Drilling In The Anwr

[dairygirl4u2c]

I'm pretty strong in my opposition to drilling in the arctic national wildlife refuge soon. Most things I do not have strong opinions on I just realized, yet this I do. Not that I'm enviromentalist.. I'm for development sometimes etc and think global warming is probably hype for the most part. But this issue ANWR, I see no reason for doing anytime soon drilling. I used to be undecided, somewhat for it. Now I'm completely opposed. I figure my strong stance if it's like most strong stances I have might get at least knocked down to a more moderate stance after discussion.

ideas?

[Guest T-Bone]

My main qualm with drilling an ANWR is that we should be saving our oil for a "rainy day." Buy from our neighbors, then use what we have. It only makes fiscal sense.

[dairygirl4u2c]

thats my main argument too.

[hoosieranna]

Why can't we try to forgo oil altogether and invest funds in renewable energy sources? That way we don't have to worry about oil prices or security. OPEC doesn't control the cost of solar or hydroelectricity. Also, last I knew, no one was planning on bombing the sun. Yet.

[RezaMikhaeil]

[quote]Also, last I knew, no one was planning on bombing the sun.[/quote]

[Anomaly]

[quote name='Nadezhda' post='1220310' date='Mar 27 2007, 03:00 AM']Why can't we try to forgo oil altogether and invest funds in renewable energy sources? That way we don't have to worry about oil prices or security. OPEC doesn't control the cost of solar or hydroelectricity. Also, last I knew, no one was planning on bombing the sun. Yet. [/quote]Great in theory, but how to put it in practice?
Oil is cheap, available, portable, and useful in many different applications. All other sources are inefficient since the energy has to be converted to electricity, then stored in some sort of batteries, and then it's useable.

What about the chemicals used in batteries that are later disposed of in land-fills, causing a much greater environmental danger than carbons?

Greeen house gasses caused by fossile fuels create less than 5% of the total green house gasses caused by natural sources such as volcanoes, animals, insects, etc.

I like the idea of leveaing Anwr alone until later because it will be worth more later. Besides, buying oil from other countries helps their economies and helps raise the standard of living across the world. What's crazy is the US not drilling in the Gulf of Mexico because of environmental concerns, but since it's international waters, other countries without environmental rules that can even compare with the US are drilling there now and have been for many years.

[hoosieranna]

[quote name='Anomaly' post='1220426' date='Mar 27 2007, 09:11 AM']Great in theory, but how to put it in practice?
Oil is cheap, available, portable, and useful in many different applications. All other sources are inefficient since the energy has to be converted to electricity, then stored in some sort of batteries, and then it's useable.

What about the chemicals used in batteries that are later disposed of in land-fills, causing a much greater environmental danger than carbons?[/quote]

All sadly true. Honestly, I don't know.

[Lounge Daddy]

drill it.
drill it all.

[dairygirl4u2c]

What gonna happen is the use of energy will sky rocket eventually, and the poorer will not be able to afford it. Nothing will change until the richer start hurting. The poorer buy things though and help with the economy, at least to a degree, so not helping them will hurt the economy. I'm not sure if a lot so I'm not sure of the validity of that argumetn.
But, I do think the economy will eventually lag however because of a rough transition in energy if we don't transition sooner, if we don't make the transition before people start hurting too much. The fact people will suffer even regardless of the economy is something that we shouldn't brush off either. The irony, I think, will be when we finally change our infrastrauture and energy needs and could have made the transition better but didn't because of peple who think we should follow laisse fair economics all the time, more out of ideology than reason. What i'm referring to is that the government may need to step in to help the transition, and they would be opposed to that.

Though they may not be opposed to tax credits for alternative energy infrastructure building, which I think most can agree on.

Edited March 27, 2007 by dairygirl4u2c

[dUSt]

I say do not drill. Also, do not buy from our neighbors. My brother has enough gas to fuel the nation for the next century.

[Sojourner]

[quote name='Lounge Daddy' post='1220481' date='Mar 27 2007, 12:01 PM']drill it.
drill it all.[/quote]
and shoot the spotted owls while you're at it?


:

[Lounge Daddy]

you know it.

[Lounge Daddy]

you know it.

[Socrates]

[quote name='Nadezhda' post='1220310' date='Mar 27 2007, 01:00 AM']Why can't we try to forgo oil altogether and invest funds in renewable energy sources? That way we don't have to worry about oil prices or security. OPEC doesn't control the cost of solar or hydroelectricity. Also, last I knew, no one was planning on bombing the sun. Yet. [/quote]
Unfortunately, most "alternative energy" "solutions" would not be effective on a large scale, and in fact would create more problems (environmental and otherwise) than they would solve. Solar energy is very inefficient - to power our major cities, it would require covering a mass of land the size of the entire state of Nevada with movable solar panels, and would also require backup energy (presumably from fossil fuels) to keep the therminol liquid bubbling after dark.
Wind power, likewise, would require covering massive areas of land with gigantic windmills (400 miles of windmills to equal one power plant), which have proved deadly to birds and bats (a fact which has caused internal division among environmentalists).
Hydroelectric power would require damming much of what is left of our free-flowing rivers, which would likewise raise environmental issues.
"Bio-fuels" are also land-intensive, and would require using many acres of land to grow the crops to be converted into fuel, which would require either taking from farmland used for crops for human consumption, or would require destroying forest and wilderness land.

Personally, I'm a huge advocate of nuclear power, which with modern technology can be effective, and is in fact much safer than commonly believed. If the global-warming crowd were really serious about cutting "green-house" gasses, they'd all be lobbying for nuclear power plants, but alas nuclear energy is still politically-incorrect. (The founder of Greenpeace was kicked out of his own organization for advocating nuclear energy).

In the meantime, I'm all for drilling in Alaska. It would help decrease dependency on foreign oil, and if correctly managed, would not be the environmental disaster the scare-mongerers are making it to be.

[hoosieranna]

Nuclear is definitely something to consider. Hmm. I do realize the huge costs of altering energy sources. I guess I just wanted it to get said. If someone had to look like a goober for advocating them, it might as well be might be me.