The Answer, My Friend, Is Blowing In The Wind

This would be great if it can be done economy without subsidies. I would like evidence that the energy expended on its construction is less than the energy produced.

we should also be drilling the oil off NJ to create jobs and increase domestic supplies.

We can't however, because of lobbyists and Corzine who are against it. I would say that places some blame for high gas prices and unemployment directly with the liberals and democrats.

jn024,

NJ has some of the lowest pump prices in the country and the US has some of the lowest prices in the non-Arab world (just look at the price per liter in Europe if you don't believe me).

Way to spout those talking points jn024. So do you think we'd see that gas anytime soon if they did drill off shore? How can being against off shore drilling be responsible for current gas prices?

That is a very good point, MMM. I think it is great that we can harness this wind energy off NJ's shores and benefit the state, but it's not a benefit at all when the taxpayers are footing the bill to build these things.

And not to hijack a thread posted hoping to pit the lasermikeys and cathars of this site against each other (like they need help?), but did anyone else notice that they passed the bailout?

Other than all the pork that was added to make this an even more crushing debt when it fails; what is so different that this version won by some 90 votes?

Enjoy all the smiles on the faces of Wall street bankers who are now saved. YOU paid a lot for those smiles!

I for one am ecstatic it passed, especially with these new earmarks they included on the bill. Finally, this do-nothing Congress is addressing the needs of archery enthusiasts like myself. Granted, 2 million dollars earmarked to help promote the continued use of wooden arrows in youth outdoor archery is just a drop in the bucket when you look at the big picture (if you happened to catch any of the U.S. archery team's action at this past summer's olympics you know exactly what I'm talking about--what a disappointment, ideed). Still, it is a start. My only regert is that this this congress could not have been around when I was a teenager. Perhaps then, the wooden tennis racquet would have not gone the way of the passenger pigeon.

PS...I posted this on another thread but since this one seems to be hijacked, I thought it important enough to mention twice. Can't wait to high-five my archery buddies at Brookdale tomorrow morning!

jn024-

Yes, we would also be footing the bill to drill offshore. Have you been to the Caspian sea? The small leak of oil has made a quarter inch film across the floor of the Caspian. It used to be a crystal clear sea filled with caviar

Nice try jn. Do you think oil rigs and platforms magically appear? If we have have to spend money to build something to produce energy it would seem to make more sense to invest in wind. Then we could be less dependent on those...you know, wink.

The whole bail out package is a disgraceful barrel full of pork. I disagree with Gordon Gekko, greed is not good.

I am not "pitted" against anyone, Generically...

Certainly, one is never pitted against laserboy. He just is and there stands utter idiocy. One is "against" him almost by happenstance, because he is so unfailingly dumb yet nevertheless admirably persistent in his stupidity. (Still, it never occurred to you before that so many items here are sort of set-ups? I mean, really?)

But I would like to nonetheless suggest that the wind turbines of this project should be moved to off of both Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, and straightaway!

The real issue concerning any oil we might get from offshore drilling on the East Coast concerns where it would be refined. Congressional Democrats time and again over the last 20+ years have blocked both the building of new refineries and the expansion of refining capacity at existing ones. As well as, some time ago, the planned creation of a deepwater port and refining facility way up in Jonesport, Maine (where the local economy could really use the jobs).

It's always interesting to see how little people really know about the oil industry in general, which has a comparatively low return of of investment ratio vs. many other industries. Do folks even know where most of our imported oil comes from? Hint: not from Muslim-ruled nations.

We, meaning the U.S., are the largest producer and consumer.

"Do folks even know where most of our imported oil comes from? Hint: not from Muslim-ruled nations."

I am guessing Canada...do I win a Guinness if I am right?

Barkeep! One Guinness for the astute lady with the dogs!

(I believe Canada is our #1 source for imported oil, and I think Mexico is #2.)

I know where some of our oil comes from, but I'm positive I only know half the story. I know France helps us by being the middle man between us and several middle eastern nations who refuse to do business with us directly.

cathar,

No offense, but I'm pretty sure you are the only who sees it that way. I'm sure lasermikey, dannyboo, et al see you as their cyber-nemesis to clash wits with until one of you emerges the techno-winner (which, of course, is impossible on the bloggosphere).

