194 comments on A Compromise on the Drilling Question
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Oh, I am sure those areas will get drilled and I am sure that people like KSA will not willingly supply the USA with the oil it needs for long term BAU growth.
Being pragmatic and proposing a middle path you are missing a critical point - oil is just one part of the total economy.
A workable pragmatic economic plan for the future must consider all the limitations, not just the problem of oil in isolation.
What you are proposing is a faith based compromise attempt at BAU high growth for as long as possible, party on, burn the oil ever more quickly 'til it's gone, the 'just-in-time-fairy' says alternates funded by this bonanza will be perfectly adequate to allow exponential economic growth forever - what lucky people our grandchildren will be.
At some stage less oil will be consumed, and if this leads to deflation (as seems possible) then since the banking system MUST have growth to function normally there will be less and less resources to invest in anything - let alone sustainable, adequate, energy alternatives - what unlucky people our grandchildren will be!
Oh, I am sure those areas will get drilled
Then you will have lost the opportunity to use that oil money at an early stage to push us down the alternative energy path.
What you are proposing is a faith based compromise attempt at BAU high growth
How so, when what I am proposing could move us away from oil? When prices may be $300 a barrel by the time the oil could flow? Do you think it will be BAU at $300?
Robert is right -- there is going to be more and more political pressure to drill in ANWR and the OCS -- better to head it off now into something constructive. I'm opposed to drilling, if it will only be used to perpetuate BAU -- and the temptation to do that will be overwhelming. If OCS or ANWR oil revenues can be earmarked for a major push into renewables, that is more palatable -- Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) realizes that, I think that is why he is starting to change his mind about drilling in ANWR. We should have probably done exploration work in ANWR and OCS a lot earlier, if only to find out exactly how much is out there. Hubbert, in Congressional testimony in 1974, doubted that OCS oil would make much of a difference -- and that was 34 years ago, when our domestic oil production was a lot higher than it is now...