BP-Style Extreme Energy Nightmares to Come: Four Scenarios for the Next Energy Mega-Disaster

Crossposted with TomDispatch.com.

On June 15^th, in their testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the chief executives of America’s leading oil companies argued that BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico was an aberration -- something that would not have occurred with proper corporate oversight and will not happen again once proper safeguards are put in place.  This is fallacious, if not an outright lie.  The Deep Horizon explosion was the inevitable result of a relentless effort to extract oil from ever deeper and more hazardous locations.  In fact, as long as the industry continues its relentless, reckless pursuit of “extreme energy” -- oil, natural gas, coal, and uranium obtained from geologically, environmentally, and politically unsafe areas -- more such calamities are destined to occur.

At the onset of the modern industrial era, basic fuels were easy to obtain from large, near-at-hand energy deposits in relatively safe and friendly locations.  The rise of the automobile and the spread of suburbia, for example, were made possible by the availability of cheap and abundant oil from large reservoirs in California, Texas, and Oklahoma, and from the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico.  But these and equivalent deposits of coal, gas, and uranium have been depleted.  This means the survival of our energy-centric civilization increasingly relies on supplies obtained from risky locations -- deep underground, far at sea, north of the Arctic circle, in complex geological formations, or in unsafe political environments.  That guarantees the equivalent of two, three, four, or more Gulf-oil-spill-style disasters in our energy future.

Back in 2005, the CEO of Chevron, David O’Reilly, put the situation about as bluntly as an oil executive could. “One thing is clear,” he said, “the era of easy oil is over.  Demand is soaring like never before… At the same time, many of the world’s oil and gas fields are maturing.  And new energy discoveries are mainly occurring in places where resources are difficult to extract, physically, economically, and even politically.”

O’Reilly promised then that his firm, like the other energy giants, would do whatever it took to secure this “difficult energy” to satisfy rising global demand.  And he proved a man of his word.  As a result, BP, Chevron, Exxon, and the rest of the energy giants launched a drive to obtain traditional fuels from hazardous locations, setting the stage for the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster and those sure to follow.  As long as the industry stays on this course, rather than undertaking the transition to an alternative energy future, more such catastrophes are inevitable, no matter how sophisticated the technology or scrupulous the oversight.

The only question is:  What will the next Deepwater Horizon disaster look like (other than another Deepwater Horizon disaster)?  The choices are many, but here are four possible scenarios for future Gulf-scale energy calamities.  None of these is inevitable, but each has a plausible basis in fact.

Scenario 1: Newfoundland -- Hibernia Platform Destroyed by Iceberg

Approximately 190 miles off the coast of Newfoundland in what locals call “Iceberg Alley” sits the Hibernia oil platform, the world’s largest offshore drilling facility.  Built at a cost of some $5 billion, Hibernia consists of a 37,000-ton “topsides” facility mounted on a 600,000-ton steel-and-concrete gravity base structure (GBS) resting on the ocean floor, some 260 feet below the surface.  This mammoth facility, normally manned by 185 crew members, produces about 135,000 barrels of oil per day.  Four companies (ExxonMobil, Chevron, Murphy Oil, and Statoil) plus the government of Canada participate in the joint venture established to operate the platform.

The Hibernia platform is reinforced to withstand a direct impact by one of the icebergs that regularly sail through this stretch of water, located just a few hundred miles from where the Titanic infamously hit an iceberg and sank in 1912.  Sixteen giant steel ribs protrude from the GBS, positioned in such a way as to absorb the blow of an iceberg and distribute it over the entire structure.  However, the GBS itself is hollow, and contains a storage container for 1.3 million barrels of crude oil -- about five times the amount released in the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill.

The owners of the Hibernia platform insist that the design will withstand a blow from even the largest iceberg.  As global warming advances and the Greenland glaciers melt, however, massive chunks of ice will be sent floating into the North Atlantic on a path past Hibernia.  Add increased storm activity (another effect of global warming) to an increase in iceberg frequency and you have a formula for overwhelming the Hibernia’s defenses.

