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Obama Rejects New Atlantic Ocean Oil Drilling (usatoday.com) 176

Posted by BeauHD from the save-the-whales dept.
mdsolar writes: The Obama administration will abandon its plan to allow new offshore oil drilling on the U.S. southeast coast, dealing a blow to petroleum companies that had hopes of tapping new reserves. The Interior Department is set to announce today that it will not auction off certain drilling rights for Atlantic Ocean waters off the coast of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. The reversal comes after environmentalists, coastal residents, and the U.S. military vocalized opposition to the plan. It also comes amid declining industry investment in new exploration and production activities as oil prices fell by about 70% since late 2014 -- although the industry is still seeking long-term investment opportunities under the assumption that oil prices will recover.
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Obama Rejects New Atlantic Ocean Oil Drilling More

Obama Rejects New Atlantic Ocean Oil Drilling

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  • "recover". Interesting phrasing. Unless you're trading it, it's a resource most of us would like to stay reasonably priced.

    - From a state investigated multiple times for the highest national gas prices for no reason; especially on 9/11.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      It is not about the oil price it is all about fossil fueller share prices. All talk of recovery is talk because there is a solid shift away from fossil fuels, with the result there are more fossil fuels in the ground in reserve than will now ever be needed. So with the bulk of fossil fueller share price based upon the stuff in the ground rather than what they are selling, they are trying really hard to maintain the illusory value of their shares. Lobbyist will be out in force to crush the electric vehicle,

  • After all, it's another local source of fuel for their stuff.

    • (1) They may have underwater things out there, or worry they provide cover to enemy subs

      (2) Because if it's dug up now, it gets used up. If it's underwater, we can start digging it up when the giant war starts. Because, who cares where the oil is dug up (militarily) during peace? We can get it from trade. But during war, that's when we need it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Nutria ( 679911 )

        Lease letting, exploration, drilling and pipeline don't happen overnight. If you want it ready for a war, then all that stuff (especially the exploration and pipe laying) needs to be done beforehand.

      • "(2) Because if it's dug up now, it gets used up. If it's underwater, we can start digging it up when the giant war starts. Because, who cares where the oil is dug up (militarily) during peace? We can get it from trade. But during war, that's when we need it."

        If a war starts then it's too late to go drilling for oil. What do these ships that go drilling for oil run on? That's right, oil. If there is a shortage of oil then it could be real hard to find the oil to go looking for more oil. We need those we

        • The military has a strategic reserve to bide them over til the North Atlantic fields come online. And we can start developing them as a crisis develops.

          It'll take a lot less time than ANWR to get up and running. ANWR has freezing temperatures reducing the worktime to 1/5 of the year and limited human access during that time. Plus new pipelines and such.

  • wait until another day.
  • He will 'fix' this.

    • If he's smart, he'd wait until the price of oil to recover so he can sell those drilling rights for a higher price.

      I think that both Democrats and Republicans alike would agree that drilling for more oil now in the middle of a supply glut is a bad idea.

      • Trump... Smart.... *snigger*

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by harrkev ( 623093 )

          You can call Trump a lot of things, but dumb is not one of them.

          You do not succeed in businesses without having some smarts.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dbIII ( 701233 )
            He had the "smarts" to fail four times but Daddy's money plus well connected friends got him out of the hole and away from angry investors each time.
            You can succeed in property development and seedy casino deals without much intelligence if you have the resources to stop a well deserved kick to the backside from reality that should be hard enough to "smart" every time you sit down.

          • I'd go with arrogant, boisterous, bombastic, argumentative, privileged, ruthless, uncompromising, hateful, bullying, and pandering. Smart? Not really. Mix all the former in with a wealthy family and some luck and you don't need to be smart. Like you said, not dumb is good enough.

          • You can call Trump a lot of things, but dumb is not one of them.

            You do not succeed in businesses without having some smarts.

            Not exactly true. Many smart people do not succeed in businesses or lives. Some dumb people do succeed in live (but may not in business). You don't need to be smart, just average. Most of the time, you need to be at the right place at the right time (luck may be?).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by SeaFox ( 739806 )

        I think that both Democrats and Republicans alike would agree that drilling for more oil now in the middle of a supply glut is a bad idea.

        Keeping the glut going keeps gas princes low.
        That gets votes, even though the two are not related really.

  • I am sick of his self voted shit articles every 10 fucking mins. If its mdsolar it's shit.

    • OK guy who avoided a 7 digit ID by like 607 accounts. We'll all sure take directions from you.

      Here's an idea. If you don't like a story, don't fucking READ it. No one is holding a gun to your head.

      Holy fucking shit, is everyone this retarded?

      The idiotic holy war against Timothy has been going on since back when Cmdr. Taco was around. Didn't work on him, won't work on anyone.

