That was Keystone, right?

Yes

 

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I have a problem with us exporting petroleum.

We will need it, it is a national resource, and we let multi-national companies take it for pennies per barrel.

Then again selling the US public down the river is the way of the modern conservative, so anything for money in a rich man's pocket is A OK.

 

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Go look up publicly listed quarterly "profit" earnings for Mobil/Exxon and you will see why.

 

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And bipartisan campaign contributions. They have EVERYONE in their pocket.

All of the government vehicles could be converted to natural gas which would use a local resource and really cut down on the gasoline issue from the demand side.

Thing is though -- if we go bankrupt, it might not be good to have the oil out as a liquid asset -- so long as it is below ground, it is still ours even if we say default on the debt and nobody wants to trade with us.

 

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I don't think you have a single bit of understanding about the oil market/consumption if you think these factors would make anything but a minor change in our gas prices.

 

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When a major oil company (can't remember if it was BP or Exxon) announced a new find in the Gulf of several billion barrels, conservatives on this board (and maybe MForce?) used it as "evidence" that peak oil isn't a thing, and that we have quite enough oil to go around. About a minute and a half of research and basic math said that the find was worth about a week of oil to the US -- and that was one of the biggest oil finds of the year.

Fun fact: We've been in peak oil for several years. It's not that there is not more oil around, but that, even if we start drilling in Alaska, we cannot extract oil at higher rates than current consumption, especially with oil usage skyrocketing in places like India and China. The price of oil has been instrumental in nearly every recession since the '70s, including the current one. The recent study which demonstrated that we've been at peak oil for several years already also found that the entire trade deficit of Italy -- a trade deficit causing significant economic distress -- can be attributed to the price of oil.

Aside from developing alternative energy sources, there is literally nothing we can do to stabilize oil and gasoline prices. It's not going to happen.

(Well, not letting fires break out in major refineries might help.)

 

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Seriously? Are you as passionately uninformed about other issues are you are about this one?

These spills ALL occurred within the last year or so, and this is in no way an exhaustive list:

BP pipeline leak in Alaska - 176,000+ gallons

Keystone (yes, THAT Keystone) pipeline leak in Kansas, 17,000 gallons

Marathon pipeline spill in Michigan, 462,000 gallons

Ruptured pipeline in Texas City, TX - 252,000 gallons

Pipeline failure near Vinton, LA - 63,000 gallons

Enbridge oil pipeline spill in Kalamazoo River. - 1 million plus gallons. As of Oct. 31, 2011, more than 1,139,000 gallons of oil are estimated to have been contained in the contaminated waste streams generated by cleanup work.

But that's not the half of it.

Tar sands oil is far more acidic than conventional WTI petroleum, and it requires heat to keep it thin and flowing and additional pressure to pump through pipe, all of which increases pipe stress and makes a pipe rupture far more likely than conventional petroleum.

New Tar Sands Oil Products Increase Likelihood of Spills

 

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I understand accidents happen, but it is a rare occurance to obliterate a species or make an area uninhabitable (ie permanent damage). People were crying doom at previous pipelines that animals have adapted to without missing a beat (unless you're strictly talking about spills, which I was not. I am talking structures).

I hate seeing spills like anyone else does but energy is a necessity for humans. Period. And the fact of the matter is that it will likely take decades to make any substantial switch to weaker resources like windmills or solar. It is not feasible right now. We need gas and we need oil.