GIP and stuff

[kellinator]

Look at this awesome icon relevantpink made for me! She picked "shipwrecks" from my interest list and gave me this great multi-purpose icon.

I'm still hunting for my current political icon. I've seen a couple of good candidates over at liberal_icons. I hate to give up the Kerry icon, but I'm reaching the point where I sit there debating over which icon to delete every time I get a new one, and that's just sad. But, you know, you don't want to get rid of the nice ones people made for you... I did delete a Munch icon a while back. See? It has happened.

Oh, forgive me while I indulge in a moment of "told you so":

Drilling approved for Alaska oil reserve

I'm sorry. I'd like to be writing politically insightful things, but right now I'm still trying to figure out what the hell I can do to make a difference.

In the meantime, I'll probably just write fluff.

Comments

[streamweaver.livejournal.com]

Fluff can be ok sometimes. Everyone needs a little fluff in their life, me included. I look forward to you being my fluffer. er.... wait......

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

You bad boy. ;)

Have you seen Reaper's Warlord rulebook yet? If not, I need to show it to you.

[streamweaver.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen it yet, is it good?

[dwivian]

Can you tell me what is wrong with a postage stamp area in a tundra being drilled for oil, what with the protections required on such land (in other Alaska areas you can't park your car without putting a pad under it to catch any oil or grease that might drip off).

I've just never understood the problem with the drill site (frozen over in permafrost, no real wildlife, and the region is going to remain pristine per regulations).

[missakins.livejournal.com]

yeah, someone explained it like 'take an oriental rug that fills up a whole room, that's the reserve. now take a quarter, that's the drill site.'

[alfabettezoupe.livejournal.com]

there's about a billion other sites within the state to drill. however the oil is not as easily reached and would therefore cost the companies more money to go after it. that's why they would rather go after the site in the anwr.

[alfabettezoupe.livejournal.com]

have you ever been to alaska or dealt with people in the oil industry?

no one knows what will happen if we start drilling in the anwr. we have no real idea about what kind of effects it will have on the wildlife in that area or the atmosphere. it's simply an unknown.

they want to drill in the anwr because it's a straight up and down, no directional drilling. as such it costs the oil companies millions of dollars less and lets them sell the oil for cheaper.

while that's all fine and dandy, that's not good news for the people of alaska. after the military, the oil industry is the largest employer in the state. as a whole the state depends heavily not only on the money they make in the sale of petroleum (part of which goes to the dividends) but also on the work that drilling provides for the people within the state.

because you would be drilling in the anwr and not in any of the other oil rich regions of the state, you would be taking jobs from people who would otherwise be employed. directional drillers and wellplanners would both be out of work.

you can't look at it solely as an enviromental issue, you have to look at it for other reasons as well.

[dwivian]

have you ever been to alaska or dealt with people in the oil industry?

Er... yes?

You know, there are lots of oil-rich areas of Alaska being drilled, and there is no reasonable slant approach to the ANWR reserve. So, telling me those people won't be employed is akin to decrying motor cars because carriage manufacturers will go broke. If the skill isn't needed then it isn't needed. Why would one want to manufacture some demand? It's foolish.

Besides, the oil industry is not going to abandon oil search and initial drilling just because ANWR becomes viable -- they still have to stay ahead of the consuption curve, and those people will still have jobs so long as we drive SUVs down here.

And, lots of oil production is WONDERFUL for the people of Alaska, as taxes are parceled out per barrel, and thus each citizen gets a bigger break or incentive (they have an amazing lack of taxes because the oil industry pays most of the cost of government).

I think you might enjoy broadening your views on this issue some more. You came close to seeing the whole picture, which is a good thing.

[alfabettezoupe.livejournal.com]

i see the whole picture just fine :)

i lived in alaska until this may and my ex is a directional wellplanner for bp/halliburton. i've heard all the issues, inside and out.

while i can see the positives in drilling in the anwr, i can also see the minuses.

no, of course the drilling isn't going to stop other places... that's not the point though. unemployment is rampant in anchorage and fairbanks. it's not going to do either of those cities any good to do something that will provide even fewer jobs.

[dwivian]

I don't see that increasing slant drilling in the Prudoe Bay (did I even spell that right?) area would reduce unemployment in Fairbanks or Anchorage. Maybe I'm just misunderstanding, but that looks like one HELL of a commute.

