Lets Drill Baby Drill...errr wait a mintue here comes a hurricane

I really hate that we are even thinking about drilling offshore even more than we are already. Hurricane Ike took out 52 platforms in the gulf and damaged 32 more. Why put more platforms in vulnerable locations? I completely agree that we need to get off of foreign oil, no doubt. Drilling offshore is not the answer to our problems. It has been proven that this not going to benefit us for at least 20 more years.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently did a detailed study of the likely outcome of offshore drilling for their Annual Energy Outlook 2007, “Impacts of Increased Access to Oil and Natural Gas Resources in the Lower 48 Federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).” The sobering conclusion:

The projections in the OCS access case indicate that access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030.

And the impact of the projected 7% (!) increase in lower-48 oil production that might result in 2030 thanks to opening the OCS is … wait for it …

… any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant.

So why bother. Why should we spend even more money than we already do on building and continuing our oil addiction? We can easily spend that money on alternate energy sources and have a quicker impact. I'm not sure where this rhetoric has sprung up that alternate energy is going to take way to long to catch on while we need a solution NOW. It has been proven that there is not going to be an immediate solution ( i.e oil drilling is going to take some time) Oil prices are based on speculation not actual supply. If oil producers see the rise in alternate energy sources and interests, prices will drop accordingly. When investments and tax incentives start appearing, the producers and consumers will respond. Case in point is the current advancement of solar and alternate technology. I read something almost daily on the latest and greatest "green" breakthrough. As money and interest is getting funneled into these initiatives, the technology advances exponentially.
Of course we can't expect everyone to go out and purchase a hybrid when they come available. It will take some time to phase out our gas consuming vehicles. We must create ways to work with current engine specs while still providing incentives to auto makers to create hybrid vehicles. Invest some money on advancing our "crutch" technology to help our transition from gas to electric/solar/hydrogen/?
I am just disenchanted that our politicians market offshore drilling as something we must do NOW to get off foreign oil. Drilling is not the NOW answer by any means. It is just another way to divide the vote, it's almost as bad as dividing based on abortion and gay marriage views. Both are important issues, but not the most pertinent to our current state.