a nice essay on the history of oil in Alaska—and a reminder that even if we can buy time by utilizing fossil fuels from ANWR, the Gulf, and both coasts—and we must—it's important to move forward with alternative energy sources and alternative liquid fuels.

And there is, indeed, a "gold rush" going on with respect to alternative fuel/energy. The difference is that prospectors in California, Alaska, and the Yukon were not taking concrete steps to improve their country's security and the environment.

Those who are shaping America's energy future are. Yet they will get even richer than the most successful gold miners ever did.

(Cross-posted at Right Wing News.)

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Apparently, their time frame didn't allow them to include the VW bug, which of course was the industry standard for a long time when it came to parsimonious fuel use.

Oddly, the list includes the original Honda Civic, but not those tiny little Honda Civic-precursers: CVCCs, I think they were called? My friends all either loved 'em or hated 'em.

"They are death traps!"

"Cute, though."

Via Insty, who—one way or another—is going to get me to subscribe to Popular Mechanics this coming year: they are just so good at comparing our future options when it comes to energy, and they tell us which organizations are doing it best—if you want to know who's going to win the "energy race," you need to be reading them.

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It looks like it contributed. Via PJ Media:

Ours is a petroleum-based economic system, and the high prices for oil and natural gas drove the cost of most things up. The subprime borrowers were scrimping to get by and the increase in food prices, in fuel prices, and in the prices of most items due to higher transportation costs pushed many subprime borrowers into default. This crisis was decades in the making — with the Community Reinvestment Act and demands by government that lenders make these subprime loans — but came to a head at this juncture because of spiraling energy costs.

And Russia invaded Georgia.

During the first presidential debate, the subject of this invasion came up and Obama hemmed and hawed with the standard “we must use our allies to pressure” fare. John McCain had the perfect opportunity, but let it pass, sounding strikingly similar to Senator Government in his analysis of the situation. He has since repeatedly missed the opportunity; the answer was “drill here, drill now.”

Russia is resurgent because of energy, and the invasion of Georgia was largely over the natural gas pipeline built to supply Europe and bypassing both Russia and Iran. The Russians tried to destroy it with air raids in the opening days of the war. Vladimir PutinÂ’s strategy for a return to superpower status for Russia is built on oil and gas money; the increase in worldwide demand has made Russia rich, and Putin and his oligarchy own a piece of most oil and gas companies operating there. Their power is based on their control of this wealth and the stability of the Russian government hinges on the stability of these commodities. A drop in the price of fossil fuels is destabilizing to the princes of Muscovy.

And the financial crisis in America is, indeed, hurting them. Russian oil companies have been forced to cut prices, leading investors to withdraw $33 billion from the Russian economy. Russia already has serious problems finding people to work the Central Asian oil fields, and depopulation problems have driven them to offering free land to American farmers if they would become Russians. (Perhaps we should settle illegal immigrants there; many have a working knowledge of U.S. farm practices, work hard, and want a better life for themselves.) Economics is a tyrant, especially where a nation is ruled by plutocrats and not by laws. Putin cannot afford the slow bleed of petroleum wealth.

His war in Georgia was costly. The current hemorrhage in oil prices makes military adventurism just too expensive.

That is why John McCain should have called for “drill here, drill now” in the debates, and it is why he should harp on this issue. McCain is positioned to take advantage of the drop in oil prices, since it was the threat of new U.S. drilling, led by his own party, that brought those prices down.

This is a winner: good for the economy; a foreign policy success, if unintentional; and a clear difference between himself and Barack Obama, who has employed the audacity of soap to scrub his connections with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with Tony Rezko, William Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, communist Frank Marshall Davis, Raila Odinga, ACORN, the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America, etc., from under his fingernails. McCain should remind everyone, and continuously, that four-bucks-a-gallon gas is only the beginning if Obama strolls down the Potomac to the White House.

