McCain... ahead?

[Day]

http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-...8061200193.gif

guyz obama teh soshulizt is gonna raise mah taxes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*disclaimer: I'm filthy fucking rich

This graph for real? I'm with blue on this one.

[Amele]

yeah that graph is real; or at least, it was accurate as of when the graph was made. (like all things in politics, policy that isn't actually law yet is subject to change)

remember that the president doesn't actually set tax rate, congress does; the president just has input into that process via signing and vetoes and congressmen introducing it on his behalf etc.

[Beckwin]

I have to provide a link to back up what I say? I don't reply to you libs fast enough and get called names? I'm tired, good night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIh-KecdD3E

that youtube link is a joke right? Because I'm pretty sure Charla and Amele didn't regurgitate some Olbermann youtube link to explain why you're wrong.

It's not that you even necessarily need a link to back up what you say, just... facts kinda help. If you don't cite facts then people are more likely to check them, so it kinda pays to reference studies and whatnot.

but anyways, need to know if you're serious with that link, lol.

[Amele]

well, I sure didn't because I actually just kind of ignored his post.

he seemed reluctant to post it and I didn't want to drag him in.

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

I'm a bit fuzzy on it (which is why I like to defer to the DOE) but offshore drilling involves long pipes and requires a lot of lift (which means pressure in the well) any given well only has so much pressure - means it can only pump so fast regardless of how many holes you put in it.

This could be true, but there are oil platforms that can produce 250k barrels a day by themselves and I think some are currently producing 200k a day by themselves right now. It just doesn't add up. Seems like the sensible thing would be to do both.

[Amele]

This could be true, but there are oil platforms that can produce 250k barrels a day by themselves and I think some are currently producing 200k a day by themselves right now. It just doesn't add up. Seems like the sensible thing would be to do both.

the sensible thing would be to stop burning an important industrial chemical but I recognize that is going to take time too. (what we really need is a moratorium on all new oil based power plants and a push to go oil-free for transportation in a decade)

replace the oil plants with fission, replace the transportation with bio-fuel short term and eventually electric/hydrogen.

I would like to see coal phased out too - we really don't need to be burning fossil fuels at all anymore, but It'd be a big shock to the electric grid in this country to change over 80-90% of the running plants in a decade and coal is at least plentiful and new plants are at least carbon neutral.


and yes, there are platforms that can do 250k/day themselves. they aren't located on the North American OCS (most deep ocean* offshore platforms are lucky to do more than 50k/day once you average over the days when you can't run.) onshore is a different story but except for ANWR - which I consider an important strategic reserve - we don't really have any significant known onshore resources that haven't been exploited and/or leased yet.

*edit: this might be some of the confusion, deep ocean drilling is very very different from shallow water drilling (deep and shallow being relative terms) you have to work against gravity for each foot of pipe you need to move the oil up, and there's only so much static pressure - to get an idea of how this works, fill a water balloon up and then carefully pin prick it (maybe prick it before you fill it)

just sitting there on your table, with the prick on top the water doesn't come out very fast, a little trickle that doesn't really go far from the balloon wall.

put the prick on the bottom of the balloon and the water comes out a bit faster.

squeeze the balloon (showing what a higher pressure does) and you can make the water go up higher from the balloon wall, etc.

onshore drilling is like needing the water to go a couple centimeters before it reaches the top of the pipe.

offshore shallow is like 2-3" of flow

offshore deep water is like 6"+ of flow.

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

I don't understand this need to get rid of coal, even Obama in that link you provided said coal can be burned cleanly now.

The platform that can do 250k a day is located in the Gulf of Mexico, about 150 miles off the coast of Louisiana. Is that the NA OCS or just the gulf? And shallow or deep water? It would also only take 4 50k a day platforms to get 200k a day. I think I'd have to hear an oil exec say it to believe we can't drill for more in the OCS and shale than can be saved by inflating tires to believe it.

[Amele]

I don't understand this need to get rid of coal, even Obama in that link you provided said coal can be burned cleanly now.

The platform that can do 250k a day is located in the Gulf of Mexico, about 150 miles off the coast of Louisiana. Is that the NA OCS or just the gulf? And shallow or deep water? It would also only take 4 50k a day platforms to get 200k a day. I think I'd have to hear an oil exec say it to believe we can't drill for more in the OCS and shale than can be saved by inflating tires to believe it.

I'm interested in phasing out coal because of the impacts that coal burning has on local radiation background counts - excluding the CO2 emissions (the ash left over is notoriously hard to control and accounts for most of the radiation released by coal burning plants) - coal plants actually generate more rads/kwh than nukes do, but since it's old tech and not implicated with bomb tech people don't generally worry about it.* as well as the habit of coal mining operations in removing entire mountaintops and otherwise unnecessarily blighting landscape to get at the material quickly.

either way we should be accelerating the phased changeover from old coal to new cleaner burning plants - which we aren't exactly doing right now.

the gulf is 'shallow' (shallow being a relative term) and the proposed area of drilling for the expanded OCS is not near the gulf wells. as for 4 50k/day platforms getting you 200k/day, that's kind of the idea. but there's a limit to how many platforms you can site per well and siting additional platforms just reduces the individual capacity of *all* the platforms as you exceed the ability of the well to provide sufficient pressure to fill all the pipes to capacity.


