Image above: Still from animation on operational safety showing the lifting component onto new offshore drilling platform. From (http://www.looking-glass-animations.co.uk/42_rig_lifting_operations.htm)
By Aaron Newton on 31 March 2010 in Powering Down -
(http://poweringdown.blogspot.com/2010/03/drilling-for-offshore-oil-obama-plan.html)
What follows is something I posted in September of 2008. The US presidential campaign was building up steam and I was sick and tired of hearing 'Drill Baby Drill.' It made me ill because of the stupidity of the entire argument. I wrote,
Even when production is pumping at full capacity, additional offshore drilling facilities would amount to about 200,000 barrels per day (bpd). The US currently uses 21 million bpd. This does not take into account the increase in oil consumption necessary to continue to grow our economy[during the time it would take to get the drills up and drilling]. The bottom line is that additional offshore drilling will provide 1.2% of the oil we use every day if we don't increase consumption and we're willing to wait 20 years.So now Obama has opened up most of the east coast among other areas for oil exploration.
The Democrats are pretending to have been betrayed, the Republicans are saying he didn't go far enough and the environmentalists are mad as hell.
The truth is that this was a beautiful political move. President Obama gave his Democratic base ammunition for the upcoming election and took steps towards soothing the sting of those opposed to "health care" reform on the right. Sure there are factions within the Democratic party who are oppose to more offshore drilling but fewer than five Democrats will actually vote against their Democratic candidates this November because the President opened up more offshore areas for oil exploration. Instead those candidates will be able to say, "Look, we're trying to become more energy independent by opening up areas previously off limits and the Republicans aren't going along with us. We're willing to try what the Republicans have been asking us for years." I'm not sure if those political bullets will hit their targets but hey, it's something.
The real genius of this move lies in the fact that the Republicans have been saying for ever and ever that we could solve this energy problem if those wacky environmentally conservative Democrats would just open up more offshore areas for drilling. It's total bullshit of course, as you'll read below but they've gotten away with it because average Americans don't know the facts. Obama has now taken that sound bite away from them. And as an added bonus if the Republicans do speak out against this they will be branded even more deeply as the Party of No.
I'm guessing the environmentalists who are upset about this don't understand the facts. Little if any of the oil in these new areas will ever be pumped out of the seafloor. It's too costly. We won't be able to afford it. There is no real threat to the environment here because it's highly unlikely that any substantial new drilling in these areas will ever take place.
This is political theater, nothing more. Grab a bag of popcorn and be amused.
Original post from September 2008...
I won't go so far as to say I'm against lifting the ban on drilling for oil off the east coast of the United States of America. I say that because the only reason the idea is being bandied about is that the last two Republican presidents were oil tycoons and that the party is desperate to reframe the rise in the price of gasoline as the fault of the Democrats. Perhaps Democrats should agree to lift the ban and when the price of gas doesn't go down, Republicans will be left without that political punch to throw.Having said that, I am not in favor of lifting the offshore drilling ban because drilling for oil off the east coast of the U.S. is stupid. Here's why. The USGS says there are 17.8 billion barrels of undiscovered recoverable resources (read Unproven Reserves) in waters currently off limits to exploration. The EIA says production couldn't really get started until 2017 and wouldn't be fully ramped up for another 15 years until about 2030. Remember the U.S. uses more than 7 billion barrels a year. Great, there might be two and a half more years worth of oil. Even if we could start pumping at full capacity today when my daughter is 2 ½, she'll be 5 when all that oil is used up.
Even when production is pumping at full capacity, additional offshore drilling facilities would amount to about 200,000 barrels per day (bpd). The US currently uses 21 million bpd. This does not take into account the increase in oil consumption necessary to continue to grow our economy. The bottom line is that additional offshore drilling will provide 1.2% of the oil we use every day if we don't increase consumption and we're willing to wait 20 years.
Oh and if the oil companies don't sell that oil to other countries. Remember, we currently export about 1.5 million barrels of oil from the US every day. There is no guarantee that big oil will even keep this measly 200,000 bpd in the US.
And don't forget the hurricanes.
Notice I didn't even mention the possible environmental catastrophes or the hit tourism might take if lounging at the beach starts to include a beautiful view of the flare from a drilling rig.
Offshore oil is politicians playing the blame game and that's all it is. The sad part is that a majority of Americans are falling for it while their leaders, Republicans and Democrats alike, continue to refuse to act appropriately.
If you want a quick test of whether or not a politician understands energy issues ask her if she'd like to see the cost of gasoline go down. If she says yes, she doesn't know what the hell she's talking about.
Not in the least! But he is in panic mode.
There are smart people in the administration. OK, maybe not many wise (sapient) people, but definitely clever people. They know about Peak Oil. They know that it is here. They know the standard neoclassical economics explanation of what happens when supply doesn't meet demand. They know the price of fossil fuels go up. They know that prices have been going up. I'll even bet that they have read the scientific papers about Peak Oil! We know the military has been studying the issue for quite a while. They have even published their concerns.
So if you were President of the United States and your staff is telling you we are running out of oil and that the whole system is going to come apart at the seams as a result, what would you do?
The president knows that energy is critical to the whole economy. He knows that energy flow has to increase in order to have a 'growing' economy. He knows that the American people are spoiled beyond belief. He knows that they will rebel against any message that suggests that they need to pay more for energy or that they will have to restrict their lifestyles in light of new energy realities. And he knows that the our access to oil is being pinched off by production capacity and geopolitical and international economic forces beyond his control. He knows that the financial markets are keeping the illusion of wealth production alive and has to be supported to keep the illusion alive.
And he knows that the situation is hopeless.
That is why he is opening up oil drilling off Virginia and will likely open other areas for oil companies to lease and explore. He now understands the Drill-Baby-Drill message. He has no other choice. He is in panic because he is a political animal, just like all the rest. He wants to hold power and he wants his party to hold power in spite of the fact that it is rapidly becoming obvious that it is a no-win proposition.
This is why I doubted our new president's wisdom during the campaign and why I am now convinced that he is really clever but definitely not wise.
I can't help but wonder how he is going to handle the longer-term problem that is mounting. This is like a game of chess where you have lost most of your power pieces while your opponent maintains a knight, bishop (one that hasn't been accused of child molestation we hope), and maybe a castle. You have to take every escape move you can. Your queen is in constant jeopardy.
Now you hope your early move to castle your king pays off. But it won't. This is where our president's foresight fails. His panic move is just as bad as believing his chosen financial advisers about how to save the economy and the bailouts of banks and Wall Street. He will fail (are you listening Rush Limbaugh? You will get your wish. But it will get you too.)
I vacillate between hope for truly sapient people to prepare for the worst case scenario, and despair for what is going to happen to the vast majority of people who actually attend to leaders like Obama (or John Boehner or Glen Beck!). The former stand a chance of a future life. The latter are lost. I would prefer to focus on the potential for the former, but am constantly pulled back to think about the latter. This desperate move by Obama is just one more example of why the latter case is going to prevail. He understands the nature of the problem but completely misses the nature of anything like a solution. Sometimes I wonder if I have cast my last vote in a national election!
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1 comment :
like a fox.
but who cares?
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