She also promised a cure for cancer...

The president could probably deliver $2 gas. I would bet that if the president appointed Fed board members that tightened the money supply and the president vetoed every unbalanced budget congress produced the USD index would probably soar and the gas prices would probably tank. However, the side effects might not be as well received in the short run. I'm not sure Bachmann put that much thought into the promise but she did claim to read von Mises on the beach so who knows.
 
a deflection from the real issue!

The U.S.A. imports somewhere around 65% of our oil. It’s estimated that we have up to 2 trillion barrels of oil-equivalent in shale rock deposits... and that amounts to between 4 to 5 times the stated oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. And yet for some reason, the Obama administration has roadblocked or outright canceled the development of oil shale leases.

The Chinese import approximately half of their oil. It's estimated that the Canadians have up to 2.2T barrels of oil-equivalent in their oil sand deposits. The Chinese have invested billions in Canada to gain access to Canadian oil.

Why, for God's sake, are the Chinese more aggressive in developing oil resources in North America than the Obama administration? Does that make sense to anyone here in the U.S.?

If energy independence is a national security issue, one might think that the Chinese strategic investment in Canadian oil sands would sound alarm bells, but we're not dealing with a competent federal government here now, are we. Instead, our president is busy pushing for reductions in tax breaks for oil and gas producers, while he increases the subsidies and grants to those solar and wind companies he favors by tens of billions of dollars... some 900% of an increase over the past 3 years.

This administration seems to believe that the smart thing is to block the proposed Keystone Pipeline.

I wonder... how many windmills need to be built to produce the energy delivered by 2T barrels of oil?
 
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All of that being more or less true....

Obama is still the man that was voted into office by the Democratic party and a bunch of independents. Why would he, just because the GOP wants him to do something, do it? What are the arguments against the shale and sand oils? Are there no issues at all? Is it just willful obstructionism on his part or are there legitimate reservations about the exploitation of these resources? The whole issue is very clearcut when your doxa is just 'drill-baby-drill', but for his constituents that may not cut it. A measured appraisal of the situation could lead everyone to believe that all things considered those resources can and should be exploited (very likely this is where the whole thing is leading). But it is simply not as simple from a political standpoint. I'm about on the middle ground of this issue-would like to see a very pronounced effort to identify the impacts all around of extraction and the likely improvements in technique and balance that against national security and economic security considerations. The only thing wrong with this attitude is that it is not precipitous enough for the fringes of our politics on either end.
 
I believe that there's a sizable number of people - still, to be sure, in the minority - who if they had their druthers would not allow us to drive cars or live in the "suburbs". I think Barack Obama and the people he appoints to un-vetted slots in the government are included in this number and if they were able to remain true to their principles, they would hamstring and wrestle free-market capitalism (at least as we know it) to the canvass in preparation for a return to the pre-industrial age.

America needs pragmatism, not job-destroying policies and actions like the EPA's proposal to reduce the acceptable level of ozone in any given region from 75 parts per billion to between 60 and 70 parts per billion, which approaches background levels.

If implemented, "the regulations would force local governments that fail to attain this goal to develop their own plans to reduce their ozone levels."

I wonder if anyone can point to another country that continues to act against its own self-interest in the area of domestic energy production like the USA does?
​
 
Well, I think your statement is.....

is both overcooked a bit and simply ignores that there is more to this than a few or even several functionaries in the regulatory bodies. It is kind of old thinking that 'liberals' or whatever the term of art now is for the old eco warriors are simple minded enough to be taking a 'get-us-out-of-our-cars' line. I don't know by what means you are forming this view but it is not the one expressed in any of the normal sources I consult regularly. That is not to say that some would like to get rid of the car and some would just as soon throw a sabot in the machine of capitalism as look at it, but that is a very, very minority taste these days and isn't given much air time amongst the very liberal folks I know. They have made their peace with both the car and the free market, thank you very much, but don't believe either needs total licence to do as it pleases in order to work. That is a position that is not really open to discussion across political lines because it is the political line.
 
Again, I wonder if anyone can point to another country that continues to act against its own self-interest in the area of domestic energy production like the USA does?
 
Sorry Colonel

But we shut the mines to kill the unions and now import coal from Poland while we could be self sufficient. Lunacy doesn't confine itself to shorelines and borders mate.:wall::confuse2:
 
That may be part of our strategy

DougESmith said:
using up everyone elses oil before using ours? So that eventually only we have any left.
Click to expand...

But that shouldn't preclude us from doing what we can to gain access to Canada's oil or stand idly by while others drill off Florida or sign long-term contracts with producers like both China and India do.

As I understand it, we are also making it increasingly difficult - if not impossible - to operate coal-fired power plants within our own borders, as well.
 
Shale has a lot of questions

usta in Portland said:
What are the arguments against the shale and sand oils? Are there no issues at all? Is it just willful obstructionism on his part or are there legitimate reservations about the exploitation of these resources?
Click to expand...

