| FrontPageMag.com | By Robert Spencer | By Hugh Fitzgerald | Books | Dhimmi Watch | Islam 101 | Qur'an Blog | Raymond Ibrahim | Robert Spencer |  |
|
|
|||||||||||
|
|
For many years now I've been calling for a Manhattan Project to find and develop new energy sources. This has not been undertaken, at least at the government level, unless it is classified and has not been leaked. In any case, such a project will take years to come up with a viable alternative. In the meantime, as a matter of national security and defense against the jihad, we should certainly develop our own oil supplies. Obama, however, is correct that this is not a long-term solution. But not to do it now while they bleed us dry and the jihadist coffers fill ever fuller is simply suicidal.
"McCain Seeks to End Offshore Drilling Ban," by Michael D. Shear and Juliet Eilperin in the Washington Post, June 17 (thanks to Anne Crockett):
Sen. John McCain called yesterday for an end to the federal ban on offshore oil drilling, offering an aggressive response to high gasoline prices and immediately drawing the ire of environmental groups that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee has courted for months.The move is aimed at easing voter anger over rising energy prices by freeing states to open vast stretches of the country's coastline to oil exploration. In a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, nearly 80 percent said soaring prices at the pump are causing them financial hardship, the highest in surveys this decade.
"We must embark on a national mission to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil," McCain told reporters yesterday. In a speech today, he plans to add that "we have untapped oil reserves of at least 21 billion barrels in the United States. But a broad federal moratorium stands in the way of energy exploration and production. . . . It is time for the federal government to lift these restrictions."
McCain's announcement is a reversal of the position he took in his 2000 presidential campaign and a break with environmental activists, even as he attempts to win the support of independents and moderate Democrats. Since becoming the presumptive GOP nominee in March, McCain has presented himself as a friend of the environment by touting his plans to combat global warming and his opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in the Everglades.
Representatives of several environmental groups criticized him for backing an idea they said would endanger the nation's most environmentally sensitive waters.
"It's disappointing that Senator McCain is clinging to the failed energy policies of the past," said Tiernan Sittenfeld, legislative director for the League of Conservation Voters.
Sierra Club political director Cathy Duvall said McCain "is using the environment as a way to portray himself as being different from George Bush. But the reality is that he isn't." The group began running radio commercials yesterday that criticize McCain's environmental record in the battleground state of Ohio.
Democratic Sen. Barack Obama joined the criticism, calling the idea of lifting the ban the wrong answer to out-of-control energy prices. "John McCain's plan to simply drill our way out of our energy crisis is the same misguided approach backed by President Bush that has failed our families for too long and only serves to benefit the big oil companies," Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan said.
Posted by Robert at June 17, 2008 10:49 AM
Print this entry
| Email this entry
| Digg this
| del.icio.us
"It's disappointing that Senator McCain is clinging to the failed energy policies of the past,"said Tiernan Sittenfeld
Barack Obama joined the criticism"John McCain's plan to simply drill our way out of our energy crisis is the same misguided approach backed by President Bush that has failed our families for too long and only serves to benefit the big oil companies,"
So what is the failed energy policies of the past and what is the misguided approach. I think the Democrats and the Enviromentalists are the culprits.
Read this;
Actually there is more oil in Alaska than Saudi Arabia ever had. There is enough crude oil to run this country at our present rate of consumption for 200 years.
The United States has more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia but this happy though shocking information has been covered up for years.
The wells have been drilled, it's merely a matter of turning on the faucets to supply America's needs for 200 years.
These astounding revelations have been confirmed by a 30-year veteran oil exe cutive with leukemia who has decided to speak out.
In 1980, Lindsey Williams wrote a book, The Energy Non-Crisis, based upon his eye witness accounts during the construction of the Trans-Alaska pipeline. As a chaplain assigned to executive status and the advisory board of Atlantic Richfield %26 Co. (ARCO), he was privy to detailed information.
