Last week I wrote a post entitled “Putting the Brakes on Offshore Drilling” that looked at the government’s plan for longer review of offshore drilling. I also discussed the many dangers associated with ocean drilling and why we need to proceed cautiously.
We should not toy around with ocean drilling
Well today, TreeHugger has an excellent piece called “Offshore Drilling: Worth the Oil, or False Hope?”. They offer comprehensive coverage of this topic, including background information and answers to the following questions:
- How much oil do we get from offshore drilling today?
- How much might we potentially recover?
- What offshore drilling is currently banned?
- What are the environmental risks?
- Does offshore drilling offer false hope of plentiful cheap oil?
I talked last week about the dangers, but I was under the flawed impression that it may be worth the risks. According to this story, lifting the ban on offshore drilling would not have a significant impact for at least 10 years and even then it would only save us pennies on a gallon of gasoline.
We need to accept the fact that oil is a finite commodity. No matter how much we increase exploration; there will always be a limited supply. We need to look past these false promises and focus on true oil alternatives.
photo credit: dierk schaefer
