Congress on oil, the facts.

AN interesting little article sent to me:



The Imperative Of Developing Natural Resources
By Paul M. Weyrich
June 18, 2008
The year was 1967. I was on a private aircraft belonging to an oil company with my boss, the late Senator Gordon L. Allott (R-CO). We were flying to Oklahoma City, where Allott was to address the state GOP Convention. An oil company executive asked me if ever I had seen oil shale. I said I had not. Whereupon he picked up a piece, took out his cigarette lighter, and lit the piece. It burned like high grade coal. The oil company man proceeded to tell me that if oil ever reached $30 a barrel it would be profitable to develop oil shale. Even with inflation oil has exceeded that price so why ar en't w e developing the trillions of barrels of oil-shale reserves. There is a one word answer to that question: Congress.
I receive mail from folks who tell me they don't vote because there is no difference between the political parties. In some ways they are correct but not when it comes to energy. Representative Roy Blunt (R-MO), House minority whip, has presented his colleagues with data which clearly makes the case that in terms of developing oil and natural gas there is a profound difference between the parties, at least in the House of Representatives.
Blunt's figures show that for the past 14 years 91% of House Republicans voted to develop oil at ANWR while 86% of Democrats opposed drilling there. In the conversion of coal to liquid category 97% of House Republicans supported the concept while 78% of Democrats opposed it. Regarding the development of oil shale in Colorado and Utah the level of support among House Republicans was 90% while the level of opposition to the devel opment of oil shale among Democrats was 86%.
When it comes to oil exploration for the Outer Continental Shelf 81% of Republican House Members said yes while 83% of Democrats said no. And look at this figure: 97% of House Republicans want to increase refinery capacity while 96% of Democrats said, no way. Historically, Blunt said, 91% of Republicans have favored development of oil and gas reserves while 86% of Democrats historically have been against oil and gas exploration and development.
Blunt's staff also compared the plans of each of the parties to deal with the skyrocketing price of gasoline. The Democratic plan includes seven investigations of price-gouging, four investigations of speculators, suing OPEC, $20 billion in new taxes against the oil companies. None of these would reduce the cost of gasoline. The only item in their plan which would do so is to stop the oil going to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That would lower the cost of a gallon of gasoline by 5 c ents T he Republican plan would develop oil in the Continental Shelf and develop it deep in the sea. It would develop oil shale, and it would abolish earmarks to pay for the Federal gas tax holiday. Republicans and Democrats agree on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Taken together these items would reduce the cost of a gallon of gasoline by at least $1.95 and maybe a lot more depending on the productivity of each of the development projects.
What many of us wonder is this: When will the people of the United States say enough is enough and demand of their elected representatives that we develop our own resources? If we did we would not need to import one drop of oil from these ruthless dictators who would like to see us defeated or dead. I love the pristine beauty of nature, too. But we have made so many strides in new technology that we do not have to ruin the environment to explore and develop oil and gas. $4 a gallon doesn't yet seem high enough for a public revolt. What will d o it? $5 a gallon? How about $8 to $11, which is what some Europeans are paying already. I hope and pray the revolt comes before it is too late.

Thanks Tim!! Rather enlightening, but, if I say what is enlightening I am sure to offend someone!:rolleyes: It seems plain enough for anyone to understand the meaning of the article!...I hope!?:)

If it's that profitable it sounds to me that the Oil industry just has two options: (1) wait until the republicans take over the congress or (2) reverse its distribution of their donations between the two parties.
Either approach should work and they appear to have lacked some foresight last time the republicans had a majority - the price was just around $30/barrel adjusted for inflation. Since they preferred to play it absolutely safe and wait till it was clear that the prices are up there to stay they will now have to work a bit harder to get it to come.

It's never too late - the american shale ain't going anywhere. The only risk is that some other source of energy can become cheaper and more desirable in the meanwhile, so if the Oil industry doesn't have X years in which they can explore shale w/o much competition from other energy sources they won't bother building the infrastructure to start with.