"All of our energy problems could have been solved in the '70s with the huge discovery of oil under Gull Island, Prudhoe Bay, Alaska," Williams said. "There is more pure grade oil there than in all of Sau di Arabia. Gull Island contains as much oil and natural gas as Americans could use in 200 years."
Oddly though, immediately after this massive discovery, the federal government ordered the rigs to be capped and oil production shut down.
Developing Alaskan oil would make the United States completely independent of oil imports, Williams said in his book.
Why is the government covering up such good news? Why does it want to be dependent on imported oil? Do international financiers who are heavily invested in the oil industry want to keep the supply limited and prices up?
Will the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, chaired by Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska), investigate what could be a criminal cover-up? Will the appropriate House committees in quire? Or the Justice Department? Since the cover-up has extended through four presidential administrations, only public outrage can force action.
"Everything you hear on the evening news and out of Washington is garbage," said Jim Lawler, an oil production manager with ARCO. "Eight wells have already been drilled in the areas environmentalists are claiming we must not go in. We have already been in and out. There was no damage done. All we need to do is start production."
The mainstream media is mind-molding public opinion by repeatedly showing running caribou, touting environmentalists' claims that the caribou and other endangered species and habitats would be destroyed.
"The Alaska Fish and Game Depart ment just did a study on the por cupine car i bou in Prudhoe Bay. The size of the herds has increased since 1969 by 35 percent. The pipeline area is a protected designation and the caribou have figured this out. They have migrated into this area for protection," Lawler said.
The Alaskan pipeline was built in 1977 and runs from Prudhoe Bay to the southern shores of Alaska in Valdez.
Lawler maintains that several things can be done to reduce American energy bills.
The Alaskan pipeline can be permitted to run at full capacity. In addition, the Department of Energy can allow a new pipeline to be built across Canada and con nected to the existing system in the United States.
Alaska can also ship oil to the West Coast immediately. Alaskan oil is of such high grade and low sulfur content that it can be utilized at any refinery, without damage to the environment.
"Currently, an estimated 4,000 barrels a day are liquefied at Prudhoe Bay, but government regulation controls that limit," added Lawler.
Liquefying is the process by which oil sludge brought from the ground is pro cessed to be transported.
Lawler said the existing Alaskan pipe line was built to hold another four-foot diameter pipe above it, which could be used for natural gas. However, he said it "is not ne cessary because the Alaskan pipe line has never been permitted to run at full capacity."
This same situation can be multiplied in Wyoming, Texas and other oil-productive areas across the country. The government has imposed strict orders not to produce.
And in a real emergency, Lawler contends hydrogen plants can sprout up in less than six months with just a nuclear reactor placed at sea.
"One nuclear reactor can power all of Los Angeles," Lawler said.
Natural gas is readily available; Prud hoe Bay has 48 747-jet engines pumping one billion cubic feet of natural gas back into the ground 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. They have nowhere else to put the natural gas.
From the book Energy non Crisis. CHAPTER 17 - If Gull Island Didn't Blow Your Mind-This Will! Gull Island just proved what the oil companies have believed for some time. It authenticated the seismographic findings. Seismographic testing has indicated that there is as much crude oil on the North Slope of Alaska as in Saudi Arabia. Since the Gull Island find proved to be seismographically correct, then the other testings are correct also. There are many hundreds of square miles of oil under the North Slope of Alaska. ... The Gull Island burn produced 30,000 barrels of oil per day through a 3 1/2 inch pipe at 900 feet.
Three wells have been drilled, proven, and capped at Gull Island. The East Dock well also hit the Gull Island oil pool (you can tell by the chemical structure). For forty miles to the east of Gull Island, there has not been a single dry hole drilled, although many wells have been drilled. This shows the immensity of the size of the field. ...
The following is a comparison between the three oil fields on the North Slope of Alaska which have been drilled into with numerous wells, tested, and proven. Prudhoe Bay can produce two (2) million barrels of oil every 24 hours for 20 to 40 years at artesian pressure. Imagine what the production of the Kuparuk and Gull Island fields could be.