Take their attention as whatever ego-boost you see fit.

Personally, I enjoy reading your posts when they're anything other than just venomous attacks against those you disagree with and even more when we disagree about something and manage to keep the dialogue civil.

According to the Petroleum Institute (which runs a truly fascinating website), the top three countries are always, by far, Canada, Mexico and, here comes the wild card of political instability, Nigeria.

But which one of these three is in the lead re imported oil varies somewhat from month to month and year to year. Nigeria has at times been our "best friend" in this respect.

What the hell, Guinnesses for the both of you should we ever be in the same pub together! Better, a round of Makers' Marks!

"we should also be drilling the oil off NJ"

Anyone who wants to have drilling off the coast of Jersey should pack their things and move to that fishing village where all that Exxon oil washed ashore. 2 decades later and the place is still an environmental nightmare! There will never be enough safe guards in place to assure that drilling doesn't lead to NJ being an uninhabitable wasteland. And we will never see an ounce of that product "helping" us reduce fuel costs- we will however be given the choice to pay for it at the same rising costs we can pay for it today.

DamN Straight hrhppg. Supply has NOTHING to do with price!

"What the hell, Guinnesses for the both of you should we ever be in the same pub together! Better, a round of Makers' Marks!"

Way cool! But may I venture a stupid question (never stopped me before): If that is the case (Canada, Mexico and Nigeria), then why the hell do we even need to do ANY business with hostile Middle Eastern nations?

jn024, we are pretty hard up for cash. Food, gas, parking , rent and pet food for our 12 cats are all going up and we're not getting any raises...things are really getting tight.

We'd have it a little easier (and more importantly, I might not have to stop buying a pair of nice shoes, a pound of gourmet chocolate, and five nice lunches at a restaurant every week, and going for my weekly mani/pedi) if we'd just break into our neighbor's house and steal lots of money and valuable stuff.

But Mike won't let me do that! He says it's just not okay to do that! He even says we're just going to get ourselves deeper into trouble if we do that, even though it would help out for a little while! So, by your logic, it's all HIS fault we're strapped for cash! Great, now I know who to blame and I feel much better.

Anyway, I think it's about time for the wind turbines. They're also quite elegant to behold when they're not close enough to anyone's residence (people or animal) to annoy, whirling away silently in the distance.

But I, like MMM, am hoping that in fact they will produce more energy than it cost, directly or indirectly, to put them up.

Amandala,

Break into your neighbor's and we'll be reading about you in the star ledger- you won't have to pay for food after that and you'll be able to shorten your nails by scratching on the cement walls in the big house.

Mike will come visit you Thursdays and Saturdays.

I think, Mrs. Martta, it has something to do with the refining capacity of those three nations. They simply offer us as much as they really can, but no more, because of contractual and diplomatic obligations to other countries.

I also that in Nigeria one of the things one rebel group or another is always doing is cutting the pipelines between oilfields and refineries. As I learned from the Petroleum Institute, r&d costs within the oil industry are ridiculously high compared to other industries. Perhaps the price of pipeline repair is even hidden in the r&d line on oil companies' budgets.

Actually, Mrs. M - and Cathar - according to EIA, Canada is first, Saudi Arabia is second, Mexico is third followed by Venezuela and Nigeria.

The stats are for this past July (the previous year is about the same).The top 5 accounted for 67 percent of our crude oil imports. Iraq is 6th on the list. The order is the same for the list of total petroleum imports.

Something else that should be pointed out, Mrs. Martta: even as we buy oil from such countries as Dubai and Nigeria, we also SELL oil to countries. Much of the oil from the Alaskan fields, for example, goes to Japan. (Which once upon a time of course began WWII in the East in search of natural resources to exploit.) Partly because it's cheaper and more profitable to ship it there as opposed to all the way across the continental US (or via the Panama Canal, which has difficulty handling supertankers).

Then, there's the issue of motor oil. Which almost never comes from the Mideast or Nigeria but sometimes does from Mexico and Canada. Nonetheless, the real origins of much of the non-synthetic motor oil used in cars are revealed via some famous brand names: Pennzoil, Penn's Pride, Quaker State....

DamN Straight hrhppg. Supply has NOTHING to do with price!

