China drills for oil off shore of Cuba (Full Version)

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mikeman2 -> China drills for oil off shore of Cuba (6/8/2008 9:42:57 PM)

Here is a web site that explains how other countries such as China and India are drilling off the shore of Cuba.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/09/news/economy/oil_cuba/index.htm

US legislatures, on the other hand, have prevented the US from exploratoin in the region all in the name of "environmental" concerns. As a result, they are fuming over the fact that these nations are trying to meet their energy needs right in their back yard!! However, to rub salt in their wounds, Cuba has offered the US oil companies the oppurtunity to explore in the region. Of course, this is in light of the ongoing boycott of US economic relations with Cuba that has been in place since the days of JFK which prohibits them from doing so.

Are the US laws restricting oil exploration that have been in place since the 1980's and laws restricing Cuban relations that have been in place since the 1960's antiquated and need revisited? Should we not change with the times and make adjustements based upon the economic and politcal climate of our times? Are lawmakers not only failing to anticipate the energy crisis we are experiencing now but also failing to act when it has arrived?

So what is to be done? Specifically, all you left wingers out there, now that you control Congress and possibly the White House soon, what should be done? It seems to me that jumping up and down saying that "oil is bad" is not the answer. It is like telling someone who only has corn to eat to survive, not to eat it because it is "bad". So if corn is bad, that is a liberating revelation unless they are not given viable alternatives. It is like telling them, "Ok, go ahead and eat corn, only, don't eat too much of it." It is in line with the far left notion that we should not drive SUV's. If we just do away with SUV's then all will be right with the world. Are these guys crazy?

That brings me to the upcoming election. McCain has proposed that the US go nuclear with its energy needs. What has Obama proposed? It seems to me that Obama will continue to enviornmental bans on exploration and continued reliance on foriegn oil unless he offers a viable alternative as McCain has proposed. Of course, the far left does not like the idea of nuclear power in light of potential problems like Three Mile Island. Of course, nobody mentions the fact that France now has gone nuclear and exporting their energy to surrounding countries and doing so SAFELY!!! To make matters worse, if Obama pulls out of Iraq prematurally, which I think probably would happen, the whole oil rich region will more than likely fall under the influence of neighboring Iran. So if you think oil is outrageous now, just you wait!!!



colliefan -> RE: China drills for oil off shore of Cuba (6/8/2008 10:36:14 PM)

We are suffering from the same oil embargo that OPEC impossed in the mid-70s. But this time it has been impossed by greenies who hate capitalism and worship at the altar of junk science.



mikeman2 -> RE: China drills for oil off shore of Cuba (6/8/2008 10:45:07 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: colliefan

We are suffering from the same oil embargo that OPEC impossed in the mid-70s. But this time it has been impossed by greenies who hate capitalism and worship at the altar of junk science.

I do not want this to turn into a debate over the question of whether or not fossil fuels are contributing to global warming. In fact, I think a good enough arugement could be made to rid ourselves of our addiction on oil by saying that we need to cut the money supply of our adversaries around the world. Just look at all the oil producing countries in the world and they are all hostile towards the US. We then wonder where all these terrorist organizations get their funds to fight us.

It just makes me wonder why people like Al Gore would spend all of his money and resoures to "prove" that oil was causing global warming when what is needed are alternatives. What are some alternatives he is providing us with? I guess I can only conclude that such movies are merely propaganda vehicles to attack the Bush adminstration and company rather than trying to provide solutions to this delimma. If he really cared, why not do something more than to spend all your time crying "Wolf!!"?



mapachito13 -> RE: China drills for oil off shore of Cuba (6/9/2008 5:30:48 AM)

The failed energy "non-policies" of both the Republicans and Democrats will force us to be the energy slave of other countries! [:@]



blessedinnyc -> RE: China drills for oil off shore of Cuba (6/9/2008 10:28:28 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: colliefan

We are suffering from the same oil embargo that OPEC impossed in the mid-70s. But this time it has been impossed by greenies who hate capitalism and worship at the altar of junk science.

