Senate votes to open arctic refuge to oil drilling

[Green Gaia]

Now this just makes me mad...

WASHINGTON - Amid the backdrop of soaring oil and gasoline prices, a sharply divided Senate on Wednesday voted to open the ecologically rich Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling, delivering a major energy policy win for President Bush.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7195164/

[Saw11_2000]

Why is this a bad thing? Hopefully our nation can become less dependent on other countries and their oil.

[No*s]

Originally Posted by Saw11_2000

Why is this a bad thing? Hopefully our nation can become less dependent on other countries and their oil.

It's bad, because of enviromental problems that tend to follow drilling. This damage can be pretty extensive, and I'm not convinced that it will mitigate our oil problems, and I'm certainly convinced it won't change the long-term fate of our energy problem .

[Saw11_2000]

It's a well known fact within the oil industry that there is 40 years of oil left in the world worldwide. I have not heard of any environmental problems with drilling. The only thing I can think of it cracking the ice under Alaska and possibly making the land unstable, but if they do a good job of drill placement, this can be avoided. The other is an oil spill, but again with caution, this can be avoided.

[Green Gaia]

We should be investing in oil alternatives not destorying wildlife refuges and the environment.

[Saw11_2000]

Maize, they are. My father used to work (actually still does) in the oil business. He used to work for BP, and one of their biggest focuses was on Hydrogen fuel. There are many alternatives like fuel cells, etc., but for now, it will take a little while to get these out of development and out in the real world.

[No*s]

Originally Posted by Saw11_2000

It's a well known fact within the oil industry that there is 40 years of oil left in the world worldwide. I have not heard of any environmental problems with drilling. The only thing I can think of it cracking the ice under Alaska and possibly making the land unstable, but if they do a good job of drill placement, this can be avoided. The other is an oil spill, but again with caution, this can be avoided.

And you brought up the principle reason I have with it: the potential enviromental damage is simply too great. Then there's the damage caused by building roads, moving machinery, clearing areas for pipes, etc. There's more than meets the eye .

However, my principle concern is the one Maize and you have mentioned: we need alternatives. This has potentially long-lasting damage, while at the same time, oil is no longer a reliable resource. We should be exerting as much energy as we can to removing our dependancy on oil. That's a far, far graver risk to us than dependancy on foreign oil.

[Green Gaia]

Baloney. The technology is there, we just don't want to use it.

[Saw11_2000]

Of course it is, it just isn't used widely yet. The computer was around in the 1940s but just in the 1980s became popular in homes. It will take a few years, already they are using hybrid cars.

I think my father said sometime from 2010-2015 Hydrogen will really take off, or something like that.

[No*s]

Originally Posted by Maize

Baloney. The technology is there, we just don't want to use it.

Much of it is. However, there isn't a network for it. We should be spending money to promote the network. This is one of those places where I actually favor government interferance, because the market will not correct itself ahead of time