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Originally Posted by gugi

If it's that profitable it sounds to me that the Oil industry just has two options: (1) wait until the republicans take over the congress or (2) reverse its distribution of their donations between the two parties.

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Or, they could just continue to rake in record profits by leaving things as is.

Hope springs eternal Tim!


Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never Is, but always To be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

-Alexander Pope,
An Essay on Man, Epistle I, 1733

FWIW things are remaining As-Is because of government regulation, not because of a lack of interest on the part of oil companies, IMHO. They cannot develop the other resources until they are allowed to. Meanwhile, these other technologies out there are proceeding far too slowly, IMHO. They need to pick up the pace. The US oil companies aren't doing near so well enough (many of the familiar names aren't even US owned anymore) to spend their hard earned profits on failed or competing technologies. Those other technologies and their proponents need to do their own work and earn their own pay. When that happens I think we'll have plenty of options, at least so long as the politics stay out of it.

John P.

Just about a month ago we stopped adding to the SPR. If I recall we aren't going to add until at least october.

What was not mentioned here is that the republicans have time and again voted for these projects because in the end they will further enrich the profits of the oil companies and all of these energy sources in one way or another are devastating to the environment. Ever see an oil shale operation? It makes strip mining coal look like digging a small duck pond in your back yard. Converting coal to oil? A very dirty operation. That's why the democrats have opposed these things.

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Originally Posted by thebigspendur

What was not mentioned here is that the republicans have time and again voted for these projects because in the end they will further enrich the profits of the oil companies and all of these energy sources in one way or another are devastating to the environment. Ever see an oil shale operation? It makes strip mining coal look like digging a small duck pond in your back yard. Converting coal to oil? A very dirty operation. That's why the democrats have opposed these things.

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Actually, I've not seen an oil shale operation. Got a link to an American one?

Personally, whether you blame Republicans or Democrats or others, we're all in this together. Question is do we accept slavery to those who we buy our oil from currently, or do we begin producing our own again. I don't know about others here, but I don't want MY grandmother to freeze to death this winter, whether or not a mine is an eyesore to somebody. Of course I may have this wrong to a point, but much of the stuff people are saying (it will take 10 years, etc) hasn't been shown to be true so much as a mantra repeated time and again. I would blame those same people in 10 years for choosing to do nothing, today.
Just my thoughts. Looking forwards to those pics Bill

John P.

Here is more info than a person could want about shale ans oil sands

also, they would seem to know their stuff

Econbrowser: Oil shale retort

It doesn't look like anything different from other mining operations. Here's one in Colorado: http://www.energyfrontiers.org/EFI/f...0visit%201.jpg

Here's another: http://content.answers.com/main/cont...pit_mining.jpg

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Originally Posted by Quick Orange

It doesn't look like anything different from other mining operations. Here's one in Colorado: http://www.energyfrontiers.org/EFI/f...0visit%201.jpg

Here's another: http://content.answers.com/main/cont...pit_mining.jpg

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They have a large operation in Canada and a really larger one there but those are oil sands which are different but the damage is the same. The shale contains very small amounts of oil so enormous amounts of rock has to be removed and processed the same way coal is strip mined just that this operation has to remove many times the amount of material. What you are left with are just huge holes in the ground extending miles and miles.

Thanks for the pics.
So we've established that it's nasty...which I believe is also the reason for not tapping into our own [regular]oil resources to a large degree, also.
Why then, is it OK to purchase oil from the middle east, effective supporting their particular economies at the cost of our own, when it is essentially subsidizing exactly the same hit on the environment, (however big they imagine it will be) only in someone else's country. That country can then hold it over our and other nations' heads and charge whatever they wish.
Perhaps if all Americans lived in climes where temperatures never dropped below freezing, or never climbed into the scorching, things would be simpler. It would also be simpler if everyone could afford to live in cities and walk everywhere as proposed by some, but it simply is not going to happen, the country is much to far spread for that.
Personally, I think we should be heavily using nuclear power, but instead of giving it up and then sending the fuel off still extremely radioactive, after the first use, I feel we should take a page from France's playbook, and recycle the fuel until little active material is actually left. It makes waste much easier to get rid of, and to boot, a ton of nuclear fuel will outlast the same amount of coal or oil or natural gas exponentially. I think the technology is much much safer than some believe, if we would simply use it. The Navy has ships that need refueling only once every 15 or 20 years, whilst conventional ships (even smaller ones) have to be refueled many many many times in that time frame.
Anyway. I think nuclear would take a lot of strain off of petroleum etc. and make it more affordable/responsible for those who can, to own electric vehicles and the like, as the electricity would be much cheaper to produce as well as no fossil fuels being burned.
I'm rambling.
Perhaps someone can make sense of it , anyway.
John P.

