Major New Oil Find in Atlantic

You know, it is funny you say that, but yet you drive a vehicle that uses these resources. :der:

When people that complain about drilling start doing nothing but walking, and riding bicycles, then they may have a reason to speak up. Are you not contradicting yourself here on a automobile chat board?

 

Not at all Gasitman. Many people who drive the Prius (like myself) do so because it is the best of a bad set of options. Right now, we essentially have 4 options available to us:
1. a huge, gas guzzling monstrosity
2. a decently sized, gas guzzling family car
3. a hybrid that gets good gas mileage
4. an overpriced electric vehicle that has severely reduced range

I know for my purposes, an EV simply won't do - I would be needing to go beyond its usable range on almost a weekly basis. So I take the best, most reasonable option available to me today, which is the Prius.

And for what it's worth, when possible I and many others here DO walk/bike. However, I do draw the line at sub-zero temperatures for my commute.


The problem we face as a society, is that gas has been so easily available and so cheap that reasonable alternatives haven't been pursued. We know oil is a finite resource, but most people are too short sighted to think about what they'll have to do 30 years from now when it's all run out (yes, i'm just making that number up, but we know that it will happen at some point). One of the things some of us actually liked about todays oil situation - it was becoming clear it was a finite resource, we were starting to run out of the easy-to-get oil, and prices were going up. As prices go up, the demand for alternatives increases and becomes more fesable, and we can hopefully switch over and stop using oil.

I'm over halfway through the extended warrantee on my Prius. All i want is for a PHEV with 10 miles electric to become available before the warrantee is finished. Just 10 miles would drastically reduce the amount of gas i need. Then 100k miles after i get that car, i'll trade it in for one that gets 100 miles, or 1000 miles and i'll really be set.

 

"Many people who drive the Prius (like myself) do so because it is the best of a bad set of options."
Bingo!

Ten miles would get me to work and back, provided I can do so on the highway, which a NEV cannot do. Nor can I put my 3 and 6 year old on the back of a bicycle.


The world can either ramp down oil use now and have some left for applications that truly require it...Or we can follow the Republican's lead of "just use it till it's gone" (which will come quicker with gluttonous usage and have society itself fall off a cliff when it does.

 

Thats just wrong thinking period, we need to get off oil as much as possible, it feeds the very terrorists and people who threaten us. People who drive hybrids and alternative energy vehicles are the only way out at this point. To go back to 9 mpg vehicles because we can, just pushes the situation to the brink, the day it runs out, it will too late to try to fix the problem.

There has to be an incentive, otherwise people loose site of the goal, because many people in this country are short sighted, as you have clearly shown.

 

In this country at least, we have choices, you do not have to own a prius, and you do not have to own a hummer either, heck you don't have to own any vehicle and foot it to work everyday. Say what you want, but all of us still rely on oil, and oil drilling. Plain and simple. For some the choice to have a prius lies on saving the earth, for some saving money, for others, maybe a different reason.

Either way, I find it amusing that someone that uses the very oil they are drilling is complaining about drilling the oil. Just like the earth liberation front (ELF), they are known to burn houses down under construction, but yet, do they live in a tent, under a bridge? Of course not, they go to their home, made of wood, brick, and mortar and sleep with a roof over their head.

Practice what you preach, or mind your own business. Easy words to live by. If everyone did that, the world would be a better place.

 

Nice article and since I grew up in Oklahoma, many of the names are familar:
cramped-on-land-big-oil-bets-at-sea: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance

<cough cough> really?

Individual projects are not going to be a magic wand ... one well and the energy problem is solved. Rather this is what happens when a mined resource becomes scarce. We begin pursuing marginal resources and though they appear to be massive, it is too easy to ignore the 'well-to-wheel' cost.

Good find but many of us knew peak-oil would likely come in our lifetime. This article pretty well confirms what I'd expected. It also explains the recent spurt of interest in hybrid technology by some of the skeptics.

