Why do we only talk about drilling for oil?

Anyone who knows anything of economics knows that drilling in other places won't drop the prices.


But that aside, why waste 5 points asking a question that, if you scroll down to 15 minutes ago, you will see answered by the exact same people?





We all know oil is big for most Americans, we all know it destroys the environment, we all know most people don't care. Why not let it alone already? Has answering the same stupid oil question every 2 minutes not gotten old?


This is directed at both sides, not just republicans who like to beat dead horses.Why do we only talk about drilling for oil?
So if you pump more oil out of the ground, the price won't go down? The supply goes up. Guess what happens to the price? It goes down. Economics 101.





There have been several alternative forms of energy that have been shot down over the years:





1. Nuclear - Environmental problems


2. Hydroelectric - Environmental problems


3. Wind - Environmental problems





Solar is great, but the efficiency is low and won't make much of a dent in our overall energy usage. I guess we could talk about fusion power, but that is still theoretical. There is, of course, ethanol, but people are complaining about the food supply. Anymore ideas?





Edit: You should seriously consider deleting your question. It's embarrassing how little you know about energy or economics.Why do we only talk about drilling for oil?
Drilling for oil is not an issue in America. It is oil companies that have made it an issue so that they can pressure Washington to release land that is environmentally sensitive. In normal times, most people would be against this. But now that oil is high, people are willing to sacrifice this beautiful land to save a few bucks on their gas fill up. Even though they will not save anything , because gas will keep going up anyways.
people are desperate for cheaper gas prices... it's actually a very big issue...





and many people don't know the facts...





reps are trying to paint liberals as holding up 50 cents a gallon gas... if people believe it... it could change a vote...





and if you can find me something to spend my points on... I'll gladly listen...
You are free to move about the...well, somewhere else. You don't have to listen. It's called an ';off'; button. What would you do for hair products, tires, etc. It all takes oil. You are dead wrong that most people don't care. Don't speak for me.
It will keep billions of dollars in our economy or do you like making leaders in the middle east filthy rich?





It doesn't destroy the environment. You don't know much about the subject, obviously.
We need more oil on the U.S. market and it will drop the price. If we keep going the way were at now a very large and destructive war will start over oil and all because we wanted to save a tree.
Republicans believe that any environmentalism at all is insane.
Drilling will drop the prices





go learn the term '; supply and demand';
Because cars don't run off of wind. They run off of gas.
is thier another way to get it than drilling?
Because in politics, proof does not involve supplying new arguments or supporting evidence.





It consists of repeating the same statements over and over, in the hopes that they will be accepted as the truth, entirely on the basis of such repetition.





This was satirized by Lewis Carroll with his Bellman character, who (repeatedly) told his charges ';what I tell you three times, is true.';





In the spirit of which, I will state, yet again, that America's remaining domestic oil reserves are a national asset of great strategic value. They should be recognized as such, and conserved by national policy.





The US does not have sufficient untapped reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, or to significantly affect the price. Especially since demand, being unbound (and even encouraged), historically has only grown to meet (and exceed) any incremental increase in supply.





Yes, demand can rise to much greater heights, for little or no reason. People will consume oil at rates far in excess of what they actually need to survive (many of them already do), if they are allowed (and encouraged) to do so. They will buy bigger cars, more cars, gas powered recreational vehicles. They would have flying, hemi powered lawn mowers if they could afford it. This is the essence of consumerism: Spending, the more act of buying and consumption, becomes an end in itself.





None of which I have a terribly great problem with, however, where consumption of oil is concerned this is not compatible with the interests of the nation as a whole. If we want to encourage people to be gluttons, it is in the nation's interests to, at least, turn their gluttony towards some other object.





Those who feel they will die if they can't commute eighty miles a day in upholstered farm equipment, should be compelled to find alternate means of supporting that lifestyle.





Their unnecessary, profligate consumption (though it is very profitable for the oil companies), needlessly drives up the price of gas for those whose needs for affordable fuel are more defensible.
The Democratic Congress has barred every attempt to fix our aging problem. Preventing us frm drilling off shore, claiming the 'Evil Oil'; has 64 million acres of land that it is ';just sitting on idlely to increase their profits.'; Which by the way hold little to no oil that is recoverable.





Ask yourself a question though... why would they continue sitting with a limited supply of higher priced oil with less peple buying, it would only mske more sense that they would want more oil, so they could sell it cheaper and there for have Americans drive more.





The oil companies have to INVEST money to do the research to find oil. It makes no sense they would simply sit by idely when they are doing nothing other then spending their own money.





We NEED to do everything, wind power, solar power, nuclear power, higher fuel economy on new vehicles, off shore drilling, alternitive energy, and conservation.





Not a single one of these will sustain America alone. Barrack Obama wants higher fuel economy... would have worked...lets say 20 years ago when this was a problem, but no one cared back then.





However John McCain is against Nuclear power, I understand the safety concern. However, there has only been one American incident, Three Mile Island, which is a perfect test of the system working as it was designed to do. Proper security measures and smart politics will protect Nuclear Power Plants.





