This is what I love about America, the environmentalists and their willing accomplices in Congress put roadblocks in our way to drilling for gas oil and someone figures out a workaround:
"Ten years ago I could never have imagined I'd be doing this," says Greg Pal, 33, a former software executive, as he squints into the late afternoon Californian sun. "I mean, this is essentially agriculture, right? But the people I talk to - especially the ones coming out of business school - this is the one hot area everyone wants to get into."I'm glad that someone is researching ways to get around the Democrats in Congress. And since Obama has stated that he doesn't support off shore drilling (even though China is drilling off our shores) and is OK with higher gas prices, we'll need to find our oil in other places if he's president.He means bugs. To be more precise: the genetic alteration of bugs - very, very small ones - so that when they feed on agricultural waste such as woodchips or wheat straw, they do something extraordinary. They excrete crude oil.
[...]
Mr Pal is a senior director of LS9, one of several companies in or near Silicon Valley that have spurned traditional high-tech activities such as software and networking and embarked instead on an extraordinary race to make $140-a-barrel oil (£70) from Saudi Arabia obsolete. "All of us here - everyone in this company and in this industry, are aware of the urgency," Mr Pal says.
[...]
"Our plan is to have a demonstration-scale plant operational by 2010 and, in parallel, we'll be working on the design and construction of a commercial-scale facility to open in 2011," says Mr Pal, adding that if LS9 used Brazilian sugar cane as its feedstock, its fuel would probably cost about $50 a barrel.
BTW, isn't this an interesting answer to prayer? The Lord certainly works in mysterious ways :-)
Update: The commenters are confused so I thought I would make this clear: the Democrats are standing in the way of drilling for oil so I'm glad that we can find workarounds to drilling since they are stopping us from the 85 billion gallons of oil that has been estimated off the coast of our shores.
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Because, if it is the former, btw, they have stated that drilling ANWR/CS WILL reduce oil prices. (Wow, what an admission, hmm?)
By a total of 75 cents... a BARREL.
"Obama retorted that the Arizona senator had flip-flopped on that issue.""
Obama mistakes leadership (realizing that the price of oil is so high that something has to be done), with flip-flopping.
Obama demonstrates the same lack of compassion that the commenters on this blog do. Yeah, you people really care about the poor, don't you? You must all ride bicycles or can take the transit because I can't see anyone who would be stupid enough to support paying this much when there is a way out.
So, the whole 'changing your mind is flip-flopping, and bad' is another 'not a universal rule'?
Did you read the total amount that it would reduce prices at the pump?
Negligible. Note, at over 4 bucks, even 75 cents a gallon wouldn't be that much of a decrease. But it isn't.
That's 75 cents a BARREL. So, the price per gallon change may not even be measurable.
Taking that time, and that effort that 10 years of building pipelines and derricks would require and using it for something more long term would be the best thing that anyone could do for everyone. Rich and poor alike.
One thing we, at the shelter, (cause that's what all people who don't really care about the poor do, you know. Work full time at homeless shelters) try and teach is to avoid short term gains that result in long term losses. That making that 7 bucks an hour managing at the local fast food restaurant vs. making no money while attending school seems like an obvious choice, but that putting in the time and effort to get that diploma will gain them so much more.
I thought that was supposed to be the party of maturity, discipline and responsibility. That is what it takes to resist taking the quick fix over something for the long haul.
Actually, rising prices might argue for not tapping ANWR at this point. Right now its effect would be negligible. Those reserves are a commodity that will only increase in value and strategic importance over time. Perhaps holding back would be a better option than pissing it all away for limited, short-term benefit. The Machiavellian in me says "exhaust the easy oil in other countries first".
"And I agree with you on stupid people, maybe that's why McCain changed his position now that oil is $140 a barrel."
i'm glad that you agree that drilling for more oil as a solution to reduce gas prices is an idea held by stupid people.
and apparently that now includes mccain. he's a "quick-fix" simpleton who's too dumb to admit the facts that karen and i have stated time and time again... the experts are saying this, not political hacks like mccain. but he doesn't hear them. he's saying what republicans want him to say.
remember the old-style republicans who understood that competition was another factor that kept prices down? why is it that republicans keep shooting down aid to develop alternate, renewable fuels that would take our oil money away from terrorists? why do they insist on burning fossil fuels? because they don't believe that mankind is damaging the planet with carbon emissions. mccain has constantly voted against alternate energies with a vast majority of other republicans.
republicans are a bunch of dinosaurs that need to meet the same fate as the ancient dinosaurs.
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