Deseret News | Reader comments: Energy bill offers consumers relief at pump

Reader comments
My view: Energy bill offers consumers relief at pump

Timj | 6:05 a.m. May 22, 2008

I'm glad that some politicians are looking for long-term solutions.
Remember, even Bush himself said that we need to break our addiction to oil. Too bad the oilman doesn't seem to believe it.

Dave | 6:39 a.m. May 22, 2008

No matter how hard I try I can't get a windmill in my gastank. Drill!

vern | 7:23 a.m. May 22, 2008

Neither the Sierra Club nor Harry Reid have the interests of the American people at heart.

Comments continue below

Plug ins are our future! | 7:49 a.m. May 22, 2008

Absolutely true that windmills don't power cars. Nor will nuclear power that everyone is saying is our salvation from oil. Drilling won't really help us -- American doesn't have the reserves for its level of consumption, and all it will do is hamstring us and keep us addicted to oil. It will take 10 years to get oil out of Alaska, and Russia and China are planning to take that supply for themselves (they're closer and cheaper to ship to those markets than mainland USA -- remember, foreign owned oil companies operating in Alaska are not "loyal" to US interests!).

Toyota, GM, Nissan, and other car companies have announced plug-in hybrid and electric cars to be released in 2010. America's energy solution centers on making electricity the substitute for oil -- at current prices, electricity is only 1/4 the price of gasoline for the same amount of power. Wind power is the fastest growing energy source in the world -- America is tapping increasing amounts of wind, including in Utah's Spanish Fork Canyon. That is how Dave will get a windmill into his car -- if not necessarily in his gas tank!

Timj | 7:52 a.m. May 22, 2008

Dave...
Who says we have to stay with the ancient technology of gas-driven cars?

lowonoil | 8:28 a.m. May 22, 2008

"As we stumble into the future of a permanent global energy crisis, an interesting delusional theme has taken shape among the public and virtually all our leaders in politics, business, and even science: the obsessive notion that it's all about keeping our cars running by other means, at all costs. This is very unfortunate because it will be a colossal act of futility." -James Kunstler

People tend to forget that there are a lot of very necessary energy consuming activities that we depend on other than driving around in our cars.
Some examples:
Food production, transportation, and refrigerated storage; water treatment and distribution, sewage systems and garbage collection; heating, cooling, and lighting, hospitals and schools, mail delivery, etc.

When the time comes that we need to make hard choices of how to spend our declining energy supplies, which of these will we give up so everyone can keep driving?

John | 9:35 a.m. May 22, 2008

Hey Plugins are our Future!

Electricity is not a source of power. It is the result of using some other form of power, to create it.

When electric is used to power our cars, say goodbye to being able to afford it. It may be 10 cents a KwH now, but once everyone wants more and more of it, have you not learned the lesson from crude? The price will go through the roof, and so will the cost of lighting our house, using your computer, running the motor in your furnace, etc.

Stop spreading bogus solutions to a problem that doesn't really exist. There is enough oil and shale resource in the US to get us out of this problem, and how people figure that would take ten years is just an example of how gullible they are.

We can't drill in ANWR because its "pristine" and according to Ted Kennedy, we can't have wind farms because it ruins his view of the bay. We are shutting down coal plants, refuse nuclear, and you are going around saying we can use electricity to power our vehicles and run our businesses? LOL!!! Get serious.

You have got to be kidding | 10:09 a.m. May 22, 2008

If renewbles such as wind could produce the cost effective, reliable energy necessary to support our economy it would already be in use. The major reason we are "running out" of inexpensive energy is that we are legislating it out of existence. Vast domestic sources of oil, coal and natural gas have been legislated into wilderness areas. Hydropower is under attack by those who would remove all dams in favor of restoring the free running rivers that flood everything downstream. More and more restrictions are legislated to "protect" us from even from naturally occurring elements, such as, mecury and arsenic even though our air and water is cleaner than it has been since the middle ages. We are allowing our own government to legislate us into scarcity and poverty. We are supporting a government that is intent on destroying our way of life. When will we wake up and say no more. We must refuse to continue down this path of manufactured shortages and non-solutions.

Timj | 10:21 a.m. May 22, 2008

"Our air and water is cleaner than it has been since the middle ages."
I hope you don't actually believe that...
Our water's filthy enough that we carefully limit how much fish we eat...
And just because something is naturally occurring, doesn't mean that it's naturally occurring at the levels we see now.
Those who advocate using more and more oil are living in the 19th or early 20th centuries. It's time to move into the 21st.
Nuclear, wind, solar are solutions to our problems. Hopefully once oilmen get out of the whitehouse we'll pursue other solutions with a bit more vigor.

wrz | 12:08 p.m. May 22, 2008

"America's energy solution centers on making electricity the substitute for oil -- at current prices, electricity is only 1/4 the price of gasoline for the same amount of power."