1.) The US holds 1% of the world's oil reserves, so US-based environmentalists don't have a huge impact on production.
2.) Other countries hold 99% of the world's oil reserves. Most of them haven't increased production, as they have done historically.
3.) Long-term, there is a finite supply of oil. At some point, we will need to transition from oil to a combination of nuclear and wind. Why not start doing that now while oil's expensive and alternative energy can help us out?
4.) Free-market champion and oil baron T. Boone Pickens is building a 2000 MW wind turbine facility in Texas. Various investment banks are also putting money into these projects. In other words, the market thinks wind is the solution. This has largely happened without help from government subsidies that were greater than those for the natural gas and oil industries.

I think that all of your arguments are nullified by the fact that the market disagrees with you. It thinks that oil alternatives are now cheaper than oil itself. In capitalism, the cheapest source of energy wins, and oil is no longer the cheapest source of energy.



colliefan -> RE: China drills for oil off shore of Cuba (6/9/2008 11:02:13 AM)

quote:

1.) The US holds 1% of the world's oil reserves, so US-based environmentalists don't have a huge impact on production


We

HAVE

the oil to last until a market-driven, cost-efficent, solutiion is found.



blessedinnyc -> RE: China drills for oil off shore of Cuba (6/9/2008 11:18:07 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: colliefan

quote:

1.) The US holds 1% of the world's oil reserves, so US-based environmentalists don't have a huge impact on production


We

Have

the oil to last until a market-driven, cost-efficent, solutiion is found.

Well, at what price?

Assuming we have free markets, we can run on the SPR for twenty years if we're willing to pay $50/gallon.

But in reality, we are beginning to hit something called peak oil production, Abiotic oil claims aside. It was predicted by M. King Hubbert back in the '50s, and I will go further to suggest that in 30 years, we will likely be producing less oil out of the ground than we do today.

That said, people have claimed that Peak Oil has Malthusian implications since the mid-'70s, and they're totally wrong. We will simply transition to a new fuel source, but we can make that transition easier if people are willing to at least stay relatively rational about alternative energy. Wind is no different than oil- the only difference is that it's a permanent source of energy and farmers in Wisconsin and Ohio can make money from energy, finally- something that couldn't happen with oil.

Wind tubines:

-Aren't all necessarily built and controlled by Al Gore.
-Can make money.
-Are being funded by banks.
-Can get built in less than a year.
-Generate energy at a cost that is competitive with coal and beats the heck out of natural gas at current market prices.



colliefan -> RE: China drills for oil off shore of Cuba (6/9/2008 11:28:44 AM)

quote:

Wind tubines:


turn birds into puree
"spoil the natural view"
make lots of noise


If we are to move to electric cars, how long will it take to do so? What is the economic impact to the consumer. How will your beloved poor person be able to swiitch from his gass guzzling clunker to an electric car? Will your beloved Nanny State purchase it for him?



blessedinnyc -> RE: China drills for oil off shore of Cuba (6/9/2008 11:40:40 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: colliefan

turn birds into puree
"spoil the natural view"
make lots of noise

These are problems that can be mitigated, and besides that, why should a conservative care about environmental stuff? [:D]


quote:

If we are to move to electric cars, how long will it take to do so? What is the economic impact to the consumer. How will your beloved poor person be able to swiitch from his gass guzzling clunker to an electric car? Will your beloved Nanny State purchase it for him?

Actually, I believe that Chevy plans to release the volt in 2010, which can run on electricity, and Honda is already manufacturing hydrogen cars that can be refueled using units at home that plug into a wall outlet.



freakofnature -> RE: China drills for oil off shore of Cuba (6/9/2008 1:38:30 PM)

quote:

blessedinnyc
Senior Member


Posts: 1218
Joined: 10/12/2007
Status: offline quote:

ORIGINAL: colliefan

turn birds into puree
"spoil the natural view"
make lots of noise
These are problems that can be mitigated, and besides that, why should a conservative care about environmental stuff?


quote:

If we are to move to electric cars, how long will it take to do so? What is the economic impact to the consumer. How will your beloved poor person be able to swiitch from his gass guzzling clunker to an electric car? Will your beloved Nanny State purchase it for him?

