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Obama Rejects New Atlantic Ocean Oil Drilling (usatoday.com)
mdsolar writes: The Obama administration will abandon its plan to allow new offshore oil drilling on the U.S. southeast coast, dealing a blow to petroleum companies that had hopes of tapping new reserves. The Interior Department is set to announce today that it will not auction off certain drilling rights for Atlantic Ocean waters off the coast of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. The reversal comes after environmentalists, coastal residents, and the U.S. military vocalized opposition to the plan. It also comes amid declining industry investment in new exploration and production activities as oil prices fell by about 70% since late 2014 -- although the industry is still seeking long-term investment opportunities under the assumption that oil prices will recover.
"recover". Interesting phrasing. Unless you're trading it, it's a resource most of us would like to stay reasonably priced.
- From a state investigated multiple times for the highest national gas prices for no reason; especially on 9/11.
It is most likely that entrenched interests preferred those rigs not be built. Obama looks like a global warming hero and existing suppliers don't have to deal with yet more competition in a gutted market.
The oil companies want to buy the leases now while they're cheap.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
After all, it's another local source of fuel for their stuff.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
wait until another day.
Your welcome to elaborate on why you think we shouldn't care any more. I just assumed it was because most people where you live have switched to electric.
However I suppose you could have been talking about how gas is currently so cheap no one cares if they only get 5MPG
The only current non fossil contenders I am aware of are electric and hydrogen. I don't see hydrogen beating out electric and tesla happens to be the biggest name in EVs right now.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
You presume the public prefers paying more for oil so government can collect more money to spend, rather than have lower prices to pay directly from their pockets.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
He will 'fix' this.
Liberals don't care about the middle class. They constantly tell me how people in Alabama are so uneducated that they shouldn't be allowed to vote. They are constantly interrupting Trump rallies, specifically Bernie Sanders supporters. They favour censorship and believe they should be allowed to prevent you from expressing an opinion they don't like, see Citizen's United case. They oppose school vouchers because it might let the poor kids get a better education at "their" schools. On top of all that, if these middle class say anything there is an endless wave of liberals saying the only reason they oppose the oppression the left has put on them is because they don't like a black guy in the White House.
It has become quite disgusting really. The fact that the only candidate running for president that wants to enforce current illegal immigration laws, that are killing the jobs of those middle class, is being called a racist because of that tells you all you need to know about them.
Liberals take from you, such as Obamacare tax increases, and give you nothing back but name calling while acting like it is you who is the only one who is uncivilized.
I am sick of his self voted shit articles every 10 fucking mins. If its mdsolar it's shit.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
A post full of utter nonsense, especially re: Citizen's united, which nakedly subverts democracy by allowing a massive influx of unaccounted money into the already distorted political process. If you were actually for the middle class and poor, you should be vociferously against that awful SCOTUS-made law, which reduces the influence of the people in the political process. (Why is it that when pseudo-conservatives (note the Republican party of today or the Tea Party, aren't exactly your goldwater or even Reagan conservatives) don't like SCOTUS decisions, they rail against "unelected judges legislating from the bench", but for things they like, it's all good?).
That is bullshit. The court didn't make any law. It ruled that the campaign finance reform law that restricted corporate spending in campaign advertising was unjust in part because it only restricted spending X number of days prior to an election and only restricted certain groups, but not others. The idea that corporations were a person under the law isn't anything new either...that precedent goes back to the 1800s.
On a globally depressed economy, the price dropped like a rock to the point it's cheaper to leave U.S. domestic oil where it is. Let the sand people pump out their oil. When the price goes back up again, then it will be profitable to pump out our oil to bring the price back down. It's already gone up here in Missouri. Less than 2 months ago, we were paying $1.18 per gallon and now it is running $1.79 per gallon. Of course the oil refineries say it's because of the shutdown to change out the winter blend to the summer blend fuel LMAO. The shale oil industry took a hit when the price fell, but, the price will be back up to around 3 bucks a gallon by the end of this year, so they can gear up to pump the oil out of the Dakota's again if needed.
and tesla happens to be the biggest name in EVs right now.
