peak production at ANWR would contribute about 3% to the US consumption. ( 15 years from now )
it would have almost 0 effect of oil prices and energy self-reliance.
We are better off investing in next-generation energy resources.
oil prices went down NOT because of us talking, but because the reason it peaked was pure speculation. At some point 92% of all oil futures were held by speculators.
Right now we have so much oil we don't know what to do with it.. we have tankers full of oil floating in the ocean..

Few points
1. Speculation - are not they based on the events/plans that are taking place in the present time?
2. Investment in alternative energy - investing or subsidizing?...so far none has made economical sense...
3. What is the alternative source of energy available right now and used successfully by other countries? (France uses nuclear power for 70% of all their energy needs). And who has been blocking it in this country?

and what is the point you are trying to make?

That Mac, after inistially consolidating base by Palin's nomination and moving ahead, reverted to his usual "friends", "accross the aisle" nonsense. He promised (in the email to supporters) to vote against stimulus than "for the sake of the country" changed the position.
Basically a lot of conservatives decided that he is Obama-light (no pun intended), he will not let Palin to play her roleand he will promote socialism slowly w/o triggering an immune reaction.
They voted for the country to be innoculated once and for all, so to say - they hold their noses and voted for Obama. Mac lost.

agree...Mac has been Obama light - not better than him on the bailout - one of the reasons he lost even the independents - public didn't favor bailouts...
dunno about the e-mail...do you have a link?

on alternative sources - the most promising once are Nuclear, Solar, Wind.
Nuclear is of course the key for now.
Solar and Wind have been improving efficiency over the last 20 years greatly, and especially last 4-5 years.
There was an announcement from Dow chemical just yesterday about solar elements built into roof shingles.
They do need some government help ( tax breaks for the customers ) in order to accelerate deployment and encourage development.
Speculation is sometimes just for the sale of speculation.. if i buy up 92% of all oil supply futures the prices will go up due to perceived shortage. This is what pushed prices to $150

anyway, the point is she only knew the "drill, drill, drill" chant that idiots like Kudlow keep advocating.
energy policy is a lot more then just drilling.

Natural gas pipelineIn June 2008, Palin stated that she would work to create jobs bybuilding a pipeline to bring North Slope natural gas to North Americanmarkets.[70] In her acceptance speech at the GOP in September 2008, Palin stated: "I fought to bring about the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North Americanhistory," "And when that deal was struck, we began a nearly $40 billiondollar natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energyindependence." TransCanada projects the pipeline to be operational bylate 2018, barring unforeseen obstacles.[71]

Nuclear EnergyPalin has made multiple statments in support of domestic nuclear energy.[72]This includes new model nuclear reactors, such as those developed byHyperion Power Generation, such as the deployment of a 225MW reactorfor Alaska [73].Furthermore, she supportsthe overhaul of nuclear regulatory regime toallow the ready deploymentof these new, smaller, nuclear reactors.

yeah.. natural gas.. another resource where we have a total overproduction.. prices have collapsed to multi-year low and it's very hard to store ( unlike oil which we can dump into strategic reserve ).
all we need is more natural gas coming on-line.. brrr

***********.adn.com/opinion/view/story/553653.html
this is an article on her full record...anyway, that was her plans some time ago...things and supply change...she did promote investments in alternative energy by oil companies by giving them tax breaks for it...don't forget - she was a governor of one state and had limited abilities...although her record on energy is much more extensive and sound than many's...

USA import 62% of its oil. Its replacement with the nuclear energy is decades away and dems are against nukes.
Alternative energy is technologically non-existent.
The only way to be free from the foreign oil is to drill our own (and our resources - either Alaska, or shelf, or shale) are enomous.

New oil exploration takes decades as well..
Alternative energy is VERY real.. i know tons of people with Solar panels on their houses being totally grin neutral.
Companies like UPS and FedEx run their sorting facilities on Solar.
The problem with Solar/Wind is variable input flow.. our grid would have to be upgraded to handle massive inflow on it. However it's a good investment.

В Германии какой план? По моему 30% к 15 году и они его перевыполняют... А самая крутая страна в мире... То бишь Америка -- все хочет по советски солярку через дырки в земле доставать... :-D Я просто не понимаю какие проблемы с альтернативной энергией если другие страны делают это совершенно спокойно... :-P

the top Solar company in the world ( best solar technology ) is actually based in AZ.

New oil exploration takes decades as well..
Shelf is already explored (CNOOC, China, will start drilling oil near between Cuba and States in the nearest future).
Congress prohibits drilling on shelf for the US companies.
ANWR could be operational very quickly.
Shale oil would take longer, but nothing even close to making alterantive energy viable.

Every girl scout knows the fact, that USA, with its mere 5% of global population, hogs about 25% of the planet’s sacred resources. That is my child, because we got brains and money, to afford such consumption, comparing, of course, to the remaining 95% of the global shmucks.(tr)
And we are not about going on a diet, like that dude from the Subway commercial. ;-) Speaking of food, USA with its mere 5% of global population consumes about 30% of global beef, yep, them stakes we live. And also, manage to be the net exporter of beef.
Say, how come we can’t have the same robust production in energy sector? Well, the answer is obvious - envirowackos!

Should actually read -"...but nothing even close to the time needed to make an alternative energy viable".

The problem is that we can’t store electricity on an industrial scale. It must be made “to order“.
Solar or Wind is nice, but can’t meet power demand 24 hours a day. Nuclear can! And yes, it is nice to feed solar electricity back to the grid during the day, and to buy it back at night when we actually need the lights. But who is producing that electricity then? 20% Nukes, 1% from Wind and the rest … still fossil fuel.
Also energy must be produced close to the consumer. And it may not be the sunniest or windiest place. It should also be noted that even as the world’s temperature is changing, and the average wind speed is decreasing.