I see the minuses, too -- they are claiming about 10 million barrels, INCLUDING SHALE. WTF?!!? Like BP will mine the shale before moving to land they already own where it's much warmer to do that... So, there isn't a lot of oil to be had, as far as I can tell. But, remove it and some of the shale-oil will leach back down, and maybe we'll get 6-7 million barrels. Even so, that's not a lot, considering our daily demand is 20 million.

And, I'd love to hear more from you on how the industry impacts Alaska, as one day the oil will start being more trouble than it's worth. What do you see happening then?

[alfabettezoupe.livejournal.com]

they do it in shifts. people go up to the slant for several weeks to several months and work for the most part nonstop. then they're home for several weeks and then the cycle starts again :)

that's the other part that really makes no sense. sure it's easier to get at, but the reserve there is small. there's not really enough oil to make it all that worthwhile. however the oil in other areas that is harder to get at is hugely plentiful.

there's enough oil in alaska that we could stop dependency on other countries. the problem is that it's not as neat and clean as the oil from the middle east. therefore it's going to take a ton of refinining to make it useable, but it is there.

i would love to see more companies use parts of alaska for drilling (not the anwr necessarily). people tend to forget that if you chopped the state into 4 equal pieces, the 5th largest state would be texas. it's huge and for the most part uninhabited.

[dwivian]

Cool discussion! I'm going to have to defer to your superior experience on this one.

[dwivian]

Oh, and since you've heard more...

....have you heard any assessment of the likely quality of the oil? I know we love Saudi reserves because it is a premium grade, easily refined. As we barely can manage refining what we get now, would the ANWR oil be more or less dirty? Could we even make use of it, or would we export it like we do much of the Prudhoe Bay oil?

[alfabettezoupe.livejournal.com]

hehehe, answered this in the above before i saw this :)

the oil is good, but it's going to need a lot of refinement to be made useable. you then get into the arena of whether it would be good to set up the refiniries in alaska or not. in all honesty, i don't see that as a bad idea. the state is enormous and in unprotected areas there's more than enough room to build and run things without having any impact on the people within the bigger cities.

[dwivian]

That's what I was afraid of -- I'd heard that we export most of our oil to other countries that can use the lower grade, or afford it, whichever. It seemed odd that we were an oil exporter with our demand, but if the oil is a pain to clean, it makes sense.

I just don't see the refineries being in Alaska, though. A refinery is, necessarily, dirty, and that'd be a real mess for the argument that we try to take care of the environment with the drilling. Houston has the worst air on record, on average, and it's because of all the nearby refineries. I'd hate to see the air in Anchorage destroyed like that. But, building a "clean" refinery is going to be so cost-prohibitive that it won't happen until we're on the downslope of oil availability, I fear.

[streamweaver.livejournal.com]

What a complete dipshit reply this is and how utterly clueless you have to be to make it.

It's a typical tactic for a moron argument too. You being with trying to define the argument and then asking people to explain to you, based on your own idiot postulates what is wrong with it.

It's obvious neither teachers or books have made a dent in that thick skull of yours, so there isn't a hope anyone is going to do it here.

If you ever decide to wake up crack a freaking book on what a Tundra ecosystem is like. It's not an area devoid of life, it's an area of cyclic environmental changes.

Try cracking a report on the cost benefit analysis of oil drilling there and you'll have some of your own answers. Just make sure it's an actual report and not one backed by a company that reaps all the benefits while suffering none of the consequences.

The oil industry isn't evil but this conversational tactic of pre-defining things based on this bullshit suppositions is. So if you want to be a dipshit reductionist then go get a mirror and talk to yourself, because you're the only one buying your bullshit.

[dwivian]

Er.... fuck off?

Dude, if you aren't going to be part of rational discussion, then I'm really going to have to consider that maybe the other side has NO RATIONAL argument. Besides, I find books more useful when read than when attempting to make dents in skulls. You might try that alternative sometime.

I've read quite a bit on environments (spent my college lab sequences in environmental sciences for a reason, donchaknow) and I know what a tundra is. I also know that disruption of a forest, or savannah, is much more damaging than a tundra or plains, in regards to oil drilling.

I also read, as a result of addition science coursework and just general interest, about oil production in Alaska, and the strict regulations on how it can be done, and what is done to protect the environment (as it differs from Georgia, Alabama, Texas, etc). The rules there are QUITE strict.

