[Ice]

 We can produce more than enough oil from under the good oll' USA.
That we can't is just more of the same old propaganda. Domestic oil is taxed at a higher rate than imported oil. That little gem dates back to the last half of the 1930's It was an incentive to save "our" oil for us just in case of war.
 
 Currently we are paying farmers to not grow certain crops in order to keep those foods profitable to grow.
Here is what I propose. Lets check the feasibility of ending those subsidies and let the farmers raise oil seed crops for bio diesel production on the land that is not being used for food and textile production.
 
 In concept it males sense to me.
More profit for the farmers. Less or possibly no imported oil. More people back to work supporting and servicing the effort through direct and ripple effect jobs.

Just a thought.

[geoffbaker]

We can produce more than enough oil from under the good oll' USA.
That we can't is just more of the same old propaganda. 

You know, saying this doesn't make it so. I have pointed out that there are no known oil reserves to make up for even the current decline in American oil production; that ANWAR, fully exploited, won't make up for the decline in Prudhoe Bay oil... and you just brush it off as 'propaganda'...

Proof please... or it's you who are just talking 'propaganda' ... or, as Colbert has defined it...'truthiness' ... something you wish were true, a political position taken without the need to be held down by actual fact...

On the other hand, your biodiesel argument is a very sound one. In Tucson, currently we are only tapping ONE percent of the existing used vegetable oil market in biodiesel production, which means we can nationally increase biodiesel use 100 fold before we even need to plant a single oil bearing crop... there is plenty of pontential there...as with many other renewables including wind and solar.

Plus improvements in energy efficiency on a national level can easily extend our current oil production, for decades...

But drilling isn't the answer... it doesn't even buy us time...

[ace.cafe]

The Bakken Formation in the US holds alot of oil.
The recent estimates of how much is recoverable from it have dramatically increased since the estimate done in 1995. This is primarily because of improved drilling and extraction methods which have been developed, and continue to be developed.

The current research done by Dr. Leigh Price(deceased) is being peer reviewed posthumously. There are approvals to publish already submitted by some peer reviewers.
This estimates a "mean" reserve(between the highest and lowest) estimate of 416 Billion barrels of oil in the Bakken Formation.
This makes it the largest known oil formation in the world.

How much is recoverable?
Dr. Price estimates 50% recoverability, with currently known methods.
This level of recovery would put it close to equal with the Saudi Arabian oil fields, which are currently the largest recognized oil reserves worldwide.
Lowest estimates range from 3-10%, which are old estimates that were done many years ago before the extraction methods we now know existed.
There are reasons to believe that as this formation grows to greater use, the work will generate some new improvements in extraction ability over the years, thus leading to even greater yield.

The estimates are that it can be produced at a cost of $16 per barrel, which is well under the oil prices we see today.

With the other known existing oil reserves in the US being estimated at 173 Billion barrels, and adding in even half of the Bakken Formation, the US holds by far the largest oil reserves on the planet today.

And with Canada being the second largest current oil reserve in the world, behind Saudi Arabia, and Mexico being #17, there is more oil reserve in the North American land mass than anywhere else.
Foreign oil was tapped because it was cheap, and didn't require domestic resource drain. There is no shortage of oil here in North America, as far as "reserves" are concerned.

[LJRead]

Heard something about the Canadian shale oil reserves which are also huge.  Then there is the idea of using natural gas.  We do need to get away from Middle East oil, for sure.

On another topic, someone pointed out that the early advances in computers was all sort of amateur driven, the big industries had little to do with it.  The problems of today are problems of big business as well as big business stifling smaller outfits.  The big bailouts were GM, AIG, Citibank, big brokerage firms and the bubble or bubbles they produced led to the failures of the smaller outfits.  Goeff makes a good point in saying that GM should have had a Volta like car going years ago.  All that money thrown at what?  Then garage based outfits come along and show the big idiots how it should be done.  There is economy of scale in that these big outfits, through things like mergers and acquisitions, supposedly save money in things like administration, but something important is lost in the transition.

It must be frustrating for z company like GM to see rank amateurs doing things better and more efficiently than they have.  So they grab on to the shirt tails of the small players and try to either slow them down or just keep up.

The U.S. needs far more diversification into small businesses.

