Over Optimistic

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2010/06/15/chevron-deepwater-oil-drill-615.html#socialcomments

Chevron Canada executives defended Monday their decision to pursue an unprecedented exploratory well off Newfoundland, so soon in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster.

The project has attracted increasing international attention — and scrutiny — because Chevron is drilling a well in more than 2,600 metres of water, significantly deeper than the Deepwater Horizon project in the Gulf of Mexico, where a blowout in April continues to have a devastating environmental impact.

But vice-president Mark MacLeod said Chevron has an industry-leading safety record.

"Chevron has drilled over 300 deepwater wells. We've never had a blowout in deep water," MacLeod told reporters during a conference call.

Hmmmnnn -couldn't BP have said the they had never had a blowout  before April?  Moreover, perhaps Chevron should share their plans for shutting off the Gulf of Mexico gusher.  If that (hypothetical) plan works expeditiously,  perhaps we could belive that they had the ability to shut off a blowout off Newfoundland.

Positives from an Oil Spill

The extraction of oil pollutes and destroys livelihoods, lives, and ecosystems. Not much room for argument there: look at the results of BP’s gusher in the Gulf of Mexico, Royal Dutch Shell’s presence in Nigeria, and Chevron’s inherited mess in Ecuador. Then, once the oil is out of the ground our use of it pollutes even more. Burning fossil fuels increases the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere - warming the planet. W also create deadly smog in our urban areas by zipping around in our cars instead of taking public transit. Moreover, we destroy vast areas of pristine boreal forest by mining tar sands. (“Reclaimed” land is never as biologically diverse as untouched land.) Moreover, those toxic tailings ponds produced by tar sands mining are really nasty - and 7 out of 9 tar sands extractors do not plan to comply with Regulation 074 on capturing and reducing toxic tailings between 2011 and 2013. The decision is in: our use of oil is disastrous.

But, in a bizarre way, BP’s gusher may turn out to be a positive.

Have I gone mad? No – not exactly – I just spotted a glimmer of hope. The Friday, June 11, 2010 Report on Business section of the Globe and Mail contained several promising items. The lead headline reads “Spill Puts New Oil Frontiers at Risk.” (page B1 ) In other words, politicians and regulators and the public are now aware that another spill is inevitable if we continue drilling as we have. A smaller headline reads “Cheap, abundant, politically secure oil in no longer available.” That article continues on page B5. “According to a new Deutsche Bank report, this is the end of the oil age as we knew it….and our behaviour must change to recognize that. “ So this spill, horrible an environmental disaster that it is, is also an opportunity for environmental activists.

We should use increased awareness on the part of the public and politicians to prevent the lifting of the moratorium on drilling for oil off the coast of British Columbia. Write Mr. Campbell and tell him offshore drilling is too risky. We should also work to shutdown the Enbridge Gateway North Pipeline to coastal BC as, once it is in place, oil tankers will sail BC’s pristine coast – and eventually spill oil. (The Dogwood Initiative Project is already fighting this – check out their website at http://dogwoodinitiative.org/ if you want to work on this project.) Thirdly, we should push both provincial and federal governments to invest in light rapid transit and clean energy.  Encourage everyone you know to write to the Right Honorable Stephen Harper, to their federal MP, and to the provincial representatives.

A Visionary Ad by BP Oil - 1999

We Are Insane

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/drilling-clash-puts-arctic-oil-at-risk/article1567542/

Canadian oil companies say they will not be able to drill in Arctic deep waters unless the National Energy Board drops a provision that requires them to be able to quickly complete a relief well in the event of a blowout.

The board had agreed to review its rule for requiring companies to be able to deal with a blowout by drilling a relief well in the same season. After BP's Gulf of Mexico blowout, the regulator suspended planned hearings on the issue, and said this week that it will examine its entire regulatory approach, including the same-season relief well policy.

In its March submission, BP said the same-season relief well policy “ought to be rescinded, and replaced by a series of goal-oriented regulations” that would include preventive measures and mitigation efforts that would include longer schedule for drilling a relief well.