Nissan actually sells more EVs though.
I don't read AC A human right
Has done a good thing here. It is time to keep oil prices low by shifting to more fuel efficient cars, electric cars, and eliminating home heating oil use. No need for more drilling, just keep it difficult for the Saudis to cut production.
Amendment 1
Congress shall make NO LAW ... abridging the freedom of speech
McCain-Feingold CFR (Law overturned in Citizens United)
Electioneering Communications (Issue Ads) Outlaw of issue ads on TV or radio
communication is distributed during a specific time period before an election - within 30 days prior to a primary election or 60 days prior to a general election
Prevents, me as an individual, from distributing any support for a candidate of my choice within 60 days of an election, 30 days of a primary. Nothing about corporations, nothing about money, nothing about anything you said. It outlaws me from putting on an ad about an issue that I myself paid for on TV or radio.
You support censorship of specifically political speech, just because you disagree with it. I put up the facts, you put up nothing. I'm calling you out for being an oppressor of the middle class people that you think shouldn't be allowed to have a say or probably even be allowed to vote. Liberals make me sick.
Gas prices are lower today than they were during the Bush Administration.
You stupid sonofabitch.
You are welcome on my lawn.
A bizarre comment to an article about drilling in the Atlantic. I'm trying to figure how this is W's fault.
God loves you. I don't, but God does.
Let's hang onto them until Saudi Arabia runs out of oil in a couple of centuries. Think what they'll be worth then.
You'd do better to worry about the price of health care. That's what's skyrocketing. When we get cancer from all that pollution it'll take every dime I have to make my co-payments.
The oil companies are sitting on more proven reserves than can ever be pumped and burned if we are going to avoid catastrophic climate change. Even the Saudi's recognize it and that is why they are pumping as much of their oil as possible now (even at low prices) because they know it will be worth even less in the future. They're even trying to sell all of their oil assets now to some sucker who believes "oil will make a big comeback".
Most oil companies have oil assets on their books which will be worthless in the future (Google "stranded assets").
Coal is already done and finished and bankrupt.
Oil is next... it will take a while to go away (just like IBM and Microsoft are coasting on past glories) but there is no future growth in oil.
So, Obama is doing them a favor by preventing them from throwing money at Arctic drilling and Atlantic coast drilling. They should thank him (and look for another business opportunity).
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
The oil companies want to buy the leases now while they're cheap.
Leases are auctioned off just like FCC spectrum auctions. Buy at auction and sit on them for years until needed.
Don't sweat it, the oil's not going anywhere. If we need it then we have it available. Let's suck Saudi Arabia dry first, it's cheaper.
Oh right, think-of-the-children, I forgot that :D
But the fact is that to the contrary, I do care about the next generations: I want them to enjoy a prosperous, stable society with a small government and a high quality of life. I don't want them to live wondering how it must have been once upon a time in the early 21st century when energy was cheap and widely available, which, and nothing else, allowed people to have their own detached homes, travel without restrictions and have a life expectancy approaching 80 years.
Admittedly, all analogies are flawed, but still - when the first railways were built in 19 century Britain, they attracted very vocal opposition due to their perceived negative effect on society, their alleged unsustainability (it was a "scientific fact" that coal would only last for 20 years or so) and, yes, their genuine environmental impact. No-one at the time could imagine that one century later, we would have electric HSTs which would suffer from none of these problems while being much faster, much cheaper, much safer and much more frequent. Yet the development of coal-powered steam locomotives allowed the advent of precisely that. Today, the green progressives' attitude is similar to the then-opponents, who lobbied to limit the number of trains and force them to run slower.
In other words, of course one day oil will become irrelevant - but not because of green social engineering, or because we will use something greener. It will be because we will use something superior. I for one wish the next generations will be able to take advantage of it and I am infinitely grateful to our ancestors that they did NOT think of the future generations when they learned to use fire.
