Customer Reviews

Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less: A Handbook for Slashing Gas Prices and Solving Our Energy Crisis

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

First, I'm an independent. I do have 3 decades experiences as a federal worker working government programs with exposure to our elected officials. I'm familiar with the capabilities and limitations on both sides of the aisle. This includes energy. Mr. Gingrich...tho well meaning shows a lack of understanding of the complexity of the issue.

He does provide an adequate overview though slanted toward his political view. The strength of his case is the increasing daily power of special interests...does he acknowledge those he follows and in his party?

Two points illustrate his limitations. First, he never addresses that 35% of oil is used for crucial non-transportation aspects. These range from agriculture to plastics plus hundreds of more vital applications. He could include financial models showing the gravity of the consequences of losing this capability to better make his point of why we need to drill. Second, he should research EROEI...or energy return on energy energy invested...it frames how and why we can and should change based on scientific...managerial efficiency and effectiveness. It also will reveal the flaws on his too optimistic view of additional oil...buttressed by actual data (i.e. depletion rates, on line rates, etc.).

Yes...we are going to have an energy revolution...but it will be painful and take decades. His almost blind adherence to his sources without auditing and questioning them is a key example of why our government is broke IMO. His recommendations...though some noteworthy...are mainly 1 dimensional to a 3 dimensional problem.

The serious reader should explore other books on Amazon that more completely describe this issue to understand the importance, difficulty and gravity of this situation. I also suggest the Oil Drum...ASPO plus Solar...Wind...other alternative energy web sites. One caution...working closely with numerous leading edge technologies...they seldom come on line as quickly as the proponents say. This is why EROEI...management and decision systems are vital. IMO...concepts nearly foreign to Congress and White House as evidenced in hearings.

This is not classic Newt where the subject would have been well researched and make for interesting reading. Instead it is clouded with political overtones of attacking the opposite side and prevents reaching an objective of solving environmental concerns and energy independence with a unified front. Shame on you, Newt for creating such a bomb. It's just tired rhetoric done hurriedly and soooo repetitive. Ho, Hum!

A better, more honest title should be: "Drill here, drill now, and let your children pay the consequences".
This guy; like any other politician; will tell you what you want to hear, and once in office will do what he wants to or is told to do.

Newt Gingrich is not a geologist. He really has no idea what he is talking about. The USA hit peak oil back in 1970. For 40 years now, oil production in the USA has been in decline. It didn't matter whether a Democrat or a Republican was in the white house or ruled Congress . . . oil production has been in decline since we have been drilling up the country for over 100 years now. Now recently there has been an uptick in production . . . why? Because oil prices moved from $20/barrel in 2000 to near $100/barrel now. That has made many previously uneconomic oil plays now economic. But there are not tons of them. And you can go ahead and drill them like crazy but they won't cause oil prices to drop . . . because if oil prices do start to drop, they'll stop drilling because they'll be losing money. Again, the only reason production has gone up lately is BECAUSE the price is high.

The USA only has about 2 or 3% of the worlds remaining oil reserves. (Go look it up.) Ask Legendary oilman and hardcore conservative T.Boone Pickens, he'll tell you "There is no way we can drill our way out of this problem."

This book is nothing but telling people what they want to hear. You should demand to be told the truth . . . not just lies that a politician knows you want to believe. If you want to know the real situation, I'd recommend digging up the lecture from Ken Verosub, Geology professor at UC Davis where he discusses Newt's crazy views on oil geology.

Newt's ignorance of oil geology is evident from the title. There is a reason oil companies are called E&Ps with the exploration part first. You don't take a $400,000/day drill ship out to sea and start poking random holes in the ocean floor. We have little knowledge of the structures off the east and west coasts or in the Beaufort and Chuckchi Seas. We have better data in the Gulf, but the good new stuff is under allochthonous salt at great depth, not economic at current prices. The Green River oil shale is a 35 year joke. For one thing it isn't oil.
The U.S. has about 3% of the world's oil reserves despite nonsense from Gingrich and his ilk.
Rolf Westgard, member Geological Society of America

To be completely candid and fair, I haven't purchased or read the book. I thought the argument contained inside is obviously laughable in light of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. How is this book still rated 4 stars on Amazon?

Book Review: Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less--A Handbook For Slashing Gas Prices And Solving Our Energy Crisis (Regnery Pub., 2008) by Newt Gingrich

From: www.BasilAndSpice.com

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich follows up his American Solutions project, founded 2007, with a hot new book, Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less. He hopes to stem the tide of partisan politics and create a unified country stance on energy solutions.

