The Left’s Energy Plan, Distilled
June 20th, 2008 | by Craig |
- Halt all drilling and exploration, ensuring a continuous rise in cost.
- Then a miracle occurs
- We are weaned from oil
That’s pretty much it, isn’t it?
Or, for you South Park fans:
- Halt all drilling and exploration, ensuring a continuous rise in cost.
- ???
- Profit!
14 Responses to “The Left’s Energy Plan, Distilled”
By GeeGuy on Jun 20, 2008 | Reply
Ooooo..you’re gonna be in trouble!
By Craig on Jun 20, 2008 | Reply
Yeah, but all heat and very little light, unless I miss my guess.
By DMerriman on Jun 21, 2008 | Reply
The problem I’ve got with opening up new land is that the oil companies haven’t done anything with teh hundreds of thousands of acres of land they’ve already leased (if they didn’t think it had oil, why did they lease it?). Do that, then open up other lands if necessary.
By Mark T on Jun 24, 2008 | Reply
You always manage to boil things down the the simplest possible element, and then present it as if some sort of deep thinking were going on over there. You ain’t just wrong, your damned dumb wrong.
1. In peak oil terms, there’s a couple of hundred million barrels left to be discovered, but they won’t come on line fast enough to offset the decline that is going to take place naturally as we use up existing reserves. That’s already happening. Has been for many years now.
2. Drilling for oil and finding oil are two different things. ExxonMobil these days invests more money buying back its own stock than it does exploring. There’s a reason - most of the significant deposits have been found. The elephants are gone, rapidly depleting. About teh only new and significant undeveloped regions now are under polar ice (soon to be freed), and in Iraq (hint hint).
3. The electric car, which was used in California for a short while before GM canned it, was developed in response to strict California regulations on emissions, since relaxed. Fact is, necessity does spur invention, and the market is slow to respond, since it waits for an emergency, while government can be ahead of the game, and create necessity through regulation.
Enough of this simplistic drilldrilldrill right wing logic. You’re way off course on this, and I do take note that just as you all speak the same language on global warming and peak oil, so too are you all about drilling as a magical fix to our problem. With such unanimity, one can only conclude that there isn’t a whole lot of original thought going on over on your side. Over on our side, we’re constantly pissing on one another.
By Mark T on Jun 24, 2008 | Reply
PS - the bullet I overlooked, #4, you are overlooking two aspects of the price runup that even successful drilling would not overcome - the declining dollar, and market speculation. In terms of Euros, the price of oil hasn’t gone up that much. And since most oil is held in futures contracts hidden behind a black curtain, we don’t really know what it would trade for in a truly free market.
By Craig on Jun 25, 2008 | Reply
Sorry, Mark, I can’t hear you over the sound of how awesome you are.
By Mark T on Jun 25, 2008 | Reply
Right. Drill drill drill, baby. Keep it simple for your readership.
By Walter Greenspan on Jun 25, 2008 | Reply
On the issue of market speculation: for each and every purchase (a long position) there must be a sale (a short position).
Therefore, if the evil speculator is long, say, 1,000 futures contracts of 1,000 42-gallon barrels, than some other entity or entities (may also be an evil speculator) must also be short 1,000 futures contracts of 1,000 42-gallon barrels.
If these were the only positions open, then the open interest would be 1,000 futures contracts of 1,000 42-gallon barrels.
By Mark T on Jun 27, 2008 | Reply
So if I follow your logic, speculation doesn’t affect markets. Speculators make money on volatile markets - price movements are essential. It doesn’t matter whether the movement is up or down - someone will cash in. It’s a wild game that needs to be done in the open, and not behind a black curtain as it is now.
By the way, up above where I said that there were a couple of hundred million barrels left to be discovered, it should have said “billion”.
By Walter Greenspan on Jun 27, 2008 | Reply
Speculation REDUCES price volatility as markets with more speculation are more liquid than markets with less speculation.
By Neal on Jun 27, 2008 | Reply
If not drilling makes sense, capping wells and not pumping oil makes more sense.
By Mark T on Jul 1, 2008 | Reply
In theory … speculation needs to be done in the open and to be subject to regulation.
By Walter Greenspan on Jul 2, 2008 | Reply
Liberals need to procreate in the open and to be subject to regulation.