Actually, I believe that Chevy plans to release the volt in 2010, which can run on electricity, and Honda is already manufacturing hydrogen cars that can be refueled using units at home that plug into a wall outlet.

< Message edited by blessedinnyc -- 6/9/2008 11:55:21 AM >


Okay blessed! Now ya done did it! What do conservatives care about the environment.??? That is completely off base and a fictional charactarization of all conservatives... [:D][:@][&:][:D]

Actually, the whole wind powered thing. I will keep my gas guzzling SUV, I'll just put big sails on it! [:D][:D]



mapachito13 -> RE: China drills for oil off shore of Cuba (6/9/2008 3:41:51 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: blessedinnyc

Actually, I believe that Chevy plans to release the volt in 2010, which can run on electricity, and Honda is already manufacturing hydrogen cars that can be refueled using units at home that plug into a wall outlet.


And what do we use to generate all that electricity. We don't have the capacity to generate enough electricity to power AC during the summer without taxing the grid. There's not enough generating capacity coming on line in the coming years to power all those cars. Also, since a lot of generating stations use natural gas, we will be importing more LNG from abroad.

First, they need to tackle the generation problem before we start plugging more things into the system.

BTW, How much will people's electric bill go up once they start plugging in their cars?



colliefan -> RE: China drills for oil off shore of Cuba (6/9/2008 3:49:02 PM)

quote:

Actually, I believe that Chevy plans to release the volt in 2010, which can run on electricity, and Honda is already manufacturing hydrogen cars that can be refueled using units at home that plug into a wall outlet.


OK, the electric car assumes there will be enough power generated to support the increase in demand? How will the surge be handled. Most of the greenies are opposed to nukes. They are also against even clean-burning coal.

In terms of hydrogen, how will this gas be obtained? If from water, how does one do this in times of extreme drought. Just recently we in the Raleigh area were down to one month's supply of water.

I can't even begin to imagine what would happen if water became a source of fuel. Probably the same that happened when corn became of source of fuel instead of food.

Just do it; driill for our own oil



blessedinnyc -> RE: China drills for oil off shore of Cuba (6/9/2008 4:11:42 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: colliefan
OK, the electric car assumes there will be enough power generated to support the increase in demand? How will the surge be handled. Most of the greenies are opposed to nukes. They are also against even clean-burning coal.

Actually, the 2000 MW of wind plants that T. Boone Pickens plans to install in Texas can generate roughly 80K barrels a day of energy. If you count all of the wind plants that have gone up in the past two years, you're looking at producing more energy than we could produce from drilling in ANWR. And that's just two years! If the wind industry grows at just a 15% clip for the next ten years, we will be able to meet all of the new demand from plug-in hybrids.

Finally, of course, since most cars would be plugged in overnight, we'd be able to generate the power for that from our excess baseload capacity. It's likely we'd be able to meet the energy demand from these cars just by running existing nuclear plants at closer to full capacity.

Of course, nuclear is another perfectly viable option, and many environmental organizations, including the Sierra Club, support the use of nuclear. Naturally, in order to safely construct a western nuclear reactor, it's going to take at least seven years from the day you make the decision to build to when the reactor first generates electricity. The market is deciding that wind may be more economically viable than nuclear.

quote:

In terms of hydrogen, how will this gas be obtained? If from water, how does one do this in times of extreme drought. Just recently we in the Raleigh area were down to one month's supply of water.

That's sort of like asking, "Where are we going to get all of this glass from to build the windshields on these new hybrids?"

Well, we can:

-Require drivers to turn in their old windshields before they get a new car (IE: force cars to collect the H2O created by their fuel cell)
-Get it from seawater.
-Get it from peoples' spit; it doesn't take a lot of water to get enough hydrogen to power a car. I mean, most people would rather have to spit than walk, right?
-Keep the water, O2, H2, and hydrogen generation mechanism inside the car and let the car just take electricity.

