I'm thinking maybe a more interesting topic? Not that this isn't very important... it is, but... it's sort of complicated, you know?Sueshore said:
I think I'm going to have to start a new thread!
WTF! This needs to be stopped...
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I think I'm going to have to start a new thread!
Until about 10 years ago, we were annual visitors to the Texas coast. I grew up going to Galveston each summer for vacation with my family. I loved it.
I now drive 13 hours to come to SoWal (instead of 4 hours to Galveston). The reason. Simple, the beaches in Texas are ruined. The last time we visited Galveston, the beach was gone along the seawall due to beach eroision caused by the seawall. Sound familiar?
The last time we visited Port Aransas (farther south on the Texas coast), you could not walk on the beach without your feet getting covered with tar (from the offshore wells). All of the rental properties and walkovers had "cleaning stations" for your feet, along with signs asking you to please not use the guest towels as cleaning rags.
The tar gets on your feet, your clothes, your shoes, your towel, on you beach chairs, in you house, in your car, on your dog, all over your kids, on their toys, not to mention on every shrimp and crab you eat.
Also, for each well, there needs to be a pipeline running to shore. To run these inland, the beach must be dug through and the pipes laid. Then of course you need a place to collect that oil or gas and process it. Now you get to have some great looking refineries.
Wow, I may get to start driving back to Galveston. No need to drive 13 hours to get beach eroision, tar, ugly views from the beach and refineries (but of course the gas will be much cheaper with all these new wells in Florida. ha ha).
Barbie
I now drive 13 hours to come to SoWal (instead of 4 hours to Galveston). The reason. Simple, the beaches in Texas are ruined. The last time we visited Galveston, the beach was gone along the seawall due to beach eroision caused by the seawall. Sound familiar?
The last time we visited Port Aransas (farther south on the Texas coast), you could not walk on the beach without your feet getting covered with tar (from the offshore wells). All of the rental properties and walkovers had "cleaning stations" for your feet, along with signs asking you to please not use the guest towels as cleaning rags.
The tar gets on your feet, your clothes, your shoes, your towel, on you beach chairs, in you house, in your car, on your dog, all over your kids, on their toys, not to mention on every shrimp and crab you eat.
Also, for each well, there needs to be a pipeline running to shore. To run these inland, the beach must be dug through and the pipes laid. Then of course you need a place to collect that oil or gas and process it. Now you get to have some great looking refineries.
Wow, I may get to start driving back to Galveston. No need to drive 13 hours to get beach eroision, tar, ugly views from the beach and refineries (but of course the gas will be much cheaper with all these new wells in Florida. ha ha).
Barbie
Whoa cowboy! I'm probably going to provide a (lone) differing opinion on this topic. I drill oil and gas wells for a living, to provide a living for my family, and to provide a necessary raw material for our society (at least in our lifetimes...)Barbie said:
To address a few points:
1) "you could not walk on the beach without your feet getting covered with tar (from the offshore wells)" - Granted, some of this tar may be coming from offshore oil operations, but other sources include dumped bunker fluid from oil tankers bringing in oil from other countries to satisfy our never-ending appetite for oil. The U.S. oil consumption fuels a whole lot of the economies of some of the worst places for corruption and human rights violations on this planet (Nigeria, Iran, Iraq, Congo, Indonesia, Columbia, etc.) The oil and gas producton industry as a whole has a pretty good environmental record. Way more oil has been spilled due to transportation (importing) than from domestic production.
2) "Also, for each well, there needs to be a pipeline running to shore" - Simply not true. Oil and natural gas are gathered to central processing facilities offshore. Flow from many platforms are gathered together and shipped to shore through a common pipeline.
3) "Then of course you need a place to collect that oil or gas and process it. Now you get to have some great looking refineries" - There hasn't been a new refinery built in the USA in over 20 years and it's not likely that one would ever be built in SoWal. Crude oil is often piped hundreds of miles inland to existing refineries near population centers. For example, foreign crude oil is unloaded offshore Louisiana (LOOP) and piped to Ashland, Kentucky and Canton, Ohio to be refined. Why build a refinery on the beach and then have to transport gasoline, jet fuel and heating oil to Chattanooga or Cincinatti?
In addition, offshore Panhandle production will likely be natural gas (geologic reasons) which can usually be put into the interstate pipeline systems with much less processing than crude oil. With natural gas, it is simply a matter of removing impurities such as sulfur whereas refining crude oil means creating new substances such as gasoline and jet fuel.
4) "Wow, I may get to start driving back to Galveston..." - Very telling statement... Please keep in mind what powers your car, SUV, etc? Why not ride your horse? What powers the tractors to cut hay and harvest feed for you and your horse... Alternative fuels (hydrogen, fuel cells, fusion) will power the future, just not in our lifetimes and definitely not at an equivalent price of as low as $3.00/gal. of gasoline.
Those of us in the world who view an oilfield as a thing of beauty are very much in the minority. But we all use and absolutely need crude oil, natural gas, and the products created from these substances. I respect your opinion that you would rather not have offshore oil production. We in the business would rather not have it either but we are kinda at the mercy of where Mother Nature put the oil and gas. We have got to produce it from where it is located in the earth. And we, as a society which is totally tied to energy production from fossil fuels (at least for our and our children's lifetimes), must develop a sense of understanding about oil and gas production. Thanks.
southof30A said:
Thanks for the clarification, Southof30-A. I do understand that which you are saying, but I will go back to my earlier statement and say that if the oil and automobile companies didn't line the Politicians' pockets via lobbiests, we wouldn't have this problem of being dependent upon fossil fuels, and we may have a much cleaner environment. Granted, you would have a different job, but you just might like it.
