I do wonder about the Speaker, who seems ready to go to the mat on this one, in spite of the polls. My guess is that she, and others in the Dem leadership in Congress, have seen that it's not going to hurt, and could help, them in their competitive districts and states and that the Dems can cash in my making the Republicans vote against renewables/alternatives, etc. while complaining that the Dems won't let them DRILL. That leaves Mr Obama in a bit of a chill wind, though. So, it's probably a good idea that he get some shelter.

That is perhaps true. But by the same token (I would normally inject a conditional phrase here, like “IMO”, but since you didn't, neither will I) people on the right here are failing to distinguish between supply and demand destruction. Increasing coal to liquids IS NOT a near term solution. That solution sucks even in the medium to long term. It's double-dipping even in terms of traditional (e.g., non-GHG) pollutants. The process itself pollutes, and the resultant pollutes as well (although not as much). You are concentrating on the latter, without regard to the former. You are not looking at the entire “life cycle”.

Moreover, it appears that you have once again skipped over plug-in hybrids (in spite of acknowledging your error in the past) and argued against fully electric vehicles as if they were the only option. In light of that I find it hard to conclude you have anything but an ideological agenda in mind. I have mentioned it before, you have denied it before, and yet you keep hammering the same (false) talking point. Maybe I'm leaving one or more alternatives out (and if so, please educate me), but it seems to me that you are either you're too old to learn new tricks or you're being exceedingly disingenuous. Or maybe it's a combination.

There is no substitute currently for oil-based transportation liquid fuels. The obvious near-term method to increase our domestic supply of these is pursuit of coal-to-liquids as well as increases eventually from more drilling in our territory.

Electric vehicles are not a substitute at this time and won't be until they are affordable, have serious ranges (hundreds of miles), and recharging is fast. Note that this applies to all transportation, not only automobiles but trucks and aircraft.

Wind is a joke to most people and BigOil knows it is.

No, geothermal produces easy, free steam to run turbines.

Good grief. Whatever else could be said, the proverbial “far left” (as if it is any more monolithic than the “far right”) clearly has no monopoly on mindless hyperbole.

The simple damn point is I dont care how many geothermal or wind or solar or coal or gas or hydro plants you build………..It still is not going to get you to work and it is not going to get goods to market.

Build all the plants you want………but how about some rational thought on the problem. GEOTHERMAL IS NOT FUEL.

Gasoline and diesel is fuel and that is whats sucking wind in this debate. DRILL for oil……….no Build geothermal plants………thats the way to go.

No DRILL…………no build wind turbines.

DRILL………no we need more hydro electric and tidal harnesses.

DRILL………no.

* * *

A simpler, easier-to-grasp short-term remedy concerns the policy in California and Northeastern states (and may be in other states) that is counter-productive to reducing fuel use and to fuel economy. Namely, these states have an obsolete-model environment-activist silliness when it comes to small Diesel vehicles; these are good fuel-saving thrifty vehicles but they are banned in these states, which constitute so much of the US market. Why not permit their sale and use if they are approved in Europe already, where they are sold widely, a Europe that certainly doesn't have lax emission limits. Those vehicles should be sold here.

Oh, I've bungled here and there, but In the example you provided it simply may be too much for some to handle. I'll keep that in mind; I've found simplicity becomes more and more desireable when it comes to this and other issues.

You know, I was looking at that 1942 book at lunchtime today and thinking about related issues — the wartime examination of mechanisms of intervention in the economy by the federal government is actually good as it approaches the kind of extremism the Left actually surpassed in the 1960s in its views for the future — and if Obama and the far Left want to be real about curtailing oil use, there's an easy, definitive solution, so why don't they practice what they preach? Why don't they limit strictly the total amount of oil imported (we are project to triple our imports in about twenty years, and we're importing much already), and even pursue leftist dreams by intentionally reducing the limits on how much we can import — combined with No Drilling here at home? Let's put into practice something real with oil that is what the environmental-radical idiots dream of with so-called “greenhouse gas emissions” and their desire to de-industrialize the West out of a pathological sense of guilt as well as misunderstanding of obvious reality as well as a perverse ill will toward the West and a desire to see it decline relative to the rest of the world.

I would say your problem is not complexity, but clarity. You mix valid arguments with straw men (and typos. along with fractured syntax) in such a muddied way that it really is hard to figure out what you're talking about. Perhaps it's intentional (in fact, I almost hope so), but I don't think it serves your purpose very well. Pardon me for saying so, but you end up sounding like a cloudy-headed doofus.

Speaking of straw men, there's this from Neocon: Great lets build 100000000000000000 Geo thermal plants. Lets start today.

Good grief. Whatever else could be said, the proverbial “far left” (as if it is any more monolithic than the “far right”) clearly has no monopoly on mindless hyperbole. Can't we all just get real?We don't live in a cartoon, for crying out loud. This ain't Shrek… or Batman. And we're not Hobbits. Not all of us anyway. To think so is Fantasyland.

