Beyond the Absurd Deep Event Horizon
“Against stupidity (and dittoheads) the gods themselves strive in
vain“
Sarah Palin has recently managed to blame the Deep Horizon Disaster
on “whacko environmentalists”, a stance echoed verbatim by some on
FaceBook and other places. The “argument” goes that tree-huggers
(shore-huggers?) have forced deep ocean drilling by their adamant
refusal to allow off-shore oil platforms and other restrictions
(notably ANWR), thus forcing Big Oil to search further out.
God, if only we “whacko environmentalists” had such power! Putting
aside the disgusting absurdity, in the wake of the worst
environmental disaster in history, of blaming the environmentalists
rather than the actual perpetrators, the “argument” is full of bunk.
No one has restricted anyone offshore: there are almost 4000
platforms now, and there are no moratoriums in place for near shore
drilling. Oh sure, Florida had a ban for years, which they recently
(and narrowly) lifted, a ban they’re likely to soon clamp back down.
But that was motivated by the state, not environmentalists, and the
reason was tourism, not the environment.
No, the real reason Big Oil is out in deep water is the reason they
went off-shore in the first place. The realities of Peak Oil made it
economically imperative. Just as Saudi Arabia is beginning to tap
out the mighty Gwahar oil field, and our American in-ground reserves
were tapped out by mid-1970′s, the off-shore sucking is becoming
less profitable. There’s just not as much there, and it’s harder to
suck (the obvious joke about how badly Big Oil sucks I will leave as
exercise for the reader). So they moved their rigs further out. It
was money, not back-pressure from the whacko Greens, that led Big
Oil into deep water. Oil will continue to become ever more expensive
to get out of the ground; it’s an inevitable result of there being
only a finite amount in the first place, and we’ve already extracted
the easy stuff.
If Big Oil is going to continue to probe down a mile deep on the
seabed, they must be required to spend some of those incredible (and
obscene) profits on research into containment and remediation
technology. The booms and dispersants (the only things we have, and
both 30 year old technologies dating back to Valdeez, the last time
any such technologies were advanced) are so obviously not cutting
it. Our government must require them to be as accountable as other
governments in the world do. We use most of the oil, we should have
the biggest say in what constitutes “reasonable effort” to ensure
safety.
As for me, I propose the Cheney Doctrine: If there’s a 1% chance
something can go wrong, it’s too risky. Good enough to protect us
from the terrorists. Good enough to protect us from BP.