Bob Wilson

 

"Say what you want, but all of us still rely on oil, and oil drilling. Plain and simple. "

That's exactly what we are saying... the difference is that we think this is a BAD thing, since it is inevitable that no amount of drilling will be able to keep this reliance going. We can start to phase over now or wait until it's a crises when it will cost MUCH more to transition, if it's even possible. If a severe supply problem comes up, how will people get to work in building new energy infrastructure if there is no gas to get them there? How do farmers harvest crops and get them to market?

Lowering the amount of "reliance" on oil that you correctly point out, is a national security issue. Addressing it addresses the terrorism problem. Addressing it creates new industry and jobs, adressing it will reduce our trade imbalance, and addressing it can reduce AGW if you believe in that sort of thing.

And BTW, nobody is arguing against or fighting against the new drilling you point out, it's not even in the US, for goodness sake. No one is stopping the ND drilling, the gulf drilling, or drilling on the thousands of acres the oil companies bid on, have rights to, yet continue to keep idle. ANWAR and other protected lands are obviously a different story. But most other drilling...have at it, few people are against that...but it won't significantly reduce our need for imports from our enemies until we start supporting alternatives poliotically and punishing those who use the resource wastefully.

 

What you're clearly failing to see here is that, while we use oil when we need to, our choice of the Prius is an attempt to send a message to the car companies that we want off oil as much as possible. We're actively reducing our individual dependence on oil, while simultaneously supporting the technologies that we believe will, one day, make us oil free.

You say I have a choice. Yes, i could walk to work every day, but when the temperatures are as cold as they get in MN during the winter, that becomes a dangerous and risky proposition. Add in weather and it becomes even worse. Am I willing to use some oil to mitigate that personal risk? Yes. There's no shame in that. Likewise, when I want to go home and visit my family, how else am i going to get 650 miles? If i try to walk it, it'll take me half a year.

Unfortunately, in our society today, it's virtually impossible to get by without some amount of dependence on oil - short of living in a small, self sufficient community and never leaving it, which isn't realistic for most of us. But we can do the best we can, reduce that dependence through the purchase of Hybrids, and continually ask the auto industry for better vehicles. It falls in line with this behavior to be disappointed when more cheap gas is discovered, as we believe that the increasing scarcity of cheap gas is the ONLY thing that will help us reach our goals of living oil free.

 

This "new find" was predicted long ago... there is plenty of oil, the problem is recovering it at a reasonable cost and without unnecessary damage to the ecology of the planet.


Further, we shouldn't be as dependant as we are on "burning resources technologies"... which is why I enjoy the Gen II booger green Toyota I drive daily.

Just added 7.3 gallons this morning... good for the next two weeks of commuting.

 

Plenty of oil for what? The next couple of years? the next decade?
We aren't actually going to "run out" of oil ever, but the reasonable cost is the catch as you point out. The cost of recovering oil from these newer supplies like tar sands and deep water is rising dramatically and the size of the finds are getting smaller and and smaller. Not only that but the energy required to extract the oil is increasing as well. Back in the old days, the energy return was about 1 barrel to 30 or more. Now we are investing as much as 1 barrel to get 6 out in ventures like tar sands. That means that our actual output must be much higher just to meet the same demand. Read that again...Even if we have flat demand, we will need INCREASED production to meet it due to lower and lower EROI.

However demand continues to grow. And it continues to grow in the countries that export to us which means eventually, they will just keep more and more of their own oil for their own use.

Yet, we'll still have NoCons lusting after ME wars to keep that oil flowing, and the terrorist attacks coming, and the dollars going over there to fund the very people we fight. It's a DEAD END. As pointed out, a Prius is merely the least of the worst transportation options at this time. But at least it forces the car makers to improve and adapt to the reality.

 

FWIW Gasitman, your comments are pretty spot-on, IMHO. Others can argue around in circles all they want but 99% are really hypocrites. When it comes down to it, action is far better than words. Those that choose to make a difference by what they do rather than by what they say are far more ahead. I would say that most of us on here are putting our money where our mouths are as we have purchased one of the most efficient vehicles out there. If others find ways to conserve they should do so and set an example to their children, friends and others. Real change happens one person at a time. Or a crisis, nothing gets people motivated more than a crisis.
Why some of these silly discussions come up here is beyond me. *