I'm seriously starting to wonder how much more this planet can take.
Recently the Bush administration approved oil drilling in Alaska. Just bloody brilliant. I also wonder how long it will be until our precious petroleum runs out.
The environment
I'm seriously starting to wonder how much more this planet can take.
Recently the Bush administration approved oil drilling in Alaska. Just bloody brilliant. I also wonder how long it will be until our precious petroleum runs out.
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here this is the War room"
They say 50 years.
Actually, it's a great idea. Relieve dependence on foreign oil, increase exportation... Even create more jobs, if you want to look at it that way. Lower fuel prices. It's about time they started drilling in Alaska.
Did you know that when the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was established and set up (by Executive Order, mind you, NOT an act of Congress), there were plots specifically set aside for oil drilling? Sections of the Refuge were specifically mapped out to be drilled for oil in. Not only that, but studies have shown that oil rigs actually increase the wildlife in the area, if they affect it at all. I swear, it's ridiculous, it seems like some people think we're just gonna dig a trench and let the oil flow down the continent like a river.
Im against drilling for oil in Alaska, not because it's going to kill all the animals, but because I think we need to remove our dependancy on oil period. The age of cheap gas is over. Gas prices (or so I have heard) are not going to go down to the prices that they were a few years ago. In fact, the price of oil is going to increase. An alternative energy source which is environmentally friendly needs to be invented as soon as possible. This country doesn't just need to remove it's dependancy on foreign oil, it needs to remove its dependancy on all oil, period.
There are few political issues that concerns me more than the prospect of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (hereafter referred to as ANWR). The plan is shortsighted, and raises a host of ethical questions.
Drilling in ANWR will not lower fuel prices. It will take on the order of between ten and 15 years before any of the ANWR oil is available commercially. This timeframe is agreed upon by both proponents and opponents of the plan. In other words, drilling in ANWR will not have an impact on fuel prices for a decade or more. Even if this eventually happens, projected changes in prices are negligible.
Furthermore, we (the US) import more oil each year than is speculated to exist in ANWR. Spread out over the time periods estimated, ANWR oil is statistically insignificant. Drilling in ANWR, then, would do little to decrease foreign oil dependence.
The effect on the environment, would, to say the least, be devastating. First off, even figuring out precisely where to drill would have immense negative impact. 3-D seismic exploration, the technique used to do this, is more damaging than 2-D seismic exploration, which was previously used. Even 2-D exploration has caused enormous damage. The actual drilling will have a grave effect on native species, particularly caribou.
Ultimately, drilling in ANWR proves to be a proposition that, for minor benefits, gravely despoils the region and deals immense environmental damage. Regardless of your overall political identification, this is a plan with little to speak for it.
EDIT: While I was forming my ideas, nik0tine made the above post. He raises an important point. Oil is a limited resource, and there is only so much in the world. In the long run, an alternative energy source removes foreign dependency, and benefits the environment. This avenue is, logically, a path that we should pursue.
Last edited by Masamune·1600; 04-03-2005 at 05:44 PM.
So what if we run out of oil?
I mean, it isn't like we don't have alternative fuels. We're just not worrying about mass producing it yet since it isn't necessary.
Instead, we're getting oil, which is necessary.
For example, which house would you like to buy when you're 60 years old?
Oh? It isn't very important right now? I agree!
Jimmy Carter had it right during his Presidency as he was pushing for plans to find alternative sources of energy outside of oil, which had they been placed into effect and not scoffed at, could probably be helping us right now.
Take care all.
I agree. We need another Jimmy Carter in the White House.