In fact, Imperial Oil Ltd. had asked the NEB for an exemption from that relief-well regulation as it prepares for a drilling program in Ajurak property, which lies 120 kilometres off shore in 650 metres of water.

A strict application of the rule “would essentially preclude the drilling of deepwater wells, such as the Ajurak exploration well, which require multiseason operations,” Imperial said in a submission to the board earlier this year.”

Hmmm - the NEB is worried about the propect of oil belching into the Arctic ocean.  Frivolously and needlessly?  After all, it has been easy to stop the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico and to prevent damage to delicate ecoystems, there. Am I  right? 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/05/100513-science-environment-gulf-oil-spill-cap-leak/

If efforts fail to cap the leaking Deepwater Horizon wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico, oil could gush for years—poisoning coastal habitats for decades, experts say. "We don't have any idea how to stop this," Simmons said of the Gulf leak. Some of the proposed strategies—such as temporarily plugging the leaking pipe with a jet of golf balls and other material—are a "joke," he added.

And the next hurricane season is about to begin.  http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATWOAT+shtml/302338.shtml

I have always assumed that oil company executives are doing the best that they can in the corporate environment  - that they do not really wish to despoil ecosystems or warm the entire earth.  After all, they are under enormous pressure to produce short term profits for their shareholders. Therefore, they cannot take measures to protect the environment if the compettition is not doing the same - which means no company will do so unless forced by regulations.

If we don't pressure our  governments to prevent such environmental disasters, we're collectively insane. 
Write the Prime Minister and ask him to have place a moratorium on deep water drilling in the Arctic.  Ask him to fund alternative energies in the same letter.  

Addicted to Oil

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/panel-reveals-litany-of-failures-on-oil-spill/article1566781/

A litany of failures in the blow-out preventer led to the catastrophic spill from BP’s leaking Gulf of Mexico well, a powerful Congressional investigations panel revealed on Wednesday, suggesting that BP and Transocean officials overlooked warning signs and then disagreed on what to do about them. “Our investigation is at its early stages, but already we have uncovered at least four significant problems with the blow-out preventer used on the Deepwater Horizon drill rig,” said Bart Stupak, the Michigan congressman who chairs the oversight and investigations subcommittee of the House of Representatives’ energy committee.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/bp-fought-safety-measures-deepwater-oil-rigs/story?id=10521078

BP, the company that owned the Louisiana oil rig that exploded last week, spent years battling federal regulators over how many layers of safeguards would be needed to prevent a deepwater well from this type of accident.  In a letter sent last year to the Department of the Interior, BP objected to what it called "extensive, prescriptive regulations" proposed in new rules to toughen safety standards. "We believe industry's current safety and environmental statistics demonstrate that the voluntary programs…continue to be very successful."

We don't let corporations and individuals manufacture and sell crustal meth or crack cocaine if we can prevent it.  We consider it immoral or unethical - no matter big the profits.  Period. If I could pass regulations, BP would have cause to complain about "extensive, prescriptive regulation!"

Why aren't we regulating drilling for oil / mining the tar sands/ and the uses of oil ?  We've only got so much of the stuff left - why waste it? We're gonna need lots of energy in the near future to save something form the wreckage.  We need  to use the energy  from oil  to build light rapid transit -  move our coastal cities inland or shore up defences such as levees and dikes - and create wind farms and solar energy farms.  Climate change is already happening  - we need to deal with it.   And we need to deal with corporations that pollute the environment and ignore worker safety.  Eleven men died on the Deepwater Horizon -   think about  ecosystem death and destruction in the Gulf of Mexico - and for what?  Higher emissions of greenhouse gases from our Hummers?

Ice Core Records for the Last 800,000 Years

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/04/climatologist-mosley-thompson-warming-antarctica

There have been some extremely deep ice cores taken in Antarctica at Dome C that go back 800,000 or 900,000 years.  I understand that the Dome C record shows very clearly that we've got more CO2 in our atmosphere now than at any time in 800,000 years.

