Coastal Drilling - For or Against?

[Beach Runner]

According to Bookman, "China and its booming economy account for a lot of that growth in demand. China's oil consumption tripled between 1990 and 2006." Because of the strong factors driving an increase in demand (their booming economy and their growing population), even if demand in the U.S. is reduced, the forces are in place for China to be a major player in the growing global demand, on which our imported oil prices are based.

 

[GoodWitch58]

Scooterbug, can you email Allen Boyd's letter to Charlie Crist?

 

[Minnie]

my opinion on it is undecided, but did read a fascinating artile on the subject in USAToday and that Chevron is paying, over $600,000 a day to rent an oil platform for Gulf drilling.

No way that cost is going to bring down the price of gas.

 

[30ashopper]

But don?t get me wrong?domestic oil and gas exploration should be a component of any multifaceted energy plan; it just can?t be the only component, and it must be done responsibly.

I don't believe any drilling proponent thinks it's the end all be all solution. It's part of the solution. We need a comprehensive long term solution which includes drilling in ANWAR and potentially off our coast, research funding in alternative energy, robust development of nuclear power plants, solar, wind, etc. etc.. Basically all of the above.

I'm not convinced either Obama or McCain intend to approach it this way. I see partisianship in both their policy initiatives which I find very frustrating.

 

[Matt J]

Everyday that I wake up in South Walton I feel like I'm living a dream and have hit the lottery. This is what I know most days will be like:

Having said that I feel that even the slightest chance that this could happen is completely unacceptable:

I don't know about everyone else, and I am a gambling man, but the odds involved are just too close for my tastes.

Keep in mind that not only would an oil spill destroy the beaches of South Walton it would destroy a lot of other things. Dune Lakes would be digusting waste lands, property values would drop over night, and the local economy would literally go belly up.

In the event of a crude oil spill it would not just be the beach affected. If you can smell the beach now you would have a lovely aroma of crude oil and fumes. No one is going to vacation or live in that environment.

As for clean up, I just have to laugh, anybody been to Alaska lately? There is still oil from the Valdez spill, pick up any rock. I'd rather pay $20/gallon for gas than see this paradise make the Jersey shore look like an untouched preserve.

All in IMHO.

 

[SHELLY]

In a sane world, the leadership of the US would peg the price of a barrel of oil to a bushel of US-exported grain...

1 Bushel of Wheat, Corn or Soybeans = 1 Barrel of Oil.
Not happy about it Sheikh Mohammed?...eat sand!

A new twist on the Econ 101 Guns and Butter Curve
.

 

[Miss Critter]

You are right, shelly. Painful as it is to suffer high-priced oil, starving is probably a wee bit worse.

 

[Smiling JOe]

Shelly, my dad (corn, wheat, and peanut farmer) thanks you.

 

[6thGen]

In a sane world, the leadership of the US would peg the price of a barrel of oil to a bushel of US-exported grain...

1 Bushel of Wheat, Corn or Soybeans = 1 Barrel of Oil.
Not happy about it Sheikh Mohammed?...eat sand!

A new twist on the Econ 101 Guns and Butter Curve
.

Please keep posting stuff like this so I can try to justify to myself that real estate will be coming back soon.

 

[SHELLY]

Please keep posting stuff like this so I can try to justify to myself that real estate will be coming back soon.

...only if that real estate comes with mineral rights to the oil field below. (Or is primo corn-producing land that's not on a flood plain.)

.