Over the past few days nearly in unison we have heard the entire right wing echo chamber chant the mantra “drill more oil! Drill more oil!”

This comes on the heels of a speech Cheney gave where he claimed China was drilling off the coast of Florida with Cuba. This was a blatant lie. China and Cuba are NOT drilling off the coast of Florida. Republican Senator Mel Martinez went public and said the claim was NOT true and Cheney was forced to retract his statement and apologize.

But that didn’t stop the Right Wing from running with it. After it was proven to be a lie Republican Rep’s Michelle Bachmann and Mean Jean Schmidt continued to repeat the baseless claim on the House Floor. Mean Jean Schmidt refused to retract her lie and just pushed it to the next level claiming the commies are drilling off the coast of Florida.

So now the talking point is out there: Those damn liberals let the commies drill for oil in American Waters but won’t let the good decent hard working American Corporations drill for oil. Why do liberals hate America?

This just demonstrates how much the Right Wing clings to the old Nazi axiom: If you tell a lie often enough some people will think it’s true.

The Right Wing isn’t seeking to convince a majority of people that it’s true the commies are drilling off the coast of Florida. All they are doing is pandering to their base who they know never fact checks, believes everything they say, and even if they don’t believe it understand the political expediency for repeating the talking point. I expect my inbox to be flooded soon with emails from right leaning friends and family members asking why ‘the commies’ can drill for oil in American waters but poor Exxon can’t.

This latest episode though of “drill more oil!” tips the hand of those who are responsible for high oil prices. This whole thing is being orchestrated in order to garner public support for drilling oil offshore. The fact is that there have been thousands of leases and permits issued under the Bush Administration for oil companies to drill on public land yet they don’t do it. Why? They like the high oil prices. It’s good for them and good for Morgan Stanley who now owns the most oil futures contracts of any company trading oil.

Their drive to drill for oil off the shores of California and Florida is only for them to secure future profits. They have no interest in decreasing the price of oil. Even if they were allowed to drill off shore that oil won’t hit the market for at least 5 years.

What’s even worse about this whole “drill more oil!” mantra is that underlying it is the assumption that corporations will cooperatively lower gas and oil prices if this were to occur. It’s the flawed assumption under all Right Wing economic theology that some how on their own corporations always do what is best for America and the American People.

We know this is false. We know left to their own devices corporations will rape and pillage until they die of exhaustion; case in point Enron. As far as doing what is best for America ask Halliburton, KBR, Bear Stearns, Morgan Stanley, BlackWater USA etc ad nauseam what they have done for America lately. Ask them why they avoid paying taxes and plunder as much U.S. tax dollars as possible every time they get a chance.

And don’t be fooled, there are alternatives:

Times Online - Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol

Silicon Valley is experimenting with bacteria that have been genetically altered to provide 'renewable petroleum'

“Ten years ago I could never have imagined I’d be doing this,” says Greg Pal, 33, a former software executive, as he squints into the late afternoon Californian sun. “I mean, this is essentially agriculture, right? But the people I talk to – especially the ones coming out of business school – this is the one hot area everyone wants to get into.”

He means bugs. To be more precise: the genetic alteration of bugs – very, very small ones – so that when they feed on agricultural waste such as woodchips or wheat straw, they do something extraordinary. They excrete crude oil.

Unbelievably, this is not science fiction. Mr Pal holds up a small beaker of bug excretion that could, theoretically, be poured into the tank of the giant Lexus SUV next to us. Not that Mr Pal is willing to risk it just yet. He gives it a month before the first vehicle is filled up on what he calls “renewable petroleum”. After that, he grins, “it’s a brave new world”. More Here

All about algae: Can pond scum power our future?

HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- Thirty years ago, the last time the world faced an oil crisis, the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) launched a program to analyze the potential algae had as a renewable fuel. It didn't take it long to realize algae was a godsend.

Actually being able to take advantage of it was another matter.

The program, run by the DoE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) lasted nearly two decades, but by 1996, it came to a close. Getting an algae biodiesel program running was deemed economically unfeasible when faced with the technology costs at the time versus the costs of using other fuels.

At that time, the price of oil was less than $20 a barrel.

With oil prices now looking like they won't drop below $100 a barrel for some time -- if ever -- and technology costs relatively lower than a decade ago, algae's time in the sun could finally have arrived.

The greenest of the green?

Algae have been touted as the greenest of all green fuels and it's not hard to see why. They are oil-rich themselves, with some strands carrying more than 50 percent oil content.

They can grow in the most hostile of regions such as deserts so don't infringe on land set aside for food crops. They don't require freshwater to flourish, and can thrive off saltwater or wastewater, making sewage farms a natural habitat.

Algae also reproduce at an astonishing rate; they are able to double in size in a matter of hours. They are amongst the fastest growing plants on Earth.

What make algae particularly useful as a feedstock is that they thrive off carbon dioxide (C02), which makes them great carbon sequesters. That also means that the other natural places to cultivate algae are power stations.

The algae can absorb as much as 75 percent of the exhaust gas, claims U.S. firm GreenFuel Technologies, using its bespoke bio-reactor. Algae doesn't just grow in the sun, contrary to previous belief. San Francisco start-up company Solazyme says it can now generate biofuels from algae grown in the dark.

The sun is replaced by sugar, essentially, which is fed to the algae, which then produces different types of oil that can be processed into a variety of fuels, suitable for cars and planes. These algae produce more oil than they would in the sun, the company claims.

Compared to other types of feedstock, algae is incredibly productive.

Most agree it can eclipse any other type of fuel crop grown today -- palm oil can yield around 6,000 liters per hectare per year (per/h/y) of fuel, for example while algae can yield more than four times that amount. More Here