Offshore Oil Drilling: The Cost Outweighs the Benefit - Essay Example

# Offshore Oil Drilling: The Cost Outweighs the Benefit The American consumer. A rare bird pursued by all who want to sell anything. This fickle breed controls the economy of the United States, and by extension, a large part of the world economy. When the American consumer demands something, businesses listen. Consumers have demanded reasonable energy prices for more than 70 years, and once again the debate over exploiting our offshore energy reserves is at the forefront of our politicians’ minds. Fortunately, environmentalists are still holding off actual exploitation, but academia, popular media, and even economists are changing directions and becoming sympathetic to the idea of offshore drilling. This is a knee-jerk response to our continuing energy crisis which has significant environmental concerns. Historical Perspective Controversy surrounding offshore drilling is nothing new. According to Kamalick (2008), the controversy started as early as 1937 with the states asserting their jurisdiction over sea beds. In 1945, President Truman asserted Federal jurisdiction, and over the next several years, the Supreme Court affirmed this by specifically saying the Federal government had paramount rights over the continental shelf and the resources under the soil (and under the water), including oil. A 1953 compromise, the OCS Land Act, allowed states limited involvement and issued a mandate for the Federal government to explore and develop oil and gas deposits under the outer continental shelf. The 1969 oil spill in the Santa Barbara Channel changed all that, and environmental lobbyists entered the argument in full force. In 1978, the OCS Lands Act was amended to allow states more control over resources, and environmentally-sensitive language was added. Lease sales began to pick up speed, and the Reagan administration made more than 1 billion acres of the OCS available for lease. Environmentalists made headway with George H.W. Bush, and “federal supremacy has been steadily eroded . . . by environmental interests” (Kamalick 2008). More recently, a 2008 Gallup Poll found that 57 percent of respondents favored offshore oil drilling, and 41 percent were opposed. A Zogby poll showed that 74 percent of voters favored U.S. coastal water drilling and 59 percent supported Alaska National Wildlife Refuge drilling (Baird 2008, 13). Politicians have been seriously considering a Department of the Interior recommendation to expand coastal exploration, while giving a nod to environmental concerns and assuring taxpayers there are no subsidies to big oil (Baird 2008). The American people, instead of fighting for environmental rights (which resulted in moratoria and limited leasing and development) are demanding exploitation of those resources. Or at least some, very noisy, Americans are demanding that. The Hard Costs of Offshore Drilling Offshore drilling is intimately tangled with economics as well as environmental concerns (Callanan and Knight 2009). Oil companies are having a credit crunch just as regular Americans, and to hear them tell it, speculators (who made quite a lot of money during the recent hay day of high per-barrel prices) ruined everything. “Some, however, will sympathize with the other group cruelly exposed to the global financial crisis, the small operator” (39). The credit crunch in the oil industry parallels that of the sub-prime loan bust in the housing industry: credit is hard to find, harder to secure, and terms are no longer favorable to the borrower. Super Majors such as Chevron, ExxonMobil and BP are consolidating their positions through acquisitions and mergers with smaller oil producers. While it is regrettable to see any small business go out of business, no matter what sector of the economy it occupies, sympathy for the small operators must be put into perspective: they are still multi-million dollar businesses who stand to make a little money by being taken over by larger companies. Their suffering is relative. Oil exploiters point to an interesting statistic to illustrate how oil is clean and safe. Since 1975, the U.S. Minerals and Management service reports, the pollution rate from oil spills is 0.001 percent of all the oil extracted. “[C]ompare that with Mother Nature herself, as 620,500 barrels of oil ooze organically from North America’s ocean floors each year” (Baird 2008, 14). It should be pointed out, the above-cited pollution rate does not include catastrophic spills caused by weather, which will be discussed in a moment. Yes, oil consumption in the United States far outstrips our current domestic production, so we must find alternatives to imported oil, which causes catastrophic trade deficits. Politicians and the American public have again jumped on the idea that we should use our own untapped reserves to ease the crisis. How Much Oil is Really There? It is interesting to note that Senator Jeff Bingham, chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, recently called for an inventory of United States energy reserves lying off the east and west coasts (Kamalick 2008). If Senator Bingham had quickly checked with the Department of the Interior, he would have been aware that coastal areas were mapped in the 1980s and estimated to contain 672 billion gallons of oil and 76 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (Kay 2008). After dropping in for a quick visit to the Energy Information Administration, he would have learned that the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge contains 86 billion gallons (Baird 2008, 13). Then, after doing some quick math, Bingham would have calculated that since the United States imports 207 billion gallons of oil each year, if all those reserves magically appeared at once they would save us 3.66 years of imports. To put it another way, a 2007 study from the Department of Energy concluded that