Last month the Obama Administration approved some offshore oil drilling in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. We were told that these leases were approved for drilling because they were far from the coast, were “safe,” and in the spirit of compromise, offshore drilling advocates were thrown a bone in order to get some kind of climate change legislation crammed through Congress.
Well, a tragic explosion this week and the resulting catastrophe off Louisiana’s shore may just change that.
Eleven lives have been lost. And now the resulting spill, which BP claimed it could contain, is threatening the seafood industry off the Gulf Coast and perhaps even tourism in Florida. Now Obama & Co. may halt further exploration, and folks like Charlie Crist, Florida’s governor and favorite to be its next Senator (until he was teabagged and left the party to run as an independent yesterday) have turned against the plan.
It’s a cheap cliché to say “we should have seen this coming.” Actually, disasters like this are rare. But the problem we are confronting is that most of the world’s easily accessible oil is in areas
where it will be difficult to extract.
The problem with all those glitzy oil company ads, especially BP’s, which claim that off shore oil drilling can solve our energy problems is that
the costs are just not worth the slim gains. Many of these leases will not result in any oil production for years, and we can expect a few pennies’ savings at the most. Who’s to say that we will not have more spikes in the price of oil in the meantime?
So despite the shrill, tired ranting that we hear from Sarah Palin, drilling our way is not a solution. The offshore reserves out there will be too expensive to source. So what can we do? Focus on a combination of solutions towards energy independence:
- Utilities and auto companies need to work together in fine-tuning our grid to handle the growing number of electric vehicles that will be released in the coming years. Take SCE’s survey to learn what is involved in owning an electric car.
- An unpopular measure: a gas tax. Cheap gas in the United States is a luxury we can no longer afford. And rather than passing more and more expensive bond measures, raising revenues can be the quickest way to fund public transportation projects.
- A feed-in tariff. Half-measures of tax credits here and grants there to fund solar and other clean energy projects only create a patchwork of energy sources that will not work in the long run. A feed-in tariff allows utilities to spread the higher cost of renewable energy projects across its entire customer base, which meanwhile, raises funds for additional non-fossil fuel based energy investments.
None of these solutions are palatable in this political climate. But they sure are easier than having to scramble once another spike in oil prices hits us. True, the disasters like Louisiana’s may be rare. But when they do hit, they affect all of us.