+1 John. Nuclear is the way to go. If it's good enough to run all our ships, it's good enough for everything else.

there is no oil in oil shale
they are researching ways to complete the heating process and pump the oil without mining

go read that link I posted


nuclear is great

nuclear power + electric cars


higher prices WILL force innovation

I just hope WE get the patent on whatever innovation it is

I cant remember where the article I read was and if I can find it again I will be sure to post it. I read not too long ago that they had come up with a new process for mining oil shale. It was about twice as expensive but it did not have any of the devastating effects of strip mining. Essentially what happened is they did underground borings to create massive pockets where they could introduce large amounts of chemicals, heat, and water into the ground to harvest the products out of the oil shale which they would then pump out in a similar manner to how we currently get oil. This new process was developed by Shell Oil Company and the article said that they were hopeful to be able to use this in America since there is apparently more oil shale in this country than anywhere else in the world. Now if any of this is true I can not believe that anyone in our government would not be trying to exploit this to bring in the kind of money to this country that oil producing nations currently are experiencing. Ill look for the article again but has anyone else heard of such a thing?

I'm pretty sure I've heard somewhere the Air Force already has an operation similar to this already working, just as a proof of concept. Not sure if it's true, but worth a look.

John P.

Oil shale, may be one of the answers, But I fail to see where it is all congresses fault on the oil companies not producing more oil.
I did some research, and I found out through the Dept of Energy that the Oil companies have

over 60 million acres of Leased lands that includes off shore leases as well.

Over 6000 permits that are not being used.

So with all the land that is leased, and all those permits that our government has given them to drill or get oil....All I see is congress telling them no more leases or permits. Which to me makes sense...How many more leases and permits do they need before they decide to start using what they have?
It is not like the permits on on lands that aren't oil rich, because the Oil companies got to pick the lands they leased and applied for permits to drill on land that has oil under it.

It is like this ANWR thing. Everyone wants to give the OK to drill in ANWR. Not the whole place, but what is Federally owned.
the estimate total recoverable Oil on that Part of ANWR is 7.7 Billion barrels of oil. Thats the easy to get oil, and the heavy not so good stuff oil as well.
It would take at least 10 years to get ANWR up and running. In 2002 they estimated it would be operational by 2012 if they started in 2002.
Currently we are using 20 millions barrels of oil per day in this country.
if we some how managed to extract all the oil from that part of ANWR 7+ billion barrels, it would be gone on a year if we used only that oil to run our country.

If it were added to our supply to offset what we import from OPEC. say 2 million barrels per day, that is 10% of what we import. how much cheaper would our gas be? if we got it for nothing I would guess it would be 10% cheaper, but I don't see the Oil companies selling the oil to the USA for less than the Global rate. It wouldn't matter too much because if they get approval to drill in 2009, it would still take about 10 years to get it operational. So we wouldn't even see any relief for another decade.

Here is an interesting thing. In Alaska, there is a Oil reserve called Prudhoe Bay Field, and another one called the Former Naval Petrolieum reserve.
Here is a Proven Oil field, with about 25 billion barrels of oil which they believe they can recover about 15 billion barrels or so.
the have already drilled 25 wells, all of them will produce oil, all of them have been Capped off, and nothing is flowing from them.
The question is WHY?
Why are we talking about others places the oil companies need to secure.
Other Permits they need to have.
When they are sitting on an established, Drilled, Capped oil reserve Worth about 15 billion Barrels of oil?
Still sitting on some 60 million acres of leased land with know oil reserves.
and 6000 permits granted by the US government.. Saying go ahead and get the oil.
And yet they act like their hands are tied.

