Let’s get off our addiction to ‘big oil’
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William H. Westhoff
Published: September 5, 2008
Oilman T. Boone Pickens changed energy-horses from “big oil” to renewable energy because he knows oil has an incurable problem. That problem argues Obama’s energy policy change that supports
new dependence-free energy sourcing and improved national electric distribution grids. These are needed for an environmentally sensitive, sane and secure U.S. future. Sadly, McCain is permanently
hooked via the old financial connections of the Bush dynasty and other conservative supporters to “big oil.”
Energy from foreign oil is part of America’s national security problem. It is a major reason the U.S. is mired in Middle Eastern internecine wars. America needs (and soon) an energy policy based in part
on renewable sources, such as wind and solar, that is backed by support of new interstate electric transmission grids.
As President Eisenhower foresaw, the national policy needed to build today’s interstate highway system, so America needs a renewable energy infrastructure policy needed to secure its future. Leaving
national energy policy setting to the likes of Cheney, “big oil” leaders, dynastic Halliburton (which merged with Dresser Industries in which Prescott Bush was a director and for which former president
George H. W. Bush worked), and other oil related companies and their “hooked” executives, was clearly a “letting the fox in the hen house” error. It was certainly not the strategic planning Eisenhower
would have done.
The needed national change of energy-horses can only be done by Obama because he is not hooked to “big oil” and because, like most Americans, Obama believes $5 to $10 per gallon gas in the future
is not in America’s vital national interest.
WILLIAM H. WESTHOFF
Woodbridge
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Posted by ( willow703 ) on September 11, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Ray,
You don’t have to have a river in your backyard. Bull Run & the many little creeks in & around Manassas have plenty of water.
How much electricity is being generated by all of those solar panel from sun-up to sun-down & how much is generated by those windmills when the wind when the wind isn’t blowing. Does Bull Run stop flowing when the sun goes down or when the wind doesn’t blow?
If you decide on a windmill, don’t go for the TBoone model, very inefficient.
Select an open cone or Venturi tube model which concentrates the wind.
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Posted by ( raywilliams ) on September 10, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Not to beat a dead horse willow, but I feel it is the combination of many small sources of energy that will help reduce our demand for oil. I’ll go with your water wheels where there is water. We all know in the “old days” water wheels powered our grist mills and such. Living in the Manassas area, I don’t have a source of water, but I can install solar systems on my home or even place a windmill in my yard to help reduce my footprint. And yes, as Obama says, I can even check the air pressure in my tires to help that little bit. There is no one answer, but using all the technology available is a start.
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Posted by ( willow703 ) on September 09, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Ray,
Who said anything about dams? Water wheels, placed in free-flowing rivers & streams, would produce electricity 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. You can’t say the same for windmills & solar panels. So, one water wheel may replace a dozen windmills & many acres of solar panels. You might place a couple hundred between Great Falls & Point Lookout.
I haven’t seen anything in Sen. McCain’s or Sen. Obama’s energy plans. All I’ve seen is “alternate sources”. With Sen. Obama, you can be sure that those are limited. Don’t even think about nuclear power because Sen. Obama is not that liberal (open-minded).
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Posted by ( rafaelva ) on September 09, 2008 at 6:31 pm
RayWilliams, RonCharest, please don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t defending the oil companies. A lot of the leases are held by speculation companies. Buy a bunch of leases, wait and see if a nearby lease goes into production. If one does, and the geology looks good, the adjacent leases are now worth a bundle, and are sold off at a whopping profit, without a drop of oil being produced.
I’m for the use it or loose it idea, start development withing X number of months, or loose it. Also,
make them non-transferrable.
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Posted by ( raywilliams ) on September 09, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Okay, not all oil leases will produce oil. But these leases were purchased because it is likely they will produce.
We know they won’t produce just sitting there, so why aren’t they drilling?
So why the hubba on new leases? Will they just sit for years also? Are we any more certain they will produce? Will this new oil solve our 2009, 2010, 2011 problems? The answer is either we don’t know or a flat-out no.
Talk of opening new drilling fields is just another means used by the Republican Party to instill fear in the general public and an opportunity to point the finger at “someone” to blame. What the Republicans don’t tell you is that they are at fault for the crisis and no, new drilling today will not solve our crisis. Not today, not tomorrow and not 10 years out in the future.
Drilling our way out reminds me of Jim Gilmore’s “NO Car Tax” slogan. Well folks, I STILL pay a car tax - how about you?