Phffft. Just ban farm machinery. Problem solved.

1. The smart money says the US consumer will go back to higher consumption once prices go down again. *** NOBODY *** can claim with a straight face that This Time It's Different (like the most recent stock and real estate bubbles) and in the past, auto makers have been “burned” by retooling for smaller vehicles. (This is how bad things are here. Why can't the Big Three just start selling vehicles that they already make and sell in Europe? Arrgh.)

2. The current downturn in the economy is over-hyped by the liberal Obama-campaigning media, as expected, but it's definitely a larger downtown than expected. Not only are the Big Three (bloated, obsolete model) hurting here in Detroit, but now Toyota is offering buyouts down in Tennessee. When the healthy companies are starting to do this, you know things are starting to get bad. (This has, in fact, not been hyped or widely reported; the media are preoccupied or inept.)

I may have been remiss in introducing more than one thing at once, if that was too hard for readers to follow. Should have made separate postings, I guess.

“The energy rebate was no sillier than Bush's tax rebate.”

Pretty much, though is that an adversion to quick gimmicks (same with release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve that will be demanded eventually) or to tax reductions, which in and of themselves are a good, not a bad, thing? (The same is true with government spending reductions, the key to improvement and reform of Washington, associated with reducing its size and scope, which is grossly excessive.)

“Inflating tires is actually smart “

Admittedly this omits so many of th eDem electorate, which is why it is probably desired by some, but anyone with an IQ above room temperature F doesn't need and those of us who are truly grown up don't want our federal government nagging or Reminding us to do what we already know what to do! It is so disgusting how lowly we have sunk as a society and how degenerate our relation to government is.

“prices have come down a bit recently for one reason, lower consumption.”

You know, I was looking at that 1942 book at lunchtime today and thinking about related issues — the wartime examination of mechanisms of intervention in the economy by the federal government is actually good as it approaches the kind of extremism the Left actually surpassed in the 1960s in its views for the future — and if Obama and the far Left want to be real about curtailing oil use, there's an easy, definitive solution, so why don't they practice what they preach? Why don't they limit strictly the total amount of oil imported (we are project to triple our imports in about twenty years, and we're importing much already), and even pursue leftist dreams by intentionally reducing the limits on how much we can import — combined with No Drilling here at home? Let's put into practice something real with oil that is what the environmental-radical idiots dream of with so-called “greenhouse gas emissions” and their desire to de-industrialize the West out of a pathological sense of guilt as well as misunderstanding of obvious reality as well as a perverse ill will toward the West and a desire to see it decline relative to the rest of the world.

Go ahead — put a “cap” on oil imports, that even may be reduced in subsequent years. Do it, lefties. Do something real. Then get ready for the real consequences.

Or just do what was done in the 1940s, ration gasoline to people to reduce that use of Evil Oil. Go ahead.

Still aint gonnt get people to work or get goods to the market.

That's a very good question. “Geothermal” has been used in a variety of contexts that are sometimes only tangentially related. On one extreme, “geothermal” refers to what is otherwise called “heat pumps”. These are backyard affairs wherein you drill down into the ground a few tens of meters and employ the relatively mild heat gradient to cool hot water or warm cold water before sending it through an exchanger to help heat or cool your house. Heat pumps work very well — and pretty much anywhere, regardless of climate — and are especially cost-effective if installed at the time of construction. Retrofits are more expensive, so the return on investment is longer.

But Sil isn't talking about heat pumps. He's talking more about what you suspected — hooking up turbines to “bubbling mud pots”. But even in that general context there is considerable variation on the theme. Up until recently, the geothermal industry relied almost exclusively on reservoirs of naturally occurring super-heated water relatively close to the surface. You just drill down to it and run the steam through a turbine. Sites such as The Geysers north of San Francisco and the Inland Empire in the vicinity of the Salton Sea in CA are of this type. They are cheap and reliable (for a time), but they also generate residue that is in part a money-maker (metals and other solutes can be recovered and sold at a profit), and in part downright nasty (acids and organic salts which have little economic value but which can have major impacts on groundwater supplies and other environmental things). They also deteriorate over time, because the hot, pressurized water is not replaced. Let's call that “traditional” geothermal.

More recently technology has developed in several ways. First, they seized upon the bright idea of drilling “injection” wells, so they could return the water back into the reservoir. Let's call that “closed loop” technology. It's a little tricky, but not terribly. And in balance it's usually cheaper to do it than not. Second, that “closed loop” technology has been coupled with dual cycle technology. The idea is to send the hot water through a heat exchanger filled with a solution that has a much lower boiling point than water. That makes “traditional”, “closed loop” geothermal technology available to many more sites where the temperature of the rocks are lower. That alone expands the potential of geothermal energy substantially. This sort of technology is rapidly being adapted all over the world. In the US it's opened up sites in California, Nevada, Idaho, and elsewhere.