[geoffbaker]

What ace doesn't mention - once - is that we aren't talking OIL in the Bakken, we're talking SHALE OIL. There is just a tiny bit of a difference... the first is easily extractable; the second, depending on the amount of oil in the shale layer - is extractable only at vast cost with no known production technology to do so cost effectively - yet. Right now, they are using conventional drilling, but they know full well that can only tap a tiny fraction of the Bakken Shales.

From the wikipedia..
"While these numbers would appear to indicate a massive reserve, the percentage of this oil which might be extracted using current technology is another matter. Estimates of the Bakken's technically recoverable oil have ranged from as low as 1% — because the Bakken shale has generally low porosity and low permeability, making the oil difficult to extract — to Leigh Price's estimate of 50% recoverable.[11] Reports issued by both the USGS and the state of North Dakota in April 2008 seem to indicate the lower range of recoverable estimates are more realistic with current technology."

Frankly, I put shale oil right up there with ethanol and coal gasification... boondoggles designed to extract government money for large wealthy corporations, on the rich promise of technology yet to come.

Currently - today - the Bakken is generating how much oil? 7 million barrels were extracted in 2007, the latest figures I can find. That's in a YEAR, not a day...

Let's hope it generates a lot of oil. But I doubt it. I am sure it will generate SOME, but will it be enough?

If I started saying "Gee, solar could easily generate 100 times its current potential, given some yet-undiscovered silicon geometry and using some yet-undiscovered new principles of production"... we'll you'd laugh me out of here.

But when asked where we're going to get our oil... you give me essentially the same response.

Such is the wishful thinking of the right these days...

I believe the greatest promise lies in our agricultural productivity, We and the Canadians alone have enough agricultural land available to actually generate renewable biofuels to meet our needs... and we can do that... FOREVER.

Tie it into photovoltaics and wind... and our need for fossil fuels could evaporate, permanently.

[ace.cafe]

Geoff,
The "lower range" they are talking about is 280 Billion barrels.
The "mean" is 416 Billion barrels.

There are wells currently producing from the Bakken Formation, yes the shale oil, which are producing over 35,000 barrels per DAY. Right now!

That's over a million barrrels a year from these alone, and these are small fractions of what could be done.
The technology is there today, to extract 50% of it, with the current horizontal drilling techniques and the hydraulic pressure techniques.
And the cost is below market to produce, which is why they are producing it.
If the lawsuits to prevent drilling would stop, there'd be alot more oil coming out..

[geoffbaker]

Ace, as I said the problem is they aren't extracting shale oil. They still haven't figured that out. What they are doing is drilling for pockets, and they are finding some oil (mostly in one layer actually beneath the Bakken shale, so not technically a part of it at all. They took out 7 million barrels in 2007- a tiny drop in our consumption of 31 BILLION barrels annually... so they are currently producing less than 0.02 percent of our needs from this oil. Hardly something even a tiny oil company is going to get excited about.

Unfortunately, the Bakken is very low porosity which means unlike oil sands, where if you drill in one area the oil will seep down so you can keep extracting oil... in the Bakken, there may be a billion barrels of oil around you, locked in the shale, but all you can drill for is the single pocket you found. The oil won't migrate.

Which means that the vast majority of the Bakken oil remains locked up in shale, and you can't drill for that. You have to strip mine it, and figure out how to heat/break/pressurize or in some other way to extract the oil.

And they haven't figured that out yet... there is no current technology on the market to bring shale oil in at current prices. Sorry.

I know of not a single 'environmental lawsuit' involving the Bakken.

Environmentalists aren't stopping this... scientists haven't figured out how to do it, that's all.

And it is entirely possible they won't. So I suggest we get back to talking about real alternatives available to us TODAY - natural gas, biodiesel, solar, wind, nuclear... what have you.

If the Bakken shale oil formation starts producing commerical oil out of the SHALE - NOT out of oil pockets - I will personally be ecstatic.

But I can't say I would build a national energy policy around the POSSIBILITY that someday someone may crack the Bakken shales...

[enfield_33]

"Oh, yea... I should add since you brought it up, Obama isn't worse, he is MUCH MUCH better."   

The Chosen ONE will lead us out of the abyss.   

[geoffbaker]

Nah, he's just a guy who's better than the moron you voted for that put is into the abyss in the first place, that's all.


Woops, my apologies. I forgot that apparently, not a single conservative ever actually voted for Bush (at least, we cant find anyone willing to admit it these days).

