HOLY SHIT. You're right...

The world needs about 30 billion barrels of oil per year (based on 85 million barrels per day consumption). The world total estimates supply remaining is between 800 billion and 1.4 billion barrels remaining (as crude oil). we literally are talking about a drop in the bucket by drilling offshore - it is a diversion.

Bingo. It's two minutes to midnight. Not even doubling our current reserves would change this fact.

All great points, but how do you get those points through the thick skulls of those for whom "Drill, Baby, Drill" has now become a beloved rallying cry? They just seem incapable of dealing with reality.

Where do we go online to post things such as this that independents need to read? I seem to only be aware of sites such as this one, where we're in a sense preaching to the choir, and far-right sites, where any actual facts such as posted here are unlikely to be well received. Where are the independents online and how do we speak to them?

But another question might be why on earth McCain, who must know these facts, is encouraging such short-sighted ideas. He didn't have to raise this as an election-year issue. And why do the rightwingers buy it?

The United States has and Energy Information Agency http://www.eia.doe.gov/

My argument with conservatives...

Business is smarter than government - true?

Oil prices are higher many placces in the world than the US - true?

Oil companies will drill and ship to where the oil prices are highest?

We have all the oil our pipelines and refinery capacity can handle and we don't have a shortage of supply - True?

What will more holes in the ground get us?

Without tankers the oil in the ground will go nowhere --- If the oil companies control the tankers the oil will come from oil wells close to high price and profit markets and that is not the US!

All I see is a monopoly that wants to control supply so it can create periodic shortages and bid up prices --- just like Enron did with power!

Want to help give leases on the remaining oil fields but DON'T require the oil companies to produce oil in 5 years or to sell it only in the US!

By the way, let's be honest: a whole boatload of oil isn't making it to market: China, Russia, and several other countries are forming an Eastern block whose stick will be oil.

We can beat up and complain about the US Oil Companies, but that's not the issue and neither Obama nor McCain is talking in terms of that. Because the childish electorate in this country can't handle the truth:

Our present lifestyle in the US is damned near over.

Our country isn't set up for infrastructure that assumes lots of local capabilities (as, say, Europe). Your food prices are going up because cheap energy is going away.

And alternative fuels are only economical when they can compete with non-cheap oil. That means that you need to get used to the idea of $5/gal gas for sure.

I have said repeatedly on these boards that some day we will pine for $4/gal gas. Well, prices have backed down to about that level in CA. And all of a sudden people are talking how cheap gas is again.

$5/gal is coming back with a vengeance. Probably before the end of the calendar year.

I suggest people start reading the Oil Drum on the web.

Many people on TPM are political types but have no idea of the technology that backs their very lives. Which is why we get endless naval grazing on the latest polls rather than something substantial.

Notice that neither candidate have talked about rebuilding our rail infrastructure (both passenger and cargo). We will need it beefed up substantially, especially when the airlines fail.

I love it when we talk energy. I'm impressed with TPM readers' depth on this issue, though the CT/RM lovefest doesn't add much.

So, another point, alluded to by Seattle Steve. We don't have the refinery capacity for ANY more oil right now. They're maxed out. So even if McCain could magically raise the oil from the depths right now, without drilling for it, we couldn't use it.

US Oil companies haven't exploited the 68 million acres we've already leased them, nor have they built the refineries they would need to make gasoline from it. So to add to Steve's list:

Do the oil companies even WANT to drill here, drill now AND refine here and now? They have not made any effort nor any promise to do so.