During the 2012 debates.
Tried to mod as "Overrated" Accidentally chose "Funny"
But not from the USA since a shut down company with former employees scattered all over and the gear auctioned off or scrapped does not start up instantly with a wave of a magic wand. By the time somebody rebuilds from scratch a going concern elsewhere has already filled the niche.
As for electric cars, the entire point is to shift pollution. Lower costs for something else don't help if your local government tells you to get your SUV out of the place due to smog. China appears to be heading that way too for the same reasons so expect a lot of flimsy but dirt cheap electric vehicles in the next few years. Of course trains, busses, trams whatever in high pollution urban areas makes one hundred times more sense but governments want to shift costs onto vehicle owners instead of doing something that sensible.
Russia gave up in Syria?
Sorry, that's not how you do it.
In the US, the mantra is that the private sector MUST get all the profit, and losses must be distributed equally by everyone [assuming 'everyone' is the bottom 99%].
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
We are going to need oil for at least another 30 years. How can I say this? Simple. Boeing has been making planes on a 30 year schedule for a very long time. Any plane they produce today they intend to see flying for the next 30 years. These planes burn kerosene, and they will for 30 years. Therefore we need oil for the next 30 years.
Not enough for you? You think that isn't enough? That we'll just make new planes that don't need oil? What about trucks, tractors, bulldozers, ships... Let's stop here at shipping for a bit. As much as people might not like it but the world's shipping infrastructure runs on diesel fuel. No diesel fuel and shipping moves at the pace of horses and sails. That is unless we have the time to make a smooth transition to whatever comes next. Perhaps what comes next is synthetic diesel fuel, derived from algae or nuclear power. If we cut ourselves off from cheap oil then we could cut ourselves off from whatever could replace it.
To put up windmills takes coal fired aluminum smelting, diesel fueled trucks and construction equipment, and so on. If the price of oil goes up then the price of construction goes up, the price of shipping goes up, the price of materials goes up, therefore the price of windmills go up. Solar panel prices go up, ethanol prices go up, energy in whatever form gets more expensive.
Energy is energy. Expensive oil means expensive everything. Not drilling for oil does not make windmills or solar panels cheaper. As odd as it may sound we need cheap oil to move away from oil. We need to make oil so cheap that it becomes worthless. If we make energy cheap then it becomes unprofitable to drill for it. The path to cheap energy is infrastructure. Right now infrastructure is built with the energy from oil.
Besides, not drilling for oil in the USA means we buy it from somewhere else. Does anyone out there believe that any other nation will drill oil as responsibly, clean, and safe, as the USA would? If people want to prevent oil spills then we should be drilling for it under the supervision of the US EPA. Also, wars are fought over oil, what if oil from the USA were cheaper than from the dictators of the world? Would these despotic assholes be in power if they could not sell their oil? We need to make oil so cheap that they cannot profit from it. Impossible? Perhaps, but can we at least try?
Not drilling for oil in the USA is only making the world a less free, dirtier, and more dangerous place.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Gas prices are lower today than they were during the Bush Administration.
You stupid sonofabitch.
I'm pretty sure you've been bitch-slapped over this issue before, so here it goes again:
Chu: DOE working to wean U.S. off oil
“We agree there is great suffering when the price of gasoline increases in the United States, and so we are very concerned about this,” said Chu, speaking to the House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee. “As I have repeatedly said, in the Department of Energy, what we’re trying to do is diversify our energy supply for transportation so that we have cost-effective means.”
Chu specifically cited a reported breakthrough announced Monday by Envia Systems, which received funding from DOE’s ARPA-E, that could help slash the price of electric vehicle batteries.
He also touted natural gas as “great” and said DOE is researching how to reduce the cost of compressed natural gas tanks for vehicles.
High gasoline prices will make research into such alternatives more urgent, Chu said.
“But is the overall goal to get our price” of gasoline down, asked Nunnelee.
“No, the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil, to build and strengthen our economy,” Chu replied.