The stock market crash in 1929 became the Great Depression because taxes were raised at a time when the market needed liquidity—and Smoot-Hawley placed tariffs (taxes) on imported goods at a time when free trade was needed most. Obama proposes raising taxes and rethinking NAFTA, while wanting higher gas prices. Anyone can do the math, if it is laid out for them. The Obama plan makes economic collapse likely. Oil is the lifeblood of our economy and McCain has already promised to remove ethanol subsidies. This is a winner for him, and he should trumpet this to the heavens.

If heÂ’ll only listen.

That's what 527s are for, Boys and Girls. And Vice-Presidential candidates.

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I'm wondering what our overseas overlords have in mind for us. By that I mean Saudi Arabia, of course, in consultation with Iran and with a tip of the fedora to Russia.

Please build more electric/hybrid cars, continue researching renewables such as wind and solar, exploit clean coal, utilize natural gas, and build us some French-style, super-clean nuclear-power plants.

Oh, and . . . what was that other thing? Right: drill, Baby. Drill. Especially here in SoCal. We gots us the building permits, the pipelines, and everything. Just create a ruckus so the enviro-extremists aren't looking for a year or two, and we'll have your petrol right here. Hangin'.

A commenter at Gail's post informs me that electric cars are expensive. Maybe—but they are getting less so. Meanwhile, there are plenty of gas-sipping alternatives, including a lot of cute offerings from Toyota, Nissan, and Honda—as well as the bitchin' Mini, and the kinky, fabulous Smart Car, which is shockingly inexpensive and downright adorable.

These aren't hybrids, but they get gas mileage that is as good as or better than my old VW bug did. (With better safety, superior handling, more power, etc.)

And if you really do need hauling space or the comfort of a sedan, there are plenty of hybrid SUVs and sedans (e.g., the Camry).

Of course, now that I live in a condo development, all the plug-in cars are a lot less sexy to me: I'd either need a huge extension cord that would go down three stories, or I'd need to cut a deal with the HOA and charge directly from their garage—paying an additional electric bill based on their estimate of how much extra electricity we were using. Sounds a bit icky, at least from the perspective of a possible pioneer: I'd rather deal with a hybrid that had a battery.

Or (my favorite) a flex-fuel vehicle.

Or (my other favorite) one of those Mercedes that runs on biodiesel, or French-fry oil. Free fuel might well be worth living with a car that smells like a fast-food joint.

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More from Newt's call to video action:

Well, one cannot argue with the cuteness factor, but make sure to watch all three finalists before you vote.

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One of the three finalists in Newt's contest for videos that promost domestic petroleum/natural gas production:

So go vote!

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. . . is in Santa Monica today and tomorrow. It looks like I'll probably be going tomorrow, since I have an energy conference today, and then I have to to to court to fix a "fixit" ticket.

The alt-car people don't list flex-fuel vehicles; I hope that was just an error, since I still think that alcohol-based fuels such as ethanol and methanol could play some role in the future of energy—and no one in his/her right mind would buy a vehicle that only ran on methanol/ethanol right now. (Unless they lived near a race track, and could get methanol locally: race-car drivers use methanol, of course.)

It could be that we will be transitioning to increased use of electric in the future, which would also work, if we can start transporting it more effectively.

Glenn Reynolds points out that the performance is so excellent on the VW diesel that the next step might be a diesel/electric hybrid.

I like those neighborhood electric vehicles that look like futuristic golf carts (the Chrysler GEM being the most popular) though since most of them are open on the side one wouldn't want to use 'em on a chilly evening. Also, they don't go over 25 mph, because they don't have airbags. Their virtues: street-legal in a lot of communities, and they're available with either a bit of cargo space or a second row of seats, so you can take your friends with you on your errands.

Of course, the SmartForTwo is closed-up and will go freeway speeds. Unlike NEWs, however, one is limited to two seats.

GEM has a new NEV that is closed-up an looks very, very cool. I do not know whether it meets the "Joy psuedo-golf cart" minimum speed, however: I'd need one that goes 35-40 mph, even to go to the grocery store five blocks away. Because, um, I can't drive 25.