Very interesting post.
I think an interesting thing to ask would be why were those particular wells capped? There are other things at work than simply whether a company has a government lease or if there is or is not oil underneath, be it political restrictions/treaties, environmental laws/restrictions, court orders, or perhaps even bankruptcies. If one company owns the lease to a certain piece of land then goes under, for instance, I am pretty sure that the others do not in turn automatically get to drill there.
I could be wrong on this, of course, but even sinister oil companies are not ones to turn off the profit-faucett, unless they are no longer US owned, and are looking after their own nations' interests instead....
Also, the 10 year number keeps being thrown around, and to be honest, I've never once heard it quantified. My best guess is that it, too, is a guess. Like 84.2% of all such numbers, it was pulled from thin air and then repeated.
Regardless, even if 10 years is true, in 10 years time we will be in the position of having done A) nothing, claiming it will take 10 years to benefit or B) 10 years from now fuel might be a little bit more affordable. It may never again be "cheap" but it sure would be nice to break the choke hold on the prices that some at OPEC etc. currently have.


John P.

John.. Interesting take.
Who owns the leases there.. Exxon.
Is the lease still valid Yes
Is the permit still valid. Yes

The 10 year number is a in the middle number most use.
DOE uses a range I believe is 7-12 years.
They get their numbers from Energy Boards with people who operate Oil Companies.
So the number is is valid as it can be.

Why Cap off the wells, and hold on to it? I am not sure of their reason. I can guess, and it would be the same why do I hang on to my precious metals? Because the value continues to go up.
Oil is a Precious commodity that has been going up, both from OPEC moving the price up, and also through the futures market. Also if you have Billions of dollars of unused oil at your disposal, it increases your net worth, you can borrow against it, it increase the value of your company, which makes you more attractive to share holders. I think we forget the Oil comapnies are under no obligation to suck oil out of the earth just because we want it. They certainly are not hurting financially, there profits are high, the CEO saleries are huge, so whats the rush?
It is not a sinister thing in play here, it is business.
If Oil starts flowing from Alaska from these places, what do you think the response will be from OPEC?

I know the answer,it will be to reduce the flow of oil from their countries by the same rate it is being offset by our country. They already stated as much, and they also gave Bush basically the same reason for not increasing their production of oil...They will only increase the supply as the demand increases, not before.
So Oil coming from ANWR, or anywhere else in Alaska for that matter is not going to offset the price by very much, not when it is still a private commodity traded on a world market.

Look up author Charles HIGHAM and TRADING WITH THE ENEMY...The book is about how the U.S. did business with the Nazis during WWII. The worst thing I read was where Standard Oil sold fuel to Nazi U-boats! Standard Oil tankers did not get torpedoed. There are other sins also. It could be worse-IF we only knew all of what our elected/bought leaders are doing NOW. Pay at the pump for peace?...Business is business.

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Originally Posted by timberrr59

Look up author Charles HIGHAM and TRADING WITH THE ENEMY...The book is about how the U.S. did business with the Nazis during WWII. The worst thing I read was where Standard Oil sold fuel to Nazi U-boats! Standard Oil tankers did not get torpedoed. There are other sins also. It could be worse-IF we only knew all of what our elected/bought leaders are doing NOW. Pay at the pump for peace?...Business is business.

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I wish an elected leader was a member here to defend him/herself

It was GWB's grandfather, Prescott Bush that talked congress into allowing American banks to lend Germany money back in the thirties. Its all business.

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Originally Posted by nun2sharp

It was GWB's grandfather, Prescott Bush that talked congress into allowing American banks to lend Germany money back in the thirties. Its all business.

