The Oil Drum | Offshore Drilling Debate

40 comments on Offshore Drilling Debate

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mdsolar on September 16, 2008 - 2:20pm

We can shut down the drive for new drilling if we just conserve enough to force the oil price down further. Oil companies are not likely to do a lot of drilling if the price of oil looks like it will hold below $30/barrel.

Even price volitility that drops that low could shut down exploration. People are not going to forget that car dealers would not pay much on trade-ins of SUVs for a while which should hurt new SUV sales for some time. If we forget and start buying SUVs again, we can get a fuel price upswing that we can beat back down again by not driving as much. As long as the spike is short, we'll still discourage exploration.

Still, our best bet is to drive the price of oil down as far as we can and keep it there as we transition off of oil. The oil price volitility is bad for the wallet.

Chris

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dwcal on September 16, 2008 - 7:21pm

We can shut down the drive for new drilling if we just conserve enough to force the oil price down further

That may be true, but voluntary conservation and rationing by price can only go so far. We can conserve even more with incentives to push us along, like the ones in this bill.

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mdsolar on September 16, 2008 - 9:24pm

I agree that organized conservation could be the most effective. The rationing plan developed by the Economic Regulatory Administration seems quite similar to the more recently invented TEQs though it just applies to liquid fuels. The US plan is described here: http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=6307185 and TEQs are described here: http://www.teqs.net/

The incentives in both plans are that you get paid for energy you don't use.

Chris

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drillo on September 17, 2008 - 5:53am

"start buying SUVs again,...not driving as much"

Yea, that's THE solution: Do Buy Gas-Guzzzlers, But just Don't Use Them!
Join the Big Conversion from Vehicles into Parkicles!

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40 comments on Offshore Drilling Debate

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