You tell me.

quote:

I can't even begin to imagine what would happen if water became a source of fuel. Probably the same that happened when corn became of source of fuel instead of food.

Water's more like steel than gasoline. It's something that can be recycled over and over again.

quote:

BTW, How much will people's electric bill go up once they start plugging in their cars?

Assuming electricity costs $0.10/kwh and you can convert electricity in the wall into energy that powers your wheels at the same efficiency of a gas engine (15%), it would cost roughly $3.00/gallon, since 1 gallon of gas is roughly the energy equivalent of 30 kwh.



stellaluna -> RE: China drills for oil off shore of Cuba (6/9/2008 4:43:17 PM)

Actually, if I understand correctly, the US has enough oil to last indefinitely. We just don't drill it.

I say whoever is drilling off Cuba is smart.



colliefan -> RE: China drills for oil off shore of Cuba (6/9/2008 4:57:40 PM)

quote:

Water's more like steel than gasoline. It's something that can be recycled over and over again.


How is water to be recycled again and again? Using seawater is only practical when one is reasonably close to the coast. Factor in the cost of conversion and moving that water to its destination would be considerable. And then one would have to put up with the greenies whining about destroying the fish's environment.

Here in Raleigh we are having a heat wave and the temps aren't golng to get that cool tonight. Imagine the powerload a bunch of people plugging their cars would do to the load. Add to the picture an electric car isn't practical for even a medium sized family.

Just do it; drill for our own oil.

would serve better as beer cans



HighPlainsDrifter -> RE: China drills for oil off shore of Cuba (6/9/2008 5:03:46 PM)

China is drilling 50 miles from Key West. However, we are prohibited by our own special interest groups, holding a distinctly minority opinion, and the incomprehensible power they hold over the Democrat party, from drilling it ourselves. Insanity.

Europe has several nuclear power plants in construction, we have 0. Same special interest groups.

Clean coal development, same story.

This is total insanity, and needs to be stopped. Someone has to begin tying the greenies up in court so hard, and so tight there's not another non-profit dollar left over for a campaign donation. It's become a national security issue.



blessedinnyc -> RE: China drills for oil off shore of Cuba (6/9/2008 5:25:41 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: colliefan

quote:

Water's more like steel than gasoline. It's something that can be recycled over and over again.


How is water to be recycled again and again? Using seawater is only practical when one is reasonably close to the coast. Factor in the cost of conversion and moving that water to its destination would be considerable. And then one would have to put up with the greenies whining about destroying the fish's environment.

Here in Raleigh we are having a heat wave and the temps aren't golng to get that cool tonight. Imagine the powerload a bunch of people plugging their cars would do to the load. Add to the picture an electric car isn't practical for even a medium sized family.

Just do it; drill for our own oil.

would serve better as beer cans

According to the EIA, the US has enough reserves in the ground to meet roughly 1000 days of our oil needs:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html

So it's natural for the market to think that "just do it, drill for our own oil" doesn't make a lot of sense. Here is a better idea:

"Just do it, let the market decide."

Meanwhile, we have enough U3O8 to meet our uranium needs for a hundred years:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/reserves/ures.html

And there's perhaps 3 TW of wind energy that we can economically recover in this country.

And don't even get me started about the amount of energy hitting the Mojave or Sonoran desert every day.



HighPlainsDrifter -> RE: China drills for oil off shore of Cuba (6/9/2008 5:34:37 PM)

quote:

According to the EIA, the US has enough reserves in the ground to meet roughly 1000 days of our oil needs:


Proven reserves, sans any further exploration.



jkdjr25 -> RE: China drills for oil off shore of Cuba (6/9/2008 5:34:57 PM)

Personally I'm more for looking into alternate fuels and hybrid cars than anything else. I'd be for coal to oil liquification, but only if it can be done so without creating tons of toxic byproducts.

We have to be good caretakers of what we've been given and that includes the enviroment. Not a popular opinion these days but it is how I see things.



