You know better (or at least I HOPE you do) than that. What I clearly stated is there are 17,000 fewer barrels being produced every day on federal lands since the Big-O came aboard. 97% of the oil produced is on private property.

You can look it up.

You make that sound like it's a problem...when it's not. There is more oil being produced in the ol' US of A than there was during the Bush years.

Period.

Fish on...

Todd

And therefore the greenest president is....?

Richard Nixon?

Fish on...

Todd

P.S. At least Obama is willing to put a bit of the idea of alternative energy forward, instead of just pretending oil will last forever, or that you hate 'Merica if you want to develop something other than fossil fuels or nuclear energy.

Todd, for the final time, I never said there wasn't more oil production. What I said is the record oil production we have now has nothing to do with Obama's policies. His policies have hindered production, or we'd have more.

I have no problem with alternative energy. What I object to is forcing it on us when the technology hasn't advanced to the point where it's competitive in pricing.

Hank,

Since you object to subsidizing the development of alternative energy because it isn't competitive in pricing, does this mean you prefer we rely on oil until it hits $300 or $400 a barrel and then see if any private investors will try to develop alternatives, that may or may not be cost competitive?

Sg

First off, there was no mention of subsidizing alternative energy in my post. What I said was I object to the more expensive alternative energy being forced on us which drives up consumer cost.

Secondly, $300 or $400 a barrel is speculative at best. I haven't seen anything published that predicts that; maybe you could cut-n-paste something for me.

Hank,

If ALL energy types were left to the free market, the cheapest sources would be, in order of cost, old hydro, natural gas, and coal. Old hydro is cheap because it was licensed with little or no environmental mitigation. As relicensings come up, costs increase slightly with mitigation, but remains the cheapest. Natural gas is currently cheap for several reasons, but one important point is that environmental mitigation isn't required for it. That could change. Coal is only cheap if air quality doesn't matter. It costs a lot more if pollution abatement is required.

Sure I was speculating about oil. I have no idea what oil would run up to if the US and UK military didn't spend a major fortune maintaining a semblance of stability in the ME production areas. But I speculate that pricing would go up and be volatile.

So what's your idea or plan? Don't develop alternative energy sources and leave it to the free market to react?

Most Hispanics I ever saw at a Home Depot was in Bakersfield, Ca.
The local stores don't seem to be mostly Hispanic. Seems a balanced
mix of Black, Hispanic and White.

Alternative energy sources are being developed in the free market. Big Oil is spending a lot and BP is #3 in the solar panel market. They've been working on that swamp-gas algae fuel since around '07.

As stated previously, I object to the "we need it right now" philosophy. My idea would be to develop the technology to the point where it's much more competitive in price and the suppliers could then use it without a huge increase in our utility bills. The abundance and low cost of natural gas will starve out the coal-fired plants and it's clean energy to boot. Energy from coal is down from 57% in '85 to 42% last year. At the end of this year it will be 40%.

There's an estimated 400 year supply of shale oil in the Green River area of CO (not to mention the Bakken reserves), so a jump to alternative fuels that cost more, right now, isn't imperative in my mind.

Great post Illiterate! Who gives a f*** what color they are! We're all Heinz 57's as far as I'm concerned. Just the fact that anyone is willing to try and seek any and all work in order to feed themselves and their family, should be commended. Alot of us out here are a paycheck or two from having to join them or face foreclosure, food banks,etc. Have you read the newspapers about what is going on in the housing industry in this country? The hardest hit are the carpenters, laborers.
Guess what? Californias housing market is one of the hardest hit areas of the country.