So when the price of gas was $4/gal and higher, Obama had ZERO interest in trying to lower gas prices.
Now you're here trying to give credit to Obama for lower gas prices? Calling you dumb as a post would be an insult to every acorn with dreams of being buried, sprouting, growing up, getting cut down, and then sawed into a post, you stupid dumbfuck.
Any unlike you, I back up my claims with cites from actual Obama Administration officials who implement his policies.
So STFU.
"In other words, of course one day oil will become irrelevant - but not because of green social engineering, or because we will use something greener. It will be because we will use something superior."
Just like the Stone Age didn't end out of a lack of stones.
Government actions that make oil use expensive will not bring a swifter end to the "oil age", quite the opposite really. Expensive energy makes it more difficult to find alternatives. Research into new technologies needs resources, and those resources become more difficult to obtain with expensive energy.
If people want to see an end to oil then we need an economy that is wealthy enough and free enough to invest in alternatives. Preventing oil drilling, carbon taxes, energy subsidies, does not help. What helps is cheap energy. Cheap energy does not come from a government fiat.
What does seem to help is competition. If wind and solar don't see oil as a competitor then they won't see the market pressures to lower prices. They'll become just as expensive as oil because that is how a free market works. If we want to see a future without oil then we need the resources to get there, and for the foreseeable future that means we need oil.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
People don't pick their President for his competence. It's all based on salesmanship.
I've said as much as soon as people started talking about electric cars in any meaningful way. Oil used for personal transportation may go away, but there are plenty of things we depend on too heavily in our current way of life to go anywhere.
Planes being one as you mentioned. Passenger planes use oil, no getting around it. Unless we want to go back to Zeppelins that take a week to get anywhere, there isn't much for alternatives.
Ocean Shipping. You like the global market, and getting widgets from China, well you need huge shipping vessels. These things run on oil. They have things like twin 30,000HP engines running them. You are not replacing them with anything... Millions of sailing ships perhaps, but then costs make it worthless.
The other thing is fertilizer, oil is used in it's production, and to a lesser extent tractors and other mechanized farming equipment that due to how we grow food today globally, isn't something we can just stop doing.
Oil won't get expensive, quite the opposite for a very long time. Demand will be going down, while reserves will still be very high. Sure companies won't be expanding, but only because they won't need to. Some of that economy of scale will make it more expensive to produce perhaps, and there could be some turmoil with failing companies and others being bought out (more consolidation if you can believe it probably)... Anyway all of this is very far out, as you say at least 30 years. Anyway I don't see oil ever going truly away unless A) some here to unknown magic technology suddenly makes it irrelevant, or B) we remarkably change the way in which we live, like back to the stone ages (well prior to the industrial revolution anyway) with much less population etc...
So you're one of those assholes who likes to do the "-1 Disagree" mods.
It's fascinating to watch you get modded down while, simultaneously on another thread, those very same people modding you down are freaking out (justifiably so) about Obama's DOJ seizing Apple's iOS source code.
Wow. You're a special one, aren't you? How does one get like you, exactly?
I don't respond to AC's.
A post full of utter nonsense, especially re: Citizen's united, which nakedly subverts democracy by allowing a massive influx of unaccounted money into the already distorted political process. If you were actually for the middle class and poor, you should be vociferously against that awful SCOTUS-made law, which reduces the influence of the people in the political process. (Why is it that when pseudo-conservatives (note the Republican party of today or the Tea Party, aren't exactly your goldwater or even Reagan conservatives) don't like SCOTUS decisions, they rail against "unelected judges legislating from the bench", but for things they like, it's all good?).
Unaccounted-for money?
The biggest donors to political campaigns GIVE TO DEMOCRATS
1 Service Employees International Union $224,273,550 $222,520,804 $1,294,169 99% 1%
2 ActBlue $194,439,211 $193,985,073 $59,727 100% 0%
3 American Fedn of St/Cnty/Munic Employees $94,708,977 $93,739,954 $671,755 99% 1%
4 National Education Assn $93,656,468 $89,590,047 $3,192,344 97% 3%
That's HALF A BILLION DOLLARS TO DEMOCRATS.