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Oh my gosh, GWB shouldn't have let him do that! shame on him

Wild, et al.,

This is all well and good, this talk about producing more of our own energy, but don't you folks know that the more we make for ourselves the longer it will take to get us all on bicycles? If we cut ourselves to the energy quick, the more quickly we'll have to shed those extra two wheels and get onto two. Early to bed early to rise, bicycles, and an abacus; we may need neither cars, gasoline, nor electricity.

I think I just defined utopia.:cry:

:gth

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Originally Posted by timberrr59

Look up author Charles HIGHAM and TRADING WITH THE ENEMY...The book is about how the U.S. did business with the Nazis during WWII. The worst thing I read was where Standard Oil sold fuel to Nazi U-boats! Standard Oil tankers did not get torpedoed. There are other sins also. It could be worse-IF we only knew all of what our elected/bought leaders are doing NOW. Pay at the pump for peace?...Business is business.

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While this is possible, I have my doubts that a U-boat launching a torpedo at 5,000 yards or whatever always got close enough to see whether it was a Standard Oil tanker or not. Not saying the author made this up, at all, but to my mind this doesn't sound real-world to me.
Interesting side note, my grandmother watched a tanker(she said-beats me which one or who) go down right off the NC coast during the war, apparently torpedoed by a U-boat. Said the flames lit up the whole horizon (it was at night/evening, apparently).

John P.

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Originally Posted by JohnP

While this is possible, I have my doubts that a U-boat launching a torpedo at 5,000 yards or whatever always got close enough to see whether it was a Standard Oil tanker or not. Not saying the author made this up, at all, but to my mind this doesn't sound real-world to me.
Interesting side note, my grandmother watched a tanker(she said-beats me which one or who) go down right off the NC coast during the war, apparently torpedoed by a U-boat. Said the flames lit up the whole horizon (it was at night/evening, apparently).

John P.

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My father has similar recollections from his time in Providence, RI. Any ship that didn't make it in before the submarine net closed was toast.

But I do know that submarine commanders on both sides were extensively drilled in ship recognition, especially from silhouette profiles. Check uboat.net - The U-boat War 1939-1945. An absolutely fascinating -- and superb -- site.

I understand this, but even recognizing ship profiles (forces still do this btw) from a distance will not always tell one which company owns the ship. Obviously, they did sink tankers, but I doubt that in every case they radioed and asked if it was a Standard Oil tanker or not prior to launching torpedoes, although, anything's possible I guess.

John P.

What do you folks make of the T. Boone Pickens piece about natural gas? In case you haven't seen the video, Pickens (who is an oil man himself) suggests the best way out of the current situation is to use natural gas as auto fuel. He claims n.g. is relatively inexpensive, that the US has plenty of it, and that the technology already exists to runs cars on the stuff.
I haven't seen any substantive rebuttals to his point so far.
Anyone have an opinion on this?

Pickens is running a radio ad here (he is from these parts as we like to say) where he says that using solar and wind power would allow us to divert more natural gas toward more efficient usages through technologies that we already have and that it can be done in less than ten years.

I don't have an opinion on it, but maybe that little tidbit can add a little info

If you can free yourself from the pump and save oil/money why not. My grandfather had a small pickup that ran off propane. Hank Hill wouldve been proud. During WWII the french cabbies ran thier cabs with methane. If you can do it, do it.
I did see the piece on TV, not a big fan of T. Boone, but I believe hes right, we shouldnt box ourselves in with just one commodity. there needs to be alternatives, especially for a free market to work with checks and balances.

Anyone else remember THIS??? It was actually in nascent stages when Reagan killed it because gas prices went down.

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Originally Posted by ScottS

Anyone else remember THIS??? It was actually in nascent stages when Reagan killed it because gas prices went down.

