<![CDATA[Grist - Comment Feed for McCain visits an oil rig, repeats call for more offshore drilling]]> Grist Comment Feed en Comment #1 by sindark http://www.grist.org/article/putting-lipstick-on-a-rig/ Wed, 20 Aug 2008 03:03:29 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/putting-lipstick-on-a-rig/1 Barrels

"This platform we are at today sits above a field of 160 million barrels of oil, and is capable of producing on a daily basis 55,000 barrels of oil and 72 million cubic feet of natural gas."

The United States imports more than 10 million barrels of oil per day. Even if all the offshore rigs being proposed could be built instantly, they would only provide a short-term solution to America's energy problems.

a sibilant intake of breath

]]> Barrels

"This platform we are at today sits above a field of 160 million barrels of oil, and is capable of producing on a daily basis 55,000 barrels of oil and 72 million cubic feet of natural gas."

The United States imports more than 10 million barrels of oil per day. Even if all the offshore rigs being proposed could be built instantly, they would only provide a short-term solution to America's energy problems.

a sibilant intake of breath

]]> Comment #2 by howardgw http://www.grist.org/article/putting-lipstick-on-a-rig/ Thu, 21 Aug 2008 05:47:17 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/putting-lipstick-on-a-rig/2 McCain's oil platform photo op

First let me say that McCain's 300 mile helicopter round trip for a photo op is an extravagant use of fossil fuel that seems somehow at odds with his endorsement of energy conservation.

Just as irritating, however, is the loose use of numbers. Are the 160 million barrels of oil that supposedly underlie the platform the resource (about 30% of which can be produced) or the proved reserves? What is the relevance of a field already in production to the areas from which McCain wants to remove the regulatory wraps? We already know that off-shore oil wells are producing only 27 percent of the nation's miniscule production, and drilling the areas currently under moratorium can, on the basis of optimistic guesswork, add only 7% more in 20 years.

Obama should have stuck to his guns.

Howard Wilshire

]]> McCain's oil platform photo op

First let me say that McCain's 300 mile helicopter round trip for a photo op is an extravagant use of fossil fuel that seems somehow at odds with his endorsement of energy conservation.

Just as irritating, however, is the loose use of numbers. Are the 160 million barrels of oil that supposedly underlie the platform the resource (about 30% of which can be produced) or the proved reserves? What is the relevance of a field already in production to the areas from which McCain wants to remove the regulatory wraps? We already know that off-shore oil wells are producing only 27 percent of the nation's miniscule production, and drilling the areas currently under moratorium can, on the basis of optimistic guesswork, add only 7% more in 20 years.

Obama should have stuck to his guns.

Howard Wilshire

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