Rep. John Shadegg

big idiot.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/05/deep-voodoo/

yes the market responds to you...

Both dems and repubs need some edumacating...

Krugman said: Deep voodoo What passes for policy discussion in the world’s greatest nation: House Republicans issued the boldest claim yet in their three-day energy protest, insinuating on Tuesday morning that their demonstration [speeches to an empty chamber demanding more offshore drilling] may in fact have already begun to lower gas prices. “The market is responding to the fact that we are here talking,” said Republican Rep. John Shadegg. In other news, Republicans credited their speeches for the fact that the sun rose today.

Shadegg's got a history of not-so-brightness.

Well, speculators do pay close attention to what party is in power and how it will effect supply and demand. If I was such i speculator i would think that a republican party in power would lead to less restrictions on drilling and the like.

JohnGalt wrote: Well, speculators do pay close attention to what party is in power and how it will effect supply and demand. If I was such i speculator i would think that a republican party in power would lead to less restrictions on drilling and the like.

smoke and mirrors.

There are already millions of acres under lease that could be drilled, but hey.. While there is a potential land grab about to be had... lets do it up....

speculators... ugh. that's up there with the market reacting to a speech. Because we all know that the global market revolves around us.

Here is an interesting article: http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=905193A8-3048-5C12-001B313DA2E91E44

Pelosi: At-risk Dems back drilling By: Martin Kady II and Patrick O'Connor August 5, 2008 11:43 PM EST California Democrat Nancy Pelosi may be trying to save the planet — but the rank and file in her party increasingly are just trying to save their political hides when it comes to gas prices as Republicans apply more and more rhetorical muscle. But what looks like intraparty tension on the surface is part of an intentional strategy in which Pelosi takes the heat on energy policy, while behind the scenes she’s encouraging vulnerable Democrats to express their independence if it helps them politically, according to Democratic aides on and off Capitol Hill. Pelosi’s gambit rests on one big assumption: that Democrats will own Washington after the election and will be able to craft a sweeping energy policy that is heavy on conservation and fuel alternatives while allowing for some new oil drilling. Democrats see no need to make major concessions on energy policy with a party poised to lose seats in both chambers in just three months — even if recess-averse Republicans continue to pound away on the issue. “The reality is we will have a new president in three months, and what Bush and the Republicans are trying to do amounts to a land grab for the oil companies,” said one senior House Democratic aide involved with party strategy. “I don’t think we have to give in at all pre-election — we have many more options postelection.” It’s a reality that Rep. Nick J. Rahall (D-W.Va.) personally delivered to President Bush recently. Rahall spent more than an hour last week talking to the president about energy. Bush spent the entire flight aboard Air Force One, and much of a subsequent limousine ride, grilling the West Virginia Democrat about legislative solutions to the high price of gasoline, Rahall said last week. So, does the president think Congress can get anything done this year? “No,” Rahall replied in a short interview with Politico. “He’s realistic about it.” Asked if Congress will produce a comprehensive energy bill in September before Congress adjourns again for elections, Rahall replied, “This year? No.” Instead, the chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources believes Democrats are all about 2009. “We’ve laid the groundwork this year,” Rahall said. Democratic House aides say the energy agenda has been carefully gamed out in strategy sessions, and Pelosi always intended to take heat on gas prices while tacitly encouraging more vulnerable Democrats to publicly disagree with her and show their independence. Freshman Democrats like Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania and Don Cazayoux of Louisiana have taken her up on the offer. Altmire has said a drilling vote “will happen,” while Cazayoux, hoping to hang on to his seat in a conservative Baton Rouge-area district, on Friday sent a letter to Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) demanding a vote on more domestic oil exploration. “There will be a vote,” said Altmire, who faces a rematch with former GOP Rep. Melissa Hart this fall in the Pittsburgh suburbs. Indeed, Congress must vote before Sept. 30 to renew the annual moratorium; otherwise, it will lapse on its own, giving states the right to decide whether private companies can search for potential drilling sites three miles offshore. . “My view is that if we have a vote, let’s make it a rational policy,” said Altmire, whose district includes viable coal and nuclear industries. “We can’t let Republicans hold this issue hostage because of one vote.” Cazayoux, in his letter, says “the current debate seems to be bogged down in partisan one-upmanship.” To some extent, House Republicans seem to be playing right along with the strategy, taking Pelosi’s name in vain dozens of times during their rebel House sessions over the past few days and making her the villain who won’t allow oil drilling votes. “It’s grossly unfair to the Democrats who want a vote,” said Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas). “[Pelosi] needs to cut that out.” The Senate has also gone with a run-out-the-clock strategy, with Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) calling for a bipartisan energy summit but promising no major energy votes. Reid embraced the drilling and conservation proposals of the bipartisan Senate “Gang of 10” last week, but he made further commitment on the energy debate. Reid, like Pelosi, is expecting to have a much stronger governing majority in the Senate next year, so he has little incentive to give in to Republicans on energy policy as long as he thinks it won’t hurt Democrats. Even as they face heat from constituents during the August break, Democrats say they aren’t going to cave in to popular pressure. “We feel pretty comfortable with where we are,” said Rep. Michael E. Capuano (D-Mass.), who is close to the Democratic leadership. “This is a not a new issue. This just didn’t happen today. We’ve been working on this for months.” Democratic insiders said that Pelosi and other party leaders were “not rattled” by the GOP floor rebellion, and at this point, it’s not clear if the Democrats will even pay a price on energy. State-level polling conducted by Democrats suggests that voters still view President Bush and the GOP as the incumbent power in Washington, and Democratic strategists believe any anti-incumbent wave would hurt Republicans more than Democrats. Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, one of the leaders of the rogue GOP House session, said he realizes that Democrats are “in a four-corners stall right now,” and admits that “it gets more challenging” for Republicans if they lose more seats in Congress. Democrats are also comforted somewhat by the fact that crude oil prices have gone down more than 10 percent from their summer highs, and if the U.S. economy enters a recession, prices may fall further due to slackening demand. “There is no crisis on our side of the aisle,” a top House Democratic leadership aide said. “We have a plan, and we will stick to it.”