You ignorant, hypocritical JACKASS.
- We love sucking the Kochs of big oil ! We must be angry ! ...
- But the military was against this, and we love the military cock too, we must be happy !
- But the Kochs gave us lots of money ! We must be angry
- But the military has all those juicy defense contracts that keep all our other funders happy, so we must be happy !
Obama did this, don't matter what we know, don't matter what else was says - nothing else matters except that Obama did this - we get to be angry no matter what.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
If you let the guy you like make police state rules, you don't get to complain when the guy you hate uses them.
What I'm trying to understand is how the hell the GP got himself convinced that not selling drilling rights which he is under absolutely no obligation to sell, qualifies as "police state" behavior at all...
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
We cannot however burn the bodies of the climatologists. God may think we're using them for energy...
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
What's your point ?
Liberals want NO politicians bribed in ANY parties.
That democratic politicians are not on the same page as their voters is hardly an unusual event in politics, which also accounts for a lot of Sander's support - as he is the only candidate who actively campaigns AGAINST the influence of the rich on politics for EITHER party.
No. Trump doesn't count. Trump IS the rich. He is NOT defending the middle class from rich people buying government favours -he's cutting out the middle man and trying to just buy himself a government.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
The price of health care has been skyrocketing for a long time. The ACA is, among other things, causing more competition for health insurance plans, which has some possibility of restraining the increase.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Really? If we have two substitutable goods, X and Y, in a market, and the price of X goes up, more Y will be produced and sold. Very simple microeconomics. Therefore, if we have fossil fuel energy and non-fossil-fuel energy in the energy market, and the price of fossil fuel energy goes up, then more non-fossil-fuel energy will be produced and sold. The only way for this to fail is if the price increase in X paralyzes or destroys the economy, and if it's that potentially devastating we have excellent reason to reduce our dependence on X; or I suppose if there's a hard limit on Y, which is obviously false in this case. (Hydropower is pretty well tapped out, in that the places where we can reasonably get it are already in use, and using it elsewhere would be more expensive, but there's other non-fossil-fuel energy sources.)
Increasing the production of Y will generally reduce the unit price of Y, due to economies of scale and such things. Further, since non-fossil-fuel energy covers a whole lot of sources, there will be plenty of competition in it.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I saw a talk by a physicist/chemist that was working on new battery technologies. A very smart man, had a doctorate in his field, doing research on solid state physics. He explained that to do his research he needed to use equipment that took a lot of power, X-ray machines and such. This takes energy and money. The people that work in his lab needed to get paid or they will move on to other work. He said he'd do things like switch off the lights at the breaker box at the end of the day so that they'd kill off any "vampire loads" that would use up his electricity budget. It's going to take a lot of LED lighting to make up for the power used by that X-ray machine.
If energy prices go up then a lot of people like him will see their budget going to keep the lights on instead of hiring very smart graduate students and lab technicians. The margins on this are very thin like they are in any research endeavor. I have no doubt in my mind that his experience is not unique. If we don't keep energy cheap then this physicist can't do his research, we stay in an energy "stone age" and we end up burning oil longer than we should.
Another thing he pointed out in his talk is that tings just don't improve because time passes, it also takes effort and money. If you want to see something replace oil then we need to have the money to do so. Raising energy prices reduces the money that is available for such things. This is not just because it costs more money to pay the light bill but also because an economy hindered with high energy prices generally does not have the money to spare on research.
As you point out hydro power has peaked, we just can't build more dams to get more energy. The windmill and solar power industry is being propped up by subsidies from an economy that runs on oil. There are two ways out of this that I see, more research in alternative energy, or building more nuclear power. If we assume that nuclear power is bad and should be abandoned then we need money for research in alternatives.
