The question is why do we need to drill at all?

We already have alternative sources of power. The problem is those that are making a buck off of "commercial energy" IE oil and electricity don't want the public to make the switch to renewable energy (air and solar).

There are already affordable wind powered turbines http://www.stealthgen.com/ Could you imagine the dent that would be put into the oil companies profits if every single home in the US would have something like this. Even though it may not provide our homes with 100% of our power needs it would be a good first step towards realizing energy independence -- the Arabs & OIL company CEO's worst night mare.

It's secondary benefit would be like the intial technolgy boom of space race.... jobs manufacturing these devices for americans... lower costs and etc. It would be a win win situation for everyone but the oil.energy companies and the high prices they've held America hostage too for years.

So the real question is why do we need to drill at all?

T. Boone Pickens
http://www.pickensplan.com/theplan/

There you go making sense again. Unfortunately, you will have to write slower so that all of the Anwar proponents can keep up.
They argue we don't have alternative energy readily available, which actually answers the FKIN question! WHY DON"T WE!!
By the time we start drilling in all of these places and actually getting oil out of the ground and using it... we could have weened ourselves mostly off oil already....GEESH!

Wind powered turbines take up a lot of space that would otherwise be habitat for animals. Do you hate animals? Anyway, you are right, we don't have to drill. If we use breeder reactors and electric cars there is enough Uranium to last for 8 million years. I know that its not renewable but the sun could go nova by then so what's the difference? Also pollution emmissions. The Uranium is already in the ground, these reactors make it LESS radioactive.

because the entire industrialized world runs on oil...noone's saying that we shouldn't work towards being free of oil as a fuel, but for now, it's the cheapest fuel we have

wind power is the worst, it's erratic, expensive and unreliable...wind turbines are broken almost 33% of the time

we need to drill now even if only to change world perception that supply is running low, this will lower the price, and give us more oil while we continue to develop cost effective, profitable alternatives

Wow, really? Where can I pick up one of those alt powered cars for under $25,000?

We need to invest in alt technology but at the same time we need to do our part to increase the world supply of oil to drive the prices back down. once we have alternatives then the market will dictate which survive and which fail.

Hopefully we will have several different alternative fuels for cars and those can compete against each other in the market..

Aside from some winter heating there are no homes that use oil in place of electricity.

There is no widely available alternative source of energy for cars, boats, trucks, planes than oil based fuel. We require these things to get people to work and deliver food and goods. We will need oil for the next 30 years.

There is no pixie dust or stars to wish on.

problem is that not everyone is crazy about wind power, check out when we were going to build a wind farm off the Atlantic coast, who opposed it? And wind power can't produce enough to supply the whole country. The only source that can is Atomic. Try and see what happens when we want to build those.

America is already drilling 62% of all the wells being drilled in the world today and we import 20% more oil now than we did when Bush-Cheney took power.

We need to start drilling holes in the conservatives' skulls and injecting some brains and education into them.

this is such a stupid question. but then I can see who the morons are that you get your info from.
try air and solar powering the sears tower,or any other sky scraper.
and what about night time,and days without strong winds?
you libs NEVER think things out before sticking you left foot into your pie hole.

The answer is we don't. Even if we did--the oil companies have millions of acres of leases they aren't drilling on. No point in handing over public land and resources to them when -they obviously have more now than they can use.

We need to drill. The only problem I see is that the oil companies have lease rights to several million acres and aren't drilling. Why? Would you flood the market if you are making billions off of your created shortage?

because so called "alternative energy" isn't readily available, and it costs more per gallon of ethanol to produce that $4.00 gasoline.

You obviously aren't old enough to drive yet. Because if you were, you probably wouldn't be asking this question.

we will always need oil, face it. So let's begin offshore drilling and get the ball rolling on this. The dems do NOT want this country to drill because high gas prices benefit them!

Because Bushco can't get rich off of alternative energy?

You need oil to lubricate those Windmills,electric car wheels...............