Unfortunately, the economic and technical realities are that we as a society will likely prefer to use hydrocarbon based energy sources until those supplies become so high cost as to allow alternate sources of energy such as hydrogen and fuel cells to compete. That is true of any commodity. These alternate sources of energy will also come at a much higher cost and bring associated economic ramifications. Imagine how our nation's economy would change if motor fuels from alternate energy sources cost the equivalent of $10/gallon of gasoline.Smiling JOe said:Thanks for the clarification, Southof30-A. I do understand that which you are saying, but I will go back to my earlier statement and say that if the oil and automobile companies didn't line the Politicians' pockets via lobbiests, we wouldn't have this problem of being dependent upon fossil fuels, and we may have a much cleaner environment. Granted, you would have a different job, but you just might like it.
With time it will also become accepted that crude oil and natural gas are much too valuable as a chemical feedstock than to be simply burned to generate electricity or power motor vehicles.
bring it on home and invest, invest, invest in the future:
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2005/06/1716137.php
excerpt:
Brazil embraces ethanol
Although the United States is the world's second-largest ethanol maker, producing 3.4 billion gallons last year compared with around 4 billion gallons for Brazil, ethanol's main use in the United States is as a gasoline oxygenate to boost air quality rather than as a replacement for foreign oil.
SAO PAULO, Brazil ? While Americans fume at high gasoline prices, Carolina Rossini is the essence of Brazilian cool at the pump.
Like tens of thousands of her countrymen, she is running her zippy red Fiat on pure ethanol extracted from Brazilian sugar cane. On a recent morning in Brazil's largest city, the clear liquid was selling for less than half the price of gasoline, a sweet deal for the 26-year-old lawyer.
"You save money and you don't pollute as much," said Rossini, who paid about $18 to fill her nearly empty tank. "And it's a good thing that the product is made here."
Three decades after the first oil shock rocked its economy, Brazil has nearly shaken its dependence on foreign oil.
...
Developing its own oil reserves was crucial to Brazil's long-term strategy. Its domestic petroleum production has increased sevenfold since 1980. But the Western Hemisphere's second-largest economy also has embraced renewable energy with a vengeance.
...
The exploding popularity of these "flex-fuel" vehicles is reverberating across Brazil's farming sector. Private investors are channeling billions of dollars into sugar and alcohol production, creating much-needed jobs in the countryside. Environmentalists support the expansion of this clean, renewable fuel that has helped improve air quality in Brazil's cities. Consumers are tickled to have a choice at the filling station.
If only those who can do anything would listen...
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2005/06/1716137.php
excerpt:
Brazil embraces ethanol
Although the United States is the world's second-largest ethanol maker, producing 3.4 billion gallons last year compared with around 4 billion gallons for Brazil, ethanol's main use in the United States is as a gasoline oxygenate to boost air quality rather than as a replacement for foreign oil.
SAO PAULO, Brazil ? While Americans fume at high gasoline prices, Carolina Rossini is the essence of Brazilian cool at the pump.
Like tens of thousands of her countrymen, she is running her zippy red Fiat on pure ethanol extracted from Brazilian sugar cane. On a recent morning in Brazil's largest city, the clear liquid was selling for less than half the price of gasoline, a sweet deal for the 26-year-old lawyer.
"You save money and you don't pollute as much," said Rossini, who paid about $18 to fill her nearly empty tank. "And it's a good thing that the product is made here."
Three decades after the first oil shock rocked its economy, Brazil has nearly shaken its dependence on foreign oil.
...
Developing its own oil reserves was crucial to Brazil's long-term strategy. Its domestic petroleum production has increased sevenfold since 1980. But the Western Hemisphere's second-largest economy also has embraced renewable energy with a vengeance.
...
The exploding popularity of these "flex-fuel" vehicles is reverberating across Brazil's farming sector. Private investors are channeling billions of dollars into sugar and alcohol production, creating much-needed jobs in the countryside. Environmentalists support the expansion of this clean, renewable fuel that has helped improve air quality in Brazil's cities. Consumers are tickled to have a choice at the filling station.
If only those who can do anything would listen...
Uncle Jessy knew about more than running shine. He also knew about running on shine. As my friend says, "It ain't rocket science."
bsmart said:
feel free to say dumb things - I do it all the time (hopefully we're all used to it by now)
nothing like getting up the next morning and reading what you wrote and thinking 'what was I thinlking"
wonder if my horse has had his hay and is ready for the commute this morning (just kidding, big oil)
aquaticbiology said:
Well, I am sure if you are feeding your horses bailed hay in the winter, Big Oil got you there.
So horses dont work. Bicycle tires are made from petrolium products, as is the plastic containers from which most milk jugs are made, so that you can add to your coffee prior to leaving for work. I guess even the rubber on the bottom of my birks are made from some petrolium resource. 
A positive of the higher oil/gas prices is that it has taken the alternative fuel research and production off the "back burner" again. Now if we can just keep it off the back burner. A lot could be done with promotions and getting information out to the public. I don't know of any strong lobby for this though, and that may be what it takes. 
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