Offshore Drilling

The computer you are typing into is made with oil based products, plastics, etc.
That makes you a NIMBY, i.e., hypocrisy.
I invest in oil companies, specifically oil-drillers. With any luck, we will see a city skyline of drilling platforms, especially off of WB.
You asked...there is your answer!!
Enjoy your meeting. Don't drive there, walk, crawl, but do not drive. No bikes either--they have tires. And walk barefoot--sneakers are rubber based, oil once again.
Any more questions??? <grin>

 

If you don't want it in the ocean I suggest you support it on dry land and support the pipelines to transport it. Petroleum is a fact of life and it has to come from somewhere.

Realistically there are approximately 1,500 oil rigs currently scattered across the worlds oceans and even far more natural gas wells and many are in some of the harshest pieces of ocean on the planet and somehow we all survive and benefit from the oil and natural gas they provide.

 

Yes, Lots of questions.
Were you always a jaded deuche canoe or did that happen when you sold your soul for money?
Do you wipe that big oil co. jizz off your face with all the money you made?
Why would you be against discussing how to prevent another deepwater horizon event?
Do you care about the future past your own?

We all need power, food, water and shelter to survive. Belittling people for caring and questioning about how these commodities are obtained, and/or produced and if it can be done in a more responsible manner is just pityfull.

 

Stop typing immediately. Give your computer away, along with your surfboards, wetsuits and nylon surf baggies.
As for belittling, re-read my post; not one verbal insult in the whole post. Then re-read yours. Can't say the same now can you.
You have a problem with humor. You have none apparently.
Thomas Jefferson said" First to show anger in a debate loses".
You lost.

 

No anger here. Just get disgusted by fatalistic thinking of so many old souls who try to squash anyone who wants and believes in a better future. Heavens forbid if you don't agree with destroying the enviroment through irresponsible drilling or even all out war. You did hear about deep water horizon oil spill? Do you really want that to happen again?
Calling someone a hypocrite can be construed as insulting and come on that second question was kinda funny.

 

We all have to be realists too. Petroleum is key to every one of our lifestyles weather we like it or not. Our way of life does not exist without a heck of a lot of petroleum. I don't think people grasp how reliant we are on the stuff and the amount of it we require. It has to come from someplace. Its not just our cars either.

Ever think about how much fuel is in a single airplane? Try 38,000 gallons in your typical passenger jet. To give you some perspective on that, most modern cars burn less than 5,000 gallons of gasoline in their entire lifecycle. A jet has 38,000 gallons on board at takeoff.

Also consider everything plastic and every other product you encounter every day that doesn't exist without someone drilling an oil well.

Its amazing stuff and something none us can really live without.

 

I agree. But there is room for improvement on how & where to extract and also the use of alternative power sources. This will not come from inside the oil industry. The oil industries reinvest a lot of profit back in so they have no incentive in developing other power alternatives. This will only come about through vocal public discorse and demand.

 

True- but do you want the oil companies to come up with "alternative power sources"? I don't. I don't expect them to.
I prefer a competitor come up with them. Drives prices down. Good for all.
Until we get such alternatives, we are stuck with oil. Elon Musk is on the right track, I might add.

 

To be flat honest I don't believe any alternative exists or ever will exist in the quality and especially the quantity that we have with petroleum. Sure there will be feel good measures along the way and things that will work on small scales but reality is we require petroleum and lots of it.

If not in favor of drilling at sea, you support land based drilling out west and in Alaska right and you also support Fraking and new oil pipelines for transport so we don't have to rely on more dangerous methods of transport like rail and sea????

 

I believe oil is a limited resource. Therefor, oil prices should trend upward in price over the long term (regardless of the current reprieve in high oil prices...), as they have historically.

If you were stuck on an island (where you needed natural resources or any resources for that matter) and you have to have fire, you would not wait until you burn the last log to look for an alternative?

The "alternative revolution" will be driven by $$$ and to a certain extent folks that give a crap about the enivro!

There is still a very strong demand for Petrol worldwide. $$$.

Even though the rigs are relatively safe, the thought of a spill to the extent it contaminates our awesome seafood resources on the east coast just kills me! I have grown up enjoying the fish, shrimp, and oysters of the mid-Atlantic...it would suck if there was a spill.

Yet, Petroleum based products rule society. I don't see that changing...until the "well runs dry".

 

That is a partial solution, a temporary one as well, to a nations energy needs.
There are many alternatives, some even more efficient than oil. Presently, they haven't been discovered or invented. But to my view ( I worked and was educated in science) the answer lies in solar, but not solar as it is conceptualized presently. To get a great "solar" equation as solution, you need to look to "nuclear" solutions. Why? Because solar IS nuclear in origin. Right now, most companies are shortsightedly looking at what they "feel" on a warm day. That is symptomatic, not cause. Go to the cause and a better method of harvesting solar, or nuclear, will soon develop. just opinion, of course.....

 

I too agree that this is the direction to go for "mass" solution. Do you think the risk would be the same as traditional nuclear power (Japan)? In your opinion how do you mitigate the risk (explosion, spills etc)?

Just Curious.

 

kiss rule.
avoid the technology.
sometimes in the pursuit of initiatives fairness is lost.

 

I was not referring to actually developing "Nuclear power". But rather, use principles learned from nuclear power to understand solar power better. That approach is absent in our thought process. Solar power is the result of nuclear fusion and fission. There should be some lessons there on how to better catch suns rays (nuclear products) and convert them

BTW, Elon Musk just developed a battery for use in homes-he is on the right track, trying different approaches.

 

So, your talking about the use of Nuclear Power to "harnass" and "convert" solar enery? I guess risk would be the same (relatively).

 

WE've already cut back on our oil dependency from the middle east and other places just by increasing our mpg in cars. We dont need more oil rigs. They wont create more jobs and... there is a limited amount of oil out there. We're starting to build surfboards, wetsuits and hundreds of other items without petroleum. WE must invest in other resourses.

 

heare heare.

 

Here is a good way to look at drilling. The reason your paying $2.25 per gal for gasoline are the technology advances made in drilling. The USA has raised its daily crude oil production in excess of 2.5 Million bbls/day over the last 4 years. This is why Saudi Arabia maintained their production levels to saturate the oil market inventory and collapse the price. Surprise ! the market works.

As to "see rigs popping up", The O'bama administration has opened the exploration rights off the Virginia, Georgia and Carolina's coast. But nothing happens until 2017. No other areas are open.

Florida's offshore potential is very small. I seriously doubt you'd see a offshore driling rig from a florida beach anytime in the next 20 years.

Don't let the pictures of California production platforms influence you. Geologically, the east coast of america is unlike the west coast of america. Any drilling on the east coast will take place WAY over the horizon.

Hope I've been of help.

Paul Gerlach
Geoscientist in the oil industry
Miramar, FL

 

Thanks rocdoc. Good info. I figure as long as I drive a gasoline powered car, surf on oil based surfboards, wetsuits, and like to fly airplanes to distant locations, I say "drill baby drill"!!
But sooner or later the energy source will be shared-- a good thing for all!