Talk about a Messiah, a man who won an election with nobody voting for him! Now THAT is a miracle...

[Ice]

Nah, he's just a guy who's better than the moron you voted for that put is into the abyss in the first place, that's all.


Woops, my apologies. I forgot that apparently, not a single conservative ever actually voted for Bush (at least, we cant find anyone willing to admit it these days).

Talk about a Messiah, a man who won an election with nobody voting for him! Now THAT is a miracle...

   A man with no executive branch experience. Never even a small town mayor.
May have committed treason as a senator with middle east visits  before the "election". Citizenship has never been been satisfactorily proven to the public.
1.5 MILLION dollars in lawyers fees spent blocking investigations.

 Miracle is not the word I would choose.

[geoffbaker]

   A man with no executive branch experience. Never even a small town mayor.
May have committed treason as a senator with middle east visits  before the "election". Citizenship has never been been satisfactorily proven to the public.
1.5 MILLION dollars in lawyers fees spent blocking investigations.
 Miracle is not the word I would choose.

Dude, the miracle I referred to was not Obama, but Bush's election considering no Republican has since admitted voting for him.

Every story you repeat here (citizenship, blah blah blah) are all just wacko right wing blogosphere stories... if any of them had any legs, FOX news would have run with them every night for the whole year, he never would have been elected... how much do you imagine the RNC spent trying to chase down and prove this bull? You can be assured they spent MILLIONS and would have spent a billion if they thought it could have changed the election... and these stories have been out there for years...

These are just small, nasty whispers from small minds. Unproven, because they are untrue. But some people really don't care about the truth, when it comes to this kind of thing... anything will do as long as their objective is served...

[LJRead]

There is no possible controversy regarding Obama's citizenship that I cn see since his mother is a born and raised U.S. citizen.  I have two children who have a foreign mother and me, a U.S. citizen from birth and they are citizens, pure and simple. We did have to obtain a 'certificate of foreign birth' for one of them as she was born here in Tonga.

Obama doesn't have a free hand to straighten up the past mess since he has of necessity become part of the system.  Even McCain said recently that he is making the proper moves - meaning, I guess, proper under these dire circumstances.

There are racists who will never accept him, no matter what, and there is a large conservative base led by people like Rush Linbaugh who are like sheep being led to believe what these TV personalities tell them to.  Racism in America runs very deep, BTW, and won't be solved by electing one black president.  It isn't cool to express racist tendencies, so not much is there on the surface, but underneath it runs very deep.   So combine the right wing propaganda with a basic racism and you are going to get some very stupid criticism of Obama.  I'm personally proud of the way he handles himself, though I would hope for economic changes in the future, particularly in the area of diversification of American manufacture, and getting back our status as a manufacturing nation which makes quality products.  We do need to get away fro bottom line economics to quality driven economics.

[geoffbaker]

You make a good point about McCain, LJ.

McCain is a decent, honest, moderate Republican with impeccable credentials. Not only does he approve of Obama, I think he genuinely likes him. He gives him good grades so far.

True moderates of ANY belief, color, or politics will see Obama for what he is; a vast improvement over the lunacy that was the Bush Administration.

Now on the far right, we can expect no such honesty when it comes to Obama; they are absolutely dedicated to digging out any dirt no matter how infantile or ridiculous it is. And that is what we are seeing here. The huge beam in their eye is NOTHING in comparison to that tiny mote in Obama's....

[Ice]

There is no possible controversy regarding Obama's citizenship that I cn see since his mother is a born and raised U.S. citizen.  I have two children who have a foreign mother and me, a U.S. citizen from birth and they are citizens, pure and simple. We did have to obtain a 'certificate of foreign birth' for one of them as she was born here in Tonga.

Obama doesn't have a free hand to straighten up the past mess since he has of necessity become part of the system.  Even McCain said recently that he is making the proper moves - meaning, I guess, proper under these dire circumstances.

There are racists who will never accept him, no matter what, and there is a large conservative base led by people like Rush Linbaugh who are like sheep being led to believe what these TV personalities tell them to.  Racism in America runs very deep, BTW, and won't be solved by electing one black president.  It isn't cool to express racist tendencies, so not much is there on the surface, but underneath it runs very deep.   So combine the right wing propaganda with a basic racism and you are going to get some very stupid criticism of Obama.  I'm personally proud of the way he handles himself, though I would hope for economic changes in the future, particularly in the area of diversification of American manufacture, and getting back our status as a manufacturing nation which makes quality products.  We do need to get away fro bottom line economics to quality driven economics.