And where are you going to get the electricity... from burning oil... or coal?

"Wind power is the fastest growing energy source in the world --"

Yes, and at its peak, it will produce about 1 percent of our needs.

"That is how Dave will get a windmill into his car -- if not necessarily in his gas tank!"

That should work for Dave... provided it's downhill all the way to work and back.

Electricity is the answer | 2:03 p.m. May 22, 2008

Some of you are forgetting that electricity is a renewable, infinite resource. Today we make electricity from coal, but there are lots of other ways to make it. Eventually electricity will get expensive as demand increases......and there will be plenty of people ready to produce more. You can always produce more electricity - can you say the same about oil? No you can't because oil is a finite resource. Electricity is not.

Solving the problem of where to get more electricity is far easier than solving the problem of where to get more oil.

The death of the oil business - coming soon to a theater near you!

DW | 2:51 p.m. May 22, 2008

We have enough untapped domestic oil to last our growing population for over a hundred years. In ANWR the oil can be obtained from an area of less than 2000 square acres. The total size of ANWR is over a million square acres. New drilling techniques do not do long-term damage to the environment. Caribou and moose are thriving around the current Alaskan pipeline. It has created a warm zone near the pipe than has increased mating and births of both animals.

We also need to exploit nuclear energy as many enlightened countries around the world are doing. By transferring current heating oil and natural gas demands to nuclear it would have the effect of lengthening the time period we have to find "real" long term energy solutions.

The current "green" answers to our energy problems will never supply a significant portion of our energy needs.

lowonoil | 5:32 p.m. May 22, 2008

There are reality based estimates of how much oil is in ANWR and then there are Lindsay Williams estimates. DW is clearly quoting the latter.
I have no doubt that ANWR will be drilled, and fairly soon. It will at best slow the decline of world oil production. It will make a harsh reality slightly less harsh.
I agree with DW that the current "green" answers to our energy problems will never supply a significant portion of our energy "needs". But neither will the remaining economically extractable hydrocarbons. We really need to work on these so called "needs" of ours.
Energy scarcity is unavoidable. Educate yourself about it's dangers. Then take action to reduce your vulnerability to them. There's a lot more to worry about than just whether you can drive.

Mike Rosenhan | 6:34 p.m. May 22, 2008

I hate to say it but Ms. Johnson is the typical idiot environazi.

Like it or not, the economy of the United States is based on Oil and that is not going to change in the near future. Some of her proposals are semi-reasonable but will take years to implement. We need to build Nuclear Power plants, we need to drill for oil off of both coasts and the Gulf of Mexico and yes, ANWAR. We need to drill domestically. We need to develop Tar Sands and Oil Shale. We need to increase refinery capacity and build some new ones. More energy efficient cars would have to be developed and built. All this would require the environazis to get off of the government's back. It would also take time.

The U.S. needs to become energy independent from the Middle East and Venezuala. Cowtowing to the Environazis is not the answer.

To Mike R. | 8:01 p.m. May 22, 2008

Mike, get a grip.

Stop name-calling and face reality. Cheap oil is gone, over, done-with. Global demand is too great and production levels are declining.

ANWAR, if drilled completely, represents not more than three years' supply of oil for the U.S. That's irrelevant, however, because once it's drilled its oil will become part of the global market and much of it will end up abroad, not in U.S. refineries. It's a GLOBAL MARKET.

Tar Sands and Oil Shale? Are you kidding? Have you see the estimated costs associated with getting usable quantities of oil from these? Oil from those sources will make $130/barrel look dirt cheap.

Drop the trash-talking attitude and start becoming part of the solution instead of being part of the problem. Live closer to where you work. Drive less. Drive a more fuel-efficient vehicle.

Mike R | 11:57 p.m. May 23, 2008

Mike and John, You need to face up to the reality that the days of cheap gas are over. Dudes you are in denial. Drilling for more oil is like giving whiskey to an alcoholic. It might make him feel better but it only extends the problem. Many Americans feel they are an elite group entitled to drive gas guzzling motor homes and the rest of the world just has to suck it up. We consume and waste the most and do the least to mitigate the effects. Europe is far ahead of us in developing alternative energy. Well guess what, it's time to pay the piper.

Mark | 6:31 a.m. May 28, 2008

Everyone that is saying electricity will go through the roof has not thought properly. The government needs to make it affordable for home owners to convert their homes to solar energy. Once this is accomplished, the home owners will be able to produce excess electricity and put it back into the grid! So wind power is not the only source of electricity to replace the oil addiction!!!! This also will make it so home owners don't have an electric bill.

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