Has Anyone Else Seen This?

[catman]

This is very long, you make your own judgment about the high fuel prices....

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=33...11147&hl=en

[Phil Lilley]

What REALLY burns me, when I hear Gov. Richardson the other day say, no way are we going to let anyone drill in north AK!!

Pebble Mine - google it. It's a huge gold and copper mine near Lake Iliamna and Lake Clark which is the headwaters of THE largest salmon spawning rivers in the world. They are allowed to move ahead on this mine which puts these fisheries in danger. Mines are dirty and very toxic. Controlling runnoff is virtually impossible.

Why then will people like Richardson not say a word about Pebble Mine but scream about ANWR!!

There has to be more to it than what the public is seeing...

[Al Agnew]

Agreed that not nearly enough attention has been given to the mine near Lake Illiamna, that's going to be a disaster.

I was unable to get the video to play, so could somebody give me a synopsis of the important points?

[Phil Lilley]

I didn't watch but a few minutes but this guy is saying that there's enough oil on the Northern Slopes of AK to last US 200 years. One source is an inside guy at BP.

[Trav]

I know my opinon on this matter is going to be abstracted into disassociated commentary but I feel that there is tech out there that will protect the fishery. The fact that it is expensive to do will be the end of that thought.

I guess that things could work if there was faith in the human race to do the right thing.

But we all know that not everyone is like myself.

Haha, I have the key to our fuel crisis,....A big giant bowl of magic kool aid! And make sure everyone takes a sip!

[Al Agnew]

Gotta love those "inside sources".

Look...I could claim inside sources too...I've been up there and talked to a couple of the workers. Question is, if it was true that there is so much more oil up there than what anybody is telling, what would be the point of keeping quiet about it? The biggest reason the oil companies want access to ANWR and offshore and everywhere else they aren't being allowed to drill now? Quite simply, the more oil reserves they have the rights to drill, the more valuable their stock is. Price of oil company stock is partially dependent upon how much oil they can potentially drill. That right there is pretty much enough to convince me that they wouldn't allow it to remain secret about vast pools of oil.

Now...even if it WAS true, would that do anything to alleviate the present problems? It might, possibly, slow the speculation down that is partially the cause of the short term rise in the price of oil. But it wouldn't do that much because of a number or factors. First factor...the Alaska pipeline has about reached the end of its life--it wasn't even designed to last THIS long. Developing another way to get the oil from there to here is going to be expensive. So is just getting the oil out in the first place...North Slope crude is pretty expensive oil. And of course you have that pesky problem that it would take years for all the infrastructure to be developed, all the exploration to be done, and finally to start production.

And...there are other reasons to wean ourselves off oil. Every time someone comes up with some pie in the sky "solution" that involves, basically, business as usual, it gives us an excuse to not worry about conservation or alternative energy sources, just as we did in the 1970s when we SHOULD have started seriously developing those alternative sources.

Every possible source of new oil comes with a price tag, and if it had been cheap and easy to get it would have already been gotten. And in the present climate, one almost of desperation to hang on to business as usual for just a little longer, I'm afraid the the environment will end up getting the short stick. "Hey, if it's going to cost too much and take too long to do it right and protect the environment, well, we need it now!"

[snagged in outlet 3]

They can pump oil till they're blue in the face and it won't change anything. Our refineries our at capacity and if we don't build new ones, it won't matter how much we pump out of the ground if we can't refine it.

SIO3

[Dave Cook]

I have a different opinion. How much we can pump would matter, even without more refineries in the US. If the oil reserves worldwide were to increase, the problem with speculators driving up the price of crude would addressed. The speculators, the the supply vs demand market, is what keeps driving the price up.

The amount of oil reserves a country has, any country, affects it's national security. I would feel a lot safer knowing this country could import less oil.

[snagged in outlet 3]

I think my comment was misunderstood. We need to find safe, renewable alternatives to oil or we will be held captive to foreign country's until we do. I wouldn't call China and India "speculators" They are gobbling up commodities at a rate we can't imagine. Steel, copper, oil and even grain. They have driven steel prices through the roof. Here is a quote from T. Boone Pickens. He predicted $70 oil for 07 in 06, and $100 oil in 07 for 08.

Pickens is a firm believer in the "Peak Oil" theory that world oil production is about to enter a period of nonstop decline in the face of rising demand.

He doesn't believe "speculators" are to blame.

SIO3

[strangercreek]

I have been interested in the whole argument of "saturated oil market". This article is sort of interesting. I am not an economic expert so it is hard to know what to believe most of the time.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2008..._prices257.html