Here’s the scenario:  It’s the stormy winter of 2018, not an uncommon situation in the North Atlantic at that time of year.  Winds exceed 80 miles per hour, visibility is zilch, and iceberg-spotter planes are grounded.  Towering waves rise to heights of 50 feet or more, leaving harbor-bound the giant tugs the Hibernia’s owners use to nudge icebergs from the platform’s path.  Evacuation of the crew by ship or helicopter is impossible.

Without warning, a gigantic, storm-propelled iceberg strikes the Hibernia, rupturing the GBS and spilling more than one million barrels of oil into rough waters.  The topside facility is severed from the base structure and plunges into the ocean, killing all 185 crew members.  Every connection to the undersea wells is ruptured, and 135,000 barrels of oil start flowing into the Atlantic every day (approximately twice the amount now coming from the BP leak in the Gulf of Mexico).  The area is impossible to reach by plane or ship in the constant bad weather, meaning emergency repairs can’t be undertaken for weeks -- not until at least five million additional barrels of oil have poured into the ocean.  As a result, one of the world’s most prolific fishing grounds -- the Grand Banks off Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Cape Cod -- is thoroughly poisoned.

Does this sound extreme?  Think again.  On February 15, 1982, a giant drillship, the Ocean Ranger (the “Ocean Danger” to its habitués), was operating in the very spot Hibernia now occupies when it was struck by 50-foot waves in a storm and sank, taking the lives of 84 crew members.  Because no drilling was under way at the time, there were no environmental consequences, but the loss of the Ocean Ranger -- a vessel very much like the Deepwater Horizon -- should be a reminder of just how vulnerable otherwise strong structures can be to the North Atlantic’s winter fury.

Scenario 2: Nigeria -- America’s Oil Quagmire

Nigeria is now America’s fifth leading supplier of oil (after Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela).  Long worried about the possibility that political turmoil in the Middle East might diminish the oil flow from Saudi Arabia just as Mexico’s major fields were reaching a state of depletion, American officials have worked hard to increase Nigerian imports.  However, most of that country’s oil comes from the troubled Niger Delta region, whose impoverished residents receive few benefits but all of the environmental damage from the oil extraction there.  As a result, they have taken up arms in a bid for a greater share of the revenues the Nigerian government collects from the foreign energy companies doing the drilling.  Leading this drive is the Movement for the Emancipation for the Niger Delta (MEND), a ragtag guerrilla group that has demonstrated remarkable success in disrupting oil company operations.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) rates Nigeria’s innate oil-production capacity at about 2.7 million barrels per day.  Thanks to insurgent activity in the Delta, however, actual output has fallen significantly below this.  “Since December 2005, Nigeria has experienced increased pipeline vandalism, kidnappings, and militant takeovers of oil facilities in the Niger Delta,” the department reported in May 2009.  “[K]idnappings of oil workers for ransom are common and security concerns have led some oil services firms to pull out of the country.”

Washington views the insurgency as a threat to America’s “energy security,” and so a reason for aiding the Nigerian military.  “Disruption of supply from Nigeria would represent a major blow to U.S. oil security,” the State Department noted in 2006.  In August 2009, on a visit to Nigeria, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promised even more military aid for oil protection purposes.

Here, then, is scenario #2:  It’s 2013.  The Delta insurgency has only grown, driving Nigeria’s oil output down to a third of its capacity.  Global oil demand is substantially higher and rising, while production slips everywhere.  Gasoline prices have reached $5 per gallon in the U.S. with no end in sight, and the economy seems headed toward yet another deep recession.

