A little perspective on offshore drilling?

Nah you're not missing anything kiwi, you nailed it.  I read the same report, in fact.  Offshore drilling is nothing more than an empty appeal to the masses.  People want lower gas prices, and 'offshore drilling' sounds like it will accomplish that, as long as you don't look into the details.

As a matter of fact, McCain said the exact same thing in May.  He made a statement against offshore drilling because it wouldn't have increase production for 7 years, even then would barely have any impact on gas prices, etc.  Less than a month later, he completely flip-flopped and came out in support of offshore drilling because (paraphrasing) 'Americans need short-term relief on gas prices'.  It's a good thing he wasn't on the straight talk express when he pulled that BS out of his butt.  I've come to expect this kind of garbage from oil man Bush, but I'm losing all respect for McCain.  First the gas tax holiday, and now this.

A real solution to high gas prices would be to increase efficiency and switch to alternative fuel technologies.  These ineffective gimmicks are just distractions, not solutions.

I did think it is retarded that out CAFE standards are so low, and rise so slowly. I've heard the excuse that car makers need the time to develop the more fuel efficient cars but that's bull****, they're already selling those efficient vehicles in Europe and Asia.

As for offshore drilling, I am tired of the "it won't come online fast enough" argument. There's a Chinese saying that states: The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is now. Yes new oil won't come online for a while, but the price of oil is partially calculated by the futures market, so it will have an impact before it comes online.

That's odd about the amount of oil in the unprotected offshore areas vs protected areas. However, I think this statement and the push by the republicans (and many democrats as well) will spur production into all of those places, they are createing a demand for offshore oil drilling in the populace and basiclaly pushing the oil companies into drilling there. The general populace doesn't know which areas are protected and which aren't, I certainly don't, nor do I care.

If we really want oil, other than offshore drilling we should be aggressively tapping the oil resources in the dakotas and montana, there's supposedly trillions of barrels worth up there.

On the other hand, the high oil prices are really driving demand for more efficient and greener technologies, so I can't be too upset about it. I can still afford fuel, but it is getting more painful at the pump these days.

Yeah, the automaker argument that they can't provide more fuel efficient cars is total crap.  Really what they meant was that they could provide them, but the US demand for fuel efficient cars wasn't sufficient.  Now that's clearly no longer the case.  We should be increasing CAFE standards rapidly.

As for offshore drilling, you're missing the fact that oil prices are set on the international market.  A small increase (or potential increase) in oil production is going to have a negligible effect on gas prices.  For example, it's estimated that drilling in ANWR will lower gas prices 3 cents per gallon by the year 2030, as I recall.  Increased offshore drilling would have a similar impact.

At this point we just need to face the facts that gas prices aren't going to be coming down, and there's really not much we can do about it except adapt by increasing efficiency and moving to different technologies.  Trying to delay the inevitable is pointless, and not a very American way of doing things.  We're supposed to be the innovators.

actually gas prices will be coming down once China and India remove/lower their subsidies of the fuel, India after their elections and China after the olympics. There is artifical demand for oil in those countries, Indians are still buying gas at $70/barrel prices, this is inflating demand and boosting prices for the rest of the world.

Adding a trillion barrels of oil to the market  will also have an effect on the price.

But yes, the prices will never go down to the point where they can compete on cost with electric vehicles.

Yeah, according to mattress' link

"Trillions of barrels of oil equivalent are buried within North America in the form of shale oil, oil sands, coal, and gas."

And yes, oil shale is an extremely poor energy source.  So are tar sands.  It takes a lot of energy to get them out of the ground, and a lot of CO2 emissions.  And that's before the oil is even burned.

This just shows how addicted we are to oil, that we're even considering going after oil shale and tar sands rather than focusing on efficiency and alternative energy options.

I think we should do both. Because we are so entrenched in oil, the transition away from it is, by necessity, a slow one.

If you decide to switch to solar energy, you don't disconnect your grid power after you have one functioning panel installed. You use both until the solar panels are able to power all of your energy needs.

But that doesn't address the issue that increased offshore drilling (or exploiting oil shale and tar sands) will have a negligible effect on overall oil production and gas prices.  However, oil shale and tar sands in particular will have a negative impact on the environment.