drilling all the offshore reserves off of every coast, even as close as 5 km (and excluding Alaska), oil production would increase 7 percent by the year 2030 (New Scientist 2008). Bingham made it a point to say that an inventory did not mean resources would be exploited. The 111th Congress will probably not seek to reinstate the offshore drilling ban, but would discuss the issue before proceeding to allow drilling. The inventory has been done; the numbers are from reputable sources. The actual amount of oil that would be extracted from these reserves would do little to help the United States, and a lot to destroy the environment. The True Cost of Allowing Offshore Oil Drilling All stages of exploration, development and exploitation of offshore oil reserves cost the environment. In real terms, marine plants and animals are directly affected. On a bigger scale, the human cost of losing these marine resources is significant, and on an even more esoteric scale (which is where resource exploiters generally start the attack) the planet does suffer. Add these direct environmental costs to the cost of adding the resulting fossil fuel emissions to the atmosphere, and there is overwhelming evidence that drilling for more oil is bad for the environment overall. All processes, from cooking lunch to drilling for oil, add waste to the environment. Step by step, Rose (2009) details how hydrocarbon fuels impact the aquatic environment. The basic nature of crude oil and gas is poisonous. It is reactive, flammable, and contains cancer-causing agents such as heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Mud, diesel emissions, naturally-occurring radioactive materials, and biocides, solvents and corrosion inhibitors create dead zones for aquatic life. Beyond the dead zones, studies have measured increased mercury, arsenic, barium, chromium and lead concentrations in aquatic animals. Toxins bio-accumulate, and avoiding polluted shellfish is not enough prevention. We have not yet studied the effects of hydrocarbons and greenhouse gasses on land animals and food crops. Drilling into deep-sea pockets releases mud and high-temperature gasses, which cause oil-well blowouts, which further releases methane into the atmosphere. An accident of this sort can take months to cap off, spilling hundreds of millions of gallons into the ocean. Above the water, humans are directly affected by the exploitation of oil. There is evidence that hydrocarbon contaminants, either as a direct result of drilling operations or when released later into the atmosphere, are endocrine disruptors. Several chemicals with fancy names have been proven to interrupt reproduction and development in animals; there is no reason to think the human animal is immune to these effects. Even if the United States lags behind in accepting global warming as a reality, greenhouse gasses disrupt the biosphere and atmosphere, increase the acidity of the ocean, and cause respiratory problems. The melting polar caps will eventually flood major cities in U.S. coastal areas. It is difficult to defend the esoteric “whole planet” argument with empirical evidence and well-designed studies. There simply has not been enough time for humans to completely destroy the planet so that we can study and measure our impact in the usual academic style. Technologically-literate citizens must not get caught up in following their hearts, however. The evidence that is before us is plenty without making leaps into logical fallacies. Newer technologies reduce the likelihood of a major oil spill. However, we know that an “accident” has the potential to spill up to 140 million gallons, as happened in 1979 in the Gulf of Mexico. Major weather destroys platforms, too. In the 2005 hurricanes, 124 spills resulted in 17,700 barrels of oil (743,400 gallons) entering the environment. In addition, a storage tank spill added 1,054,620 gallons to the land and flooded 1,700 homes (Rose 2009, 38). Spills from 2008 have not been added up yet. Figuring Out an Acceptable Solution It is clear that offshore drilling or drilling the National Wildlife Refuge will not help our current or future economic crises in any significant way. Resources take time to exploit, and once exploited, would have little impact on the overall picture if we continue our current consumption. In fact, consumption rises each year, so over the next 20 years while the resources are being tapped, their impact would become even less. Instead of considering more oil exploitation, we should move as a nation in the direction of zero consumption of fossil fuels. Money that would be invested in oil rigs, exploration, transportation, converting oil to other petroleum products, etc. should instead be invested in educating the American public on reducing consumption, and developing alternative fuels. Irrevocably damaging the environment is not an acceptable solution to our current crisis. Works Cited Baird, S.L. (2008, November). Offshore oil drilling: buying energy dependence or buying time? Technology Teacher, 68(3), 13-17. Callanan, J., and Knight, R. (2009, January). Credit crunch could signal GoM opportunity for Super Majors. Offshore, 69(1), 38-42. Kamalick, J. (2008, December). US democrats open to restrained drilling. ICIS Chemical Business, 274(20), 13-13. Retrieved March 22, 2009 from EBSCO Business Source Premier database. Kay, J. (2008, December 29). Drillers eye oil reserves off California coast. San Francisco Chronicle, December 28, 2009, A-1. Accessed 22 March 2009 from http://www.sfgate.com. New Scientist (2008, September 27). Is there enough oil to justify drilling off the US coast? New Scientist, 199(2675), 6-6. Retrieved 22 March 2009 from Academic Search Premier database. Rose, M.A. (2009, February). The environmental impacts of offshore oil drilling. The Technology Teacher, 68(5), 27-32. Retrieved 22 March 2009 from Academic Search Premiere database. Read More