Posted on 07/12/2008 7:33:31 PM PDT by Jet Jaguar
John Lott points to an interesting statistic in a WSJ story:
Since 1975, drilling in the Exclusive Economic Zone (within 200 miles of the U.S. coast) has had a 99.999% safety record, according to the Energy Information Administration, which reports that “only .001 percent of the oil produced has been spilled.”
Thanks to technological advances, large spills are rare. Most spills are tiny, only a few feet in diameter.
So you can see why Congress and the environmentalist wackos would have their undies in a bunch about drilling for any more with that kind of track record!
The number one source of oil polluting the oceans? Dry land runoff.
Runoff from cities, roads, industrial sites and garages deposits 363 million gallons into the sea, making runoff by far the single largest source of oil pollution in the oceans. “Every year oily road runoff from a city of 5 million could contain as much oil as one large tanker spill,” notes the Smithsonian exhibit, “Ocean Planet.”
Number two source of pollution? Routine maintenance on cargo and cruise ships.
Moral of this story? Drill Here. Drill Now.
Cross Posted at Proof Positive
H/T Proof
Very good indeed. Says a lot about our technological capabilities. With a safety rating like this we should have no trouble going nuclear.
The envirowhackos are the same as the anti-gun Nazis always hand wringing about something that almost never happens. In an email exchange with an envirowhacko, she said that dozens of oil drilling platforms had been damaged during Katrina but was completely silent when I pointed out that NONE of the oil reached the beaches and that mother nature took care of it.
I lived in Santa Barbara, oil would just bubble up out of cracks in the ocean floor. I would bet that natural releases of oil exceed that from oil spills, if you take into account all the oceans, not just local areas where man made influences may dominate.
I have seen that in Texas, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait on land.
awesom
I believe the first producing oil well in the US was located by a "seep" or "oil spring" in Titusville Pennsylvania, 27 Aug 1859.
Regards,
GtG
Good info.
I read somewhere back in the seventies that the source of the vast majority of the oil in our oceans was from emptied oil tankers pressure-washing their holds with seawater when out-of-sight in international waters.
Could that practice have stopped? Perhaps an improved, cleaner method has been devised?
I could not answer that. But, it’s a good question.
Along with that safety record has come vastly improved techniques for dealing with oil spills.
Recent articles about the infamous, earth-shaking, paradigm-changing 1969 Santa Barbara Well No. 21, Platform A spill point out that small oil slicks and patches are still found in the area and blamed on the remnants of the long-ago disaster but are in fact natural seeps from the ocean floor.
I think part of the problem is that people have long memories, and forget that technology marches on. Most of us old guys can remember when drilling offshore meant a good chance of tar on the beach. It happened way too often. Same thing with nuclear power. At the height of the debate about the safety of nuclear power, with all the assurances that the odds of a nuclear accident were one in a billion, there came Three Mile Island. Then a few years later the Russians gave us Chernobyl. In both cases the technology just wasn’t very good. It takes time to restore trust. A little desperation helps as well. On the positive side, a lot of the old timers have moved to the other side of the grass, so there’s not quite the same national anxiety about these difficulties as twenty years ago. Maybe we’re ready to try again.
Keep on congress!!
I have been harassing them daily
We need to be more energy dependent
Cannot depend on the instability of the mideast and Imanutjob
Yes we can drill our way out of this
DRILL HERE - DRILL NOW!!
I’d certainly let them drill in my back yard
More oil seeps off the ocean floor than ever is spilled around the world.
If you like $5/gal, Thank Congress in Nov.
Pray for W and Our Troops
I agree with what you said and urge FReepers to check out Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions site (”Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less.”) I think most Americans are lagging behind scientific and technological reality. We can drill for oil in environmentally safe ways, as you said in your post. But many Americans think of the Exxon Valdez which was an accident that had nothing to do with drilling. Likewise, when they think of nuclear energy they think of the old Jack Lemon movie “China Syndrome.” Or the old “Three Mile Island” accident in Pennsylvania. What isn’t presented enough is that France gets 75% of its domestic energy from nuclear power; that there are environmentally friendly ways of drilling, removing nuclear waste, and processing low carbon “clean coal.” Yes, it’s important to develope alternative energy sources (wind, solar, etc.) but these have serious developmental flaws at present and cannot be near-term solutions. What we need is a TOTAL package that includes researh into all potential energy sources.
Opposition to drilling is about breaking your back economically not the environment. Look at the liberal Democrat policy platform across the board and ask yourself what the ultimate aim is.
your back = our back
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