The BP Oil Spill: Is Deep Sea Oil Drilling on its Way Out?
Posted on 18. Jul, 2010 by keith in Environmental Impact
One of the biggest dreams of environmentalists around the world is that, sometime in the near future, we will stop relying on oil. Recently, that dream received a long awaited catalyst for change in BP’s massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Unlike past oil spills, the volume of oil released by the BP spill immediately set it on an international stage, with news footage of coastal muck and ominous, underwater oil plumes showing just how expansive the spill’s scope really is. However, we shouldn’t expect for deep sea oil drilling to go away; we should expect more regulations, experts say.
For environmentalists, the promise of increased regulations is a small concession, especially considering the oil industry’s historic ability to turn regulations into paper tigers with its incredible lobbying power. But that’s not going to happen, say U.S. regulators, particularly concerning disaster readiness planning and frequency of inspections, which figure to focus on safeguards used by drilling rigs to prevent “blowouts” like the one that happened in the gulf. From a technical perspective, the Gulf oil spill was caused by the drilling rig, Deepwater Horizon’s, failure to seal the oil well.
Although deep sea oil drilling is inherently more disaster prone than drilling for oil on land, it will continue to play a major role in the oil industry for a simple reason: currently, the best oil prospects lie beneath the ocean floor. As environmental consciousness and renewable energy technology increases, so does the portrayal of the oil industry as a cash cow and not a necessity. But the economic infrastructure that surrounds the oil industry is indeed a necessity, say economists. Even so, a worldwide increase in wind farming and plans by the automotive industry roll out a large percentage of electricity-powered cars within the next five years are indicators of positive change.