They say Nuclear power is an enviromental concern and I understand it is, but we spent billions of dollars on the Yucca Mountian Repository and it sits unused, and deemed perfectly safe, since Nevadans are all NIMBY about it. (Not In My BackYard)





We will never get anywhere because everything offends some special intrest group, which inturn effects the politicans decisions.





The anti drilling stance is simply ignorant. Yes oil is bad, but we use it and cant just get off it overnight, or in ten or twenty years for that matter.





Sen. Nancy Pelosi says drilling for our own oil wont effect gas prices, yet suggests using the Stragic Oil Reserve to lower prices...Am I missing something here? It is not for a ';Rainy Day'; as Sen Chris Van Holten says it is. It is for national emergency, high gas prices are not an emergency, they are an inconvience which effects the economy. If we would have started drilling even 7 years ago we would have oil flowing feely now.





Thank congress
Look whose asking the question. Drilling for oil DOES NOT destroy the environment. That is a myth that people like you are trying to advance. If you understood basic economics, you would know the concept of supply and demand. If there is more supply on the market, prices will go down. If you keep asking tired questions you will keep getting tired answers. The only problem is that you are not interested in hearing the truth. You are only interested in hearing talking points from fellow like minded ignoramuses like yourself who don't know the first thing about the energy sector and probably don't know the difference between profit and profit margins.
The Democrat City Council of a medium sized city in my state of Ca. passed an ordinance to conserve water. The citizens did as asked and conserved. The water revenue went down so their reward was the council raised taxes on water. We don't need to drill. We have a two hundred year supply on Gull Island in Alaska. The wells where drilled and capped in the 70's. Read any article on this search page link. Things are what they are. We will need oil for decades to come and no one on Yahoo is going to solve it. This is just a forum to discuss it or not. I'm glad you took care not to direct this to one side or the other that ';just likes to beat dead horses';.





http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Gull+Is鈥?/a>
I think this is the first time I've addressed the question.


Drilling for oil not only supplies crude but also Natural gas.


Economics 101 in a fixed market decrease in supply will cause an opposite reaction in price assuming demand stays the same.








That means if in your neighborhood 1000 people buy 10 gallons of fuel a week out of necessity the demand in the market is 10,000 gallons. If the supply is dropped to 8000 gallons. The price would go up proportionately to offset the loss of supply. If the price goes up too high customers leave the market (go down the road and buy at a different station).


If the price stays the same 200 customers would be left without any fuel.





And your right drilling won't necessarily drop the prices, only if the new wells are viable and the oil maintained in the U.S. will they effect our market.





Oil is big for every American that use any plastics, bathing products, vehicles, bicycles, food, paper products, your computer, electricity...


Oil destroys the environment? Only if mishandled, and or not recycled. The new technologies allow pumping and when finished all you can see is a large man-hole capping the well.





I guess your granny doesn't live up north looking at $5 a gallon heating oil bill this winter and a heat pump just won't cut it in northern climates.





If you wonder why everything seems to be getting more expensive lately transportation . #1 it simply costs more to transport because deisel has gone from 2.00 to 5.00. #2 the value of the dollar is going down because we are sending so much money out of the country to buy our oil.





The fact that so much of our ';expendable income'; is going to purchase fuel instead of enjoying lifestyle is part of what is compounding the recession issues.





Usually when I see a question I don't want to answer I go do something else.
Because people don't read before they speak. So they ask the same question that was asked 5 minutes ago. This oil question is just a slew of questions that keep getting asked.


Your right drilling want drop gas prices but the threat of drilling will. Take in point. The day Bush lifted the offshore drilling ban crude dropped $5. In that week crude dropped $17+. On Monday someone said your reserves were lower than expected. So crude jumped up $6. So you see action really has nothing to do with the price of crude compared to speculation.
';drilling in other places won't drop the prices';





what the hell does that even mean, completely vague and with no bassline. Not to mention, a false statement if you're indeed talking about supply/demand...I'll tell you why talking about domestic drilling is a mute point: because the oil companies are syncronizing their oligopoly and they own most of the oil-rich land, they're not going to expand drilling ops because they want to keep the prices high, no matter what Americans decide they want to do





...I understand what you're saying and you're right to an extent but you're also assuming that the oil prices we have now are legit market prices and they're not, you also need to factor in inflation (devaluation of the USD) commodities markets and the blatant oligopoly...when it comes down to it we should still only be around $80 per barrel, but 90% of world oil is USD denominated so that automatically drives the price up (for Americans) who are already unwittingly paying $7 per gallon through inflation and tax revenue appropriations. And guess who the only country is that doesn't sell its oil in USD...Iran
with todays technology (look up horizontal drilling) it is cleaner than before and safe..





http://www.horizontaldrilling.org/





also what it will do is buy us time until we can get the other answer to this mess developed..electric cars are NOT just around the corner kid, too many engineering things are still due to be worked out!





plus nuclear plants also takes time, power plants take up to 20 years to be build and we need help now!





so drilling and getting to our vast reserves that we DO have is key now...later we will have other things...but later





another thing, actually warm oil pipelines in Alaska help animals (like the caribu) survive that otherwise would not because of the cold!





http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/20/bach鈥?/a>