Gingrich begins with main points:

* We have more energy sources than any other country in the world. Our shale resources in the Rocky Mountains alone are three times the size of Saudi Arabia's oil reserves (world's largest).
* We have 27% of the world's coal.
* We have huge potential in harnessing wind power.
* We have enormous opportunities in solar power.
* We have the largest number of scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs of any country in the world.

Gingrich also supports next generation incentives for biofuels, including cellulosic ethanol, a competition to contract out at least four experimental next generation clean coal plants with virtually no carbon emissions, McCain's proposal of a $300 million prize for breakthroughs in battery technology that will make electric cars and hybrids work better.

His premise, "If we adopt the right strategies and implement sound policies, we can ignore the dictators of the world and never again have to beg another country to help us get energy." Gingrich blames left-wing politicians for their anti-coal, --oil, --nuclear policies.

Our policies and their relation to energy costs in the United States effect all Americans. Around the globe, high energy costs raise the price of fertilizer and food transportation, actually leaving the poor in developing countries hungrier.

Our national security Gingrich writes, is also affected negatively. Back in July 2006, Hezbollah (almost certainly backed by Iran) attacked Israel, a United States ally. On July 7th the cost of a barrel of crude oil was $74.16, by July 14th, it had risen to $77.03. This Gingrich says was a $2.87 increase, which amounted to almost $3 billion more a year for the Iranian dictatorship to spend on rockets for arming Hezbollah. Oil spikes bring in more revenue for the Iranians, allowing them to build nuclear weapons.

In the United States 249 million cars and trucks rely on gas and diesel fuel, and our airlines require aviation fuel. Gingrich has outlined steps to move the United States out of the energy crisis and lead the world in new clean energy sources. First, drill for oil here, utilizing the resources already available and enabling our country to be economically viable. Though that oil won't be available immediately, just the fact that we'll be drilling at home will begin to reduce costs. Then we must develop alternative energy solutions which will lower costs and keep the environment clean.
Interestingly, Gingrich points out that Congressman Randy Forbes already has a bill known as the "New Manhattan Project for Energy Independence" (HR 6260) in motion. It calls for energy breakthroughs, the creation of a scientific commission, making America 50% energy independent within 10 years, and 100% independent within 20 years.



Gingrich's Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less:

* Offers rebuttals to opponents' anti-drilling arguments
* Includes an appendix showing a chart how family gasoline costs raise a family's budget
* Appeals to a grassroots movement
* Is written in plain English for all to comprehend Gingrich's viewpoint of the energy crunch
* Explains how we got into this national and global predicament
* States that American ingenuity is the key to solving American energy issues
* Includes Newt Gingrich's "Roadmap for Solving Our Energy Crisis"--38 points long

Highlights of the Roadmap--

* Change federal low to allow offshore drilling for oil and natural gas
* Change federal law to allow drilling for oil and natural gas in ANWR (Alaska)
* Change federal law to allow for the development of oil shale in Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado

* Change federal law to incentivize those states that want to permit energy exploration to do so with appropriate safeguards
* Provide a prize for safe disposal or reuse of nuclear waste products
* Make the solar power and wind power tax credits permanent to create a large-scale industry dedicated to domestically produced renewable electricity
* Develop long-distance transmission lines to move wind power from the Great Plains wind belt to Chicago and other urban centers.
* Create an Open Fuel Standard for 95% of the new cars sold in the United States (...Ensure that most new cars sold in America are flex-fuel vehicles {FFVs} that can use a variety of fuel types.)
* Dramatically increase funding to develop hydrogen fuel cells.

Should you read this book? Yes. Even if you disagree with Newt Gingrich, he obviously has some great ideas and holds tremendous influence in the development of the United States. It's important to understand and know how and why our country is changing, and how the United States energy policies affect the world globally. 5 Stars

I think Newt Gingrich is a wonder - a true American statesman who has certainly earned the right to hang out at the golf course and relax, but who continues to invest considerable time and energy in helping America to get it right. Many of us, including Newt, believe that the current oil crisis is just a harbinger of related difficulties headed our way and he has written a book that outlines some revolutionary rescue efforts to make the US energy independent within the next 10 years.