The barely functioning civilian government in Abuja, the capital, is overthrown by a Muslim-dominated military junta that promises to impose order and restore the oil flow in the Delta.  Some Christian elements of the military promptly defect, joining MEND.  Oil facilities across the country are suddenly under attack; oil pipelines are bombed, while foreign oil workers are kidnapped or killed in record numbers.  The foreign oil companies running the show begin to shut down operations.  Global oil prices go through the roof. 

When a dozen American oil workers are executed and a like number held hostage by a newly announced rebel group, the president addresses the nation from the Oval Office, declares that U.S. energy security is at risk, and sends 20,000 Marines and Army troops into the Delta to join the Special Operations forces already there.  Major port facilities are quickly secured, but the American expeditionary force soon finds itself literally in an oil quagmire, an almost unimaginable landscape of oil spills in which they find themselves fighting a set of interlocked insurgencies that show no sign of fading.  Casualties rise as they attempt to protect far-flung pipelines in an impenetrable swamp not unlike the Mekong Delta of Vietnam War fame.

Sound implausible?  Consider this: in May 2008, the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command and the Joint Forces Command conducted a crisis simulation at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, that involved precisely such a scenario, also set in 2013.  The simulation, “Unified Quest 2008,” was linked to the formation of the U.S. Africa Command (Africom), the new combat organization established by President Bush in February 2007 to oversee American military operations in Africa.  An oil-related crisis in Nigeria, it was suggested, represented one of the more likely scenarios for intervention by U.S. forces assigned to Africom.  Although the exercise did not explicitly endorse a military move of this sort, it left little doubt that such a response would be Washington’s only practical choice.

Scenario 3: Brazil -- Cyclone Hits “Pre-Salt” Oil Rigs

In November 2007, Brazil’s state-run oil company, Petróleo Brasileiro (Petrobras), announced a remarkable discovery: in a tract of the South Atlantic some 180 miles off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, it had found a giant oil reservoir buried beneath a mile and a half of water and a thick layer of salt.  Called “pre-salt” oil because of its unique geological positioning, the deposit was estimated to hold 8 to 12 billion barrels of oil, making this the biggest discovery in the Western Hemisphere in 40 years.  Further test drilling by Petrobras and its partners revealed that the initial find -- at a field called Tupi -- was linked to other deepwater “pre-salt” reservoirs, bringing the total offshore potential to 50 billion barrels or more.  (To put that in perspective, Saudi Arabia is believed to possess reserves of 264 billion barrels and the United States, 30 billion.)

With this discovery, Brazil could “jump from an intermediate producer to among the world’s largest producers,” said Dilma Rousseff, chief cabinet official under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and thought to be his most likely successor.  To ensure that the Brazilian state exercises ultimate control over the development of these reservoirs, President da Silva -- “Lula,” as he is widely known -- and Rousseff have introduced legislation in the Brazilian Congress giving Petrobras control over all new fields in the basin.  In addition, Lula has proposed that profits from the pre-salt fields be channeled into a new social fund to alleviate poverty and underdevelopment in the country.  All this has given the government a huge stake in the accelerated development of the pre-salt fields.

Extracting oil a mile and half under the water and from beneath two-and-a-half miles of shifting sand and salt will, however, require the utilization of technology even more advanced than that employed on the Deepwater Horizon.  In addition, the pre-salt fields are interspersed with layers of high-pressure gas (as appears to have been the case in the Gulf), increasing the risk of a blow-out.  Brazil does not experience hurricanes as does the Gulf of Mexico, but in 2004, its coastline was ravaged by a surprise subtropical cyclone that achieved hurricane strength.  Some climatologists believe that hurricane-like storms of this sort, once largely unknown in the South Atlantic, will become more common as global warming only increases.

Which brings us to scenario #3: It’s 2020, by which time the pre-salt area off Rio will be host to hundreds of deepwater drilling rigs.  Imagine, then, a subtropical cyclone with hurricane-force winds and massive waves that suddenly strikes this area, toppling dozens of the rigs and damaging most of the others, wiping out in a matter of hours an investment of over $200 billion.  Given a few days warning, most of the crews of these platforms have been evacuated.  Freak winds, however, down several helicopters, killing some 50 oil workers and flight crew members.  Adding to the horror, attempts to seal so many undersea wells at such depths fail, and oil in historically unprecedented quantities begins gushing into the South Atlantic.  As the cyclone grows to full strength, giant waves carry the oil inexorably toward shore.

