Deep Sea Drilling - Essay Example

Should the US Allow Offshore/Deep-Sea Drilling for Oil? Affiliation: Introduction Deep-sea drilling is a process of gas and oil exploitation in the sea beds. It is becoming increasing popular over time because of technological and economic feasibility of the deep-sea drilling projects. The environmental scientists remain sceptical over the deep-sea drilling arguing that the impact of the Deep water Horizon oil spill to the ecosystem is yet unknown. This paper discusses the benefits and disadvantages of deep-sea drilling, the economic impact, technology used and finally, lessons learnt from the Deep Horizon oil spill. It asserts that the benefits of drilling oil outweigh the disadvantages and that new technology has safety guards to control and avoid fatal accidents that cause health risks and environmental pollution. Benefits and Disadvantages of Offshore/Deep-Sea Drilling The benefits of deep-sea drilling outweigh the advantages. The major benefit/advantage of deep-sea drilling is increasing the oil and gas resources in in the US economy. A research conducted by BP PLC energy company estimated that the continental shelf hold an estimate of 85.9 billion barrels of oil. The US consumes around 7.56 billion barrels of oil annually (Sheridan, Nafe & Hennion, 2006. Therefore offshore and deep-sea drilling can sustain the US oil requirements for 11 years. The excess oil can be sold to increase revenue to the Federal government. The price of oil per barrel ranges between $ 84-& 86. This number is about to increase in the future. The oil can increase US import revenue by bigger margin and concentrate its political power even more. Creating new employment opportunities is another benefit of offshore-deep-sea drilling. The drilling companies will need to hire more workers to increase the oil resources in the economy. The oil reserves are numerous and thus a huge number of people will be employed to maximally exploit the new opportunities without depleting the oil resources. In addition, drilling process is very technical and experts in different areas will be needed to make sure that the drilling process is safe for people and the environment. For example, environmental specialists will be hired to ensure that drilling doesn’t upset the ecosystem balance (Zabanbark, 2009). Technical experts will be involved in the entire drilling process to increase its efficiency and cost effectiveness. Financial analyst will be required to analyse the logic of drilling and determine if the drilling costs exceed the benefits of drilling. In addition, increasing the oil reserves will increase the energy levels and increase industrialization. Growth in the economy translates in expanding and opening new firms that will offer more job opportunities to citizens. National security will increase through offshore/deep-sea drilling. Increasing oil reserves will reduce dependence on foreign oil importation. Oil is an important natural resource to the growth of any economy. It provides the energy needed to industrialize a nation. For example, fuel is needed to power vehicles and provide transportation of goods to markets, both local and international. Importing oil creates a thin economic balance because it creates dependence on others. Increasing oil resources will reduce the importation cost and increase the freedom of a country to determine its own economic growth using its own resources (Hanssen, 2008). Offshore/deep-sea drilling has its own shortcomings. The most significant cost is environmental deterioration. Before the Deep Horizon oil spill disaster, people were assured that the environmental risks that oil drilling was predicted to cause were overrated. This was because the oil rig was fitted with safety features that prevent it from failure and accidents (Water, 2011). However, there is never a guarantee that the safety features on technological devices will prevent accidents from occurring. The disastrous oil spill caused a lot of air and water pollution, killing a lot of sea animals and plants. Oil drilling still poses such health risks to people and animals. It is not yet known the effects and the implication of the oil spill to the ecosystem. Environmental effects of oil spills, air pollution, dumping of solid oil waste on land have long term health risks to people such as diseases and killing of plants and animals through long-term offset of the ecological balance. Offshore/deep-sea drilling may pose dangers to workers who work in the drilling mines especially the ones directly involved in the extraction process. Drilling oil is a very dangerous activity that poses health hazards to workers. For example, hydrocarbons emitted during the drilling process cause respiratory diseases to the workers. During the drilling process, workers may be exposed to radioactive materials that cause skin cancer and other types of cancerous growths. In addition, mines collapse often and people are buried alive while others suffer from permanent injuries that cause disability. For instance, the Deep Horizon disaster killed 11 workers after the oil rigs exploded in the Gulf Coast (Schofield, 2013). In the years 2001-2007, 1400 accidents took place in oil rigs although most of them were not fatal. Expansion of offshore drilling will increase the risk of workers suffering injuries in the industry that is already marred by fatal accidents so often. There are efforts put in place by oil companies to minimise the dangers to the workers but it is still uncertain how these safeguards can prevent accidents from taking place The opportunity