Can the Gulf Coast situation get any worse? Significance of the oil spill, part II
Sunday, May 30th, 2010
Now that hurricane season is upon us, we’re learning this week from forecasters that it’s supposed to be a bad one:
Weather Services International predicted 18 named storms, 10 hurricanes and five intense hurricanes, rated as Category 3 storm with winds of 110-130 mph, or greater.
NBC ran a segment (video clip) asking what impacts hurricanes might have on the oil spill. The clip mentions, among other things, that 2010 Atlantic sea surface temperatures are the warmest on record—not a good omen when it comes to hurricane intensity.
This is, potentially, a very serious situation for the Gulf states. If a Katrina-like storm surge were to push the oil plume onto land, we would be looking at possible oil contamination of all of the affected land areas. Imagine parking your car in your house and opening the oil pan drain plug, letting oil leak onto the floors and out onto your driveway, lawn, and streets. Now do that for every car and home along the Gulf Coast that could be impacted by storm surge where the oil plume is close to shore.
This has to be keeping people at EPA and the Gulf Coast up at night. It could be an environmental pollution disaster the likes of which we have never seen—Marshes, swamps, white-sand beaches, and coastal/vacation communities becoming a giant, oil-soaked, polluted brownfield.
One would think that witnessing this kind of unprecedented environmental disaster, and the potential for worse with the impending hurricane season, would help make the case for the transition to clean energy. Indeed, this week we have seen the oil spill mentioned by President Obama and some members of Congress as motivation for a long-term energy strategy.
Don’t hold your breath.
Even these events—as bad as they appear in real life— can be externalized from the day-to-day lives of most people in unaffected areas. Maybe that will change as this spill gets worse and we face the possibility of oil release for another few months, but right now, there is simply not enough outrage from the public demanding change in Washington, as Bob Herbert alluded to last week. And John Kerry is right, halting drilling on the Gulf Coast isn’t going to happen.
So where does all this leave us in terms of climate change, energy, and oil spills?
I’m pretty pessimistic these days. I’m not sure if anything short of a severe economic energy shock that hits ordinary people hard—similar to what we saw in 2006-2007—will bring us to a tipping point. If the U.S. returns to $4-5/gallon gasoline and home heating oil, we will start seeing environmentalists, security hawks, the energy independence crowd, green jobs advocates, and everyday citizens realign once again. Only then will there be a coalition large and loud enough to force Washington take on the political-economic might of the fossil fuel industry and their lobbyists.
If my guess is right, then we are probably still a few years away from seeing a serious move to clean energy—not until the economic recovery is further along, economies pick up speed, and the demand for oil and oil speculation kick back into high gear, causing oil prices to spike once more. Fortunately, this time around—unlike 2006-2007—we will have better technology, including electric cars, which will help make the leap easier and more sustained (provided that people can afford them).
The Gulf Coast is unfortunately poised to become collateral damage as we wait for more significant economic drivers to make the clean energy transition happen.
I’m lucky to have had the chance to travel along the coast from New Orleans to Tampa in the spring of 2005 before Katrina hit and now this oil spill happened. It’s a beautiful region. For our friends and all of the wildlife living there, let’s just hope this is a mild hurricane season and that most of the oil stays in the deep sea where it will hopefully get removed by hungry bacteria.
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Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joiseyshowaa/2392156164/
Tags: Gulf oil spill
Posted in: behavior, climate change science, energy, pollutants, toxics | 4 Comments »
4 Responses to “Can the Gulf Coast situation get any worse? Significance of the oil spill, part II”
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It was ‘discovered’ recently that there have been oil plumes in the area immediate to broken well head; and the researchers
surmised that the floor of the Gulf has long released oil & gas through fissures…..and in turn the ecology has adapted to
them. It was also revealed that oil spills were a lot worse in the 80′s and tapered off considerably during the Bush era
in Govt. Could it be that a Conservative president with an oil industry background is far more sensitive to the waste and lost revenue than someone whose background is law and community organizing?
Which approach is ultimately better for the environment…a jack boot on the neck of a large corporation followed by a criminal investigations; or an understanding of the difficulties of deep well drilling and a partnership with the lessee when something goes terribly wrong? Or worse, why hasn’t the political appointee who was running the key INterior Dept. agency suddenly ‘thrown under the bus’ and made to disapear? Why should she escape a ‘criminal investigation’?
Those fissures surrounding the well head appeared after the TopKill procedure,
they are not natural seeps. Matt Simmons, a well known oilman has surmised that
the intense pressure that was required by the tri-plex mudpumps to deadhead the
flow, caused the casing to burst & being under the intense pressure of the
blowout, caused the live crude to hydraulically fracture the formation surrounding
the well.
Scientists have been aware of natural seeps for many years, these are not located
where natural seeps have been noted.
Could it be that you have selective amnesia, as to what occurred while Bu$hCo &
Cheney were in office.
I suppose you don’t remember the TopSecret task force that Cheney convened to create
a national energy policy. In essence, it was the multinational BigOil cartel that
met to write the rules they would abide. That included the deletion of the remote
acoustically actuated trigger to close-in the well w/ the BOP to prevent a blowout.
It was the Bu$hCo political appointments to key regulatory agencies that screwed
the pooch. The CFTC & the SEC allowed the worldwide economic meltdown because they
were doing drugs, downloading porn & having sex w/ the people they are supposed to
be watching. The Dept. of the Interior,/BLM & the MMS were thick as thieves w/
the oil company representatives. The MMS simply had their clients fill out the
necessary forms in pencil & the MMS would complete them in ink.
MSHA was the same, hence the spate of coalmine “accidents” & OSHA was so underfunded
& shorthanded they were useless, yet a hiring freeze existed Bu$hCo’s entire term in
office.
Bu$h ran every oil related business he owned into the ground. His Daddy’s buddies
were always bailing him out by buying his business. Bu$hCo couldn’t even hit oil in
Texas. Cheney never worked a day of his life in the oilpatch, w/ the exception of
his time @ Halliburton. While @ Halliburton he purchased the W.R. Grace company
w/o doing his due diligence. W.R. Grace was lousy w/ asbestos lawsuits against it
so Halliburton had to buy KBR to offset the bad debt of Grace.
They aren’t businessmen or oilmen, but they are charlatans. But they fooled you.
[...] And none of this is surprising either. It’s what I predicted at the beginning: [...]