supply TODAY actually drops and prices TODAY actually rise.

Its actually because of the relative ease of storing oil that speculation in the gas futures market is relevant for today's prices.

I think LoneSnark would have a much easier time believeing this if you could think of a way to blame the government. For example, if you said that the government announced it would add a $10 tax next year, I'm sure he would quickly connect the dots to tell you why prices today would go up. The steps of that argument will be slightly different (and certainly more agreeable to his ideological priors), but the same inter-temporal forces of supply and demand will still be at work.

P.

[Edited on April 21, 2011 at 11:58 PM. Reason : ``]

4/21/2011 11:48:44 PM

Quote :

" Supertankers"

i vaguely recall seeing this in some movie.. maybe michael moore, maybe that one where people pretended to work for companies that they didn't work for...

4/22/2011 12:15:04 AM

If the market req'd the oil to be delivered, it'd take the speculation out of the market and prices would go down.

4/22/2011 12:53:58 AM

^^ Cute. But think about it a little deeper. An oil well cannot be produced all at once. It takes time, measured in barrels per day. Well, if I turn off my pumps for a week, that doesn't allow me to pump more next week: I'll pump about the same amount next week as I would if I left the pumps on this week. As such, the only speculation I can do with an existing pumping well is do I produce this week or gain an extra week of production 20+ years from now? I cannot imagine anyone being that forward thinking.

That, plus I can refute this right friggin' now: oil production is higher today than a year ago. Who exactly are you suggesting is shutting their production on behalf of speculators?

As for Prawn Star, if you are right that someone is going through the expense of storing oil in supertankers, what do you care? They are making current prices higher and future prices lower. If they are betting correctly and prices in the future were going to be much higher than today's spot prices, then they are doing you a service by stabilizing prices over time. If they are betting wrong then they will lose money and stop the practice.

4/22/2011 12:54:10 AM

^ ha, none of that makes any real sense considering how the real world works.

You seriously don't think the speculators trying to make a quick buck are driving the price of oil up now? You don't think oil wells can control their output? You don't think people can store barrels of oil if someone (ie a speculator) is paying for that barrel?

Have you been asleep the past few years when investment bankers threw long-term thinking out the window to make a quick, easy buck on the housing market? If they don't personally have to deal with it, the industry is perfectly happy to leave the mess to their successors. The clever ones just cash out early and watch the world and everyone else crumble.

4/22/2011 1:34:16 AM

Quote :

"At the same time, natural gas has always been clean by it's nature (in regards to local pollutants) and less CO2 intensive, which I think is ultimately due to the fact that Hydrogen-Carbon bonds are higher energy state than Carbon-Carbon bonds. But the battle over the global warming impacts due to the methane are just starting."

It's worth pointing out that GETTING the natural gas might be filthy: see hydraulic fracturing

4/22/2011 7:39:43 AM

Quote :

"Links plz"

There's plenty of them in the BP Gulf oil leak thread, feel free to seek that out.

4/22/2011 9:05:44 AM

Quote :

"You seriously don't think the speculators trying to make a quick buck are driving the price of oil up now? "

I guess they are. Doesn't make it a bad thing. They only make money if they are guessing the future correctly and are driving down future price spikes by driving up current price lulls. To them I say thank you. $4 seems high, praise them for preventing $5.

Quote :

"You don't think oil wells can control their output?"

Reading comprehension. I specifically said they could, just that there was no profit in producing anything but all you can all the time.

Quote :

"You don't think people can store barrels of oil if someone (ie a speculator) is paying for that barrel?"

Again, reading comprehension. I specifically said they could, just that there was no profit in doing so except in rare circumstances, and in those circumstances again I say thank you to them for averaging out future price spikes.

Everything you ever wanted to know about oil speculation:
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2011/04/the-silly-oil-speculation-meme.html

[Edited on April 22, 2011 at 10:17 AM. Reason : lnk]

4/22/2011 10:16:52 AM

Quote :

"It's worth pointing out that GETTING the natural gas might be filthy: see hydraulic fracturing"

Fracking can be done cleanly, people who got screwed got screwed by people who didn't care about doing it cleanly. But mountain top removal is also bad, much worse in fact.

Heck, even Uranium mining exposes workers to dangerous Radon and leaves a significant environmental footprint. And heck, even quarries for the foundations of wind turbines screws some stuff up.

4/22/2011 10:36:48 AM

Quote :

"Instant view: Obama team to probe oil market manipulation NEW YORK | Thu Apr 21, 2011 3:51pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Thursday the U.S. attorney general was assembling a team to root out any fraud and manipulation in the oil markets that might be contributing to higher U.S. gasoline prices. Earlier, the Justice Department announced the working group, which will include representatives from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Reserve Board, the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as the Departments of Agriculture, Energy, Justice and Treasury. Rising fuel costs have raised concerns about the strain on the economic recovery, with U.S. gasoline prices now averaging over $3.80 a gallon. Fuel costs that soared to over $4 a gallon in 2008 set off public outcry in the United States and caused motorists to scale back driving. U.S. crude oil prices shot to over $113 a barrel this month, the highest level since September 2008, lifted in part by concerns about supplies due to unrest in Libya and the Middle East. "

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/21/us-obama-oil-market-view-idUSTRE73K7B420110421

[Edited on April 22, 2011 at 10:44 AM. Reason : ...]