I'm okay with building more nuclear power but many are not. Cutting ourselves off from oil before we have an alternative that is just as inexpensive and plentiful is asking for an economic disaster. It would also likely result in an environmental disaster. If you want to see the planet stripped of its trees then cut off oil and wait for one winter to pass.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
You haven't read up on how that's working out I take it? As Pelosi said, we had to pass it to find out what's in it. Now we're finding out. One company in particular has started working the system in many States to virtually take over. People, especially younger people, have started to figure out that they are better off to pay the penalty as it saves them many thousands of dollars. If they get something really bad they can always pick it up later. They need a lot more subsidies than they thought. A whole lot more. I don't think they're going to find the money for that anytime soon. Another couple of years and we'll pretty much have the whole story. I guess Hillary will get to fix it. Should be fun watching her work with a Republican congress.
We're not at a subsistence economy. We have money for plenty of luxuries, and we've demonstrated that modern economies are very resilient to slow changes. Raising the cost of fossil fuels, and returning that money to the economy in other ways, doesn't affect the economy much, and we'd still have lots of money to spend on things like research. If our economy was anywhere near as sensitive to energy costs as you seem to think, it would have been devastated at various times in the last few decades.
And, yes, things take effort and money. Effort costs money. This means that we need to spend money on alternative energy research, and there are two ways to do this: have the government allocate it, or encourage the market to come up with it. If fossil fuels remain cheap, nobody's going to spend much money to get us off them in search of a profit.
Do you really think the intent is to cut off oil now? The intent is to cut down on use, and to create an economic climate that favors alternative energy development.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Technology X is cheap because we aren't counting all the costs. Technology Y is maturing, but not yet mature, and is becoming cheaper and more efficient. I want to tax X partly in order to encourage the development of Y, and partly to allow the market to handle the unknown but probably frightening costs we're not billing Technology X for.
Do you really think Technology Y is one technology, and that there's no competition there? Do you really think that energy prices will be pinned forever above the currently billed costs of coal energy?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
It's a big change. Obviously, there's going to be ways to game it at first. Obviously, the ACA needs to change in various unpredictable ways, and that was clear well before it passed.
However, the Republican-controlled Congress much prefers to pass bill after bill to repeal the whole thing, knowing that they're accomplishing absolutely nothing, to working to improve the situation. I've never seen a Congressional group so proud of doing absolutely nothing but whining.
Congress isn't going to be controlled by Republicans forever, even with their superior gerrymandering technology. The current Republican party is unsustainable, and it can either return to its more moderate roots or get replaced with something.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I don't know, I think the obstructionism isn't going anywhere anytime soon. The big problem this year is that many conservative voters feel that their Republican representatives let them down by not doing enough to stop Obamacare. Thus you wind up with Trump. The good old boys that run the party hate him but he's got millions of people voting for him. I know people that registered to vote for the first time in decades just to support him. There's a lot of very pissed off people. Poor republican elites deserted by all their voters/serfs. You know you suck hard when people would rather have a rich, crazy, reality game-show star over you.
Another big problem is that the ACA, for all its flaws, has helped a good many people, who think it should be reformed rather than ended. There seems to be this crazy quest for ideological purity going on in the Republican Party, worse than the Democrats around 1970, and a belief that Republicans fail only when they're not extreme enough. The Democrats recovered, and became more reasonable before 1976 even with the problems Nixon caused the Republicans. I don't know about the Republicans. Their rigid ideological rage has lasted a lot longer than it did for the Democrats (who had this problem from maybe about 1966 to 1974).
That Trump appeals is not because the mainstream Republican candidates aren't right-wing enough, but that the mainstream Republican candidates have lost touch with their supporters in a big way. Trump positioned himself as the alternative, and is reaping the rewards. He had the money to butt in without Party support. If someone way off on the left of the Republican establishment, like maybe Reagan reincarnated, had been in that position instead, the Party would be in much better shape.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You might love the smell of napalm in the morning, but God, by all names, really loves the screams of the tormented in the morning.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"