Why can I not stay out of these posts?

Converting shale to oil/gasoline is expensive and requires a lot of power
(electricity). Canada started to convert oil sand to oil when oil got close to $100 a barrel. Shale is more expensive to convert than oil sands. The shale is located in what is normally called the bad lands out west. Not a lot of people or resources in the area. If we converted shale to oil how would we get gasoline? Most refineries are located near port cites and no new refinery has opened in the US in 30 or 40 years.

There are lots of real problems, but there are solutions.

Nuclear power would solve the need for electric power. This would even meet the need of not in my back yard for most people. The not in my back yard attitude might even let a new refinery be built in the bad lands.

If someone wanted to built a power plant and refinery near mining jobs , would people move to the bad lands to work all these jobs? None of this works without people. I do not think unemployed Americans in big cities would move to the middle of no where until there are schools, housing, churches, etc. built.

I know who will move to these jobs before everything is setup to make Americans happy, but this will not solve the unemployment problem.

Now I will stop posting and sit quietly while everyone else posts.
 
Now that you mention it

9151 said:
But we shut the mines to kill the unions and now import coal from Poland while we could be self sufficient. Lunacy doesn't confine itself to shorelines and borders mate.:wall::confuse2:
Click to expand...

I think I remember you mentioning this, Dave. Spread the lunacy!
 
If someone wanted to built a power plant and refinery near mining jobs , would people move to the bad lands to work all these jobs?

I think this is what is happening in the Dakotas, where they are allowing some resource development/production.
 
9151 said:
But we shut the mines to kill the unions and now import coal from Poland while we could be self sufficient. Lunacy doesn't confine itself to shorelines and borders mate.:wall::confuse2:
Click to expand...

That is a bad example. British coal was too expensive and had to be subsidized by the government. The mines would have closed years earlier if it had not been for the government aiding malinvestment. The coal mines in the area of the US that I live in where all closed by the early seventies for the same reason. Had the government propped them up they probably would have lasted into the eighties or later but when the government finally threw in the towel it would have been economically catastrophic. The natural free market death was much more easily managed.

I suspect that if the the government started issuing mining leases for shale oil not much would happen anyway because it's too expensive. There is still plenty of cheaper oil to satisfy demand at least for a little while. The British coal mines will reopen some day when the market can support them.
 
They are fracking oil and gas in the Dakotas...

as we speak here and having real success at it. The technology is evolving to decrease the volume of water and to go to higher pressures at lower volumes. There is venture capital going into MRI tech to make the determination of potential field productitvity less of a crap shoot. The oil drillers in Texas and Louisiana are shifting to oil drilling from gas because the price finally made sense(had nothing to do with the anything but price-thank you von Mises) There is plenty of reportage on fracking which has put the whole thing on the table for discussion. The liberal press reports on both the potential and problems-water being the big one, but I have yetr to read a mainstream article on the left that evinces the hair on fire opposition you are describing.
You are just characterizing the thing in black and white and that is not the actual case. Those sources will get exploited , the price of oil just has to get high enough and stay there so that the economics work and there is indisputable evidence that the expense and the environmental impact is worth it. Why sound like it is all a done deal when it is not?
 
"If somebody wants to build a coal fired plant, they can. It's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted."

- Barack Obama in 2008

I'll be darned if he isn't using the EPA to help implement this strategy.

Who puts roadblocks up to the construction of new refining facilities? Who declared millions of acres of oil shale/tar sands-rich lands (e.g., in Utah, Colorado) off-limits? http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2009/02/obama-declares-war-on-fossil-fuels.html

President Obama wants to tax companies for not producing on their leases, even if the federal government’s refusal to grant permits is the reason why those companies are not drilling.

How many times have you read in the MSM that exploiting our untapped resources/reserves won't have any practical impact on prices, so why bother opening ANWR or anywhere else? In my estimation, too many to count.

Off shore oil production has been way down since 2005, and that production took a big drop as soon as Obama took office (even before BP).

President Obama grossly undersold (or lied about) America’s oil supply saying that we only have 2% of the worlds supply. The number is America’s proven reserves where we are already drilling. It does not include the 10 billion barrels available in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It does not include most of the 86 billion barrels available offshore in the Outer Continental Shelf, most of which President Obama has placed under an executive drilling ban. And it does not include the 800 billion barrels of oil we have locked in shale in Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado. Those shale resources alone are actually three times larger than the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia, so the claim that the U.S. only has 2% of the world’s oil is clearly false.
 
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So?

He was elected by a constituency that approves that strategy. GWB was elected by a constituency that approved of quasi illegal war. What's your point? That these guys do what they say they are going to do? That they have a point of view at odds with yours? No big surprise there that I can see. Just because you disagree does not automatically make his actions entirley wrong or at least not as self evidently wrong as you imply. This is what politics is-one side gets more of what they want than the other until the tables turn.
 
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