It certainly will have nothing to do with the price we pay at the pump, given the suspected yield from offshore and ANWR, which is negligible.

The said part is, the republicans know this. They also know that by the time the democrats get to explain that drilling offshore isn't worth the risk to the environment, the conversation is over.

The Petroleum Institute disagrees with whatever EIA stands for, jerseygurl.

And I as a matter of moral course disagree with every doggone post you offer up, naturellement.

"I think, Mrs. Martta, it has something to do with the refining capacity of those three nations. They simply offer us as much as they really can, but no more, because of contractual and diplomatic obligations to other countries."

Aha, thanks. There's an old joke about Moses saying that he should have made a right instead of a left when he wandered into the Holy Land.
We'd be living in a very different world if we were buying our oil from the Israelis.

Cathar - the Energy Institue of America - lists the OFFICIAL statistics from the Department of Energy. So your biased Petroleum Institute information seems to be somewhat flawed compared to the actual stats. I will refrain from calling you a pompous jackass.

kudos for the windfarm...now lets use an 'all of the above' approach and couple the wind farm efforts with off shore drilling. Isn't it short sighted and selfish to send our hard earned us dollars overseas when we have ample supplies of natural resources?

As I learned from the Petroleum Institute, r&d costs within the oil industry are ridiculously high compared to other industries.

Poor, poor petroleum industry, who only posted record profits (not revenues) last year.

Agreed. You've heard of locavores, right? Well let's become locav-oils!

Isn't it short sighted and selfish to send our hard earned us dollars overseas when we have ample supplies of natural resources?

The problem is that offshore oil is not ample, its not easy to get to, it won't bring down gas prices regardless how many refineries Cathar wants to build, and it only takes one accident ruin Island State Beach Park for years.

Let's stop as much oil period.
If we had had an administration that was not in the pockets of the oil and auto industries, the mpg standard would have been raised. Instead the automakers were given a free ride for years by being given a government pass on SUV standards by calling them light trucks. Dumb move - and now we're bailing out Detroit too to the tune of 25 million.

We could reduce our total dependence on foreign oil if we had cars that got over 40 mpg.

I meant let's stop using as much oil period.

All well for me and you, JG, but try telling that to the Yoopers out in Michigan with their big gas guzzlers and farm equipment. Or Nancy Pelosi's and Al Gore's big megamansions. As I pointed out before, the US is the world's biggest consumer but is that because we have the most people or is it just bad habits and wastefulness?

What gave it away Generic Mike? The fact that I never instigate with cathar? The fact that I never attack him unless provoked?

Perhaps you need to recheck your definition of nemesis. You're grossly overestimating how seriously I take this blog. If anything, it's rather amusing how easy cathar flies off the handle.

For one thing, I never hold a grudge against the elderly. They have enough on their plate with death knocking on the door, an eroding physical state, their constant struggles to alleviate the fear of the unknown by grasping desperately to religion, and inevitably becoming senile - a path cathar is already treading made evident by his unprovoked outbursts and attacks on folks who aren't even talking to him.

So no, cathar is not my nemesis. Well perhaps in the sense a mosquito is the nemesis of the host it's trying to suck the blood out of. You can swat and swat but eventually you realize it's just too small to see and you accept the fact that occasionally the parasite is going to bite you because that's what it needs to live and it's life is rather pointless otherwise.

I occasionally poke fun at Ole Whiskers cause he sure is a spry one but for the most part I respect my elders and let him swing his dick wildly around the room in a vain effort to impress everyone with his purty talk and irrelevant anecdotes about who he's met during his protracted life.

It's rather like observing an old dog who's near the end of his days that does nothing but snores, farts, and shit on the floor. He's been around so long and become such a part of the scenery you just don't have the heart to euthanize him and feel he's earned the right to let the offensive bodily functions flow without impunity.

Enjoy your weekend Old Yeller!

with impunity ;)

Mrs M - we have bad habits that have been encouraged by our leaders selling out to the oil lobby and the auto lobby. There have been times we have been asked to conserve. There could have been more of an attempt to regulate mileage. In the same way that we are learning, on our own, how wasteful we are and we the impact is, we could use a little help from our leaders when it comes to explaining to the "hockey moms" and "joe six pack". Unfortunately, instead, we have been encouraged to use more oil and drive bigger cars and buy more things we don't need.

