Our lives revolve around oil. Oil brings food to our stores, comprises the fibers in our carpets and makes the plastic in our DVDs. With demand so high it’s no wonder attention has turned to supply, with some advocating the U.S. lift the ban against drilling for oil off its coasts. Is offshore oil drilling a golden opportunity, or would it only create a tidal wave of disaster?
Fellow in Energy Studies
To begin, your claims about the statistics, and the statistics themselves, regarding oil spills are misleading. According to the MMS, "125 spills of petroleum
products totaling 16,302 barrels that were lost from
platforms, rigs, and pipelines on the Federal Outer
Continental Shelf (OCS) as a result of damages from
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 ." Moreover, " Over the
past 20 years, less than .001 percent of the oil
produced in U.S. state and federal waters have been
spilled." This is remarkable by any standard. The claims of the business being dirty are simply false.
While there are concerns expressed by the fishing industry and others, the MMS has been working with the parties involved to convert obsolete infrastructure to reef environments, which are proving to be beneficial to marine life. So, there are valid mechanisms for quelling these concerns - mechanisms that may in fact result in expanded marine habitat.
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