Mosley-Thompson: Oh yeah. Very clearly. If you look back over the eight glacial/interglacial cycles, you essentially see that CO2 never rises above 300 parts per million and we're at about 389 now. Methane never rises above about 800 parts per billion, and I think we're at about 1,700 parts per billion. So we're clearly outside the range of natural variability. I personally think that graph simply showing the natural fluctuations in those two important greenhouse gases, over almost a million years of Earth history — and then you see the two dots [today] that are so much higher than anything that we see in that near-million history — tells us very clearly that we have a serious problem.

Read the entire article at the link above.  And then sit dowm and weep - not necessarily in Grand Central Station.  Once you've expressed your anger and sorrow, write the Honorable Stephen Harper and demand that he revise Canada's climate change  policies .   Check out Transition Towns and work on an energy descent plan for your local community.  Push your pension plan to de-invest in companies that commit ecocide - like BP.  Revamp your RRSP holdings - click on the Corporate, Environmental and Social Responsibility link on my blogroll to vet a company.  Educate other people.  Make social connections.  Eat local food.  Devote your time, money , and energy to any cause that makes the world better - like http://www.350.org/. 

OIl Rig Disaster

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/apr/30/oil-spill-reaches-us-coastline

The Wall Street Journal reported that the well lacked a remote-control shutoff switch required by some oil producing countries, including Norway and Brazil. BP was at the forefront of recent lobbying of the US government against stronger safety controls for offshore drilling.  Fund managers and analysts in the City of London said they were deeply worried about the financial cost to BP of the kind of legal action that could be taken in the US by those damaged by the accident. More than £13bn has been knocked off the oil company's stock market value since the rig caught fire.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/30/oil-spill-bp

Under George Bush the need for lobbying muscle was minimal, but since the arrival of a new president in the White House, BP has poured millions into Washington, mainly through third-party lobby groups. Organisations such as the American Petroleum Institute, funded in part by BP, have done the company's dirty work for them. Supposedly spontaneous citizen demonstrations against climate legislation have sprung up around the US, before journalists revealed they were actually populated by employees of the oil companies themselves....What BP will never admit, among their glossy corporate brochures and extensive environmental assessments, is that its entire business model is predicated on an ever increasing demand for oil, decades into the future. These growth predictions rely on a world in which there is no collective action to tackle global emissions, no concerted effort to transfer clean technology to the developing world, and almost no chance of maintaining anything like a stable climate.

The oil spill is washing up on Louisiana's shores amd destroying the fragile ecosystems there as I type - and fund managers are worried that BP will face legal actions! 
  
Do we really want a world in which BP can profit?  That would be a world in which democracy is subverted by lobbying -  one where the developed world continues to hog most resources - and a world where no one does anything meaningful about climate change because fossil fuel extractors might not be able to make a profit.

For Those Who Think Environmental Activism Does Nothing

On the contrary - environmental activism changes the zietgeist.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/what-the-forestry-industry-is-teaching-the-oil-sands/article1481763/

The leaders of Canada's oil sands, faced with global scorn and protests that have interrupted their operations, are turning to the country's foresters – as well as its miners, who had similar experiences – for guidance on how to respond.  Governments and oil sands companies are environmental targets, just as MacMillan Bloedel was. Anti-oil-sands groups spent last fall staging protests that temporarily shut down several oil sands operations, while shareholders have driven the issue onto the agendas of Statoil, Royal Dutch Shell and BP. Canada has become an angry target among online commentators who see the oil sands as an egregious and greedy foray into the production of “dirty oil.” Among industry leaders, there is a broad recognition that something needs to change. The lesson that is consistent in the forestry and the mining experience is that you cannot sloganeer, you cannot ‘spin' your way out of these types of issues,” .... “The ultimate solutions are rooted in performance.”

So keep up the pressure on oil companies, the Canadian government, and on Alberta.  The pressure is working: tar ands producers now realize that they must perform - not spin.