He's a solution-oriented gentleman and so is this book, which should be required reading for anyone who heats a house, drives a car, buys anything produced outside of his hometown or hopes to be President. His belief in American ingenuity, tenacity, and determination is imprinted on every page of this book.

Drill Here, Drill Now isn't a green approach to US energy independence and I don't fundamentally support some of the methods he proposes, but I do recognize a crisis when I see one. We're in trouble on so many fronts at this point(many that stem from our overseas oil dependence), that I think we need to compromise on the methods that will free us from dependence on those who promise to destroy us.

Drill Here, Drill Now is a step-by-step instruction manual on how we can again become an independent nation, safe within our borders and doing business only with those who support our beliefs and our well-being.

This is an exceptional book that is highly recommended.

You should read this book and get yourself up to speed on how the enviro-lobby (yes, they ARE special interests, too) has worked their agenda to box up oil, gas, coal, and nuclear. The point is these forms of energy are lower cost than their "clean" methods of "renewable" energy. So, they had to raise the costs of the traditional fuels to make their preferred methods cost competitive.

The problem is that these "clean" energies are not only not as clean as you are led to believe, they are so costly that developing countries refuse to use them. That means that our energy intensive industries will follow not only cheaper labor, but cheaper energy, less costly regulation, and lower taxes. And you wonder why the factories where your dad and grand-dad worked are gone.

Speaker Gingrich lays out how producing more energy, our own energy, and using it to bridge to a time when the wind, solar, and hydrogen become more cost effective makes sense. The book reads very easily and is a call for us to take back our government and provide common sense balance to the enviro-lobby. No one wants to destroy the environment, but we also don't want to destroy our economy. Market prices reflect not only the current demand, but factor in a sense of future demand and supply, as well. When we show real determination to produce more of our own energy, oil and gas prices will fall around the world. This is explained in chapters one and two.

Chapter three explains why America has the energy in our domestic resources to make a profound difference in our balance of payments, our industrial and economic might, and the price of we pay for our energy. Chapters four and five provide a sensible roadmap to getting more and less costly energy ASAP while also protecting the environment.

Chapter six lays out the choice by describing a future scenario where America does drill here, drill now, pay less. You will understand the difference between what the enviro-lobby has in mind for you and what we can make for ourselves if we have the gumption to take political action and make it stick. Chapter seven and the conclusion tell you how to take that political action.

There are five appendices that lay out the political platform for energy independence, facts and figures about American energy, how to counter the arguments of the enviro-lobby, and some tables showing how our current gas prices are impacting your family budget.

Fine book, timely, needed. Get it, read it, and put pressure on your elected officials from your town all the way to Washington. Don't let them force you into an impoverished future where their costly enviro-dream becomes our nightmare reality.

Heck, they even provide you with a bumper sticker!

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

This is a comprehensive plan for cutting gas prices and eliminating dependence on foreign oil.

Based upon the title, one might assume that this is just about increasing the oil supply. It is far more comprehensive than that. This shows how to do that as well as developing many other energy sources including natural gas, coal, nuclear, wind, solar, and hydrogen.

The former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives is a true visionary. His plan is brilliant in its innovation as well as common sense. It is a solution to what Speaker Gingrich demonstrates is 'an absolutely unnecessary energy crisis'.

The author clearly shows who the culprits are in this fiasco: the politicians in Congress and the environmental extremists.

The Congress has not only failed to take proactive measures to ease the situation; they have actively implemented most of the problems causing it. Some of their insidious actions have included: prohibiting offshore drilling in numerous locations, forbidding oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as well as blocking development of the oil shale reserves of the Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah. The estimated reserves in this area alone amount to three times those in Saudi Arabia.

They have also enacted measures that make construction of desperately needed oil refineries and nuclear power plants virtually impossible. There has not been a single new nuclear power plant built in the United States since 1979 (During that same period Japan has built 36 and France 56). The last American oil refinery was completed in 1976. During that time, other nations such as India have been outperforming us. There are many other harmful actions that have been perpetrated by the out-of-touch elitists in Washington.

The so-called environmental organizations have also wreaked much havoc. They have made a sport of filing countless lawsuits to prevent drilling, stop the building of refineries, etc.

The best part of this book is the solution section. Gingrich has made 38 specific proposals. These are all very practical. They are common sense and should be implemented immediately. Their adoption would put us on track to economic growth and energy independence.

This is a must read book for all Americans. Every member of Congress who is concerned about his/her constituents will work to enact it. Those who do not should be voted into early retirement.