The Minerals Management Service (an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior) has been receiving comments on a proposal to allow offshore drilling along the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).
The Raleigh News & Observer reports that 530,000 comments have been sent to the government. I wrote a brief comment as well.
I just finished a column on whether there should be offshore drilling in NC. Here are three of the points that I highlighted:
1) When environmental extremists argue that we shouldn’t drill offshore, and instead what we really need to do is invest in wind, solar, geothermal and other electricity sources, they have no idea what they are talking about or they are being very misleading (to be nice).
Oil is used for purposes other than electricity (e.g. transportation). Wind and solar are used for electricity. The sources aren’t interchangeable–in other words, wind and solar will have no impact on our demand for oil. Electricity generation only accounts for about 1.5% of all petroleum consumption.
2) The government states that their estimates of available oil and natural gas in areas currently off-limits is very conservative. Regardless, the estimated 18 billion barrels of oil would be enough to replace 32 years worth of oil imports from Saudi Arabia. The 76 trillion cubic feet of natural gas is enough for the United States to stop importing natural gas for about 19 years.
3)
The risk of oil spills is minimal. Since 1985, Outer
Continental Shelf (OCS) operators produced more than seven billion barrels of
oil. The government has estimated that only about .0001 percent of that oil was spilled.
The U.S. has had an energy policy for decades. Our policy has been to restrict access to domestic energy sources. The politicians need to stop listening to the environmental extremists and start worrying about the public.