The perfect NEV-related beast? I vote for the Zap Xebra, which

• Is closed-in, for rainy days;
• Does meet the Little Miss Attila 40 mph threshold;
• Is available as a four-seater;
• Functions as a plug-in, and uses solar panels (these can either be detached, and gather energy while you zip around town, or can stay on top of the vehicle, where they create a slight wind drag, but nonetheless extend your range before you need to charge up again);
• Is legally classified as a motorcycle, but can be driven with a regular car driver's license;
• Has only three wheels, and hovers around the same cuteness level as the Smart Car;
• Is available with a zebra-stripe paint job right from the factory. Who can resist that?

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Even though both the House and the Senate are letting the moratoria expire on offshore drilling, Reid is still trying to insert language into non-energy-related bills that will prohibit the harvesting of shale oil in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah.

Charming. Read the article at Flopping Aces, and call your Senator right away.

The fact that no one in the media seems to have clued into is that energy independence in the United States rests upon having energy production (whether it's the old-fashioned fossil fuels we hope to phase out in 10-20 years, or the renewables we're in the process of developing now) rests on energy production in as many regions of the country as possible. Oil wells in the Gulf shut down when a hurricane is on its way; drilling on the North Slope of Alaska is only permitted five months out of the year. The Atlantic is no stranger to storms, and even the Pacific Ocean isn't invulnerable to extraordinary weather.

Shale oil has to be part of our Phase 1 (petroleum/natural gas/clean coal) strategy. That will buy us time to get Phase II (more versatile means of producing electricity, and innovative liquid fuels such as ethanol and methanol) off the ground.

Again—call your Senator. Explain that there are new technologies for extracting petroleum products from shale, and that you want to see this resource handled in an environmentally responsible manner, but that is a question for the engineers—rather than overzealous legislators who want to take this option off the table entirely.

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Two of 'em just lead us back into economic quicksand:

1) The Pelosi House plan, 1434, which she is trying to ramrod through today. This would raise taxes, and effectively prevent any new drilling, via a) forcing oil companies to develop the leases they now have on non-productive land, and increase their losses therefrom, before they are permitted to drill in areas that have oil; b) setting the default for platforms and rigs at 100 miles offshore, where the oil isn't, and creating a dis-incentive for states to cut that in half, by denying them any share in revenue from said platforms and rigs; c) taking the Eastern Gulf of Mexico off the table. In addition, it contains an earmark for public transportation in the state of New York, which might or might not be a worthy cause, but certainly isn't being approached in anything like a democratic fashion. (Ah; after releasing the bill at 9:30 last night, they may allow three hours of debate on it today before attempting to railroad it again. Classy.)

2) Then, we have the "Gang of 20" Senate proposal co-sponsored by ten nominally GOP Senators (Dole [NC], Collins [ME], Graham [SC], Thune [SD], Corker [TN], Isakson [GA], Chambliss [GA], Sununu [NH], Warner [VA] and Coleman [MN]). This is slightly less crappy, in that it would permit some drilling 50 miles off off Florida's West Coast (in the Eastern Gulf), but still bans drilling off of the Pacific Coast. It allows states to share in the income from domestic fossil-fuel development, so that 100 miles could turn into 50 miles. But it still limits us to the Eastern Gulf and some parts of the Atlantic, so we'll still have shutdowns during hurricane season.

3) Then we have House and Senate versions of comprehensive energy reform, which are being blocked by Nancy "I Need a Big Jet" Pelosi, and Harry Reid, respectively.

And our legislators wonder why they collectively "enjoy" a 9% approval rating from their constituents.

If we can't do any better than (1) and (2), they shouldn't pass anything with the word "energy" in it at all. They should wait two more weeks, and let the clock run out on the existing moratoria. If the government has to shut down briefly, they should cite the embattled economy and the ongoing energy crisis, and point to the Democratic hijinks as the reason.

