Some protest...

[Ocean1]

Sorry I thought you were talking about the free market - governed only by the law of supply and demand, but since you've now opened the scope for regulation, we need to regulate the fuck out of it, not the slap happy, lackadaisical, she'll be right attitude we've taken for the last couple of generations, and of which John Key appears to be the zenith (or nadir?).

I am. As I said, in the case of ivory we've already established that it's not for sale at any price. That's that market frozen solid, no regulation is going to affect it any further. They rarely do. What you're really bitching about is the thieves, so concentrate your efforts on law enforcement.

And if you expect any modern politician to actually massively increase the price of our most important resource and remain in place long enough to make it stick you're living in a far more ephemeral and colourful place than he is.

[Brian d marge]

Coming from a well regarded expert in the field I'll take that as a compliment.

Your welcome a compliment from a more knowledgable person is a rare gift

Sent from my SC-01F using Tapatalk

[Smifffy]

Fine. But before you put that to any vote let's see you quantify the consequences of doubling the price of oil. Is the risk of environmental damage still not worth it?

Double it again. If you spent most of that extra cost on risk mitigation measures then you've likely halved the actual risk to the environment. You've also comprehensively fucked the quality of life of everyone here, and you've destroyed the livelihood of many, including a lot of those in the third world who just barely get by with fuel at current prices.

Which was my point from the start, so far there's been not a murmur about the substantial costs on the other side of the equation, it appears nobody here has any idea what they are let alone any practical idea how to go create alternatives.

I suppose we could solar power the world's cargo ship fleet...

I didn't say ALL oil needs to be that expensive. Just that particular bit. Let 'em drill for oil in downtown Manhattan or on Rodeo Drive, or the Whitehouse lawn. NZ deep sea oil is not going to single handedly solve a world oil shortage, nor create one through lack of drilling.

The world's cargo ship fleet at one time was actually wind powered, or didn't you know that? I wonder what would happen if the rest of the world decided that cargo ships should be nuclear powered? I suspect our nuclear free stance would be gone by lunchtime.

The world's cargo ship fleet could just as easily be powered by DME sourced from NZ radiata pine. Of course the technology for that is still in its infancy. Not like the extremely well developed tech used for drilling deeper than ever in an ocean so far untapped.

The wind powered cargo ships had less emissions and higher employment meaning more jobs. The major downside being it takes longer to get your iShit from China.

[BMWST?]

Fine. But before you put that to any vote let's see you quantify the consequences of doubling the price of oil. Is the risk of environmental damage still not worth it?

Double it again. If you spent most of that extra cost on risk mitigation measures then you've likely halved the actual risk to the environment. You've also comprehensively fucked the quality of life of everyone here, and you've destroyed the livelihood of many, including a lot of those in the third world who just barely get by with fuel at current prices.

Which was my point from the start, so far there's been not a murmur about the substantial costs on the other side of the equation, it appears nobody here has any idea what they are let alone any practical idea how to go create alternatives.

I suppose we could solar power the world's cargo ship fleet...

its only a matter of time before fuel is double the price it is now.Even if we dont do anything with "our" oil

[Zedder]

its only a matter of time before fuel is double the price it is now.Even if we dont do anything with "our" oil

All the more reason to crank up the biomass industry.

[Smifffy]

its only a matter of time before fuel is double the price it is now.Even if we dont do anything with "our" oil

The only reason that it isn't already double the price it was in 2008 is the discovery and extraction of US shale oil deposits, aka Fracking. Of course that's working out really well for everybody. The Shale oil reserves dwarf those in our little corner of the world, but of course according to the money grubbers if we don't give it up now, we'll be starved of the lifeblood of commerce and the economy. Yawn.

[Banditbandit]

So ... all that fuss, hurrah, protest, trumpet blowing, banner waving ... and Anadarko have not found oil off the Taranaki Coast ...

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/newshom...illing-safety/

And off course there is going to be no danger from oil spill and leakage ... it's hard to spill or leak what is not there ..