Nukes need no sun or wind. Nuclear power plants, emit virtually nocarbon dioxide, actually less than Solar does. And back to envirowackos- we do not need the government to subsidize the future, we need thegovernment to put proper legislations to promote production of energyfrom the REAL source of it, and prevent lies by the Green church inhalting the growth of our economy.

it's very telling about the heart-bleeding liberals :-) - polute the rest of World but not us...the truth of the matter is we have the technology that's been very environmentally safe, safer than in many places we buy oil from...

Iraqi oil makes less than 3% of the US oil imports. Exploration in Iraq is done by oil companies from all over the place, mostly non-US. Recent oil contracts went to BP and CNOOC (China).

The only "oil war" I know of is last's year Russian attack on Georgia to monopolize energy traffic to Europe.

Ira, why would we possibly care if Iraq sells Oil for $ or Euro or Yen?
It makes no difference to us whatsoever.. Currencies are converted one into another at a fraction of a second.
On renewable - we are currently using 7.5% renewal energy in this country.
We have huge deserts here, perfect locations for windfarms and solar farms. Just need a robust grid.

OK, Alex, so WHAT IS the US interest in the Middle East in your opinion?

Pretty much the same as declaring war on Germany after Pearl Harbor.

What I don't understand is: if our only interests were oil, wouldn't we attack Venezuela, like Mike suggested? It's an easy target. Our only casualties would be 5 marines lost to STDs and rum over-consumption. Or, we could take over Canada, also super easy target, and trade their diamonds for oil. We could do that for the eternity.

Olmedilla Photovoltaic Park is the largest Solar power production facility. Currently is 250,000sq m. facility with output of 85GwH per year.
We currently consume about 2700000Gw per year.
Which means with current efficiency we would need
2700000/85 * 250,000 = 8,000,000,000 m^2 of space = 3088 square miles
that's of course is a lot of space but... Mojave desert itself is 30,000 square miles.
So even without using more efficient solar cells ( developed every year ) 10% of mojave desert can support the entire US electricity production.

Looks like England and France are the real aggressors in the WWII. Hitler and Stalin invaded Poland, which neither British, nor French, nor Israeli territory.

Ira, no, it does not mean it at all.
who cares what's the currency of settlement?

If you are talking about about the first Gulf war - the INTERNATIONAL law did allow for the COALITION (AGAIN - US, Britts, Saudis...not the whole world) to expell Saddam from Kuwait...

Iraq signed a treaty that ended the Gulf War. Then followed almost 13 years of Iraqi violations of that treaty. From the point of view of the pesy int'l law that means that the state of war is resumed.

Alex, we will go in circles here forever...why Iraq? Why not N Korea?...if we go to N Korea, then there will be millions of questions - why we did, they couldn't have harmed us and so on and on and on...it's always conspiracy theories and not understanding the dangers of this World...

:-D it was not even a question...just my rant...:-)...was just wondering how long can people go back to the same dead end?...how was it even remotely relevant to what we've been discussing here (I mean wars for oil)...instead of discussing real problems we have right now - increased violence in Afganistan and Iran getting close to getting a bomb...

Ira, I might be mistaken, but I too was under the impression that diminished dollar demand would drive down the value of the dollar, thus weakening our purchasing power...

There is NO difference which currency the trade is settled in.
It does not affect demand or supply for given currency.
Any of these transactions exist virtually along the entire trade chain until the delivery.
Whoever accepts delivery pays in local currency anyway.
The argument makes no sense.

$ is the "reserve currency" but only one of them..
additionally all commodity transactions are priced in $ for the sake of simplicity.
Due to highly turbulent $ value a lot of people want to shift away from using $ for all transaction into something else. Euro does not make sense, as it has potential of being just as unstable as US$.
This would have no effect on $ exchange rate, or pretty much anything else.
However, this is very unlikely to happen anyway as there is so much that's tied it into the existing system and creating a whole new "world currency" is not feasible.

***********.ft.com/cms/s/0/08ca4832-b36a-11de-ae8d-00144feab49a.html
Obama under fire over falling dollar

The falling US dollar is giving ammunition to the critics of the Obama administration and fuelling broader concerns about the potential erosion of America’s reserve currency status.
Republican politicians have highlighted the dollar’s slide as evidence of waning US power.

Sarah Palin, the former vice-presidential Republican candidate, onWednesday sought to link the dollar decline to rising US indebtednessand dependence on foreign oil. “We can see the effect of this in theprice of gold, which hit a record high today in response to fears aboutthe weakened dollar,” she wrote on her Facebook page.

Sarah Palin knows as much about the declining dollar, as I do about aerial wolf hunting.

имя Пайлин вызывает реакцию похожую у быка на красное...во всяком случае у нею хватила ума и смелости показать людям о death panels in healthcare reform bill...и демократы должны были оправдываться и пообещали внести изменения...
так что давай, Сара, не давай им сачковать...а по существу им сказать нечего...

and how exactly is is the healthcare reform bill relevant to the declining dollar? *-)

Democrats have proposed $500 billion in cuts to Medicare providers over10 years to help pay for the reform bill, arguing they would come fromwaste and abuse. They accused Medicare Advantage, a premium Medicareprogram administered by insurance companies as government contractors,of being too generous to insurance companies.
***********.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/24/senators-spar-over-medicare-cuts-drugs/
and if they cut costs to the insurance companies, what do you think will happen to the benefits?...
yeah, it has nothing to do with the falling dollar...