UPDATE: Margaret Thorning of the American Council for Capital Formation discusses the economic ramifications of energy development in a podcast here below.

She believes that that opening more areas for drilling would have send a signal to the market very quickly, and exert rapid downward pressure on oil prices. So we might get some immediate relief from a decent energy bill, and we would certainly be helping ourselves in the medium-term. (Long-term relief, of course, requires that the new technologies become viable—and they will. We have engineers working on electric, hybrid and flex-fuel vehicles now, and researching alcohol-based liquid fuels, better batteries, hydrogen possibilities, and the generation of cleaner electricity. This is all happening around the clock; it's just that we just don't know which alternatives will become most cost-effective, and when they will become practical. We need to let that race go on with as little interference as possible.)

h/t on the "Gang of 20" names: Double-Plus Undead, via Ace.

Here's the podcast:

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". . . It didn't go down the way McCain says it did. My felony violation of the Logan Act unfolded in an entirely different fashion."

What a relief.

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They release it last night in the middle of the night; 270 pages or so. They're trying to force a vote on their faux energy bill in the House, while Pelosi continues to block a vote on the "all of the above" bill that might actually get something done on this issue (6566).

Rep Hastings from Washington state is talking about how not only does the fake bill effectively take most of the U.S. petro reserves off the table, but even as it subsidizes some renewables, it discriminates against hydro-power.

I love the fact that the opposition wants to establish timelines for inventions in regard to renewables, when in fact there is a race going on to make the breakthroughs necessary to make biofuels, solar, wind, geothermal and hydro-power cost-effective.

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Florida has spoken.

The dolphins and pelicans that swim just off Caladesi Island's linen-white sands along Florida's western coast help draw almost 80 million visitors and $57 billion to the ``Sunshine State'' each year.

As few as 50 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico, energy companies say an even bigger prize waits to be taken from the seabed: oil and natural gas that might wean the U.S. off its costly dependence on resources from potentially unfriendly or unstable countries.

After opposing offshore drilling for a quarter century as a threat to their lucrative coastline, a majority of Floridians now favor it, polls show. Four-dollar-a-gallon gasoline has hit voters' pocketbooks and psyches, even as the U.S. government says offshore drilling would have a negligible effect on oil supply and price.

At a Hess gas station on the mainland near Caladesi, Gerald Walker says he used to be against extracting oil off Florida, until prices soared. ``Drilling? At $3.64 a gallon, I'm all for it,'' says the 60-year-old accountant.

``Drill, baby, drill!'' is the Republican Party's rallying cry, and presidential hopeful Senator John McCain of Arizona is gaining traction with it, even in this coastal swing state. An increasing number of Floridians side with him when told he advocates expanded drilling to drive down prices, says Brad Coker of Washington-based Mason-Dixon Polling and Research Inc. Mason-Dixon's is one of several polls conducted this summer that showed at least 6 in 10 Floridians now support drilling.

National Security

``It's become a national-security issue because of wars in the Mideast and Russia's newfound bravado and aggression,'' Coker says.

McCain, 72, was 7 percentage points ahead of his Democratic rival, Senator Barack Obama, 47, of Illinois, in a Florida poll released Sept. 11 by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute in Hamden, Connecticut.

In the 2004 election, President George W. Bush beat Democratic Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts by 5 percentage points in Florida. Voters in Pinellas County, home to Caladesi and nearby St. Petersburg, split 50-50 between the two men.

The U.S. burns through about 21 million barrels of oil a day. Almost 60 percent is imported, mainly from Africa, the Persian Gulf and Latin America. Some of the sellers are openly hostile; Venezuela expelled the U.S. ambassador last week. Oil industries in other countries, including Saudi Arabia and Nigeria, have been targets of violence.

