ty quiet and temp. I have read some of the pickens plan and it made sense to me. maybe oil isn't something that will sink in with me. but anything to give jobs to americans and can help america...i'm for it

Yes we need to drill but its unsustainable...Only a bandaide

I have heard it costs more to drill here than buy overseas...is that right?

actually that is true

that's one of the reasons gas went up while oil was going down

West Texas Intermediate is standard that oil is based and priced on. But since overseas oil is so cheap all the pipelines are at the coast and the transportation infrastructure doesnt exist to get West Texas Interemedite to the refineries.

ty quiet, but I have a hard time understanding why it's more expensive than shipping it from another country. I do believe what you said...I just don't understand it. Maybe I'm thinking like a bookkeeper for a business. If I had to order something....most likely it would be cheaper to get it locally (plus help the economy) than paying charges to ship it from somewhere else. I know there aren't shipping charges for oil...but I have this mental block and can't wrap my head around it

I don't care how much it costs, we need to remove the troops from Iraq.

I was reading up on the Afghan and Pakistan thing earlier and I understand the logic for putting more troop in Afghan and sadly I understand the bribe to Pakistan for 1.5 billion a year to get their cooperation in our pursuits over there. But I am so damn tired of war, I just feel sickened.

Depends on the value of our currency in comparison to others. Ever wonder why gas prices dropped so drastically when the rest of the world was affected by "our" economic crisis?

Nifty huh?

I agree. We should use our own resources but it isn't going to happen.

Actually most of the oil that comes from Alaska gets sold to China.

I remember reading that out of all the military equipment used in Iraq and Afganistan only about 40% is going to be taken back home to the USA.

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=26708&archive=true

Being the third largest producer of oil...we import our usage from elsewhere. Maybe Texas or somewhere. I cannot remember. I would have to ask Jay my son. He tells me these things.
He was the one who told me to hang a minute and gas was going to go down soon. It had too...the tanks were too full to replace with new reserve. It did...it went waaaay down. It is coming up in price now...but, I ain't bichin...at least it isn't 4.00 a gallon.

I am all for Pickens's plan.

Know anyone who works in the oilfield? It is very expensive to drill for new wells. The equipment, the time, the wages of those that do this dangerous job. Plus much much more.

He also said something about diesel being more profitable than gas. We import gas and export diesel.

I wish I could ask him. But...he is gone for now.

Kat

I beleive what quiet is saying is our refineries are set up for oil that is imported(on the coast). Besides the cost of drilling we have the cost of deliverying it to the refineries..I could be wrong and it wouldnt be the first time...

(My delusional current hypothesis here) Since there are a finite amount of natural resources in/on the Earth, we purchase (or claim by conquering)those resources from other countries while saving ours for the time said resources become more scarce. The more scarce the resource (E.G. Oil), the higher the price it will cost other countries to purchase from us or can be used for national defense. The hypothesis is based on how long (and if) we can remain a sovereign nation though and these resources haven't already been purchased by other nations to pay off debts.

That's the beauty of the USD being the world standard. This is part of why our current inflation is under half a percentage point average for the year thus far: we were already down and everyone else followed us, therefore driving the relative value of our currency up (the other half being the near deflation we experienced). Value of the dollar up, oil price down. Value of the dollar down (stay tuned) price of oil up. So when the inflation hits, get ready to shell out $5 at the pump.

I am growing increasingly worried about future inflation. It likely will take at least a year to start, and a couple to really get going.

There are a few reasons domestic (USA) oil is expensive.
1. The location of the oil is often difficult to extract from.
2. US has stronger regulations for worker safety and environment.
3. US has some silly rules that prevent extraction.
4. US taxes and auctions for oil rights add to the cost.

I personally like the idea of shifting some autos to CNG (natural gas). We do not need massive new subsidies to support this process. CNG is already half the price of unleaded gas, and vehicles that run on CNG are becoming more common.

The biggest danger of switching cars to CNG is the possibility of dramatically increasing solar and wind electricity generation. For each watt of solar and wind generation we need one watt of backup power, which is almost exclusively from natural gas. If we are going to replace inexpensive coal/nuclear power with expensive wind and solar, we need to keep using oil for our cars, because the price of natural gas is going to go up without switching our cars to CNG.

Then again if we figure out how to get the frozen gas from the ocean floor at a reasonable price, we will have more than enough domestic natural gas to support both cars and wind/solar backup.

keep in mind supply and demand though. Right now, very few cars run on CNG/LPG so the demand is very little. As more and more cars run on them, the demand rises and so will price. Also, CNG/LPG/E85 all run hotter than gasoline so NOx emissions rise with any of them.