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Posted by ( raywilliams ) on September 09, 2008 at 2:01 pm
willow, I am not against your water wheels. In a limited way, they would help produce some energy and free up oil and coal. But it would take a Hoover Dam style project to ween just northern Virginia off oil/coal energy.
If we dam the Potomac River, then we create new environmental issues and Dan Snyder may not be happy about flooding his home. Supporting Obama’s plan of first reducing the DEMAND for oil, then find other sources to compliment our need for oil. Wind, solar, water, nuclear all reduce the demand for oil - but none will replace oil.
$2 BILLION per week spent in Iraq. How many weeks could build Metro to Manassas or Gainesville or VRE to Haymarket or Broad Run? Save one or two months of Iraq spending and we improve mass transit and reduce the demand for oil.
America needs an energy plan and for the past 7 years the Bush Administration has sat on their hands doing nothing. Bush owned the government for 6 years AND GOT NOTHING DONE regarding oil, except raise our price at the pump.
You want water wheels? Go ask John McCain where your water wheels are in his energy plan.
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Posted by ( RonCharest ) on September 09, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Rafaelva,
I agree with you, that the oil companies need to make a profit on the sale of oil after all the site prep. I do not agree that the oil companies have a valid excuse to not explore the leases of public lands that they already hold, and demand the right to procure still more leases.
Some of the leases that companies are holding go back several years, when oil was selling for a fraction of what it is now. In reality, over the long term the price of oil is going to increase (ain’t making any more dinosaur fossils). The clear implication is that oil companies are sitting on leaseholds waiting for crude prices to climb still higher before developing those fields.
In addition, the current Republican-led push for drilling on protected lands gives oil companies a sweetheart deal, by lowering the extraction royalties paid to the US Government (us taxpayers) as added incentive to drill.
Finally, those unused leases count as assets on the company’s balance sheets, keeping their share prices high, which only benefits shareholders.
The Democrats have pushed for a “use it or loose it” clause in previous energy bills, only to see that provision shot down by Republicans. Wonder why?
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Posted by ( barnun ) on September 09, 2008 at 11:16 am
you guys do know that T Boone Pickens really wants to sell you natural gas right ? Off oil but not off fossil fuel although his ads show windmills in the back ground.
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Posted by ( rafaelva ) on September 09, 2008 at 8:48 am
A short while ago I did a search around the Dept of Interior website, and I was able to find a list of oil lease holders. Surprisingly, the largest single holder of oil leases on public land, is not an oil company, but a consortion of family owned construction companies located in either Arkansas, or Alabama.
Agreed the major oil companies may in fact, combined hold a large percentage of the leases, however, the list is pretty long, and a lot of other oil exploration companies, and other types companies hold leases as well. A lot of these oil leases are located on public land in the west, not offshore. Cost effectiveness is then the thought, can you do the necessary geology, site preparation,
drill, reprepare the site, and transport the oil off the site (if oil is found),and still make a profit? Good question, huh?
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Posted by ( willow703 ) on September 09, 2008 at 7:04 am
Ray,
Those are not just my mountaintops, those mountaintops, as well as mountaintops all across the nation, are the heritage of all. Oh, I lived in Idaho from 1938-1950. In December, 1950 I was moved to California. I lived for 2 & 1/2 years in Hollywood By the Sea, in Ventura County, next to the Port Hueneme Navy Base. Our house was 100 yards from the high tide line. There were oil rigs off Santa Barbara in 1950. I remember that one could smell the oilfields at Bakersfield long before they came into view. I was a Californian for 27 years. I experienced my first earthquake in 1951, it killed 18 people in the Bakersfield area. Uncle Sam sent me to Louisiana, I experienced my first hurricane there. Although it was only a strong tropical storm by the time it reached De Ridder, it was far worse than Isabel. Uncle Sam also sent me to Denver, for medical treatment, where I experienced my first summer snowstorm, August 4, 1962. I spent 2 & 1/2 years in the desert at White Sands Missile Range, a year & a half in tornado alley at Lawton, Oklahoma, a year in the Seattle-Tacoma area of Washington, 4 months in Georgia, 7 weeks in Georgia, & 5 weeks in Indiana. So, that Virginia has been my home for the past 35 years doesn’t mean I haven’t been around.
There are places on the Oregon coast where the wind blows so strong, and for so much of each day, that the trees grow horizontally. Would you & T. Boone put windmills there? How about Big Sur, would you put windmills there?
Out of sight, out of mind? If it might do damage to protected areas, it’s okay to do it elsewhere?
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