I don't think anyone wants drilling done off of either of Florida's coasts in that will diminish its beauty of have deleterious effects on its wildlife. But if I hear that figure one more time about how we have "only 3%" of the world's petroleum reserves, I think I'm going to scream, because 1) it isn't accurate [it's based on old surveys done with outdated technology], and 2) it's not a question of how much we have "in reserve," in the ground, but rather how much we are developing now during this critical 10-20-year period as we race to the finish line on nonrenewables. We just need to buy more time as we perfect biofuels, clean coal, electric/flex fuel cars, and make better use of natural gas.

Anyway, despite the drumbeat of "it won't help, it won't help" coming from the left, Florida seems to "get it," and McCain is ahead further now in the Sunshine State than G.W. was in 2004.

Three thoughts, Florida:

1) No matter what the media say, or whom they call it for, vote this November. I don't want anyone in the panhandle staying home because of anything they hear from the MSM;

2) Whenever you hear the phrase "50 miles," remember that it only takes 12-13 miles for an oil rig or platform to be invisible from shore. Instead of huge arbitrary miileage figures, it would be better to simply have all platforms and rigs kept out of sight of the beaches, and placed so that they do not interfere with boating, fishing, and diving industries, and do not have an adverse impact on marine life;

3) Hang tough. Every dollar we don't send to "our friends, the Saudis" buys us more time to get our renewables" act together. And it's one less dollar that might find its way to a suicide bomber with his or her eye on Orlando.

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. . . from the API:

The Minerals Management Service (MMS) is collecting comments on its next five-year offshore leasing plan. The MMS--the federal agency responsible for administering the offshore oil and natural gas program--considers the size, timing, and location of the areas to be considered for federal leasing, and it bases its recommendations on the publicÂ’s comments. The plan is reviewed by Congress and approved by the Secretary of the Interior.

MMS is accepting public comments on its 2010-2015 plan until next Monday, September 15th. Apparently several anti-drilling groups have called on their members to flood MMS with comments. Therefore, the majority of comments oppose new leases. Numerous national polls have shown Americans support increased drilling; their comments do not reflect the nationÂ’s sentiments.

Showing support for drilling via MMS can have an immediate impact on the next leasing plan and can send a message to lawmakers.

That is a great idea; it sounds like the anti-drilling people are stacking the deck.

Comment here.

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When in doubt, run the clock outon OCS drilling and shale oil. Three more weeks is all we need.

Certainly don't accept any bill that places the Pacific Ocean off-limits, or significant parts of the Gulf—or large stretches of the Atlantic, either. Fifty miles from shore (any shore), BTW, is too far; it's several times what's needed to preserve the aesthetic appeal of our beaches.

And don't vote on anything that places ANWR off-limits long-term in any irrevocable way. We can start with the OCS and Wyoming, but I left my heart in the bleak tundra near Prudhoe Bay.

Meanwhile, I want all the other goodies: nuclear power, wind, geothermal, ethanol and methanol. Conservation. Importing of sugar-beet ethanol from Brazil. Superior production of methanol from non-food sources, such as switch-grass and algae. And immediate transfer of our best ethanol-makin' recipes to underdeveloped countries, where it might help them to grow nonedible material that can be made into alcohol-based fuels.

But not at the expense of developing petroleum-based sources to bridge the gap, while we figure out what our best sources of liquid fuel and electricity will be in the future, and how to keep optimizing car batteries for hybrids (and expanding the range for plug-ins).

So don't take a bunch of money away from the oil companies; I want them to build rigs. Lots of rigs. And pipelines. And refineries.

And of course we need flex-fuel vehicles, Joy of Joy's Desiring, that will accept gasoline, ethanol, or methanol.

This is going to take a while; don't get talked into half-measures by the Gang of Ten/Gang of 14.

They'll bargain—they will if they've been looking at the polls. If McCain and Palin have any coattails at all—and they continue to push energy in their speeches—the Democrats will get reasonable in a hurry.

"Drill, Baby—Drill."

Otherwise, let the government shut down. Hey--what have they done for us, lately?