cost of drilling may at times be too large to hinder drilling activities. By devoting national resources to offshore/deep-sea drilling, the focus shifts from finding new alternative sources of oil that could be less costly, contain more oil reserves and doesn’t pose any environmental dangers. For example investing in green technology and clean energy solutions is an alternative that may produce more clean energy, save the environment and reduce health risks. In addition, utilising the current alternatives to fossil fuels can reduce the opportunity cost of deep-sea drilling. Therefore, any opportunity cost that outweighs the benefits of drilling oil is unjustified and uncalled for (Sheridan, Nafe & Hennion, 2006). If the opportunity of considering new environmental friendly energy sources is too high, the drilling process should be discontinued immediately because it lacks economic rationale and logic. Economic Impact, Technological Requirements and Uncertainties in Offshore/Deep-Sea Drilling Offshore/deep-sea drilling has positive log-term impact to the US economy that outweighs the disadvantages of drilling. Oil is a powerful natural resource that boosts the economy through provision of energy facilitates industrialization. For example transport was revolutionized through oil discovery in the last century. Transportation is a useful aids to trade by facilitating movement of goods from factories to the market and finally to the consumers. Industrialization is boosted by oil because through provision of energy to power machines and other technological devices. Energy provides lighting that provides security and allows businesses to run smoothly at any time of day or night. Oil energy boosts the economy by allowing economic activities to take place with convenience efficiency and without interruptions (Redmond & Valentine, 2012). Oil energy facilitates opening of new business in all sectors of the economy. This increase the employment rates and reduce people’s dependence on the government. The result is an empowered people who further open their own businesses to exploit the opportunities brought by increases in oil reserves. This results in a robust economy that achieves constant growth over time. The uncertainties in the deep-sea drilling process are the dangers posed by the oil drilling process. The oil drilling process is very risky and the probability of fatal accidents resulting is quite high. Accidents result in fatal effects such as death of workers and deterioration of the environment. For example, the Deep Horizon oil spill disaster caused the death of 11 workers and injured many people. It caused a lot of water pollution that killed sea animals and plants. The effects of the disaster to the ecosystem are yet to be determined (Macreadie & Fowler, 2011). The adverse effects of oil accidents have long-term effects on offsetting the ecosystem balance and posing health risks to people. All these factors are taken into account while the government is making decision to grant authorization for oil exploitation. If the dangers and uncertainties outweigh the benefits of drilling oil, the projects are abandoned and alternatives to fossil fuel such as green energy considered. Offshore/deep o sea drilling will require current technological advances to ensure that safety of workers and conservation of the environment are observed. Leading energy companies such as Chevron Corporation and BP PLC are investing heavily in new technology that has safety features. For example, robots and safety checks are new technologies used to increase efficiency, ensure cost effectiveness and environmental safety in the oil drilling process (Goldberg, Takahashi & Slagle, 2008). Perhaps one of the most intriguing technological innovations is the robotic oil rig which reduces drilling time by 50% and reduces safety risks by taking many people out of the drilling process. BP PLC has developed a technology that finds gas and oil barriers like thick layers of salt. BP also plans to invent the 20KTM technology to ensure safety of oil exploration at higher pressures and temperatures. Chevron developed a seismic-imaging to give a clear picture of what lies in the sea bed. Lessons from the Deep water Horizon Oil Disaster The Deep water Horizon oil disaster confirmed the environmental scientists concerns that no safety features can guarantee people’s safety from adverse effects of oil spillages and accidental disasters for accidents and environmental pollution. While fossil fuel is a great natural resource, care must be taken to exploit it safely without causing oil spills and other fatal accidents. Another lesson learnt is that effects of pollution to the ecosystem are long-lasting, posing health risks for generations to come. In addition, the cost of correcting the negative effects of environmental pollution may be too high. The environmental scientists therefore strongly advice that the alternatives to fossil fuel such as green energy solutions should be fully utilised before deep-sea drilling can be considered. References Ager-Hanssen, H. (2008). The exploitation of Norwegian oil and gas. Energy Policy, 8(2), 153-164. Goldberg, D. S., Takahashi, T., & Slagle, A. L. (2008). Carbon dioxide sequestration in deep-sea basalt. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(29), 9920-9925. Macreadie, P. I., Fowler, A. M., & Booth, D. J. (2011). Rigs-to-reefs: will the deep sea benefit from artificial habitat?. 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The petroleum resource potential of the Bering Sea region. Oceanology, 49(5), 729-739. Read More