      Accept that not every story is going to be your cup of tea and fucking move on, like an adult. It's not like you can't look at the sum

  • Has done a good thing here. It is time to keep oil prices low by shifting to more fuel efficient cars, electric cars, and eliminating home heating oil use. No need for more drilling, just keep it difficult for the Saudis to cut production.

    • doesn't work that way, when economy picks up the oil will flow.

      Electric cars are expensive toy for the wear-the-nails crown; not priced for average joe

      • But not from the USA since a shut down company with former employees scattered all over and the gear auctioned off or scrapped does not start up instantly with a wave of a magic wand. By the time somebody rebuilds from scratch a going concern elsewhere has already filled the niche.

        As for electric cars, the entire point is to shift pollution. Lower costs for something else don't help if your local government tells you to get your SUV out of the place due to smog. China appears to be heading that way too

        • nonsense, global market for equipment new and used. plenty of people looking for work. plenty of people with the skills and experience in manufacturing doing other things at moment but would do that if the price is right. I'm one of them, CAD/CAE/CAM is where I was and if someone coughed up the bucks I'd do it again

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dbIII ( 701233 )
            So a guy doing CAD on a workstation is as easy to get going as drills, pipelines, water treatment, etc etc?
            Interesting perspective. Are you sure you put any thought in at all before composing your reply? Surely you know better than what you have written?

  • Obama's doing them a favor (Score:3, Informative)

    by mspohr ( 589790 ) on Tuesday March 15, 2016 @08:19PM (#51705069)

    The oil companies are sitting on more proven reserves than can ever be pumped and burned if we are going to avoid catastrophic climate change. Even the Saudi's recognize it and that is why they are pumping as much of their oil as possible now (even at low prices) because they know it will be worth even less in the future. They're even trying to sell all of their oil assets now to some sucker who believes "oil will make a big comeback".
    Most oil companies have oil assets on their books which will be worthless in the future (Google "stranded assets").
    Coal is already done and finished and bankrupt.
    Oil is next... it will take a while to go away (just like IBM and Microsoft are coasting on past glories) but there is no future growth in oil.
    So, Obama is doing them a favor by preventing them from throwing money at Arctic drilling and Atlantic coast drilling. They should thank him (and look for another business opportunity).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dbIII ( 701233 )
      Actually the Saudis are trying (and succeeding) to drive the new shale oil and similar operations in the USA out of business. For a lot of reasons the Saudis can get oil out of the ground and to market for as low as $6 per barrel in costs while some new US operations were well over $50, and they borrowed a lot to get going.
      Nice friends we have, after attacking Iraq for them and everything.

  • Russia gave up in Syria?

  • Cheap energy means cheap energy (Score:3, Interesting)

    by blindseer ( 891256 ) <blindseer@noSPAm.earthlink.net> on Wednesday March 16, 2016 @02:12AM (#51706097)

    We are going to need oil for at least another 30 years. How can I say this? Simple. Boeing has been making planes on a 30 year schedule for a very long time. Any plane they produce today they intend to see flying for the next 30 years. These planes burn kerosene, and they will for 30 years. Therefore we need oil for the next 30 years.

    Not enough for you? You think that isn't enough? That we'll just make new planes that don't need oil? What about trucks, tractors, bulldozers, ships... Let's stop here at shipping for a bit. As much as people might not like it but the world's shipping infrastructure runs on diesel fuel. No diesel fuel and shipping moves at the pace of horses and sails. That is unless we have the time to make a smooth transition to whatever comes next. Perhaps what comes next is synthetic diesel fuel, derived from algae or nuclear power. If we cut ourselves off from cheap oil then we could cut ourselves off from whatever could replace it.

    To put up windmills takes coal fired aluminum smelting, diesel fueled trucks and construction equipment, and so on. If the price of oil goes up then the price of construction goes up, the price of shipping goes up, the price of materials goes up, therefore the price of windmills go up. Solar panel prices go up, ethanol prices go up, energy in whatever form gets more expensive.

    Energy is energy. Expensive oil means expensive everything. Not drilling for oil does not make windmills or solar panels cheaper. As odd as it may sound we need cheap oil to move away from oil. We need to make oil so cheap that it becomes worthless. If we make energy cheap then it becomes unprofitable to drill for it. The path to cheap energy is infrastructure. Right now infrastructure is built with the energy from oil.

    Besides, not drilling for oil in the USA means we buy it from somewhere else. Does anyone out there believe that any other nation will drill oil as responsibly, clean, and safe, as the USA would? If people want to prevent oil spills then we should be drilling for it under the supervision of the US EPA. Also, wars are fought over oil, what if oil from the USA were cheaper than from the dictators of the world? Would these despotic assholes be in power if they could not sell their oil? We need to make oil so cheap that they cannot profit from it. Impossible? Perhaps, but can we at least try?