The interesting aspect is the glimpse inside Washington politics. Pelosi says to "vulnerable" D's that it is OK to support drilling. Why? Because the party line is "screw the people" but if enough people get pissed enough to actually threaten them, then they can do what their constituants want. This is how they push laws (enforced on us at the point of a gun) onto us. They get together and figure who is going to vote which way, who can vote against the people's wishes and still stay in power and who has to pretend to do what the people want. Meanwhile we just take it and keep voting these shiny happy persons back in.

There are million of acres of lease that are currently not being drilled. This.. "we're blocking them crap is annoying". The big corporations that put up these idiots are looking to lock away more public land for their exclusive use, while they bleed us dry...

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/otheranalysis/ongr.html <--- read that.. Maybe in 2030 drilling on the OCS will have an effect. But, I'll bet you dollars to donuts, noone wants to increase supply right now. They want to keep supply steady to keep prices high, until we drop demand.

best quote "The projections in the OCS access case indicate that access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030. "

It won't lower gas prices.

Why, you're right, ignorant. The US imports half its oil. What better way to end that than to pass MORE laws banning us from producing our own oil? And who says we need to do anything today if we don't see the benefit this afternoon? It makes perfect sense to me. Where's my O sticker?

I don't care if it lowers gas prices or not. I don't want my dollars going to the Pavement Challenged shiny happy persons anymore. It's time our energy dollars stayed home.

you misunderstand.

all I'm saying is that there are already leases out there for tons of land that is not being drilled and explored. If they were really concerned with providing more supply, they would do so by exploring that land already, not by grabbing more leases.... big business runs our government

do i have to chase you into every gas price related thread?

having rights to a lease/block doesn't = oil

the thing about more leases is that it allows them to invest in more infrastructure like pipelines in an area, to make it more cost effective to bring oil to market. also, technology today allows a company to drill several separate wells from the same platform, reducing the number of drilling platforms offshore, which also reduces exploration costs

The US has over two trillion barrels of oil shale.

http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/reserves/npr/npr_oil_shale_program.html

The Persian Gulf has 728 billion barrels.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Persian_Gulf/Background.html

The only reason the Persian Gulf even gets our oil business is because we are too cheap to develop our own resources.

if you think that means that we can just drill a well in the middle of it and have $2 gas again you're dreaming.

oil shale is an unconventional resource, like tight gas or tar sands. it costs much more to develop and recovery is much less efficient. the most you can expect to recover from a conventional well after water and CO2 floods is around 40-50% of the original oil in place. this goes even lower when you have an unconventional resource like oil shale, lower porosity and permeability means that to recover the same amount of oil you'd have to drill more wells closer together, because the oil won't flow as freely in shale as it would in a sandstone.

i'v e also seen a lot of people quote the usgs "technically recoverable" oil, which is a bit misleading. if a section of potential reservoir has good porosity/ permiability, then any oil there is "technically recoverable", but if theres only 1000 barrels there, no company is going to spend $1million to drill a hole to maybe recover 500 barrels of oil.

its not because we're just too damn lazy to drill for oil, we drill A LOT for oil as it is. a friend of mine sells drill pipe to drilling companies, right now pipe is in such high demand that they don't care what it costs, they need the pipe, now. companies aren't going to just go waste money drilling when its not economic to recover it.

Yeah. And don't forget that the Germans ran WWII on oil shale and the South Africans ran their country on the stuff too. Oh, it might cost $50/bbl to make. Guess what Venezualan crude is today?

