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Drilling Offshore for Renewable Energy
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With a ship and an offshore drilling rig seen in the background,
beachgoers attend the U.S. Open Surfing Sunday, July 20, 2008,
in Huntington Beach, Calif. (AP Photo/Ric Francis)
Does it make sense to not drill offshore? If we just leave all the oil where it is; doesn’t that help make global warming better?
The answer is no! The amount of recoverable oil offshore is probably over 30 billion barrels. (I am including the 11 billion barrels of oil in ANWR). This oil is worth about $4 trillion. That is a lot of money. That’s four times what we are spending on the war in Iraq. This oil resource currently belongs to the US government. Why not produce that oil and use the government’s share to fund renewable energy?
If we don’t produce that oil, we will be spending more to buy oil from OPEC. We will be sending $4 trillion dollars to people who don’t want to see us invest in renewable energy. We could keep all that money at home. I would think that our government could get at least $1 trillion (25%) to fund renewable energy.
Al Gore has presented a goal of converting all of our electric production from fossil fuels to renewable energy (excluding nuclear) in just 10 years. I have seen estimates that this could cost $3 trillion dollars. He is opposed to any offshore drilling. My question for him is ‘Where do you expect to get the money?”
Drilling offshore would lower oil prices in two ways. By incrementally increasing world oil supply slightly (2% to 3%), we would see a small decrease in price due to supply and demand. I don’t think this decrease would be very large, but it would help a little. I would also expect the price of oil to decrease in the U.S. relative to other countries price because the oil production would do a lot to improve our balance of payments deficit and improve the value of the dollar. Reducing our balance of payments deficit is much more important as it would improve the standard of living for all Americans.
I agree with Al Gore that it would be great to generate all of our electricity from renewable sources. I just think that we have to take the economy into consideration when we develop a plan to get there. It is going to be expensive and we are going to have to find ways to pay for it.
For more info:
Energy tsunami coming, ex-policymakers warn
Gore: Carbon-free electricity in 10 years doable
Sierra Club - Efficiency and Renewables Trump Offshore Drilling
Calif. gov. dismisses offshore drilling idea
