2008 Oil!
posted by on August 26 at 19:35 PM
I’m busy prepping the liveblog, so I missed some of Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer’s speech on energy independence. But this line really jumped out:
“Barack Obama understands that the most important barrel of oil is the one that you don’t use.”
The frank talk about how much oil is actually available on American soil is really refreshing. I am not looking forward to all the offshore drilling nonsense that’s coming imminently from the RNC.
Schweitzer is doing a great job getting people riled up. Hillary is up next.
best speech of the DNC so far
It should be noted that Gov. Schweitzer is a big proponent of coal liquefaction technology, which is not surprising due to the fact that Montana has an enormous coal reserve and that the United States has the largest coal reserve in the world (more than 1/4 of the world coal reserve). The plan that he has been trying to sell for the last four years is that we should heavily invest in coal liquefaction to reduce fuel prices and wean ourselves off of foreign oil until alternative fuels are developed. This by itself is not a green plan since any coal liquefaction process will release a larger amount of net CO2 than drilling. He made the caveat that coal can be cleaner if CO2 sequestration technology is used. In this case, coal liquefaction will be about as clean as oil and coal power plants can be as clean as nuclear power. His plans have received a lot of press since coal liquefaction is expected to produce oil at a cost of about $30 to $40 per barrel.
I think it is misleading to interpret his views as anti-oil. He supports using oil for the time being, but he thinks that we need to be smarter on how we produce and use it. I like Gov. Schweitzer's plan but I don't think it will be nearly as popular with most environmentalists once they understand all of the details. His plan is more about national security and energy independence than it is CO2 emission reduction.
agree w/cm. His speech totally rocked and from what I could tell really had the delegates pumped up.
The UN just announced that research shows the best thing to do is just end ALL ENERGY SUBSIDIES.
At this point ... I agree.
@4: Good luck with that. Give me a call when all the world's economies have ground to a halt.
Oh, bull. I said subsidies, @5.
You don't need a tax subsidy to run a for-profit energy firm.
But you've probably forgotten that after eight years of Incompetence under the Red Bushies.
Oh, by the way, the number of ultra-rich is up - all 46,000 of them - while the rest of us are much poorer. It's in the WSJ today, comrade.
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