Common Sense Energy, Oil, and Wind

April 20, Transocean's Deepwater Horizon located about 40 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River explodes and catches fire.  It sinks two days latter.  It has not been possible to activate the blowout preventer and now some 210,000 barrels of oil are spewing into the Gulf of Mexico and will hit the shore sometime in the next few days.  A considerable effort is being made to control the spill but given the amount it is unlikely that serious damage to the biologically rich coast and surrounding waters can be avoided.

Mr Obama, who has recently moved to allow expanded offshore drilling, has said that BP is ultimately responsible for the cost of cleanup.  I find this troubling on several levels.

First, drilling in deep water is inherently difficult and risky as evidenced by similar incidents over the years.  After each incident we are assured again that the industry has learned from this regrettable event, corrected things, and it won't happen again.  Yet, of course, it does happen again.  This is certainly a troubling common sense reality given Mr Obama's proposals.

Second, beyond the issue of inherent safety, Mr Obama seems to regard this disaster as an issue of financial responsibility.  While it's nice to have someone to send the bill to for whatever cleanup is possible cleanup is not a cure as evidence by the continuing aftermath of the Exxon Valdeze where the long term effects are still being felt 20 plus years after the event and many years after an economic settlement.  Common sense and history shows that money will not make the Gulf whole, will not restore biologically critical coastal wetlands, and will not restore the Gulf fishery.


Third, though certainly not Mr Obama's doing, this occurs in the context of environmental, local (not in my backyard), and bizarre native American concerns over potential ice age cultural sites associated with Cape Wind!  Energy generation is never environmentally neutral!  I am reminded in this regard of photos I saw some years ago of the White Mountains all but stripped bare to provide lumber of firewood for Boston.  But we have choices in how we get energy.  We can choose technology that is less destructive such as solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal; or we can choose technology that is more destructive such as oil and coal; or we can choose technology that is actively dangerous such as nuclear.  Common sense suggests that we choose  the least damaging technology.

As I've noted previously, the United States has needed a common sense energy policy for many years.  It's time we look at the harsh reality of history and started to have one.