The Observation Deck

I am still against drilling in ANWR. Is there no part of this country we will not rape to feed our ridicules oversized hunger for the Devil’s nectar? (wow that sounded better in my head ). We have already destroyed much of this planet and are beginning to litter others with junk that falls off cool robots. We do not need more drilling. We need better sources of oil. Maybe we need the high price at the pump as a wake up call to say we can not live on the stuff forever. Who knows.

George Will is misleadingly optimistic about estimates of recoverable oil off Gulf Coast and ANWR.

He is somewhat fair in possible environmental damage. But if Oil/Motoring is such a necessity of life, shouldn't oil be some kind of public utility?

his closing remark about our energy policy or lack of energy policy is incomplete. We have no energy policy in regards to how we use energy, how we pace ourselves regarding energy.

"Just probing four miles below the Gulf's floor costs $100 million dollars". i assume the oil companies get all that back in Tax Cuts and Rebates and Subsidies. We could have been probing for oil all over town with the money spent invading Iraq.

Over 2.3 million oil wells have been drilled in the United States since 1949. Maybe they are doing it wrong? should they go back to the same sites and dig 3 times as deep? Are they just holding out until libertarians take over and eliminate taxes and big government?

the social ills blamed on liberals are really the inevitable result of Sprawl and modern consumerism. Our modern economy essentially revolves around outsourcing manufacturing to spend more on sprawl(oil addiction). During World War II we were a global exporter of oil.

If we were "energy independent" there would be far less impetus to throw weight around in the middle east. You can't just make that weight disappear. You gotta throw it at something somewhere else or just let it sit here.

Commercial Air traffic will probably drop to 5 percent of its current level within a decade or two. Fed Ex will probably collapse: maybe they are quietly moving their money to domestic rail.

If these Gulf Coast and Alaska fields pan out, a few decades after that. China will implode sooner or later: During the civil wars and insurrections in China during the 1800s a hundred million or so people died: but they only had 3 or 4 hundred million at the beginning of 1800.

The changes in supply haven't matched the changes in price. What has changed besides demand? Oil is a place to park money. Oil and agricultural commodities are a place to park money. There are more investment bankers and the like than ever, and they gotta park their clients money somewhere that is "growing" to justify their existence as finance experts. the tech bubble is over. forget boring stuff like factories and forges and mills. just pile the money into oil and agricultural commodities.

Ryan said it oh so well but I will add my simpler tact: We are still getting it good and cheap compared to our buddies in Europe who are paying up to $10 per gallon. I can't even fathom that (though I guess I better get used to it at some point).

I'll echo Ryan's major point: Sprawl. Europe hates these prices but lives with it because they aren't 20 miles from there they work. Or more. They don't have to drive 20 miles to get food. People keep drifting away from the center of the tribe and wonder why that commute that looked fine at $1.50 a gallon 8 years ago doesn't look so fine now.

Lastly, even if Will's numbers were accurate on the take from Alaska...c'mon. If we saved 50 cents a gallon that would take our gas prices way back to...2007. Yippee. That's well worth it (is that a pun??).

To piggyback on Ryan's point about wells in this country. A neighbor of mine noted that his bud who lives out in the country has an oil well but is not allowed to use it. One company comes out every couple years, pumps some barrels, pays him for it and shuts up shop and doesn't come back for a while. I don't know if this is typical or not but I wonder if these wells could produce more? You know, the ones we already have.