HighPlainsDrifter -> RE: China drills for oil off shore of Cuba (6/9/2008 6:00:13 PM)

quote:


We have to be good caretakers of what we've been given and that includes the enviroment. Not a popular opinion these days but it is how I see things.


Funny...if it's "not popular" why are the Chinese drilling offshore FLA and we aren't? Why is every classroom in this country proselytizing the "green" religion? Why's every stupid thing corporate America is selling advertised as "green" these days? Not "popular" my eye.



jkdjr25 -> RE: China drills for oil off shore of Cuba (6/9/2008 6:02:51 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: HighPlainsDrifter

quote:


We have to be good caretakers of what we've been given and that includes the enviroment. Not a popular opinion these days but it is how I see things.


Funny...if it's "not popular" why are the Chinese drilling offshore FLA and we aren't? Why is every classroom in this country proselytizing the "green" religion? Why's every stupid thing corporate America is selling advertised as "green" these days? Not "popular" my eye.


China doesn't really care if they harm the enviroment in their pursuits. Remember the lead paint fiasco? That should have been a clue to everyone where they stand.



blessedinnyc -> RE: China drills for oil off shore of Cuba (6/9/2008 6:53:00 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: HighPlainsDrifter

quote:

According to the EIA, the US has enough reserves in the ground to meet roughly 1000 days of our oil needs:


Proven reserves, sans any further exploration.

quote:



Proven reserves, sans any further exploration.

Proved reserves are still estimates- and they often are revised down. But in any case, what do you recommend we go by?

Let's say our reserves are double our "proved reserves" figures. We still only have a little over five years worth of oil. With something as important as energy, though, I don't think we can afford to be overly optimistic.

quote:

Funny...if it's "not popular" why are the Chinese drilling offshore FLA and we aren't? Why is every classroom in this country proselytizing the "green" religion? Why's every stupid thing corporate America is selling advertised as "green" these days? Not "popular" my eye.

Well, Cuba is 90 miles from the US, and they have the right to drill in those waters by a treaty we signed with them.

50 miles is a long way for oil to drift. As long as those oil tankers stay out of US territorial waters, I don't see why there's an environmental problem for the state of Florida. And if oil does drift into our waters, that's a perfect excuse for a new round of the Bay of Pigs (and Castro knows this).

quote:

We have to be good caretakers of what we've been given and that includes the enviroment. Not a popular opinion these days but it is how I see things.

What do you think of nuclear?

I think nuclear is a much better option for the environment than the Fischer-Tropsch (Coal-to-Liquids) process. The US has gone roughly 3000 reactor-years without a breach of containment (meltdown) in a commercial nuclear reactor, and the NRC estimates that only roughly 1 in 100 actual breaches of containment would result in an above-ground breach ala Chernobyl. The other 99 would increase background radiation moderately, but people would still be able to live and raise children in the area around the plant. Personally, I would feel more comfortable raising a family in that area than in certain parts of New Jersey- if we look purely at environmental health issues.

If the US had three times as many reactors as it does today, statistics indicate that we could expect one Chernobyl-like event every 1000 years. Even then, it would likely lead to fewer deaths, fewer cancers, and fewer health problems than the coal industry has given us over the last five years.

In other words, if you look solely at health issues, if we had a Chernobyl-style nuclear meltdown every five years but got rid of the coal industry, we would be in better shape in terms of health. In terms of land use issues, nuclear probably still outperforms coal over the course of 50 years.



mapachito13 -> RE: China drills for oil off shore of Cuba (6/9/2008 7:26:14 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: blessedinnyc

Actually, the 2000 MW of wind plants that T. Boone Pickens plans to install in Texas can generate roughly 80K barrels a day of energy. If you count all of the wind plants that have gone up in the past two years, you're looking at producing more energy than we could produce from drilling in ANWR. And that's just two years! If the wind industry grows at just a 15% clip for the next ten years, we will be able to meet all of the new demand from plug-in hybrids.


And what square mileage of land did it take up with these birdie blenders? More or less than ANWR?

quote:

Finally, of course, since most cars would be plugged in overnight, we'd be able to generate the power for that from our excess baseload capacity. It's likely we'd be able to meet the energy demand from these cars just by running existing nuclear plants at closer to full capacity.

