2010-04-29 BP's Oil Rig Disaster May Bring an End to Support for New Offshore Exploration

2010-04-29 Robert Rapier Consumer Energy Report \BP\Deepwater Horizon oil spill\peak oil\oil addiction http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/2010/04/29/bp-oil-rig-disaster/ BP's Oil Rig Disaster May Bring an End to Support for New Offshore Exploration BP's Oil Rig Disaster May Bring an End to Support for New Offshore Exploration  I think the BP disaster changes the dynamic significantly. We have heard during this debate about how long it has been since the U.S. suffered any sort of rig disaster that resulted in an oil spill, and that there were really no worries about any oil ever washing up on beaches in Florida or California. Now, environmentalists have a fresh new example to point to when proponents push for drilling. Florida Governor Charlie Crist has already been quoted as saying that this closes the door on drilling off of Florida's coast as long as he can prevent it.

So I believe the long term implications of this incident will be to exacerbate our slide down the backside of peak oil. Fields take a long time to develop, and fields being developed now may have been producing oil in 5 or 10 years. But I believe this window of opportunity has now closed, and it will be much more difficult to find broad support for expanded drilling.

I have explained my position on this in the past: I think we should drill and use the proceeds to fund programs for reducing our oil dependence. I am trying to think practically here, and I think what will happen if we don't develop the oil we have will be more dependence on oil imports as opposed to a hastening of a transition to renewable fuels. There will be an element of the latter, but it won’t be enough. I could have agreed with the author's position if there was a reasonable likelihood that a substantial chunk of the revenues would actually have been used to develop alternatives -- but we have been asking for this at least since the 1970s, and it has not been happening. "Dependence on oil imports" is a red herring: foreign reserves are surely declining even faster than domestic reserves. The evidence seems clear that the only way to get this country off oil addiction is going to be forced cold turkey, however painful that may be, because we aren't politically wise enough for a less painful solution. -

&ldquo;I believe the long term implications of this incident will be to exacerbate our slide down the backside of peak oil. Fields take a long time to develop, and fields being developed now may have been producing oil in 5 or 10 years. But I believe this window of opportunity has now closed, and it will be much more difficult to find broad support for expanded drilling.&rdquo;   