    Not drilling for oil in the USA is only making the world a less free, dirtier, and more dangerous place.

    • We can try, but not by drilling. Increasing CAFE standards, eliminating use of home heating oil and shifting aviation to biofuels will keep oil cheap. Everything we drill for is not cheap, so that only works once.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      We are going to need oil, but less of it. Aircraft are getting more efficient. Cars are getting more efficient and going electric (hybrid/EV). Oil burning electricity generation is being phased out.

      Shipping is an interesting example. Large ships are already starting to go hybrid. Trucks are already hybrid, and some places have fully electric buses now. Sure, there will still be some oil powered vehicles probably long into the future, but nothing like the number we have today.

      Windmills and solar PV already p

      • "We are going to need oil, but less of it. Aircraft are getting more efficient. Cars are getting more efficient and going electric (hybrid/EV). Oil burning electricity generation is being phased out."

        Do you believe that after 30 years of burning oil, and perhaps less and less every year, that we won't still need new wells to replace those that run dry? I don't know how long an oil well will produce oil but I'm quite certain that it's not more than 30 years. We will need more oil.

        "Shipping is an interestin

    • I've said as much as soon as people started talking about electric cars in any meaningful way. Oil used for personal transportation may go away, but there are plenty of things we depend on too heavily in our current way of life to go anywhere.

      Planes being one as you mentioned. Passenger planes use oil, no getting around it. Unless we want to go back to Zeppelins that take a week to get anywhere, there isn't much for alternatives.

      Ocean Shipping. You like the global market, and getting widgets from China, wel

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by T.E.D. ( 34228 )

      We are going to need oil for at least another 30 years. How can I say this? Simple. Boeing has been making planes...

      Here's another for you: used cars. It takes a newly-built car about 30 years to cycle (almost) completely out of the market. The average age of a car on US roads today is more than 11 years old. There are 14 million cars on US roads that are 25 years old or older.

      So even if the entire auto industry switched to electric next year (which they aren't even close to doing), we'd still need gasoline production for 30 more years.

    • Screw kerosene and energy. We'll need oil to produce all the plastics we currently make. Modern medicine alone owes a great deal to having an endless supply of cheap, virgin, sterile, packaged plastic devices. Long after we're all driving electric cars, we'll still be pumping oil for manufacturing reasons.

    • Obviously we're going to be using oil as fuel far into the future, since it has tremendous energy density. That doesn't mean we have to get all the oil we can right now. Equally obviously, the cheaper we make oil, the less incentive to look for any replacement.

      • Obviously we're going to be using oil as fuel far into the future, since it has tremendous energy density. That doesn't mean we have to get all the oil we can right now.

        If we don't drill for it soon then we might not have the time, energy, or resources to drill for it later. As pointed out elsewhere this oil reserve is a valuable military asset. If war breaks out then we are going to need access to oil right away, not a year later. Failing to drill now puts the USA at an economic and military disadvantage.

        Equally obviously, the cheaper we make oil, the less incentive to look for any replacement.

        Do you honestly believe that people will stop looking for oil alternatives if oil gets cheap? Energy is a trillion dollar industry. Anyone that can take a fraction o

        • If we don't drill for it soon then we might not have the time, energy, or resources to drill for it later.

          That's quite illogical. If we need it later the value will increase enough to make drilling worthwhile.

          If war breaks out then we are going to need access to oil right away, not a year later. Failing to drill now puts the USA at an economic and military disadvantage.

          Wow, I don't even know where to begin with that one. I guess I'll start with the fact that it's a last century argument. The kind of war I'm sure you're referring to has been supplanted by MAD. On top of that, the pentagon can take care of its own needs if it feels the *current* reserve isn't enough. I'm not even sure you believe your own fear-mongering here.

          Do you honestly believe that people will stop looking for oil alternatives if oil gets cheap?

          Due to natural market incentives? Yes, obviously

          • Maybe we should tax oil to make it more expensive and then use the proceeds to subsidize the low-income population. After all, global climate change could kill people. I don't want to see people dead, do you?

            So, we tax carbon so that the price goes up, then we give subsidies so that the poor can afford the taxes? How does this actually lower the amount of carbon produced? I believe that you didn't think this through.

            Is it also possible that the carbon taxes raise the costs to businesses to the point that they have to lay off people? How does being unemployed help out the poor?

            Sure, climate change could kill people but that's years from now. Being unemployed or taxed to the point a family cannot afford both

  • - We love sucking the Kochs of big oil ! We must be angry !
    - But the military was against this, and we love the military cock too, we must be happy !
    - But the Kochs gave us lots of money ! We must be angry
    - But the military has all those juicy defense contracts that keep all our other funders happy, so we must be happy ! ...
    Obama did this, don't matter what we know, don't matter what else was says - nothing else matters except that Obama did this - we get to be angry no matter what.

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