"We'd be living in a very different world if we were buying our oil from the Israelis."

Perhaps, but there was New York Times Magazine article that pointed out that countries who get their money from oil do not develop in to representative democracies because they do not need the approval of the people to raise funds. In other words, there is no representation without taxation.

screw mpg regs -- if we as a society want less gas use, we should do what we've done to create less cigarette use: TAX IT HEAVILY. Good for the fisc, bad for the oil tyrants and guaranteed to reduce miles driven and increase average mpg of cars on the road.

In a few short years, when Sarah Palin is but a distant memory, and the world is populated with wind turbines on every street light and telephone poll, and the houses have grass growing on the rooves and paint that captures energy from the sun to store in basement batteries, and the rare car plugs into the wall, thereby tapping green energy from wind farms and methane production systems (ie, cows), such talk of oil will be considered a social faux pas.

To get there from here will require some changing of habits.

To mention just one, before I go home to tend my mushroom garden: travel should be restricted to a bare minimum. We should shut down trains and buses and allow only single-occupancy cars into NYC. I know this sounds counterintuitive, but it would get people out of the habit of going in to the office.

Dogonit,ya,
there you go again! Let's drill off the NJ coast then we can all go swimmin' at tar beach, you bring the Goo Gone. You betcha!

I hate to bring the subject back on point, but... does any know how the experience has been with those big windmills in AC? Do they produce a meaningful amount of energy and if so can we put more there?

Though I think you outdid even your usual state of high dudgeon with your posts about lame old chubby white folks who can't sing, dannyboor, every post of yours only further establishes the aptness of the "extra" letter I added to your posting sobriquet.

And then you preen showily. But more than a little stupidly. We get it dannyboor, you're young and dumb, lucky you. Half-educated and foolish enough to brag about it.

The best thing, of course, is that every time someone posts in reply to your exceedingly garbled versions of history, politics and what have you, you have to worry (and I'm quite sure it's a worry for you) if someone else will add the extra letter too. That is my legacy to you, and, with luck, it can follow you for years after this (hardly ancient) fellow is gone. Enjoy!

Gee, Cathar, I thought the thread was about wind energy. Did I miss something?
Anyway, gotta go, gotta watch those commies at PBS with their whale commercials.

jerseygurl...do u get talking points delivered in your inbox every morning?

"our leaders selling out to the oil lobby and the auto lobby"...who and how do they sell out too?

Please respond when a democrat has an original thought or a solution. don't you get tired spewing out the same old tired 'pelosi, clinton, reid, rangel, carter, kennedy rhetoric....after writing those names i just had to get an anti bacterial wipe and clean my keypad

Gee, Ice, don't you get tired of spewing out the same old tired anti-Democrat hate?

Guess not.

Ice, try this time line of the bush/cheny administration being in bed with the oil companies.

"Bush/Cheney....I'm hurling just at the sound of those names.

Well Ice, Aside from Pokey's link, let's see. Since W was less than a model citizen upon leaaving grad grad school his wealthy family members financed a company he started called Arbusto Eenergy - OIL.
Cheney - Halliburton - OIL. Andy Card - auto lobbyist. Condi Rice - did you know there's an oil tanker named after her? She was on the board of ARAMCO, a Saudi owned OIL company with ties to US oil companies. The list continiues with Palin and McCain.

These are not left wing talking points Ice, these people are intimately tied to the oil industry and have been their entire lives.

" The list continiues with Palin and McCain."

It does? Which oil company did they work for?

However much the offshore wind farm may cost, I very much doubt that we'll have to fight a $4-trillion war to guarantee our continuing access to the wind.

who knows. But if ever we did, I could tell you who'd surrender.

Finally!
offshore NJ has some of the best winds for wind farms.

We need more of that ...

" The list continiues with Palin and McCain."

It does? Which oil company did they work for?

The point, I believe, is the continuation of the policies of the current administration. Though I'm sure that is a mistaken belief. McCain will go his own way as soon as he takes the oath. I know I'm countin on that 5K to beef up my healthcare and all that money we can spend on drillin while were "workin" on alternate energy...goshgollygee.