Alaska is not the big thing to worry about, because it is just one of the consequences of a larger problem, as nikotine stated, and that is oil dependence. Through human history, we have been depending on renuwable substances, until now, where we have started absuing the use of fossil fuels, and well, the whole damn economy seems to depend on the lowering and rising of oil prices, because everything works under the use of this fuel. In class we were talking about how human culture has developed through times on the use of different types of natural resources, and about the whole paradoxes found in several ecological ethical theories, and anyway, the whole thing on the fossil fuel came up, obviously. One of my class comapanions said something like "Professor, I believe that even though the current situation is terrible, humans will end up being able to adapt to the dangers of this decadence, and that the market will obviously develop alternative energy sources as a way to keep itself away from his own destruction".
The teacher replied "It's not like I do not believe human intelligence exists, it's simply that I don't believe or trust the market".
Neither do I.
We really need a renewable fuel. Yes we have some but they aren't the world's best vehicles.
I have read several articles that several groups have been trying a better more efficent way to store hydrogen. And they are so close I can see it... but the end of the article said they would have to wait till they devoloped the money to go on. The U.S. doesn't seem to be providing much money to help research alternitive fuel sources.
If the government would push some money into the ones that are coming very close to a breakthrough, we may get something. I mean seriousally these guys actually managed to form a small example of what they were doing... all they needed to do was see if it would work large scale. But that would cost them more money then they have avaliable.
okie.. yep definately another pet peeve of mine. We get closer and closer all the time, but yet I never hear of the Government giving funds to alternitive sources(I have only been paying attention to political stuff like that in the past five or six years). I mean seriousally, if small groups with little money can get near breakthroughs, shoudln't we have a very good alternitive source by now, if the government would provide sufficent funds of course.
STILL Updating the anime list. . . I didn't think I was that much of an anime freak! I don't even want to consider updating the manga list!
We should be there has to be real world testing and other things. We are defintly moving to fuel cells...unless something better comes along in 5 years. Right now the Government, Shell and GM are going to conduct a test that ends in 2009. Shell will set up Fuel Cell "Gas" Stations along the stretch from DC to NY. GM will provide the cars.Originally Posted by ShunNakamura
Then after the test concludes you have to problem of forcing people to transition is say a 5-10 year period of time. You have people that want the nice 70,000 viper. You have to worry about slowly transitioning to Fuel Cell stations instead of Gas Stations. At what point to you stop selling gas and tell people "Buy a new 40,000 piece of equipment". $40,000 isn't cheap and is hard to come by. It is quite hard to actually transition. Lots of planning needs to go into it. I am sure there really is no plan and that when the time comes it will be fly blind.
This coming from the man who thought of "Party Central"...
One thing that is worrisome is the greenhouse effect. I read an article posted on slashdot a while ago that said scientists have discovered the threshold for what the planet can take. Once we reach that threshold, there's no going back from the melting of the icecaps, the death of most life, etc. They don't know how long it'll take to reach that threshold point, or even if we're ever going to reach it. It's still really up to debate whether it's just a natural cycle.
Anyway, I agree wholeheartedly that we should have been looking into alternative fuels much more closely than we have been for the past couple of decades. However, the US government is too full of capitalists and Big-Business proponents to do that; most of the politicians(Democrats and Republicans alike, though mostly, and more stereotypically, Republicans) are in the pockets of those big oil companies, who definitely don't want too much money going to alternative fuel research, despite what they may say publicly.
That pissed me off mainly because i've donated to a lot of those national and state parks in alaska.I love how alaska looks mainly because its one of the last areas of this planet that has literally been remained untouched by mankind.I can believe that Bush did it mainly because he is a oilman.Conservatives really aren't conservative.Conservationist aren';t really mad mainly because this oil might help ease the economy.But that oil in alaska is gonna be dried up within 7 years. I hate the leaders of this world now.They can't see the end.HEck smurf i would start changing crap once i saw that movie The Day After Tomorrow.America really needs to raise there gas prices ro $5.00 a gallion.Then those dumbass soccer moms aklfhshflkzdhfjfklsddafdsfds I'm pissed.....
BTW if people do staZRt buying it the prices will most likely go down.Its time for a abrupt change not a casual slow change.
Do you have any evidence at all to support the above comments?
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