I didn't realize we had solar and air powered cars. That's why we need to drill at all.

we need to drill , and build more refieneris

I cant believe that people are still looking to oil! Did they miss the global warming news? Big oil has shut down all alternative energy sources that they don't already control. They made us dependent on them with the help of there hand picked politicians! As far back as the 1920s, American Co.s were mass producing electric trucks because the gasoline engines of that time did not have the h.p. to climb the steep hills in mountainous areas. Had bush put 1/2 the tax money into green energy sources that was WASTED in Iraq we would be the world leader in clean energy production . This would have created millions of good paying jobs,Improved our economy and SAVED THE PLANET!!Thus cutting off funding to our enemies and defeating them without killing 4000+ troops ,750,000 inocent Iraqis and crippling millions! Greed has brought America to this lowly state.

do you have any idea how much money the government makes by taxing oil consumption??

That's why they want us to use oil and only oil as our source of energy. Granted, the oil companies make a profit of 8 to 10 cents a gallon. Given that fact, they would love to have oil as cheap and affordable as possible because then people would use more and the oil companies would make more money.

The government however, taxes on the cost of the product so whereas now we pay (in NY, with state and fed taxes, about 70 cents a gallon -- because gas is about 4.30 a gallon here, whereas when gas was 2.45 a gallon, about two years ago, when the dems took over congress, we were paying about 40 cents a gallon in taxes.

So now we use the same amount of gas, maybe cut back 10%, but the taxes the govt. takes in goes up by almost double. Nice racket the government has. I'm glad they're looking out for the average American, just like they'll look out for us when they screw a healthcare tax onto our overburdened asses. The biggest profiteer in this whole oil/energy scam is the federal and state government. And those crooks put us in this mess, and guess what, they have all intention of keeping us here. Nothing like having a socialized government so in control of our daily lives. We need more change in that direction, right? Can't wait for them to tax me 1.00 a gallon for home heating oil so it will cost me $5,000 a year to heat my home. I'm really looking forward to that

The reason we drill is to get more oil. That seems basic enough for anyone to understand. Just like we shouldn't turn our backs on solar and wind (and nuclear), we shouldn't stop trying to find ways to get more oil. Right now oil is the lifeblood of the country. Let's get as much of it as we can. Build refineries. Build nuke generators. Setup windmills. Dam rivers. Mine coal. Set up solar panels. Investigate more thoroughly hydrogen. Let's not set ourselves up for an energy crunch by discarding any viable method of generation. Including oil.

It was never about drilling. "We" don't drill (and I personally haven't even stepped on a lease in more than a decade); oil companies drill... when they get darned good and ready.

It was an election year misdirection ploy that had the side benefit of leasing off some more public land that won't be drilled any time soon. The ploy's intended purpose was to give voters a reason to vote for Republicans while directing them away from important facts like what is driving the current price spike and the summary conclusion of everybody in the field that we need to develop alternative energy sources at a much greater pace if we are going to reduce our dependency on oil imports.

One thing I get from this forum is that there are a lot of misinformed people out there with very strong opinions nonetheless.

One fellow in here is suggesting there is no such thing as homes heated by natural gas or heating oil, for example. It is very strange the leaps people will take in order to justify their partisan worldviews.

Think of it this way, for every 1000 megawatts of electricity you generate using renewable energy, that is 400,000 homes that do not get their energy from coal or natural gas, freeing up those resources for use elswhere. A single wind farm of 500 turbines can generate 1000 megawatts, and the entire central corridor of the country has wind in abundance.

Similiarly, the Western corridor has sunshine in abundance, and with parabolic solar facilities, you can generate 180 megawatts on a single square mile of land using current technology.

It is completely feasible (and cost effective in the current climate) to convert as much as 25% of our current power generation to wind and solar power alone.

"It's secondary benefit would be like the intial technolgy boom of space race.... jobs manufacturing these devices for americans... "

In case you didn't know, the space race technology boom was paid for by the American taxpayer, and not a dime's worth of patents that resulted from that technology boom became property of the government that paid for them.

Regardless of the "need" for such a project, if the government is too stupid to retain a percentage of the resulting inventions, which any prudent investor would certainly do (in addition to getting their money back, which the government did NOT do), then I'm against it being done with tax money.

Solar panels and wind turbines and ethanol are all unviable without taxpayer subsidies.

Basically, we need to drill because that's the only source of energy anyone is willing to provide without a government handout.