Gulf oil spill reveals another cost of energy consumption

On Tuesday, April 20, an offshore drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, following a blowout, only to sink two days later. The initial explosion resulted in the loss of eleven lives, while the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig caused a massive oil spill that now threatens the coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.
Official estimates, from the U.S. government and BP – the majority owner of the oil field – peg the size of the spill at 5,000 barrels of oil per day, the equivalent of 795,000 litres. However, at least one oceanographer in Florida, based on aerial images detailing the size of the spill and the known thickness of the oil itself, said the real flow rate is probably much closer to 25,000 barrels a day – the equivalent of almost 4 million litres of crude oil every 24 hours.
In one of the world’s worst environmental disasters, the Exxon Valdez tanker ship spilled about 41 million litres of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound, back in 1989. Thus, regardless of whether the conservative estimate or the oceanographer’s numbers are used, this oil spill is on its way to becoming – or has already become, about 10 days ago – the worst single environmental disaster experienced by the modern world.
The oil spill is also a reminder of the environmental cost – perhaps the “true” cost – of the modern world’s energy consumption and what some have referred to as our “dependence” on oil.
Despite the technological advances of the last one hundred years, many of our global industries and much of our day-to-day lives (everything from cars to plastic) is a product of oil. As human beings, we owe it to ourselves to break the habit and start listening to those small fish that have the solutions – electric cars, for example – rather than the big fish that wield the financial decision-making powers.
If nothing else, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill should serve as a wake-up call to each and every one of us, regarding the “other” cost of our collective energy consumption. We are not directly responsible for the oil spill, of course, but our habits and our lifestyles nevertheless determine the conditions and push for oil exploration; the same conditions that can inevitably lead to such a disaster.
“The catastrophic oil spill ravaging the Gulf of Mexico and bearing down on coastal states is another reminder: America’s current energy policy is a disaster,” wrote U.S. Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, in a letter to the Baltimore Sun this week. “We need to break our dangerous addiction to oil and promote safe and clean sources of power and fuel – and we need to begin today.”
Cardin was one of the co-chairs of a Senate hearing on Tuesday, May 11, on the subject of protecting America’s coastal health. That afternoon, the same committee met to assess the damage the ongoing oil spill is wreaking on what Cardin called “one of the most ecologically complex regions of the country.”
He noted, however, “Already, though, it’s become painfully clear that there is no satisfactory remedy for the economic and environmental devastation that follows the blowout of an offshore oil rig.”
Lots of questions remain in the wake of the spill; namely, why were there no existing measures in place to address such a potential disaster – prior to its actual happening? Why are BP and government officials now struggling, as this week’s media reports indicate, to come up with solutions or Plan Bs and Plan Cs? What regulations were lacking that allowed this to happen?
As human beings, we do learn from our mistakes, but sometimes the cost of learning that mistake is that the lesson comes too little, too late.
The ones who will suffer from this disaster in the end, unfortunately, are humans themselves – and all the life forms that accompany us on this planet – but certainly not the oil companies and the billions of dollars generated by the offshore drilling.
One thing is certain: despite the controversies of alternative energy technologies and their proposed tariffs or installation locations, harnessing the elements of the Earth to be used for energy production is a far greater feat – and a much less destructive process – than the dumping of 40 million litres of oil into its oceans.
Perhaps, despite the current uncertainty and relative unfamiliarity of wind and solar power, they are something humankind will look back on one day and be proud of. - J.B.