4/22/2011 10:43:42 AM

Quote :

"Fracking can be done cleanly, people who got screwed got screwed by people who didn't care about doing it cleanly."

what?

4/22/2011 10:45:31 AM

Quote :

"Fracking can be done cleanly, people who got screwed got screwed by people who didn't care about doing it cleanly."

It's true that people are harmed by companies who did not frack properly

However "fracking properly" is still demonstrably filthy and I really wish people such as yourself (with presumably no dog in the fight) would stop spreading lies. Some folks live in affected regions

[Edited on April 22, 2011 at 12:02 PM. Reason : .]

4/22/2011 11:58:43 AM

More regulation is needed in the hydraulic fracturing industry.

That said, we are the Saudi Arabia of shale oil and gas. We are sitting on literally hundreds of years worth of recoverable shale oil, coal and natural gas. If it can be extracted safely and without catastrophic damage to the environment, we should invest in the extraction of these resources, for energy independence. I do realize that it's an open question whether this can be done in a responsible manner.

[Edited on April 22, 2011 at 12:32 PM. Reason : 2]

4/22/2011 12:31:46 PM

Quote :

"However "fracking properly" is still demonstrably filthy and I really wish people such as yourself (with presumably no dog in the fight) would stop spreading lies. Some folks live in affected regions"

You're right, I don't have a dog in the fight. I also don't really have the sources to back this up, I just hear from people who do know what they're talking about. They specifically recognize there are chemicals like those used in Gasland, and more-or-less my understanding is that they recover them from the well and have to pay to dispose of them. If they are dumped, duh, people will have health problems.

To the best of my understanding, it seems fair to talk about the shale gas "option" in the public debate as something that can be done without poisoning the local population. Not saying anything more than that. It's important to distinguish between the history of a technology and the potential of a technology.

4/22/2011 12:50:07 PM

The EPA is currently studying Fracking, we should know more soon (I think by the end of 2012?). But the problems are more than just poor disposal. A decent amount of the fracking fluid is never recovered, casings can bust, and there are still questions of if the fracking process releases trapped gases/metals/chemicals in ground layers above the shale (ie into the drinking water aquifer).

Quote :

"If it can be extracted safely and without catastrophic damage to the environment, we should invest in the extraction of these resources, for energy independence. I do realize that it's an open question whether this can be done in a responsible manner. "

I agree with this.

4/22/2011 2:24:09 PM

Quote :

"However "fracking properly" is still demonstrably filthy and I really wish people such as yourself (with presumably no dog in the fight) would stop spreading lies. Some folks live in affected regions "

"fracking properly" is an ambiguous term. There is an insane shortage in the number of state inspectors in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, and other states where the Marcellus Shale is currently being explored. Companies are cutting corners and trying to push their own preferred fracking techniques because they aren't getting any regulation from the state. Most of the groundwater contamination is coming from cracked well casings, and this contamination would be completely avoidable if we had decent regulations in place. We've also had issues with livestock getting into frack ponds, which a simple fence could have prevented. We let companies get away with not listing fracking chemicals under propietary laws, even though not having proper MSDS information seems like a serious health risk to workers and residents.

We have the ability to frack with air instead of water, but I imagine it's not nearly as cheap as fracking with water because of the additional power required to compress a gas vs. a liquid. At least fracking with air doesn't leave you with millions of gallons of unclaimed water/slurry left in the ground.

I think the biggest reason companies have been allowed to get away with half-ass fracking techniques is because we've been fracking in rural areas of Texas/Oklahoma/Montana where nobody really gives a shit. Even the recent explorations in the Marcellus have been predominantly in rural parts of Pennsylvania and Ohio where nobody gives a shit about the poor rural residents. I personally don't think our politicians will take this shit seriously until some jackleg company starts cutting corners in New York and seriously contaminate the Hudson River. By then, the public outcry will be so bad that we will put moratoriums on shale exploration instead of just heavily regulating the fracking procedures like they should have been doing 10 years ago.

4/22/2011 3:05:31 PM

But Fox News told me that more government is bad.

4/22/2011 3:35:46 PM

I shit very cleanly.

4/22/2011 6:56:53 PM

1. Invest in oil stocks
2. Use money to offset the rising gas prices
3. Win

4/22/2011 8:26:46 PM

I think this thread would be more readable if it wasn't written by a disgraced Battlestar Galactica creator.

4/23/2011 2:06:26 PM

Quote :

"I personally don't think our politicians will take this shit seriously until some jackleg company starts cutting corners in New York and seriously contaminate the Hudson River. By then, the public outcry will be so bad that we will put moratoriums on shale exploration instead of just heavily regulating the fracking procedures like they should have been doing 10 years ago."

Sad but true.

4/23/2011 3:34:35 PM

Quote :

"Most of the groundwater contamination is coming from cracked well casings, and this contamination would be completely avoidable if we had decent regulations in place."

Bullshit. Every single instance of a cracked well casing was pointed out either by the company itself or the land owners. Not once has a state inspector actually caught a problem before it happened. Nor could they. If it is obvious enough for a state inspector to notice, then the company employees would have noticed and fixed it.

4/23/2011 5:27:47 PM