Obama to allow drilling off of Virginia's Coast

[grumbler]

In this case, drilling doesn't really make sense offshore in Virginia because the amount of oil estimated is so small as to have no meaningful impact.  This looks like a pretty transparent effort to sooth the enraged GOP 1st graders who walked off with all their marbles when health care passed.

I think it is a quid pro quo for the increase in mileage standards for cars.  Those two issues have been linked in the Senate for years.

It is natural gas they are really looking for, BTW.

The squeals of outrage from the loony environmentalists make this policy eminently worth following.  Obama needs to space the announcements of drilling sites out, though, because the wackos pretty much exhaust their squeal projectors with each announcement, and it is more fun to listen to them if they have time to recharge.

[jimmy olsen]

Right, but it just seems incredibly political. If you really think this is a guy idea and ownt' harm the environment, you should suport drilling everywhere.

No, you shouldn't, unless you are unable to think about ideas that don't fit on bumper stickers.

Drilling make sense in some places and not others, depending on the specifics of each proposal.  Blindly insisting that someone must be all-or-nothing on drilling is absurd.

In this case, drilling doesn't really make sense offshore in Virginia because the amount of oil estimated is so small as to have no meaningful impact.  T.

When were the last surveys made? From what I understand, survey technology has greatly increased in the last few decades.

[The Minsky Moment]

[It is natural gas they are really looking for, BTW.

And the estimate is 1 trillion cubic feet as compared to US reserves of 250 trillion and world reserves in excess of 6 quadrillion.  This is not including the Marcellus shale deposits which are estimated to hold hundreds of trillions of cubic feet.

Natural gas is not as much a priority as oil -- it is comparatively plentiful and there have been many recent monster fields discovered recently.  US production is increasing, with net imports below 15% and most of those imports are from Canada.  This compares with petroleum, where the US imports 50-60% of consumption and there is a greater spread of countries of origin - with countries like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Nigeria in the top 5.

Thus, IMO Florida is a better case for offshore drilling b/c the oil reserves there may be in the billions of barrels.

[grumbler]

[It is natural gas they are really looking for, BTW.

And the estimate is 1 trillion cubic feet as compared to US reserves of 250 trillion and world reserves in excess of 6 quadrillion.  This is not including the Marcellus shale deposits which are estimated to hold hundreds of trillions of cubic feet.

Natural gas is not as much a priority as oil -- it is comparatively plentiful and there have been many recent monster fields discovered recently.  US production is increasing, with net imports below 15% and most of those imports are from Canada.  This compares with petroleum, where the US imports 50-60% of consumption and there is a greater spread of countries of origin - with countries like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Nigeria in the top 5.

Thus, IMO Florida is a better case for offshore drilling b/c the oil reserves there may be in the billions of barrels.

I have seen estimates like you are quoting, so I am not arguing.  I am just pointing out that the "concession" here is about natural gas and has long been linked in the Senate to the increase in auto mileage.