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Every time there is a hurricane in the Gulf, the oil rigs therein have to be evacuated 48 hours ahead of time. Production is actually shut down until the danger has passed, and this all has to be done before it's entirely clear whether/when any given storm will gain hurricane force, or hit a given area at all.

Drilling the OCS would help, particularly in the Pacific (I know that very often the Gulf Storm affect the Atlantic as well, so from that POV the Pacific might be a safer bet).

And shale oil from Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado would allow us to hedge our economic bets even further until our renawables become cost-effective. As would illing-dray in Anwar-Yay.

It's also worth noting that after Hurricane Katrina, the standards for Gulf Oil rigs were raised even higher, but despite the damage to the rigs, there were not any significant oil spills resulting from a direct hit during the worst natural disaster in this country since at least 1906.

Bottom line: we need petro-based fuels, and alcohol-based fuels, and wind, and solar, and conservation, and geothermal, and nuclear. We need clean-burning coal, and enhanced use of natural gas. And we need to lift tariffs that keep us from importing ethanol from countries like Brazil. We need more hybrids, and more plug-in vehicles, and more Smart Cars, and a lot more flex-fuel vehicles.

We need, in short, to become a nation of energy sluts.

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Popular Mechanics explains why we need to keep all alternatives on the table right now, and get government out of the way as much as possible. And all those analogies you keep hearing to the early heyday of NASA, and putting a man on the moon? James Meigs tells us why they don't really apply:

Yes, the moon landing was a towering achievement. But, as aerospace analyst Rand Simberg notes, it was also a "well-defined engineering challenge, and a problem susceptible to having huge bales of money thrown at it." Retooling America's energy infrastructure is far more complex. It isn't one challenge, it's thousands—a total overhaul of the American lifestyle involving deep changes in every home, vehicle and business in the country.

Anyone who believes we should put all those myriad decisions in the hands of government officials should take a close look at NASA. No, not the agile NASA of the Apollo years, but the ponderous space agency of recent decades.

After Apollo, NASA set out to build an affordable, reliable vehicle that would make space travel routine. Instead, we got the shuttle, a delicate, dangerous craft that flies infrequently and costs nearly half a billion dollars a launch. So, while NASA still accomplishes some great things, it's hardly a model of efficient, long-term problem solving.

Before we decide that a bigger, better energy policy is going to fix our troubles, we should recall that the United States has had various energy plans since the Nixon administration. Unfortunately, such policies have often made things worse.

Look at natural gas. In 1982, Congress banned offshore drilling in virtually all U.S. waters. In addition to limiting our ability to produce more oil, that put at least 76 trillion cu. ft. of potentially recoverable natural gas off-limits.

And that's a shame, because natural gas is our most attractive major energy source right now. Solar and wind power are promising, but so far they've barely made a dent in our use of oil and coal. Natural gas is a practical alternative, and relative to other fossil fuels it's clean to produce and burn—and it releases much less carbon into the air. It can drive factories, heat homes and even, as Pickens advocates, power vehicles. But we're producing far less than we need.

. . . . Coal has been a national priority ever since Jimmy Carter put on that cardigan. Yes, coal is plentiful, but it is an environmental headache all the way from strip mine to smokestack.

Then there's ethanol. It was less than a year ago that leaders of both parties decided that ethanol made from corn would be a brilliant alternative to foreign oil. Speeches were made; sweeping mandates passed. The result? Food prices went through the roof—and energy prices did, too.

Where would a more sensible energy policy start? Pickens is on the right track with his plan to increase use of natural gas. And McCain's call to allow more offshore drilling would significantly increase production. Alternatives such as wind or solar look better by the day, and, indeed, every major energy plan stresses them. But, it will take decades for the alternative-energy infrastructure to match our needs. We must have those offshore oil and gas reserves to bridge the gap.

