Offshore Drilling Ban to be Lifted by Bush

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

Increasing domestic supply of oil does not mean that alternative fuel development stops, nor should it.

Oil companies have zero interest in increasing supply. With all of the record profits, spending on finding new oil supplies (and there are still lots of untapped resources without moving into protected areas) have not increased on iota. Opening up offshore drilling and ANWR is just a way for the oil companies to continue to line the pockets of their biggest investors without having to spend any more of their record profits at the expense of areas that will be forever ruined. For what? A few more barrels of oil 10 years from now?

Conservative estimates are that known domestic oil supplies can sustain US demand for 25-30 years, that's without figuring in A) undiscovered domestic sources B) imported oil. Domestic supplies are a tiny fraction of what oil there is in there world. We're not about to run out of oil tomorrow. Or 10 years from now. Or 20 years from now. Or 50 years from now. 100? Maybe. Again, that's without increased spending to find more non-protected reserves. So why exactly would we sell out the planet's future?

The reality is, we will eventually run out of oil. Drilling off shore and in wildlife preserves will buy more time, but not infinite. Either we find a way to get us off of oil or we're screwed one way or another. If 50 years from now isn't enough time, what's another 20 or 30 that's bought by this extra drilling? I just do not see any potential benefit from it. Either we figure our sh*t out and shift to renewable energy sources soon, or we're doomed no matter how much we drill, so why drill?