A government policy based on desperation to remain on fossil fuels combined with corporate greed and weak lawmakers means more disasters in our future.
Extreme sports are known for activities that have a high level of inherent dangers. Cheney and Bush adopted this extreme philosophy into our energy policy in 2001 because the U.S. is "running out of conventional, easily tapped reservoirs of oil and natural gas located on land or in shallow coastal waters." Cheney's solution was to increase drilling in what BP has called the new "energy frontiers":
The only solution, it claimed, would be to increase exploitation of unconventional energy reserves -- oil and gas found in deep offshore areas of the Gulf of Mexico, the Outer Continental Shelf, Alaska, and the American Arctic, as well as in complex geological formations such as shale oil and gas.
The inherent dangers of this energy extreme policy include a reckless drive to reap profits from drilling in areas that are less accessible where the existing technologies are not adequate for new or unexpected problems from drilling in "extreme environments under increasingly hazardous operating conditions." Even if predictable problems arise, you can't send "human troubleshooters one mile beneath the ocean's surface to assess the situation and devise a solution."
The extreme approach is damn the risks beforehand and try to find a solution afterwards. So, now BP is trying to engineer a solution to the oil spill after the fact because neither federal regulators nor oil industry even had a protocol for this disaster: "And yet a limitless budget and all that brainpower have failed to fix the pipe 5,000 feet below the sea surface that has leaked oil for more than a month, spewing at least 6 million gallons, possibly far more."
As we continue to witness BP's newest environmental crimes, we should brace for more if drilling occurs in Alaska's Beaufort or Chukchi Seas that present more extreme variables of collisions with floating ice, frigid temperatures, powerful storms, rough seas....that present both hazards to drilling and obstacles to emergency response efforts.
A new report shows that this BP disaster may be exponentially worse than others, but many "oil spills" occur all the time around the world that are not covered by the news. In the race to find more fossil fuels, more disasters loom on our horizon.
On April 6, 2010, "18,000 gallons of crude oil spilled" from a Chevron pipeline in the Delta National Wildlife Refuge in Louisiana. This is one of numerous "oil spills" that have occurred around the world. Each year millions of gallons of oil is "spilled" to our U.S. waters:
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, 1.3 million gallons (4.9 million liters) of petroleum are spilled into U.S. waters from vessels and pipelines in a typical year. A major oil spill could easily double that amount.
Between 1971 and 2000, the U.S. Coast Guard identified more than 250,000 oil spills in U.S. waters, according to a 2002 report from the U.S. Department of the Interior Minerals Management Service.
Approximately 1.7 billion gallons (6.4 billion liters) of oil were lost as a result of tanker incidents from 1970 to 2009... .
Off-shore drilling does not enhance our energy security: Since 2007 "U.S. oil companies have been steadily increasing the amount of oil drilled in the U.S. that they export out of the country to other markets."
Off-shore drilling does contribute to climate change: Drilling at "water depths greater than 500 feet releases methane, a green house gas at least twenty times more potent than carbon dioxide in its contribution to global warming. Since 1997, the number of rigs drilling in depths of greater than 1,000 feet in the Gulf of Mexico catapulted from 17 to more than 90."
Extreme energy also means exploring the new frontier of oil sands that is "kind of like the gulf spill but playing out in slow motion". Similar to BP polluting the Gulf of Mexico, huge amounts of freshwater will be polluted from extracting oil from the oil sands:
That water is then left in tailings ponds that currently cover 80 square miles. Those toxic ponds pose a hazard to migrating birds, risk contaminating nearby soil and water resources, present health problems to downstream communities and, the report notes, pose the risk of "a catastrophic breach".
Climate Change News Roundup
BP OIL MESS
CLIMATE CHANGE & ENERGY
WATER & NATURAL RESOURCES
- Oceans warming with climate change.
The top layer of world’s oceans has warmed significantly since the early 1990s, consistent with the pattern of global warming, a new study shows. The results of a 15-year study up to 2008 by a research team led by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that temperatures in the top 700 metres of oceans worldwide increased significantly from 1993 to 2003 and continued to rise a lesser rate in the following five years.
The scientists say it has been harder to measure average ocean temperature change than surface air temperatures, but that being able to do so accurately now offers greater reliability for measuring global warming. Ocean temperature is more consistent over time than air temperatures, which show enormous variability.
See also, Man-made climate change blamed for 'significant' rise in ocean temperature.