What are the cons to drilling for oil in America?

Limited capacity, we are already drilling the best spots. Many of the wells are in sensitive areas concernin coral reefs and tourism hot spots. Ecological damage in places such as Anwar from building infrstructure, roads, etc. At most we deliver an extra 1.5 million barrels a day which accounts for less than 2 percent of daily needs today. Oh yea, it will also take over 20 years for that oil to make it to market. By then we may already have geared ourselves off of oil.





Remember how I said it will take 20 years, well oil consumption only increases so that 1.5 million barrels will be even less adequate. Fossil fuels, namely oil, are no longer the abundant fuel that it once was.What are the cons to drilling for oil in America?
1) Distraction from the real issues in this election.





2) Deflection from what should be our real priority: weaning ourselves and our economy from a depleted natural resource. We have hit the point where we are using more barrels of oil than we are discovering reserves to replace them. Eventually the entire globe will run short and no one will have enough oil for their economy at any cost.





3) We are setting ourselves up for decades of warfare over control of the supply of oil. Yes, we can drill for oil everywhere. We can exploit the oil shale in Wyoming, We can even convert coal to some form of petroleum (more energy in than out). But, this decade or the next, the world will run critically short of oil and we will have to face it sooner or later.What are the cons to drilling for oil in America?
IMO, the biggest ';con'; is that it delays getting our energy house in order. It's just a psychological stop-gap to appease people who don't want to acknowledge they are going to have to change. I asked a similar question a while back and got a slew of different answers about how long it would take to actually get the new oil in circulation. However, there didn't seem to be any disagreement about the fact that it would be a minute amount compared to the rest of the world and so would have little impact on oil prices. (We have 3% of the world's oil, but use 25% of it, according to oilman T Boone Pickens.)





We need to start developing alternatives now, we need to drive more smartly now, we need to devote our energies to future resources, not old oil. The longer we are distracted by the myth of old oil, the deeper the hole we are digging for ourselves in terms of energy independence.
Common sense, can all cars, trucks, trains and planes be converted to the ';alternate'; fuel sources in the next 5 years? 10 years? Can everyone afford $10 a gallon a gas for that length of time? Why not get of the dependence of imported oil, drill where there is actually oil not in the spot given where we already know there isn't any and make the transition to alternate fuel sources in a reasonable manner. Heck, even Paris Hilton figured that one out.
McCain:





The news of drilling in America will lower oil prices immediately b/c of the supply and demand. Oil alone is not the answer. Drilling and working on alternative energy is the best approach.





Obama:





The news about alternate energy has no immediate effect on oil prices. Not drilling at the same time? Put your imagination to work here...






The three legit problems I've seen are that by drilling one damages the surrounding environment, that it would lower oil prices thereby encouraging its use and discouraging the R%26amp;D of alternatives, and that once we pump the oil out it's no longer there (if you believe oil will be more expensive in the future there's a strategic argument for keeping reserves in the ground until it's so expensive it would only be used for vital needs like farming).





The lag time between the start of drilling projects and when one can produce actually counters the last problem... since that lag time would always exist, it would be in our best interest to start now in anticipation of a greater need down the road. The ever- increasing price of oil (as far as I'm concerned) makes alternatives R%26amp;D attractive to investors even if we do manage 2.4 million barrels per day of production... that won't entirely counter the lost production from mature fields worldwide. Drilling domestically will mitigate the decreasing production of oil until we can switch to other fuel sources. This leaves the environmental argument, which good and decent people can differ on. Although, I will point out that by not drilling, you force the hand of oil companies to get their oil elsewhere, either via tar sands/ shale, or from other countries, and to do so more aggressively. Either option is far more taxing environmentally.








Connor, while 2.4 MBPD is relatively small compared with the ~86 MBPD we get worldwide, a small difference in supply makes a HUGE difference in the price, because oil is not elastic. This is doubly true given the difficulty in maintaining 86 MBPD, which it unfortunately appears to be a struggle to maintain. 2.4 MBPD will be a major help when the production goes online, and given our reliance on oil for our very lives (people drastically underestimate how much oil usage does for us today), it seems foolhardy to me to not at least start on drilling projects in anticipation of a greater energy crisis over the next 12 years.
Cons running the risk of oil spills. Not finding oil in the locations. Don't listen to people saying its a waste of money. The government doesn't pay to drill for oil, the companies do. The government just has a ban on the areas where people suspect oil is.
seth b.


1. global warming is not caused by drilling


2. if it were how would it make a diff. if its from here or the mid. east its as you say ';global warming'; it effects the whole globe not just where the oil came from





and no there are no cons
- Expensive


- Damages the environment


- There's not that much of it, so it won't do much to reduce prices


- Won't all necessarily go into American cars


- Perpetuates dependence on oil
Pretty much drilling and not finding anything but wasting the money looking.. even tho we no there Is oil out there... but hey gas is going down anyways right? it wasat like 4.30 mid sumer now i see it for around 3.65
As long as we can afford it, we should import oil from other countries and preserve ours here in America.





America Needs Foreign Oil



-more reliance on oil


-environmental impact from pollution and damage


-expensive


-environmentalist backlash






Cons make money whether they find oil or not. We can't successfully fight global warming while pumping up and burning ever more oil.
well pollutes is bad whether golbal warming is around or not
Uh...waste of money, not to mention risk of environmental disasters.
What George Bush was to the Yale team...cheerleader.