If Florida doesn't want to drill in Area 181, then a new analysis should find that Area 181 is really Alabama's
From the WSJ (Interior Department seeks ...):
The U.S. Interior Department is proposing to lease new areas in the Gulf of Mexico and off of the Virginia coast for oil and gas exploration, a move that is likely to set off a fierce political fight in Congress.
Johnnie Burton, director of the department's Minerals Management Service, said that her agency is offering the proposal to deal with "sharply higher energy prices" and requests from Alaska and Virginia to open offshore areas previously covered by drilling moratoria.
I've always like the fact that there is an offshore drilling moratorium in NC and glad that we're not mentioned in this proprosal.
There are two things worth mentioning about this proposal.
First, the amount of oil out there won't do much to lower prices since they are set by the world market for oil and the Middle East is the dominant player. But, let's look at the numbers:
It estimated that 85.9 billion barrels of oil and 419.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas might be produced. During 2005, according to the Energy Department, the U.S. used 20.67 million barrels of oil a day and 22.15 trillion cubic feet of gas.
If it took 50 years to extract the 85.9 billion barrels of oil that gives 1.7 billion each year. Our yearly consumption is 7.5 billion barrels so the amount of oil out there is pretty significant, about 23%, if the WSJ numbers are correct and I did my math correctly (not always a sure thing as some of you know). Also, my 50 years of extraction guess might be off by a few years or so.
Still, today's prices wouldn't change much and if we're worrying about running out of oil, storing it in the Gulf of Mexico is pretty cheap.
Second, you've got the admire the thinking behind this one:
The richest area the proposal covers, based on oil company estimates, is called "sale area 181," a box-like chunk of two million acres about 100 miles offshore from Pensacola, Fla. The area has long been claimed by Florida, which wants at least a 125-mile "buffer" along both of its coasts where offshore drilling will be banned.
The Interior Department proposal, based on a new analysis of state boundaries projected into the Gulf, shifts most of sale area 181 into the Gulf's central planning area, which is controlled by Alabama, Mississipi and Louisiana, states more supportive of drilling. Area 181 is prized by oil companies because it is near wells that are already producing. According to Interior officials, the area may have as much as 330 million barrels of oil and 3.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The U.S. currently gets about 30% of its oil and 20% of its natural gas from the Gulf of Mexico.
"Based on a new analysis of state boundaries" ... that conveniently redraws state boundaries ... so that we can feed that addiction to oil.
Oh, irony of ironies, spare me on this one. Florida would molder away, except that it guzzles vast quantities of jet fuel to bring in tourists, and vast quantities of electricity to keep them from dying of the drippingly enervating heat. What other economy is there? Even orange juice seems to come from Brazil these days.
Florida ought to do their bit, however little or much it can be, for the fuel supply, or else contribute to the balance by shutting down their tourist industry.
Posted by: | February 14, 2006 at 12:13 PM
Oh, irony of ironies, spare me on this one. Florida would molder away, except that it guzzles vast quantities of jet fuel to bring in tourists, and vast quantities of electricity to keep them from dying of the drippingly enervating heat. What other economy do they have? Even orange juice seems to come from Brazil these days.
Since Florida refuses to do their bit for the fuel supply, the rest of us ought to balance the books by shutting down all of their airports.
Posted by: PaulS | February 14, 2006 at 12:16 PM
Oops, didn't mean to do that twice, feel free to remove one.
Posted by: | February 14, 2006 at 12:17 PM
Part of the economic power of FL is their ability to fly people down so they can sit on the beach and look out into the water, unmolested and not visually assaulted by oil derricks.
That has a lot of hedonic and amenity value, hence their $50B + economy. Maybe FL is doing their bit by highlighting our utter dependence on fossil fool and our slow shift to efficiencies and renewables.
HTH,
D
Posted by: Dano | February 14, 2006 at 02:58 PM
"Based on a new analysis of state boundaries" ... that conveniently redraws state boundaries ... so that we can feed that addiction to oil.
hey as long as we are redrawing state boundaries can the part of Washington state I live in secede from the part that Dano lives in.