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Yeah, Reagan has a lot to answer for. Sure hope there's a god.

j

The Charles Higham book TRADING WITH THE ENEMY does not specify how the Standard Oil Tankers identified themselves to the U-boats. They probably had a flag or light for recognition. Agents were very active also. Before the Enigma Code was broken much radio communication was never exploited. The torpedo approaches were very close then-in only hundreds of yards, and sometimes hundreds of feet! Sometimes closer! Submarine crews could easily identify prey with visual or sonar. Before convoys, tankers were nearly helpless from being torpedoed or shelled with deck guns. American blue chip companies in collusion with the enemy during WWII is a very disgusting revelation to me. I was naive believing that American business was without blemish THEN. Oh well, Buisness is still business...I guess it all works out in the end. Damn, I even owned a Porsche and a Mercedes once! Worst of All, I owned Fords (Ford supplied trucks to the Nazis in occupied France)! Its time I watched some more John Wayne movies and get on with what I can take care of here and now and not worry about the real world.

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Originally Posted by billyjeff2

What do you folks make of the T. Boone Pickens piece about natural gas? In case you haven't seen the video, Pickens (who is an oil man himself) suggests the best way out of the current situation is to use natural gas as auto fuel. He claims n.g. is relatively inexpensive, that the US has plenty of it, and that the technology already exists to runs cars on the stuff.
I haven't seen any substantive rebuttals to his point so far.
Anyone have an opinion on this?

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It shouldn't be a big deal to do. The Navy heavily use natural gas powered vehicles on bases as well as dual fuel. As far as I know the engine was exactly the same. The dual fuel ones had the N.G. tank in the trunk; I once had to drive one from Point Mugu, CA to San Diego. Almost freaked out when it was out of gas, pulled into the gas station, only to find the thing was full. Turns out I'd been running on natural gas the whole time, and just had to flip a switch to run it on gasoline.
Also had a close call once, when supporting an airshow, the squadron's duty fan was used to ferry everyone. Turned out when it was low that transportation had switched out our vans for maintenance, and this was a CNG only vehicle. Kindof hairy finding a station that could fill it in time.
Still, it works and apparently has for some time (the first instance was in 1997) pretty much just like gasoline as far as how the car drives. No lack of power (yes, I have a lead foot) no complaints.

John P.

Nord Jim (post#27) gave us The BEST U-BOAT Site EVER! u-boat.net-The U-boat War 1939-1945. Please check it out. It is more than fascinating! It is a shame that governments and big money pull deals behind the scenes during wars. Somebody suffers and somebody makes out when wars happen. I guess it has always been that way. Again, what a shame on us all!

There are many natural resources that are being shamefully ignored. Take wind energy for one, in western Kansas there are vast amounts of open land that are perfect for harvesting wind energy. The wind turbines end up paying for themselves because they capture free energy, whereas steam turbines require coal/oil/natural gas to operate.

Not an expert, but a quick google search finds these figures:

The average cost for 1 kilo-watt-hour is ~8.6 cents
The East Coast pays closer to 12 cents
The West Coast pays around 7.5 cents
Wind power is estimated to deliver 1 kwh at 4 to 6 cents
One avergage coal fueled power plant produces 3.5 billion kwh

If we estimate 3 cents saved by wind turbines, that would mean that there would be an extra ~100 million dollars floating around in the hands of the American people if the current amount of energy could be produced via wind turbine.

Just another option that ought to be pursued, not the definitive answer to the energy crisis but wind is domestically produced/harvested and will never be in short supply.

Anyone else have more in depth knowledge?

My last outfit had us often detached to San Clemente Island, off the coast of California, to pick up torpedoes and launch targets in the sea test range (and fight fires-something that has since come in very useful for that outfit a few times since). To my knowledge, the entire island (base) was powered by several wind turbines that were on top of a ridge. They were pretty huge, and very very quiet.
I once saw someone convincing a young newbie to the place that they were "fog dissipators" and that they only started up to keep the air over the island clear...
:D

I think it has its places. There are power companies in this country that are IMHO worse monopolies and have worse practices than "big oil" ever dreamed of. There are things we could do, only IMHO the political/environmental/etc restrictions need to be re-evaluated IMHO to see if they still apply with current technologies, and the NIMBY issue needs deal with also...


John P.