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It is an important part of an overall sound energy plan. Offshore drilling can be part of the solution... its not the solution.

Agreed...from what I've read there's a lot more natural gas than petroleum. Still, this might help lower heating costs next winter; my February bill was $350! I love this time of year, the heat doesn't run much and neither does the air.

I am glad to hear this it is good for the country and economy. Hey Jimmy how hot does it get up there during the summer months?

We usually get a short stretch where it flirts with 90's, right around July 4, but usually 80's most of the summer. They say 80 on Saturday. Absolutely beautiful weather this week!

One thing that really annoys me, Natural Gas is a wonderful resource that we lose when we remove the oil or coal. If we left them in the ground we could extract Natural gas for over a thousand years... but when we go to remove the source we burn the natural gas off as a dangerous by product of the mining / drilling.

We had a slump in coal production in Alabama during the 80's and early 90's... price was down so they reduced extraction, and natural gas wells went up all over Alabama to capture the resulting buildup of the natural gas venting off the coal. When coal prices went back up, mining resumed and those wells are sitting all over the state rusting and inactive.

But hey, there is a big Flare of flame that "neutralizes the danger" of the gases at every mine in Alabama.

Landfills were required under Clinton to start collecting the dangerous methane emissions percolating out of the ground after America's wastefulness began to decompose. So now... you can see a big wasteful flare of Methane being "safely disposed of" after collection at every licensed landfill in America.

Factory Pig farms in America dump their waste into "septic tanks" and do a similar flare stack to burn off harmful methane produced as the mountains of pig feces decomposes. But hey, lets ignore all of that and keep digging the coal, pumping that oil out and making Gasoline and plastics.

FYI, 3 gallons of clean water are polluted for every gallon of gasoline refined in America. Drill Baby Drill...

It is getting to the low 80's here every day and upper 50's to lower 60's at night. We really enjoy these temps here because it will be in the mid 90's with 90% humidity in about a month. During the hottest part of our year it struggles to get below 90 at night. Houstons population didn't start booming untill after the advent of air conditioning. It can get so hot here you can't sleep at night without a.c. it is all over the news to check on your elderly neighbors during the hot months because they can't afford the elec. bills so they won't run their a.c. and their relatives find them dead in a few days from heat exhaustion.

jimmydanger wrote:Agreed...from what I've read there's a lot more natural gas than petroleum. Still, this might help lower heating costs next winter; my February bill was $350! I love this time of year, the heat doesn't run much and neither does the air.

You need to invest in a few portable heaters. I've got two in my townhouse. One is the Heat Surge, they advertise it quite a bit on TV. It's the one made by the Amish and looks like a fireplace. It has a fake fire "burning" in it. It is quite attractive and puts out a good deal of heat. The other unit we have is a Sun Cloud which used utilizes four infra-red bulbs inside it. The Sun Cloud looks like a small end table. It also has a thermostat which the HEat Surge doesn't have. Both units are wonderful. Our gas furnace almost never comes on. Our average gas bill is about $20 a month. I'm SERIOUS, and our electric bill only went up about $35 a month. Both units have saved us thousands of dollars over the last five years. The gas utility company called me up and asked if we had a problem. Certainly not a problem with me....

Oh I forgot. I have a basement and in the Summer I put large whole-house circulating fan at the foot of the basement stairs and aim it to blow cold air up into my first floor. If you have any ceiling fans in the Summer they need to be reversed so they pull cool air off the floor up on to the ceiling. Using fans you can reduce how hard your AC works. It also makes you feel cooler having the air moving so you can raise your thermostat. This method also saves a lot of electricity. Fans don't use anywhere near the power the AC does. We have also switched all of our light bulbs to compact fluorescent which don't put out anywhere near the heat the incandescent and halogen bulbs did. If you have old windows and can afford new ones I heartily recommend that also. That makes a huge difference in your utility bills also. There's a lot of other things you can do to save energy.

It will be interesting to see if this actually happens. There's alot of environmental pressure against the idea, and the current administration is married at the hip to the environmental movement, so my bet is if we visit this topic again next year, nothing will have changed - suits against any move will be in dispute for years. Happy April Fools day. =:)

I wager it does happen, by the simple fact that he killed any Alaskan drilling option. I leave it to you to figure out why...

I might be over thinking here but drill for what? If there is any oil the country will not see it on the market for at least 30 or 40 years and it will not put a dent in our dependency on imported oil.

Obama has been working with a polarized congress before and after the Health care bill passed, giving the GOP something they want to try to close the gap between the 2 parties is a political move more than a strategic move toward foreign oil independence, drilling will not stop our dependency on foreign oil it will only postpone the inevitable, the GOP thinks the way to go is to get as much energy from our soil as possible which is not a bad idea but it only addresses our immediate need not the long term one.

Did anyone mention they have to use explosives to blast the sea floor to do this?

It's on 50mi off the coast and if something really bad happens, it's going to be on the east coast really quickly..

What part of Drilling requires Blasting?

Once they have reached the final depth, the crew completes the well to allow oil to flow into the casing in a controlled manner. First, they lower a perforating gun into the well to the production depth. The gun has explosive charges to create holes in the casing through which oil can flow.

Not once has this caused any part of land to break off into the ocean... and we've been drilling the Gulf of Mexico for over 70 years.

Did I miss some new dangerous technique they've developed?

They're DRILLING for oil... not mining it.

There are many companies developing areas of intense natural gas resources.
Oil just hit 85 a barrel.
Dewy is actually right , the oil is just part of the solution.
natural gas reserves in our country are tremendous, by some estimates ,enough to run every truck on the road and run them another 30 years. That includes heating homes , Chesapeake Energy , Apacche, to mention a few.
Coal,,, I didn't realize how different the grades could be.I.E. Steel coal burns that much hotter and is vital to steel production. Lower grades are still needed to produce much of our electricity.
Nuclear. competative electricity means ,,,,, Your gas car could be converted to hydrogen, you could produce your own h2 at home and fuel your car,,,,no hydrocarbons only water ,,, BUT you need less expensive electric.
Clean and Green ,,, Solar ,wind , and waves these will all help big time, right now they are expensive.....cost will come down
We have the means,,,, that is one of the reason America is so great.
This is one of the problems we will solve as the world moves foward.