And this has the benefit of adding to the scant number of senators the west has compared to the east.
:)
Posted by: joshua corning | February 14, 2006 at 05:51 PM
...as long as we are redrawing state boundaries can the part of Washington state I live in secede from the part that Dano lives in.
H-E-double-hockey-sticks yeah, buddy. First thing outta your keyboard I fully agree with.
Keep the high income-earner's tax money over here and you guys can figger out whar to git yer rev-en-oo from. I'm all over that.
We can go from the Cascade crest east & that's yours. I'll pay fees to backpack in the Pondo pines. Stickler will be who gets Columbia water rights, but we have more hi-falutin' folk over here so good luck. All dirt roads lead to Spokane.
:o)
Best,
D
Posted by: Dano | February 14, 2006 at 07:05 PM
The party is over. Everybody, and that includes you, needs to sacrifice something. They should drill off North Carolina, build wind turbines off Nantucket where Teddy Kennedy can see them, put three more 2GW nuclear plants in the NYC area, drill for gas in lake Erie, and drill for oil in Barbara Streisand's living room.
The current legal, political, environmental path we are on is a suicide pact. We need to recognize that the world is changing, that we need to produce energy, and that there are no ways for men to live in this world without having an impact on it. Nimbyism has to go.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz | February 14, 2006 at 11:21 PM
"Since Florida refuses to do their bit for the fuel supply, the rest of us ought to balance the books by shutting down all of their airports"
Huh? Does this mean you dislike interstate trade? Or that you feel like demanders must provide their own supply? I really don't understand your logic. I mean I like to brew my own beer but anything beyond that is asking too much. . . Dano has it right. Why do you think Florida doesn't want to drill but Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama want to? I don't think those states have as much to lose in the way of tourism by adding one more oil rig.
Posted by: Leif | February 15, 2006 at 01:33 AM
Flordia is engaged in Nymbism and needs to be punished. Either the entire country bears the costs of reformulating our energy supplies, or we do collapse into localism.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz | February 15, 2006 at 11:24 AM
Interesting, Robt.
So we shouldn't use democratic principles in this issue, nor should we consider tourism capital, only oil capital.
Huh.
We live in a democracy. We aren't going to punish anybody, despite your wishy-wish. Sorry.
Best,
D
Posted by: Dano | February 15, 2006 at 12:01 PM
We live in a democracy. We aren't going to punish anybody, despite your wishy-wish. Sorry.
you mean liberal democracy...a democracy killed socrates for talking.
I don't think the problem is Nymbism...in order to not be in your back yard you have to own your back yard...the problem is the commons and unallocated property rights.
dano and leif could very well be right that tourism depends on clean ocean horizon views...or not...we will never know until someone owns them.
Posted by: joshua corning | February 15, 2006 at 12:18 PM
We would know as soon as the tourism dollars stopped flowing because of the visual assault of ugly derricks.
Or we would know after we conducted a survey and asked people.
We would know after some Tiebout sorting occurred and people moved out of their houses with a (former) view and property values decreased.
We would know after...
You get my drift.
Best,
D
Posted by: Dano | February 15, 2006 at 01:16 PM
We would know as soon as the tourism dollars stopped flowing because of the visual assault of ugly derricks.
that would be a dot on the horizon..in fact smaller looking then the oil tankers that go by now.
Or we would know after we conducted a survey and asked people.
first question: Should you be able to tell what your niegbor builds on his propery
answer: yes
second question: should your nieghbor be able to tell you what you can build on your property?
answer: no
survay result with a socialist slant...100% belive in community directed development.
We would know after some Tiebout sorting occurred and people moved out of their houses with a (former) view and property values decreased.
That assumes that the property owners did not have the same oportunity to buy the horizon as the oil companys...of course they would just buy it and then sell it back to the oil company with restrictions...if they were rational. but why be rational when you can get around it uning government intervention.
Hey i have an idea...deed the horizon to the residents of florida...each with thier own little part theat they can keep or sell...and in 5 years there would oil rigs pumping oil.
Posted by: joshua corning | February 15, 2006 at 06:32 PM