So, with the obvious demand, the intention to reduce foreign requirements, the push to avoid stripmining shale-oil, and the expectation that oil is a limited resource, it seems that early drilling and exploration in a confined space according to strict rules is not without merit.

My assertions are:
1. a small area will be impacted
2. the impact will be very minimal
3. the economic impact is unknown

(1) is a fact. (2) is based on the protections in the rest of Alaska, which are sufficent for my belief that continued use of those protections would be adequate for the region being considered. (3) is an assertion based in my lack of full understanding of the jobs, taxes, and market fluxuations of an entry source of oil on the world production stage.

Now, is anyone willing to explain, in a rational way, why we shouldn't consider a domestic source that is safer and cheaper than bulldozing large areas of southern savannah and northern slant-shale?

[shawnj.livejournal.com]

Or pehaps instead why we shouldn't be pushing harder for options besides drilling ourselves out of the problem?

[dwivian]

That's a good one, too! Easily answered by "the guys what owns the drills also owns the government."

::sigh::

Hey, I bought my hybrid car (too much long-haul for pure electric, just yet) and I'm looking closely at the SMART car (http://www.smart.com) for a future commuting vehicle.

(original deleted because I got the link wrong)

[shawnj.livejournal.com]

Good choice. I'm going hybrid myself (most likely a Prius, but depends on what'll be out when I go for one) when the time comes to get a new car.

I'm not trying to bait you, I hope you realize. It's just a common frustration for me at least that it seems like we're left with two real options: suck up to the Saudis or drill at home. The alternate route seems to offend anyone who wants the right to drive trucks to drop off their kids for soccer practice, and is under constant attack by people who want the market to cause the changes instead of regulation.

[dwivian]

The Prius was just a hair too small to be a family car, so I got the Honda Civic. Great mileage for the size of vehicle (seats five pretty well, LOTS of trunk space, 40+ MPG regularly), but I still want the 450+ mile range of the SMART. Besides, it LOOKS like an ecocar, while mine looks like... well... a Civic.

No worries on the baiting, either. Even though we still own a minivan, I'd be just tickled to see a 50c/gal consumption tax on gasoline (not diesel, to reduce impact on comestible goods transport) or a return to the CAFE rules that forced the entry of the Hybrid vehicles. We've got to cut back, or get efficient.

[cotharyus.livejournal.com]

But consider what a tax like that would do to people like me who make a living doing things like mowing yards. I get about 12 mpg and drive close to 100 miles a day, plus my mowers burn about 1gal/hr of gas. I can promise you that before my clients take the price hike that would get passed to them they would find a way to mow thier own yards. The alternative of eating the price hike doesn't help me either - I make enough to pay the bills, I'm not getting rich. Either way, a tax like this would put me out of business. I *do* think that anyone driving something huge for no apparent reason (like the H2 those kids just got dropped out of for soccer) should have to pay some sort of tax, but how do you decide who does and who doesn't?

[dwivian]

Get an electric lawn mower?

I can tell you right now that I'd be more than willing to pay such a slight increase in the cost of yard maintenance (less than $10 a month for my yard, plus an extra $7 to get you there). It's not a lot for your profession, quite honestly.

It'll hit the commuting traffic the hardest, and those with low milage vehicles will either curtail their driving, get a new vehicle, or suck it up as a cost of being affluent.

[pokeyturtle.livejournal.com]

there are solar lawn mowers too. and for small yards, use one that doesn't require fuel at all.

i don't understand why people go "meh it's gonna cost me MONEY to go alternative!" when we know damn well we're gonna run out of oil, and that oil prices are going to skyrocket well before that happens, and that sooner or later we'll be paying more anyway if civilization doesn't out and out collapse, so we might as well start paying more sooner.

[alfabettezoupe.livejournal.com]

rachelflax and i made an icon community for liberal-esque icons over at bytheleft, if you're interested :)

liberal fatigue

[missrachael.livejournal.com]

Drilling approved for Alaska oil reserve

God! Argh! See, this was the Bush plan I was angriest about back in the good old days of 2000, before he started really misbehaving. Now it seems so inevitable I can barely muster up a modicum of indignation.

Re: liberal fatigue

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

I'm with you totally. It makes me very depressed. And we have lots of it to look forward to.

Re: liberal fatigue

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

Lovely, innit?

I'm with the "blue states secede and join Canada" plan.