I'm fereferning what we could do to DECREASE the amount we pay at the pump, and you're there reinforcing my point. Do I really need to google all the refinery projects stopped by way of legisation at the behest of envirometal groups, and judicial decisions by activist judges??
Yes. Please provide some evidence.
A) the epense would be offset by the revenues and jobs the new oil brought in would be. B) the latest techniques leave a mere microblotch on the land as a whole, with their ability to drill nearly horizontally. C) The oil would increase our own supply, and decrease the overall demand......whala, lower gasoline prices
You ought to try never talking about economics Sirs. You're really bad at it.
1. Expenses would be offset by jobs?
Only if you've decided to institute slavery again! (and even then you'd have to transport them to Alaska) Sirs, it costs businesses a hell of a lot of money to have a workforce. It costs even more when you want a workforce in the middle of nowhere in Alaska and the closest "city" is a nothing town hundreds of miles away. Expenses are never offset by personnel expenses. That is completely daft. You better hope that revenues offset expenses, that's the whole friggin' point. That's exactly why Shell isn't knocking down anyone's door and running over Exxon to be the first one's there. It isn't worth the investment. The ROI is too low.
2. The latest techniques blah, blah, blah. I'm not some radical environmentalist. You think you know me because you want to pigeonhole me as a typical liberal. I'm a socialist. If there are good jobs for workers, I'm all for it. I'm telling you why "Big Oil" has no interest in it.
3. Increasing supply doesn't equal decreasing demand. It also doesn't stand to reason that we would be the ones using the oil Sirs. Whether you like it or not, not all oil is equal. The oil from Alaska is not good, it is highly impure. Let me make this simple.
Oil = Energy. It costs energy to refine oil. So there exists a ratio of X:Y of energy input to energy output. The greater X is, the worse off you are. X is increased by the impurity of the oil. Do you know why people quit pumping oil from Texas, Tennessee, Oklahoma? Because it is crap. Alaska is about one tier better. Somewhere, many tiers higher is Saudi oil. Saudi oil makes certain that X is very low and that means profits can be very high.
Does that make sense? I'm being sincere. There is a point where X is so high that it takes more energy input than you get in output. Then you've accomplished nothing. The same is true of coal. We're geologically luckier in that regard because Appalachian coal is the good stuff.
The problem Sirs, is that you don't seem to be able to grasp a bigger picture. If I am a CEO of Shell, tell me why I want to build a refinery. Why do I want to bother with ANWR? I have no incentive. You can throw around court cases, mean leftists, etc...but I'm a CEO of a massive corporation with deep pockets and plenty of influence on Capitol Hill. If I want a refinery, I'll find a place to build it, even if it is another country (which has been the trend). I'll drill where I please. I'll line the necessary pockets if we're talking about billions of dollars.
So why don't I?