Dissapointing: Known reserves of oil offshore ARE significantly higher than stated here. And with exploration much more WILL be discovered, including in deep water locations (technically now produceable). The reasons for no new refineries are the same as for no new Nuclear power plants - political. It is absolute nonsense to expound that there are millions of acres of leases granted that the oil companies can drill on. A lease is an exploration lease that may be thousands of acres in size, with no known oil, or commercially non viable oil. If the oil companies were as voraciously greedy as you say, they would be drilling and producing from these areas. Absolutely there could be more production on land, in areas with "old" oil and mature fields if the tax incentives were correct. But there contribution would be more in the nature of employment than any significant reduction in imported oil(no bad thing - oilfield jobs are good jobs - honest jobs - well paying jobs). Any drilling that commenced now would in fact takes years to produce significant production ( but would reap real results, and significantly faster than relying on some mythical 10 year plan that's only contribution, would be the harnessing of hot air). But the later it is started, the further behind we get, and the larger the production deficit. And it is foolish to believe the "we can't drill our way out" nonsense. That is true if taken by itself. But more truthful is :"we can't get out of this without drilling". The nonsense that the oil will just run out in 5 tears, or whatever is laughable. First that is inaccurate, and 2nd that would of course assume that overnight full calpacity would be achieved. These staements being bantered about here in this blog are simply proof that "a little knowledge is dangerous"
Energy independence will not come from wind or solar. They will never provide baseload electricity, but MAY have some effect in the correct areas. As will thermal (more drilling) The main technological advantages required are in the field of storeage. Wind and solar will NOT provide transportation fuels. It is true however to say that Oil and natural gas are wasted on producing electricity. They should be kept as transportation fuels and petrochemicals.( and if fact, investment dollars would be better spent on cleaner and more efficient fuels than on pie in the sky, heavilly subsidised wind). The argument that there are not enough engineers and we can't ttain them is just more jibberish. Thousand travel overseas to explore and drill and produce ALL over the world. Many, if not most would RATHER be working here, than THERE, and spending their travel dollars, and living expense money here.
ANWR. At this time, it is not necessary, or advantagious to drill there. The technological hurdles are higher in the Arctic (I am a retired oilfied consultant with 35 years of international experience, from the high Arctic in Canada (FAR north of the N Slope, tothe N sea, Europe, Africa - N, E, and W, the M East, Israel, Pakistan, India, Asia, China, Australia, and NZ - from land to drillships, barges, semi submersables and jackups - platforms to jackets). Offshore technologies are very mature (although always evolving). Alaskan oil has as a major problem in transporting oil thru a wornout and poorly maintained pipelaine that them places the oil on tankers, mostly to be tanked to Asia. Most (all) major oil spills have been tanker spills. Offshore oil is brought ashore thru pielines. Th eEnvironmental worry is really wrong sided. The Gulf of Mexico is the most densely drilled oil province on earth. It survives yearly hurricanes with little or no pollution problems. And as far as physical security is concerned, tankers are the singularly most dangerous and least secure method of transport around.
We'd all like to see more efficient use of ALL energy supplies, oil included. But an attack on oil companies (they are responsible for production, not use), is irrational and dishonest. To say that they would be environmental vandals is also ludicrous - a person living onshore has less concern for the environment because they are in the oil business is both insulting and intellectually dishonest. They breath the same air. Care about their childrens health as much as others.
"Clean coal" is definitely not a long term solution ( in fact it is a contradiction). It involves sequestering (burying) co2 (carbon and oxygen molecules). Both are required for life - carbon for plant growth, and oxygen, well for braething. Nuclear power is the only true long term solution for power. Thorium will replace uranium in the next decade (Google Thorium)which will all but eliminate the waste storeage problem. And waste storeage is not a technological problem at all. IT IS A POLITICAL problem. Fuelled by ignorance and praying on peoples fears. Nuclear power far from being dangerous, is a mature technology that has SAVED MILLIONS of lives. Millions more are spared the damage from the environmental consequences of air pollution.
It is truly amazing how easily an issue can be highjacked by people with absolutely no direct knowledge, and easily they can be taken in by people who make wild promises of simple solutions. Sorry, but simple solutions do not exist. And those that pray on the ignorant (not a criticism) are frauds.

And as for obligatory knock on wind and solar, sorry, pal, I have a aerospace degree from MIT that says you are full of it. It won't be easy, but it is certainly technically feasible and can be done.

If you really have an MIT degree, then you would know that Rudof knows what he is talking about.

How about you show us how to build the cars, and especially the batteries for the cars, using solar and wind? Really do the return on energy.

Or, since you are in aerospace, how about you show us how to build an airplane, much less a rocket, that can run on batteries?

Oh, that's right -- it "will be difficult".

I think we should wait for Nuclear a while - our understanding of the subatomic is growing by leaps and bounds but it is not where it needs to be yet. The stakes of a loss are too high. We have had at least four significant nuclear losses because we did not understand all the ramifications of what we were doing.

I remember looking for "missing neutrinos" and finding that there were a lot of factors we had not contemplated before building our accelarators. I worry that the same is true for our reactors.

My friends have told me about their surprise and fright when they experienced unexpected occilations on fire up...

I know I can live in a smaller house; I did it in Japan... and I can cut down on meat. I don't need plastic bags or cans of sugar water to drink, jsut give me beer and coffee!

The more important point is that increasing domestic production only benefits us in as much as it increases the global supply. The price of oil is determined by global supply and global demand. We can pump as much oil as we want from off shore fields directly to refineries on the gulf coast and it will only effect the price of gas if it increases global supply. If the same amount we pump here were to drop off from another country's production, the price stays the same.