Obama, Big Oil, Gas Prices, and Energy Independence

[Samson]

I'm wondering. Who out there believes the USA is capable of becoming energy independent. Do we have that capability?

In forming your answer please consider all the energy needs that exist from household lighting, heating, cooling to all forms of transportion to all our industrial and recreational needs.

Target 2050 to have 100% nuclear fueled electricity generation.

The risks aside, building a nuclear power plant is one of the most energy-intensive and expensive projects on the face of the earth. Refining and transporting Uranium is also extremely dangerous, expensive, and Uranium itself is also finite. There's also no long term exit strategy for storage of nuclear waste.

Current fission technology is not the way. Wind and hydro are far more palatable options. Ultimately, imo, we have to look at fusion.

Ultimatlely we could look at fairy farts and eat rainbow stew.

I'm talking about solutions in the near future that already exist: Not to have built a nuclear generator during the past 35 years is simply stupid. Is it the perfect solution? No, I'll not argue that ANYTHING is perfect.

Perhaps you'd be happy living in a mud hut, but most Americans live atop one another in urban environments with little room for solar arrays and windmills (niether of which are inexpensive or easy to build on any useful scale).

 

[Samson]

Barack Obama says U.S. oil production last year was highest since 2003. He is directing his administration to ramp up U.S. oil production by extending existing leases in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska's coast and holding more frequent lease sales in a federal petroleum reserve in Alaska. But the moves won't calm spiraling prices at the pump any time soon.

Even if production increase, it will take a minimum of 18 mos to 2 years for increased production to have any effect on gas prices. Since oil is sold and pricef internationally, increased production may be bought up by China and other oil hunger nations.

Read more: Obama to speed oil production - Times Union

PolitiFact | Sorting out the truth in politics

What always astonishes me is the incredible depth and breadth of public ignorance regarding energy: Its very much as if most Americans still live in some sort of fantacy world where gasoline magically appears, presumably from evil elves that have cast some diabolical spell over them.

Lemme 'splain something: Oil is not Gasoline.

Shocked? I imagine so. There's no Santa Clause either.

To make gasoline, oil is a nice raw material, but you also need a refinery.

Without refineries, you can have more oil, but it won't ever be gasoline.

America has not built a new refinery in 35 years.

 

[Mr. H.]

I talked with the semi driver who was loading the underground tanks at a local quickie-mart.

I walked up to him and said "I used to think gasoline came from crude oil, but now I know it comes from big shiny trucks!"

 

[Foxfyre]

Barack Obama says U.S. oil production last year was highest since 2003. He is directing his administration to ramp up U.S. oil production by extending existing leases in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska's coast and holding more frequent lease sales in a federal petroleum reserve in Alaska. But the moves won't calm spiraling prices at the pump any time soon.

Even if production increase, it will take a minimum of 18 mos to 2 years for increased production to have any effect on gas prices. Since oil is sold and pricef internationally, increased production may be bought up by China and other oil hunger nations.

Read more: Obama to speed oil production - Times Union

PolitiFact | Sorting out the truth in politics

What always astonishes me is the incredible depth and breadth of public ignorance regarding energy: Its very much as if most Americans still live in some sort of fantacy world where gasoline magically appears, presumably from evil elves that have cast some diabolical spell over them.

Lemme 'splain something: Oil is not Gasoline.

Shocked? I imagine so. There's no Santa Clause either.

To make gasoline, oil is a nice raw material, but you also need a refinery.

Without refineries, you can have more oil, but it won't ever be gasoline.

America has not built a new refinery in 35 years.

And that's why the 'unnecessary regulation' situation was included in the poll options. Refinery construction is hugely expensive and made much more so by interminable and sometimes silly environmental restrictions that are so onerous that the oil industry doesn't even try to comply any more and simply doesn't build new refineries. And the refineries we have are running close to 100% maximum making additional oil less effective in bringng down fuel prices. And when we have major flooding as is occurring now or hurricanes on the gulf, etc., numerous refineries can be shut down further limiting production capacities.

What we could do though:

We once had four kinds of motor vehicle fuel: Regular, mid grade, premium, and diesel. And every state used the same formulation of fuel. Now there are more than 30 different formulations of fuel required at the federal and state level. And every time a refinery has to reformulate their production, they have to close down that portion of the refinery for up to two weeks or more. They do critical maintenance during that time too, but there would be far more production if everybody would agree on one formulation of gasoline and diesel products.

The Bush energy policy included removal of as much sulphur as possible from diesel fuel. Because there are so few refineries with capability of removing sulphur from diesel and because it is such an expensive process, diesel fuel now costs substantially more than gasoline. Was the sulphur really that much of an environmental problem? I honestly don't know, but I think it should be looked at.

And let's remove all environmental restrictions that don't absolutely need to be there and give whatever tax breaks are necessary to encourage refinery construction. That would do more to bring down fuel costs than just about anything else.