Field Pay Zone Oil Area of Field
(Average depth of oil pool)
Prudhoe 600 Ft. of pay zone 100 square miles
Kuparuk 300 Ft. of pay zone Twice the size of Prudhoe
Gull Island 1,200 Ft. of pay zone At least four times the size of Prudhoe . . .
Estimates are that it is the richest oil field on the face of the earth.
Posted by: havekoranwilltravel![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at June 17, 2008 11:36 AM
Dig the well before you are thirsty.
(Chinese Proverb)
Posted by: The Cool Ghoul at June 17, 2008 11:39 AM
Let the "enviro-weinies" whine! The federal restrictions are based on 1970s environMENTAL laws. Our technology, to retrieve our oil & oil shale reserves, has advanced in leaps & bounds. Look to Norway's oil industry! They get 80% of their oil from off shore deposits (the North Sea) and have harvested their oil in an environmentally neutral way for decades. We can do the same and do do safely. There is NO way our country should depend on OPEC for 30% of our oil needs! Not when we have the oil under our own nation and within our territorial waters. Political pandering to the "greens", for their outdated objections, is how gas rose to $4+! Drill now, drill safely and use oil as a lever against those who publicly state they are our enemies! Allow the oil refinery industry to safely modernize! (Let them do it with their record profits, rather than pass the costs on to the consumers, too!)
Posted by: NamFrank at June 17, 2008 11:41 AM
It failed alright. By the complete and total failure to ever do anything. A policy Obama seems perfectly content to continue.
Everyone in the World drilling for Oil and Gas except US is not an Energy Policy.
To think Oil will play no part in the economy even if not used as a transportation fuel is crazy. Do our Politicians really believe that the OIL will just stay in the Ground for the rest of Humanities existence?
Our politicians need to re-examine a few relevant numbers.
What constituency is greater, People who drive or Environ mental ists?
Which of the Two will make their lives more miserable if transportation Fuels dry up?
The Majority is already getting ticked off.
Posted by: flowerknife_us at June 17, 2008 11:50 AM
Drilling, schmilling...
It will take YEARS for any suddenly legislated respit to the drilling moratorium to deliver a dribble of Mighty American Crude to the insatiable gas-tanks of the Mighty American Vehicle fleet.
Years. As in, "maybe, possibly by the time Mick is elected OUT of office". Or Bam-bam. Your pick.
One doesn't need to have a quadruple PhD in Chem E, Econ, MatSci and Biophysics (I don't even have a quadruple bypass yet) to note several technologies that really will make a difference ... IF the endless tit of money-cum-oil is pulled out of the mouth of Big Oil, and liberally dripped into the parched maws of algael biofarming ("biodiesel"), photovoltaics ("direct solar") and/or Stirling Cycle heliothermal, zephyrs (wind power) AND COAL GASSIFICATION.
Bold, you ask? Why shout, Goat, why? Well, 'cuz it makes sense fellow capricornates. The Germans lest we forget, have and had nary a producing oil well in the 1920's-1940's. They had bountiful coal though, and developed Fischer-Tropsch process to turn coal into a liquid fuel. It worked, Messerschmits and Mercedes chugged along, and then it was all abandoned after 1945 when they got their arses handed to them on a palaver, and the Saudis were invaded by an army of Western GeoGuys and their Drilling Machines.
But it still holds a lot of promise. Coal gassification at least in my mind, isn't a long-term solution, but a short-term bridge. Maybe mid-term too (i.e. ramp-up in 2 years, just like the Cornyhol movement, then high production for 10-20 ... 25? years, until the equipment dies) ... while the aforementioned renewable technologies get their act(s) together. I mean, really - we have so frikkin' much coal that we could be a net EXPORTER of synpetrol, should we grab the balls by the bull, and go forth boldly where no hydrocarbon has gone before (the Germans).