Of course, nuclear is another perfectly viable option, and many environmental organizations, including the Sierra Club, support the use of nuclear. Naturally, in order to safely construct a western nuclear reactor, it's going to take at least seven years from the day you make the decision to build to when the reactor first generates electricity. The market is deciding that wind may be more economically viable than nuclear.


Lots of "ifs" in the mix aren't there?

quote:

quote:

BTW, How much will people's electric bill go up once they start plugging in their cars?

Assuming electricity costs $0.10/kwh and you can convert electricity in the wall into energy that powers your wheels at the same efficiency of a gas engine (15%), it would cost roughly $3.00/gallon, since 1 gallon of gas is roughly the energy equivalent of 30 kwh.


So filling up a "20 gallon" tank once a week would be 600kwh.

I hope the electric companies will increase our baseline, otherwise I'll be paying more like $0.45 per kilowatt hour because that will more than double my required usage and put me into Tier 4 of 5. I already pay $0.23 per kwh on Tier 3 (delivery and generation charges) and that doesn't include state tax and a city tax of 6%. So at $0.23 per kwh it would cost me $138 wheras gas at $5.00 per gallon only $100.

So my "gas cost" would increase 38% over a $5 per gallon gas bill. And we haven't reached that price for gasoline yet.



colliefan -> RE: China drills for oil off shore of Cuba (6/9/2008 11:06:52 PM)

quote:

According to the EIA, the US has enough reserves in the ground to meet roughly 1000 days of our oil needs:


A major reserve was just found in North Dakota, The size of the propsed drill site in ANWAR is the size of Reagan National Airport!.
We have the techology to drill for shale oil in a reasonably safe way. NONE of the oil rigs affected by Katrine spilleda drop od oil yet wackos refuse to let us drill for our own oil.

The answer is obvious. Socialists such as yourself are out to destroy the middle class in America. They so not want America to be a "City Set on a Hill." They want America to be subserviant to the UN.

The are against big oil, big retail, big drugs, and big automotives. But they are for Big Goverment. They care not one whit for the poor. Their energy policy of refusing to drill has caused prices everywhere to jump.
It isn't an accident that Earth Day is also Stalin's brithday.



jkdjr25 -> RE: China drills for oil off shore of Cuba (6/10/2008 2:06:11 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: colliefan

quote:

According to the EIA, the US has enough reserves in the ground to meet roughly 1000 days of our oil needs:


A major reserve was just found in North Dakota, The size of the propsed drill site in ANWAR is the size of Reagan National Airport!.
We have the techology to drill for shale oil in a reasonably safe way. NONE of the oil rigs affected by Katrine spilleda drop od oil yet wackos refuse to let us drill for our own oil.

The answer is obvious. Socialists such as yourself are out to destroy the middle class in America. They so not want America to be a "City Set on a Hill." They want America to be subserviant to the UN.

The are against big oil, big retail, big drugs, and big automotives. But they are for Big Goverment. They care not one whit for the poor. Their energy policy of refusing to drill has caused prices everywhere to jump.
It isn't an accident that Earth Day is also Stalin's brithday.


Strong words there.

Just because some of us don't agree with drilling for oil in a nature preserve, in no way means that we're socialists or that we want to see America fall. What you're using is a classic strawman argument and it shows.

I find it interesting that many of the people who advocate drilling where ever we want point to China, Russia and the like as examples of how to drill. China and Russia don't care about taking care of the enviroment. They don't care that we are admonished by God to be good caretakers of what we've been given. Lest we forget China is also one of the biggest polluters in the world, and have routinely used lead paint and other toxic chemicals in toys and dog food because it was just cheaper to produce that way. So they aren't exactly anyone who's example we should be following.

Finding and using alternative fuel sources take time, this much I admit, but it's also the right thing to do. It shows that we're trying to take care of what we have to the very best of our ability. That's not a socialist ideal, it's very much a Christian one.



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