*this isn't to say that coal is somehow super radiation dangerous or anything, it's just that under normal operation a fission plant generates very little radiation.

[archibaldcrane]

I think I'd have to hear an oil exec say it to believe we can't drill for more in the OCS and shale than can be saved by inflating tires to believe it.

I wasn't aware that there was anywhere in the US where oil shale mining/conversion to oil was economically viable. It can be done, but it's not worth the expense even at the current record high oil prices.

Am I wrong?

[Amele]

I wasn't aware that there was anywhere in the US where oil shale mining/conversion to oil was economically viable. It can be done, but it's not worth the expense even at the current record high oil prices.

Am I wrong?

the primary problem with shale is that it has worse energy density than a tater-tot.*

we'll mine it when oil is an industrial chemical because it's worth using as a plastic at those prices; we'll never ever burn it at those prices.

this is the case for pretty much all the oil shale everywhere in the world, it's basically unripe oil.

*I wish I was kidding. 1 Metric Tonne of Shale has about 4,201 MJ worth of recoverable oil energy. a Tater Tot has about 8.27 KJ per gram. - 1,000,000 grams to a metric ton -> 8,273 MJ per metric tonne of Tater Tots.

[Beckwin]

man I fuckin' love tots

also I read that the only real hope for shale is in highly-dense locations in Colorado and by successfully implementing in-ground liquefaction (which so far has only been successful in small tests).

[Amele]

man I fuckin' love tots

also I read that the only real hope for shale is in highly-dense locations in Colorado and by successfully implementing in-ground liquefaction (which so far has only been successful in small tests).

the problem with in-ground liquefaction is that it uses so much water that it may actually cause localized droughts. (and also requires absurd temperatures that we're not sure we can sustain over a large area. and enough drilling that it may permanently destabilize soil conditions in the region even after the area 'recovers' from the temperature)

considering the area of our country where most of the oil-shale is located is already low on water this is probably not a good idea.

and 'highly-dense' is about 30 gallons of crude per ton (which is where the 4,201~MJ number comes from). this stuff really *isn't* worth thinking about as a source of oil.*



*at least, not in the sense that we still consider oil fuel. once we're to the point where it's used just for plastics and jellies and other chemical products then we can talk about the costs being reasonable.

[Beckwin]

right, right. I'm not making a case for shale, just expanding on the idea of it a little. Shale has problems similar to coal, in that it can wreck large landscapes. I think you mentioned carbon-neutral coal plants being acceptable earlier, but personally I don't even want to give that much ground on coal given what mining (especially surface) does, especially when we can go nuclear with a lot less overall environmental impact.

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

I wasn't aware that there was anywhere in the US where oil shale mining/conversion to oil was economically viable. It can be done, but it's not worth the expense even at the current record high oil prices.

Am I wrong?

The only thing I've read on it is that at above $60 a barrel it's worth it for oil companies to go after shale oil.

[Amele]

right, right. I'm not making a case for shale, just expanding on the idea of it a little. Shale has problems similar to coal, in that it can wreck large landscapes. I think you mentioned carbon-neutral coal plants being acceptable earlier, but personally I don't even want to give that much ground on coal given what mining (especially surface) does, especially when we can go nuclear with a lot less overall environmental impact.

I make a concession for coal because I want a changeover to all non-petrol plants in a single decade (basically, by 2018) and I want a realistically obtainable goal that doesn't require basically the eisenhower highway project + WPA + Apollo + Manhattan all at once

although if we could push a project like that through I would say 'go for it'.

[Amele]

The only thing I've read on it is that at above $60 a barrel it's worth it for oil companies to go after shale oil.

you mean in 2005 dollars right? because it should be closer to 80-90USD/bbl in 2008 dollars.

and this is excluding any possible associated water costs.


the real consideration is energy input when we're considering using it as fuel anyway, which ranges from something like 0.7(more energy in than out) to 13.3 depending on scale, exact extraction method, and how rich the shale is.



honestly, there's really no reason to go after oil shale when liquefaction of coal and cellulosic-gasoline are both a half-century old, have more readily available source supplies and are cheaper to produce. (being something like 35$/bbl 2005USD and 40$/bbl 2005USD respectively)

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

you mean in 2005 dollars right? because it should be closer to 80-90USD/bbl in 2008 dollars.

and this is excluding any possible associated water costs.


the real consideration is energy input when we're considering using it as fuel anyway, which ranges from something like 0.7(more energy in than out) to 13.3 depending on scale, exact extraction method, and how rich the shale is.



honestly, there's really no reason to go after oil shale when liquefaction of coal and cellulosic-gasoline are both a half-century old, have more readily available source supplies and are cheaper to produce. (being something like 35$/bbl 2005USD and 40$/bbl 2005USD respectively)

I'm talking spring semester of this year dollars. I read an article between classes in the spring that brought up two issues with shale oi, one being it's only viable above $60 a barrel.

[Amele]

I'm talking spring semester of this year dollars. I read an article between classes in the spring that brought up two issues with shale oi, one being it's only viable above $60 a barrel.

do you remember where you read the article?

because they've been saying $60 dollars for several years now.

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

do you remember where you read the article?

because they've been saying $60 dollars for several years now.

Yes, realclearpolitics.com. I searched for it before I replied but that site has 40-60 articles a day.

[Amele]

ok. I'll try to find it myself when I have more time, I'd be interested to read it.