Algae(l) hydroponic farming is profoundly capable (apparently) of converting carbon dioxide from the air, sunlight and a whole lotta water into a high percentage of some lipid (oil) that just begs to be converted with a dollop of ethanol (how convenient!) into BioDiesel. Yay. Ridiculously high yields ("10,000 gallons per acre!"), and probably cures piles, gout and an unfortunate genetic disposition to acne. Or cancer.
Problem is though ... that that money/oil teat remains firmly attached to the Oil and Money industry, and in't coming unstuck, no matter how feverant the jostling of the little runt piggies trying to get their share. We, the Mighty American People are however not acting as the 'ranchers' to cull the herd, to optimize the return.
Its pretty simple: until such time as We The People inform our Representatives that they're not going to get re-elected unless they get onto the business of redirecting our Tax Money toward the critically important algael, wind, solar and coal gassification/liquification technologies ... nothing is going to come of it, or precious little. Why? Paradoxically, because all the good advances in each domain are all wrapped up in patents with Mighty Big Royalties - the most potent of all disincentives known to free enterprise. Or maybe, because individuals are no longer hopefully investing their life savings (since they don't HAVE savings) into Edison-like enterprises. No, investment is now all about Big Banks, Big Insurance Companies, Big Pension Funds and Big Venture Capitalists. The last ones at least are moderately risk-embracing. The others ... prefer 4% on the Dollar with US Bonds.
But hey! That's not a bug, but a feature!!! If all of Ma and Pa Kettle's money is being invested into super-safe Gub'mint Bonds, then by gum, I should think that the Kettles have a right to send nastygrams to their reps, goading them from their somabulance and into a simile of action.
Same turn-around as drilling, and don't let anyone promote it as otherwise: but at least it has the potential to REALLY change our dependence on foreign crude. Yes, the world will be turning summersalts (sic) upon learning that the Mighty American Economy is embarcing on a plan to leave all the frightfully politically tainted Middle Eastern oil to Eurabia and Chinastan ... but in the end, they'll have to deal with those Fire Ants. Not us.
Irrespectfully, GoatGuy
Posted by: GoatGuy at June 17, 2008 11:52 AM
"It's disappointing that Senator McCain is clinging to the failed energy policies of the past," said Tiernan Sittenfeld, legislative director for the League of Conservation Voters.
Sierra Club political director Cathy Duvall said McCain "is using the environment as a way to portray himself as being different from George Bush. But the reality is that he isn't."
--- from the article above
Those familiar with the Sierra Club know that it is not all that is cracked up to me, but in many ways a self-serving organization, with some of its bureaucrats wild in their claims and narrow in their solutions.
McCain is perfectly sensible. Off-shore drilling is being conducted, right now, in the Gulf of Mexico by others. China has, or will soon, begin. Off-shore drilling is not the same thing as drilling on land, and even on land, not every elk is sacred. Of course the oil industry has a lot to answer for. Of course oil itself must be reduced in importance, and coal, and natural gas -- for reasons having to do with climate change, at a rate unprecedented in the history of the earth, a rate so rapid that most species are likely to disappear, even if their DNA is preserved, nicely labelled, for some unimaginable future.
McCain also has called, unembarrassedly, for much greater development of nuclear power plants. That is good, because while solar energy and other forms called "reneweable" are to be encouraged by subsidies (as in Germany), the belief that solar energy alone can save us, while it may win votes up and down Telegraph Avenue, and in Harvard Yard, it will not impress harder heads to be found at California Institute of Technology or, further on down Mass. Ave. toward Boston, at M.I.T.
And McCain considers himself, wishes to be considered, an environmentalist. He thinks of himself as in the model of Teddy Roosevelt. That self-image McCain has should be praised, should be encouraged, because he's got Roosevelt's interest in preserving the wild, the John-Muir-Gifford-Pinchot Roosevelt, the Roosevelt who also wasn't too fond of malefactors of great wealth -- which is exactly why McCain makes many malefactors of great wealth, normally Republican supporters, nervous. And that's a good thing.