Strizzo wrote: if you think that means that we can just drill a well in the middle of it and have $2 gas again you're dreaming. oil shale is an unconventional resource, like tight gas or tar sands. it costs much more to develop and recovery is much less efficient. the most you can expect to recover from a conventional well after water and CO2 floods is around 40-50% of the original oil in place. this goes even lower when you have an unconventional resource like oil shale, lower porosity and permeability means that to recover the same amount of oil you'd have to drill more wells closer together, because the oil won't flow as freely in shale as it would in a sandstone. i'v e also seen a lot of people quote the usgs "technically recoverable" oil, which is a bit misleading. if a section of potential reservoir has good porosity/ permiability, then any oil there is "technically recoverable", but if theres only 1000 barrels there, no company is going to spend $1million to drill a hole to maybe recover 500 barrels of oil. its not because we're just too damn lazy to drill for oil, we drill A LOT for oil as it is. a friend of mine sells drill pipe to drilling companies, right now pipe is in such high demand that they don't care what it costs, they need the pipe, now. companies aren't going to just go waste money drilling when its not economic to recover it.

I never said we were too lazy. I said we were too cheap. I also never said we would have $2/gallon gas if we went after those deposits.

What I did not say, since it should have been pretty apparent, was that we can be completely oil self sufficient by developing those resources AND moving electricity production to hydro and nuke.

FWIW, most of our imported oil comes from Canada's Alberta tar sands which is comparable in extraction difficulty to shale oil deposits. Yet it seems to work out pretty well.

tar sand recovery is much different, done by either strip mining the sand, and processing it, or injecting steam from one well to another to liquify the petroleum deposits, depending on the depth of the play. its not particularly difficult, just expensive so that its not really economical until oil is over $75/barrel or so. the oil shale is too deep to be strip mined, and not porous/connected enough to use the steam injection process. from what i understand from people working the bakken, it just sortof oozes out of the rock, but the difficulty lies in finding a pocket thats big enough and with enough permeability

Developing the domestic oil shale reserves can, in time, make the US independent of imported oil.

It appears the current hurdles come from the usual influences of politics, environmentalism and big business. Apparently the extraction process is water-use intensive, possibly interfering with food production, or making T. Boone Pickens an richer, more powerful man. Of course, taking corn-based ethanol out of the mix could alleviate problems linked to food production. But, the ethanol/government cabal will fight to keep it's green profile and profitability, even though alternative bio sources are proven more efficient and effective.

Here's a link to an interesting article: http://coloradoindependent.com/view/oil-shale-as-a-magic

BTW, a patent application for an oil-shale extraction process was places as early as 1982. The industry has made it a priority over the last two and a half decades to further develop the technology. It's still not ready as it's still too expensive for mass implementation - much like solar, wind, geothermal, etc.

There is NO immediate fix to the supply problem. Ughh........

Ignorant et al,

With all due respect, I’m at a complete loss to comprehend the relevance of un-utilized oil drilling leases. You guys keep saying “don’t give them more leases; they don’t use the ones they have now”.

First, I assume the leases aren’t utilized because the ROI they’re projected to provide is less than the available alternatives…I have not heard one company say “we’d love to drill but the big guys have sewed up all the good locations”.

Second, I’m sure the leases had to be purchased so why are you guys complaining when they’re not used…the government makes money, the resources aren’t depleted, the land is untouched, no pollution is created, & no risk is taken…what the ferkaucken more do you guys want!!!

Third, these companies are publicly traded. The absolute instant you decide they’re making too much money or have some sort of Bush administration induced unfair advantage, buy the stock.

I must be missing something…please, please bring me up to speed.

I've said basically that every time these guys talk about unused leases, and they just ignore it and go on to the next thread, or make a new one

Strizzo wrote: tar sand recovery is much different, done by either strip mining the sand, and processing it, or injecting steam from one well to another to liquify the petroleum deposits, depending on the depth of the play. its not particularly difficult, just expensive so that its not really economical until oil is over $75/barrel or so. the oil shale is too deep to be strip mined, and not porous/connected enough to use the steam injection process. from what i understand from people working the bakken, it just sortof oozes out of the rock, but the difficulty lies in finding a pocket thats big enough and with enough permeability

If you'll go back and look at the first link I posted, they state that the Alberta tar sands are being studied as an analogue to shale oil production. Of course there are differences. But they are similar enough production methods that it's possible to draw broad conclusions.

Here's the problem: everyone is focusing on one small part of oil usage, motor fuel. Don't forget electric power generation, medicines, plastics, yada yada. Assuming we can move at least part of the US automotive fleet to ethanol or similar, get our electricity from nuke and hydro and other smaller 'spot' generating systems and get rid of all the plastic packaging that goes straight into landfills, the shale oil deposits could last us for a helluva long time. The Persian Gulf could just kiss our asses.

Just think, no more blood for oil. Whatever would the Dimmycrats have to complain about?