However, those technologies alone rely on existing, naturally occurring reservoirs that are relatively close to the surface. The holy grail for geothermal is to extend the technology to areas that don't have pre-existing reservoirs of hot water. The challenge there is to artificially create them. That's what they call “enhanced geothermal systems” (EGS) or “hot dry rock” (HDR) geothermal. In theory, such reservoirs exist essentially everywhere on the planet — if you drill deep enough. Therein lies the rub: the deeper you drill the more stresses you have to deal with, and thus the more difficult it is to keep the reservoir open.

Anyway, this is the study most often cited with regard to the potential of enhanced geothermal power. And this one provides an important counterpoint.

Then again I reckon not. Nancy Pelosi is standing in the way and she runs the show.

mlhradio wins today's TMV award for “getting it.”

Another note on “geo” in its various forms… It is true that geothermal energy can be tapped in certain areas to provide enough thermal energy to spin turbines and create electricity. There are some other interesting designs being put to use out there, too. Even if you don't live in an area where there is boiling level heat within reasonable drilling depths, anywhere you go, if you dig down about fifty feet into the ground you will find something amazing. The temperature is around 55 degrees all year round, no matter the weather above. Some new houses have been built with very large “steel caves” installed deep under the ground below them. A very low energy set of fans can gently cycle air from a building above down through the “cave” and back up to the structure. When it's hot outside, you can pull the temperature down quite a bit without actual air conditioning. (Which causes a host of environmental problems along with sucking vast amounts of juice.) If it's cold outside, preheating the house to 55 from below before you have to expend a bit of energy to raise it further can vastly reduce heating energy costs and fuel usage. Concepts like this may eventually pay off in huge dividends. We don't have to actually live in caves, but we may take advantage of artificial caves to reduce energy consumption and carbon levels.

More or less. It is using the Earth's natural heat and turning it into energy (usually through steam-powered turbines). There's heat leaking through cracks of the Earth all over the place (hot springs resorts, anyone?), why not use it?

Wind power is where it's really at, though — here in Texas they are going nuts over it, I see giant semis heading off to west Texas all the time with those massive oversized blades. They have thousands of turbines up and running already, with thousands more on the way.

But wind isn't the answer either. The answer is wind…and geothermal…and solar…and tidal…and nuclear…and natural gas…and conservation…*and* more drilling. The answer is no *single* answer — we pretty much have to do ALL OF IT. I'm glad that Obama is finally changing his position somewhat in favor of the possibility of offshore drilling, now if he would also start to bend a little on his distaste of nuclear power, I'd be happier.

But at any rate, there are things that can be done on both the domestic supply AND the domestic demand side, and they are independent questions. It's not either/or. However, both can have an effect on reducing our dependence on foreign oil.

Oil prices dropped recently. Some argue it was because Bush lifted the executive ban on offshore drilling. Others argue it was because demand dropped precipitously (5% in the US alone in the preceding month, relative to the year before). Still others argue it was because futures trading was getting increased scrutiny. I suspect it was all of the above to one extent or another. At any rate, the question remains what the real floor price is — both at present and in the future. Locations remain where it is relatively inexpensive to extract oil, but those areas are declining. Unfortunately, those locations are primarily in the Middle East, and if not there then in places like Russia, Venezuela, and Nigeria. Places that don't like us much, whose oil reserves are nationalized, and thus places which are not necessarily driven by the profit motive alone. Something like 80% of the existing reserves are controlled by nationalized companies. And because of it there is considerable supply elasticity that we can't possibly compete with, no matter how much or how fast we drill domestically. For those reasons, plus the fact that replacements for dwindling supplies are more expensive than the reserves they replace, indicates to me (and most others) that oil will remain expensive — and, except for short term dips, will continue to increase. And there isn't a damned thing we can do about it. For the above reasons it seems to me that he “drill here, drill now, pay less” meme is a fantasy.

On the other hand, domestic supply and world supply of oil are largely independent questions as well. We can't affect the price of oil very much because it's traded on the world market and we don't have the leverage. We can, however, affect the amount we import. And we can do that by addressing both domestic supply and domestic demand. Republicans tend to stress the former, Democrats the latter. They need to come together. And it appears they are finally realizing that.

It is argued that Obama will be hammered as a flip-flopper if he compromises. I suspect so. Then again, where did McCain stand on the federal moratorium a couple of months ago? Same place. He can't very well accuse Obama of flip-flopping when he did it himself. Given that, maybe McCain should sit back and let the lefty moonbats pile on Obama and do the work for him. On the other hand, a good way for Obama to blunt the “buyer's remorse” attitude of the moonbat left is to have Bill and Hillary come out and say the compromise is a good idea — assuming the desired conditions are met. I'm not much of a prognosticator (actually, I did okay on this issue, lol!), but I would be very surprised if Bill and Hill didn't come out in support of this compromise. It's right up their alley. And Obama could sure use their support.