John McCain is to be encouraged in his intelligent environmentalism -- intelligent because it is not kneejerk nor absolute. He can make distinctions. He can see why now, off-shore drilling may make sense, and why, in the future, reliance on oil is both idiotic and dangerous. Obama appears to understand only part of this -- the long-term, but not the very short-term.
But McCain needs to make clear, to a public that doesn't like oil and the oil companies and the idea of drilling, that he is, in fact, on their side, and the more he keeps up that John-Muir-Rachel-Carson stuff, the better. If I were advising him (and come to think of it, I am) I would have a well-publicized meeting with James Hansen, whom the Bush Administration has treated so shabbily, and perhaps with others, and also make clear that he, McCain, is not in the Senator-Imhofe line of treating anthropogenic climate change as some sort of enormous con game, fabricated by all those "left-wing" scientists who, for some reason, want to bring down the American economy.
Posted by: Hugh at June 17, 2008 12:22 PM
So what does Obama think we should do? Its fine to pooh-pooh McCain's plan but provide us with your alternative. Or are we to HOPE that prices will come down?
Posted by: John_Doe at June 17, 2008 12:30 PM
Giving your enemy money is suicide.
Posted by: tanstaafl at June 17, 2008 12:35 PM
Caribou > Humans
Yep, nice to know that the ecoterrorists would have humankind suffer in the name of the "greater good".
"Greater good" policies are the most damnable lies in existence.
Posted by: Narrator 1 at June 17, 2008 1:03 PM
Of course oil itself must be reduced in importance, and coal, and natural gas -- for reasons having to do with climate change, at a rate unprecedented in the history of the earth, a rate so rapid that most species are likely to disappear, even if their DNA is preserved, nicely labelled, for some unimaginable future.
blink blink . . .not you too, Hugh?
Posted by: miira at June 17, 2008 1:03 PM
Has anyone ever investigated the amount of funding (if any) that the various "environmental" groups get from (1) OPEC in general, and (2) the Saudis in particular?
The Saudis dish out a lot of money world-wide to build mosques and staff them with Wahhabi clergy; and they give a lot to western universities to establish professorial chairs of "Islamic Studies". I'd be surprised if they didn't also support a lot of environmental groups that just happen to oppose any U.S. attempt to become less dependent on energy imports.
at June 17, 2008 1:32 PM
"I'd be surprised if they (OPEC) didn't also support a lot of environmental groups that just happen to oppose any U.S. attempt to become less dependent on energy imports."
--ebonystone
*************
Interesting thought... One worthy of investigating. They (OPEC) would have motive.
Posted by: The Cool Ghoul at June 17, 2008 2:27 PM
We can debate oil vs. 'alternative'... but what have the enviro. left wanted but green energy.
We have brought hydo, now they don't want it because of fish migration or encroachment into forests.
We have wind energy, now the blades are killing magritory birds.
We have brought bio-fuel, which requires more energy to make then oil to gasiline and the carbon output surpasses oil when you take into account the energy to make the bio-fuel.
We have brought solar, now it is un-sightly and causes heat, futhering global warming.
It does not matter the fuel we have, or will have the enviros will fight the fight. Come up with an alternative fuel sometime in the next 20 or 30 years and the enviormental lawsuits will be outragous.
America is still sitting on a cure, short or long.
America can stop or slow down the money flowing to the Islamic jihad nations and Chavez.
America can provide jobs for Americans.
Why the excuses 'we cannot drill our sevles out of this problem', what science is applied here?
We won't see any oil for 7 to 10 years. So what, we have been hearing that for 30 years.
We need to develope alternative engergy. Use what we have today, and start researching for tomorrow and quit hoping about this miracle engergy that we don't have today is going to drop from the sky.
Tax the oil companies windfall profits. If the goverment taxes/or shares the profits, is the goverment willing to share in the losses? Why tax windfall profits on ONE industry, why not all industries? Like Microsofts huge windfall profits? What is toooo much profit? Since the Liberals want to tax windfall profits of private oil companies that make up between 11-19% of world oil production then why do these same Liberals wave the taxes of Nationalized oil coming into the U.S., i.e. Saudi, OPEC, Venezuala pay zero taxes?