The government can play a role in advancing alternative energy. Tax incentives and regulatory relief can help. So can research money channeled through the National Science Foundation or DARPA. But let's tread lightly when it comes to giving handouts to corporations in the name of research. Obama's promise of billions in development funds sounds enticing. But who gets those dollars? It wasn't too long ago that investors and politicians alike regarded Enron as a brilliant innovator in the energy field. If copious research funds had been available in Enron's heyday, its executives would no doubt have found a way to pocket a share.

. . . In fields ranging from batteries to biofuels, there are hundreds of promising research projects under way. Some will succeed, some won't. But we need scientists, entrepreneurs and consumers to pick the winners, not politicians. Finding solutions to our energy problems isn't rocket science. It's a lot tougher.

Read the whole thing; it really is a beautiful summary of why we have to stay flexible, and keep trying things until we hit on the handful of solutions that will be most useful 10-20-30 years down the line.

Via Glenn Reynolds at PJ Media and the Sean Hackbarth of the Senate GOP's media room. (Sean's own blog is, of course, The American Mind.)

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David Foster:

[There are] plenty of other ways [aside from blocking oil/natural gas drilling, that the far-left can do to sabotage the economy and revamping/maintenance of our energy infrastructure]. They can protest the bulding of power plants and transmission lines. They can lobby for the destruction of existing hydroelectric dams. They can protest the building of new (energy-saving) rail lines and railyards. They can impose crippling taxes on all traditional sources of energy, and ensure that new sources are so politicized that they will generate only corruption, not megawatts.

It's increasingly probable that we are going to have a major electricity crisis, and there is nothing that the environmentalists and lawyers will allow us to do to prevent it.

I fear he's right. We have to fight just as hard for electricity as we are for liquid fuels (both petroleum-based and the newer types). Tell 'em it's for those electric cars we'll all be driving in ten years or so.

We should all, BTW, review that segment from Soylant Green wherein everyone has to ride a stationary bike in his/her apartment just to keep the lights on for a little while. That's where we're headed.

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. . . on the Perdido Platform in the Gulf Coast. It's fascinating stuff, originally put together by the people who are investing millions in trying to keep our economy functioning and the country secure until we can perfect the next generation of energy sources Big Bad Scary Oil and Natural Gas People.

I hope it makes Engineering Marvels soon on The History Channel; the whole thing is quite an accomplishment. Here's a teaser, from my spies:

The Shell-operated Perdido Regional Development Spar has arrived in the ultra deepwaters of the Gulf of Mexico and is currently being secured to the seafloor in about 8,000 feet of water. Once completed, the Perdido spar will be nearly as tall as the Eiffel Tower, and weigh as much as 10,000 cars. Perdido will be the deepest oil development in the world, the deepest drilling and production platform in the world, and have the deepest subsea well in the world; positioning the spar into place required carefully-orchestrated maneuvers.

Perdido will be a fully functional oil-and-gas platform with a drilling rig and direct vertical access wells, full oil and gas processing, and remote subsea wells. The facility is designed to produce 100,000 barrels of oil per day, and 200 million standard cubic feet of gas. The production from these fields will be transported via new and existing pipelines to U.S. refineries.

The Perdido Spar will bring in production from three fields: Great White, Silvertip, and Tobago. These fields are located in ten Outer Continental Shelf blocks in Alaminos Canyon, approximately 200 miles south of Freeport, Texas. This development will provide the first Gulf of Mexico commercial production from a Paleogene reservoir.

All three fields have been granted production units from the Minerals Management Service, and the accumulations are completely in U.S. waters, some eight miles north of Mexico's international border. The first production from Perdido is expected around the turn of the decade.

That makes me feel a lot better— and even more resolute in resisting the Gang of Ten plan, which doesn't even allow drilling off of Texas (or any other states that might have oil nearby).

For more info on the Perdido project you can drop byhere, where they even have some helpful maps.

And you can follow the project as it unfolds right here.

More later; but it's nice to see that every dollar the oil companies have pumped (so to speak) into R&D on domestic production hasn't just gone to government pork.

Via one of my contacts at API.