 Some time spent googleing around will raise your eye brows. Ignore the opinion and rhetoric on either side and dig for verifiable facts.

Here's how it looks so far.

 His father was Kenyan. Under British  Kenyan law at the time his children are Kenyans wherever they may be born.  His step father was Indonesian. Under Indonesian law at the time when his step father claimed him he was automatically made a Indonesian citizen until his 18th birthday. On that day adopted foreigners  need to either file the documents to renounce their Indonesian citizen ship and reclaim their former citizenship or by default accept the permanence of the Indonesian citizenship.

 No documents have surfaced to show he filed that choice.

 Many millions of dollars have been spent on both sides of the lawsuits and still no verifiable answers.

 For the truth seeker, the issue is not one of race. It is about legal qualification.

 To automatically dismiss out of hand the seeking of truth as a form of racism/sexism/cronyism/ or any other "ism" could be construed as narrow mindedness. Therein lies the rub. The old specter of "if your not with us your against us".
 
 In many circles dissenting opinions are not tolerated. Decisions based on feelings seldom mesh with decisions based on sound rational thought, reason and logic.
 
 People are egotistical and self centered. Such is the nature of man.
It is nigh on impossible for most  to make the distinction between being wrong and being in possession of incorrect information. 

 Express an opinion or raise a question that does not go along the herd and out come the insults like racist,bigot,un enlightened,ignorant, un educated etc. etc.. It make the
lesser person feel better about themselves to put others down.

 Watch out for that wherever your quests for truth take you.

Also be warned that free thinkers are not always welcome where they some times find themselves. It makes some uncomfortable.

That Fannie May and Freddy Mac were ordered to make loans to individuals of unsound finances was poor judgment at work and one more example of a flawed system. If that hadn't happened we likely would not have had a stimulus package.

 I believe the stimulus money should have gone to the legitimate citizenry of the US
A kind of trickle up economy if you will.
 The paying down or off of personal debt would have been a real shot in the arm of the financial institutions.
 The purchase of consumer goods and services would have boosted the producers and providers.
 The sending of our children to college would be an investment in our future.
The starting of countless small businesses would have been good for us as a people
in more ways than I can count

 Instead it went to fortune 500 companies that make campaign donation$.
No $urpri$e there. Again covering up one mistake with another.

Que in the Who's Pete Towsend singing,,,, < meet the new boss,,,  he's just the same as the old boss >

[geoffbaker]

As you say, ice, millions have been spent.

If they can't make a case after spending those millions... then, in my deeply considered legal opinion, they should shut the f*** up.

The RNC had plenty of time and all the money in the world and serried phalanxes of the best and most expensive lawyers in the world, and years to do the hatchet job, and yet they failed to make it enough of a story to even get much airing on FOX.

Give it up. Beyond a certain point - it isn't truth seeking - it's narrow minded dogmatism that will not ever accept the possibility of being wrong. That ain't truth seeking... it's fanaticism taken to the nth degree.

Regarding racism; LJ did not call you - or anyone else - racist in regards to Obama. But there is no doubt that racism plays a part for many of the people in this country when it comes to having a black leader... we've all heard the unedited comments made by many voters ("I would never vote for a black man to be my President" was just one toned down comment that made the national news). You don't have to look far on the web to find amazingly racist sites attacking Obama...

Racism is real, it is here, and it was, and will continue to be a factor in how many perceive Obama.

Often, people are very careful to cloak their criticism to hide its racist origins. The people constantly making reference to Obama as a Muslim, which apart from being untrue speaks to the far-right religious racism of the KKK and others; they find every means to denigrate him without actually using racist terminology; but in my experience, there is a deep well of racism that really is driving a lot of this criticism. And when you listened to the Palin rallies when older white gentlemen faced the cameras angrily shouting "Hussein Hussein Hussein"... you could feel the river of race hatred running beneath it...

Ice; no-one called you a racist; LJ just made a perfectly valid point which I think is true, that racism is a big factor in many people's opinions of Obama.

If you choose to take it that way, I think that just makes it your problem, no-one elses. But really, you shouldn't.