Why will sueing OPEC by the Democrats to increase production by 1,000,000 barrols to bring down the price of gas work, but opening ANWR to produce the same 1,000,000 barrols will not effect the price of gas?
The Republicans want to open exploration and go with what works. The Democrats want to stand in the way and shout the sky in falling. Do not count on a plan from either part, or a person.
We are not the Jetson's and never will be, and there never will be any Dilithium Crystals.
Posted by: alaskan1000 at June 17, 2008 2:31 PM
The Opponents of drilling with the help of the MSM sell that 10 year time frame like it is written in stone. Just like the time period they claimed it would take to clear the World Trade Center after 9/11. Hopelessly wrong.
Posted by: flowerknife_us at June 17, 2008 3:47 PM
The idea that OPEC and Saudis finance environmental groups sounds nice - problem is, that it is advanced by people like Joe Barton, politicians that have received tens of thousands of dollars in donations from Exxon.
It is well known that Exxon is funding everything that prevents the reduction of the use of oil - and in the case of Exxon, especially the use of Arab oil.
Exxon loves Saudi Arabia:
"Rex Tillerson, chairman and chief executive of Exxon Mobil, has hit out at "isolationism" in energy policy arguing that attempts to pursue energy independence are futile and counter-productive.
According to the US Department of Energy Information, ExxonMobil is the second largest exporter of crude oil to the United States originating from the Persian Gulf. "
desmogblog.com/exmo-chief-energy-independence-is-isolationist
"Although Exxon is no longer funding a handful of its climate change denier front groups, the key people in these groups are part of the entire Exxon front group network. It doesn't matter that one of their think tanks is losing funding, because they have their fingers in other oily pies, and can get their message out no matter what."
desmogblog.com/is-exxon-backing-away-from-climate-change-deniers
"This company has now funded the climate change denial industry to the tune of US$22 million since 1998. Last year the UK's prestigious scientific body, the Royal Society, wrote to Exxon asking them to stop funding the groups who were "misinforming the public about the science of climate change". Exxon indicated to the Royal Society that they had - and they would. In February this year Exxon did a big public relations round of the media, saying it had been "misunderstood" on climate change and gave the clear indication that it had dropped its funding of the climate sceptic industry.
"Exxon softens its stance on climate change" screamed the headlines. But very little has changed, except Exxon's PR machine."
greenpeace.org/international/news/exxon-still-funding-climate-ch
Between 1998 and 2005, ExxonMobil funded a network of at least 43 advocacy organizations that disseminate misleading information about global warming.
ucsusa.org/publications/catalyst/exxon-exposed.html
at June 17, 2008 4:26 PM
The challenge again:
The price at the pump will drop 65% just if we declare that we will drill everywhere for oil and we will allow for nuclear plants.
Get the fey and idiot environuts and the Dems out of the way.
We can.
Posted by: dgene at June 17, 2008 5:20 PM
Says BO:
Let's keep sending money to these GREAT guys!
It has done so well for us thus far... OPEC always remembers our friendship!
Posted by: A Simple Sinner at June 17, 2008 10:08 PM
Drill for security, ultimately.
They could direct a percentage (5%?) of the new resources to fund their replacement sources of energy: geothermal to solar, hydrogen fuel cell to smart batteries, wind to biomass, tidal to tectonic, etc.
We have all the pieces awaiting exploitation.
Only the will and the wits have been missing.
Posted by: profitsbeard at June 17, 2008 11:31 PM
Comments are turned off and archived for this entry.
(Note: The Comments section is provided in the interests of free speech only. It is mostly unmoderated, but comments that are off-topic, offensive, slanderous, or otherwise annoying stand a chance of being deleted. The fact that any comment remains on the site IN NO WAY constitutes an endorsement by Jihad Watch or Dhimmi Watch, or by Robert Spencer or any other Jihad Watch or Dhimmi Watch writer, of any view expressed, fact alleged, or link provided in that comment.)