I had no idea, BTW, we were only a few years away from bringing production online in this part of the Gulf. Keep in mind that this area has reserves of petroleum competitive with those in ANWR. It's critical that this project be brought to completion on-schedule—not just for this country, but for the developing world. And, of course, for emerging countries such as China and India, that are experiencing their own Industrial Revolutions: the cleaner we can extract/use coal and natural gas and petroleum, the better. The cleaner our cars and A/C run, the better. Because the planet cannot afford for them to depend upon second-rate, polluting technologies and inefficient, decades-old means of energy generation. (Believe me: I'm an allergic girl who remembers what the air was like in certain parts of L.A. County in the 1970s and 1980s. There were days when I felt sick; I just couldn't breathe.)

We have to do this, because we will do it in a more environmentally responsible fashion than nearly any other country out there. We need to do it, because we know how.

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The Wall Street Journal takes an almost, well, skeptical tone:

It took a few months, and more than a few polls, but Democrats have concluded that they've lost the debate against more oil-and-gas drilling. The surrender became official on Saturday, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that even she was ready to "consider opening portions" of the Outer Continental Shelf to oil exploration.

That's great news, assuming she and her fellow Democrats really mean it.

. . . . . . . .

For example, the [Democratic Party] platform draft now says that "We know we can't drill our way to energy independence." Then there's the bit about ending "the tyranny of oil," which will require "far more than simply expanding our economic and political resources to keep oil flowing steadily" from overseas and elsewhere. There's also no mention of drilling offshore, much less in Alaska, and nothing about exploiting our vast domestic supplies of oil shale.

Fortunately, Democrats have time to fix these political oversights. If they are serious, surely Democrats will have someone rise on the convention floor next week and offer an amendment that endorses offshore drilling and pledges not to extend the Congressional ban on drilling that expires on September 30. Come to think of it, Democrats should offer this amendment in prime time. How better to steal the drilling issue from Republicans?

. . . . . . . . .

The fossil-fuel love-in could also extend to oil shale. Abundant on federal lands in the Mountain West, these deposits could yield more than seven times more fuel than Saudi Arabia has crude oil reserves. While extraction technology is still a work in progress, the immediate hitch is that a pilot leasing program was deliberately killed last year in legislation offered by Colorado's Democratic Senator, Ken Salazar. His partner in imposing that exploration ban was none other than House Democrat Mark Udall, who is now running for Colorado's open Senate seat.

Mr. Udall recently had his own pro-drilling epiphany, after weeks of getting pounded on the issue by his Republican opponent, Bob Schaffer. Mr. Udall's lead in the polls has vanished. "We've got to produce our own oil and gas here in our country," he now says in a new TV spot. But a campaign ad isn't enough. Surely, Mr. Udall will now want to acknowledge his mistake of a year ago and fight to lift the oil-shale ban on the House floor next month. That is, unless his new pro-drilling rhetoric is merely campaign triangulation that he doesn't really believe.

We'll know Democrats are not serious if they limit their drilling support only to the so-called Gang of 10 proposal in the Senate. The bipartisan Gang would allow drilling only offshore of four states -- Virginia, Georgia and the Carolinas -- and only if it is farther than 50 miles out. It would leave the most promising areas off limits, especially in the Arctic and the Gulf of Mexico.

And in return for this de minimis drilling, the Gang wants to spend $84 billion more in subsidies for ethanol and other "alternatives," while hitting the oil industry with a $30 billion tax increase. This proposal is a trick designed to give Democrats political cover while opening up very little new land or offshore area for drilling.

No doubt any or all of these three actions would enrage the green lobby, but politics is about choosing. In this case, the Democratic choice is between sticking with an anticarbon theology that opposes all new drilling, or siding with American consumers who want more energy supplies so they don't have to pay $4 for gas and blow their family budget to keep the lights on. [ . . .]

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. . . that offshore drilling is a done deal. One might hope that all is not lost, and that there are other ways to sabotage the economy and American/Western security.

Via a tweet from Hackbarth of The American Mind.

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