Environmentalists should be in favor of more oil exploration in the USA

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micrometers

Diamond Member
Nov 14, 2010
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Yes, this sounds counter-intuitive. However,

1. the USA still consumes a ton of energy regardless of drilling bans.
2. the areas that produce the oil that the USA consumes are often environmental catastrophes.
3. Thus, encouraging more production in the USA would make people more aware of the environmental costs of consumption.

because consumption of energy is the root cause of environmental problems.
 

werepossum

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Jul 10, 2006
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Most of our easily accessible oil is gone, leaving us with oil that is more expensive to recover and more likely to harm the environment. Hydraulic fracturing for example, especially combined with horizontal drilling, is much more likely to contaminate water tables. Offshore drilling, especially deep water drilling, is much more likely to cause widespread environmental damage than is land-based drilling. Severe climate drilling such as ANWR is undeniably more liable to catastrophically fail than is temperate climate drilling.

This suggests that environmentalists (defined as those whose principle concern is protecting the environment) should favor LESS drilling and MORE conservation and cleaner alternative energy. For American environmentalists, this is doubly true about American drilling since it's always easiest to protect one's own environment.
 

crashtestdummy

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Feb 18, 2010
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The first issue with that statement is that deep water drilling, fracking, and tar sands development are substantially more environmentally risky than the drilling done in the middle east.

Additionally, substantially lowering the cost of fuel consumption makes people far less concerned with the amount that they consume. The two significant increases in auto fuel efficiency came after the fuel crisis and in the last half decade. In fact, in between those time periods, efficiency went down. Reducing the price of fuels lowers the economic incentive to conserve energy.

The best immediate solution has unfortunately become politically difficult: nuclear power. On a per watt generated basis, nuclear power has caused substantially less human and environmental damage than fossil fuels, but because those accidents happen in punctuated events, people have gotten scared off.
 

MovingTarget

Diamond Member
Jun 22, 2003
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Yeah, that is a bit counter-intuitive. Let me try one of my own. Environmentalists and conservatives should be agreeing here. If we restrict drilling here and use everyone else's supply, when that supply finally runs dry, we get to exploit ours when it is much more valuable/scarce (and environmental damage can be better mitigated). Moar profit! (in the long term)
 

Throckmorton

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Aug 23, 2007
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There is plenty of oil exploration and drilling and production in the USA. The reason you think there isn't, is because of conservative propaganda. The oil industry is BOOMING.
 

woolfe9999

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Mar 28, 2005
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Most of our easily accessible oil is gone, leaving us with oil that is more expensive to recover and more likely to harm the environment. Hydraulic fracturing for example, especially combined with horizontal drilling, is much more likely to contaminate water tables. Offshore drilling, especially deep water drilling, is much more likely to cause widespread environmental damage than is land-based drilling. Severe climate drilling such as ANWR is undeniably more liable to catastrophically fail than is temperate climate drilling.

This suggests that environmentalists (defined as those whose principle concern is protecting the environment) should favor LESS drilling and MORE conservation and cleaner alternative energy. For American environmentalists, this is doubly true about American drilling since it's always easiest to protect one's own environment.

Pretty sound logic. I would add that *everyone* should favor conservation. It's a no brainer. Not only does less energy use mean less environmental damage, it also means cheaper energy. It's a win-win regardless of which side of the environmental spectrum you are on.
 

Throckmorton

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Aug 23, 2007
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Conserving energy doesn't make your energy any cheaper. It's a global market.

You could cut your fuel usage to half, and you'll still pay the same price per gallon. The same thing happens globally with oil. If America used half as much oil we'd put a dent in global demand, but it would just be taken up by China
 

woolfe9999

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Mar 28, 2005
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Conserving energy doesn't make your energy any cheaper. It's a global market.

How does reducing demand for energy not make energy cheaper? Do supply and demand not apply for energy? And conservation should be worldwide, not just in the US.
 

werepossum

Elite Member
Jul 10, 2006
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Pretty sound logic. I would add that *everyone* should favor conservation. It's a no brainer. Not only does less energy use mean less environmental damage, it also means cheaper energy. It's a win-win regardless of which side of the environmental spectrum you are on.
Agreed.

Conserving energy doesn't make your energy any cheaper. It's a global market.

You could cut your fuel usage to half, and you'll still pay the same price per gallon. The same thing happens globally with oil. If America used half as much oil we'd put a dent in global demand, but it would just be taken up by China
Not quite. I don't think oil responds precisely to traditional market forces because the cost of entry is so high and the players are relatively few, but there are market forces at work. One reason for the high cost is the uncertainty of near-future supply. If most suppliers are intentionally and significantly cutting supply to keep prices high, that lessens concern about the effects of, say, an Iranian closure of the Straits or a Venezuelan convolution because other suppliers can easily (and eagerly) make up the lost supply. That tends to drive prices downward by removing uncertainty and thereby reducing the incentive to lock in prices earlier at relatively high prices. And reducing supply to keep prices high depends on most if not all suppliers cooperating; the more that supply must drop, the lower each supplier's total income and thus the greater the temptation for one or more suppliers to pump more, thus getting a bigger market share and more total income if less per unit. And that really drives down the price.

I don't think we'll ever see sustained $30 oil again. Nor, frankly, should we. We're talking though the difference between $100 oil and $80 oil, or $125 oil and $100 oil. Since we import a huge amount of our oil, that has a huge impact on our economy. Additionally, the money we don't have to spend on oil directly increases the money we have available to spend on other things, both as individuals and as a country. And it indirectly lowers the price of our exports.
 
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