Since the storm-driven assault cannot be stopped, Rio de Janeiro’s famous snow-white beaches are soon blanketed in a layer of sticky black petroleum, and in a matter of weeks, parts of Brazil’s coastal waters have become a “dead ocean.”  Clean-up efforts, when finally initiated, prove exceedingly difficult and costly, adding immeasurably to the financial burden of the Brazilian state, now saddled with a broken and bankrupt Petrobras.  Meanwhile, the struggle to seal all the leaking pre-salt wells in the deep Atlantic proves a Herculean task as, month after month, oil continues to gush into the Atlantic.

Scenario 4: East China Sea -- A Clash Over Subsea Gas

At one time, most wars between states were fought over disputed borders or contested pieces of land.  Today, most boundaries are fixed by international treaty and few wars are fought over territory.  But a new type of conflict is arising: contests over disputed maritime boundaries in areas that harbor valuable subsea resources, particularly oil and natural gas deposits.  Such disputes have already occurred in the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea, the East and South China Seas, and other circumscribed bodies of water.  In each case, the surrounding states claim vast offshore tracts that overlap, producing -- in a world that may be increasingly starved for energy -- potentially explosive disputes.

One of them is between China and Japan over their mutual boundary in the East China Sea.  Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which both countries have signed, each is allowed to exercise control over an “exclusive economic zone” (EEZ) extending 200 nautical miles (about 230 standard miles) from its coastline.  But the East China Sea is only about 360 miles across at its widest point between the two countries.  You see the problem.

In addition, the U.N. convention allows mainland states to claim an extended EEZ stretching to their outer continental shelf (OCS).  In China’s case, that means nearly all the way to Japan -- or so say the Chinese.  Japan insists that the offshore boundary between the two countries should fall midway between them, or about 180 miles from either shore.  This means that there are now two competing boundaries in the East China Sea.  As fate would have it, in the gray area between them houses a promising natural gas field called Chunxiao by the Chinese and Shirakaba by the Japanese.  Both countries claim that the field lies within their EEZ, and is theirs alone to exploit.

For years, Chinese and Japanese officials have been meeting to resolve this dispute -- to no avail.  In the meantime, each side has taken steps to begin the exploitation of the undersea gas field.  China has installed drilling rigs right up to the median line claimed by Japan as the boundary between them and is now drilling for gas there; Japan has conducted seismic surveys in the gray area between the two lines.  China claims that Japan’s actions represent an illegal infringement; Japan says that the Chinese rigs are sucking up gas from the Japanese side of the median line, and so stealing their property.  Each side sees this dispute through a highly nationalistic prism and appears unwilling to back down.  Both sides have deployed military forces in the contested area, seeking to demonstrate their resolve to prevail in the dispute.

Here, then, is Scenario #4:  It’s 2022.  Successive attempts to resolve the boundary dispute through negotiations have failed.  China has installed a string of drilling platforms along the median line claimed by Japan and, according to Japanese officials, has extended undersea drill pipes deep into Japanese territory.  An ultra-nationalistic, right-wing government has taken power in Japan, vowing finally to assert control over Japanese sovereign territory.  Japanese drill ships, accompanied by naval escorts and fighter planes, are sent into the area claimed by China.  The Chinese respond with their warships and order the Japanese to withdraw.  The two fleets converge and begin to target each other with guns, missiles, and torpedoes.

At this point, the “fog of war” (in strategic theorist Carl von Clausewitz’s famous phrase) takes over.  As a Chinese vessel steams perilously close to a Japanese ship in an attempt to drive it off, the captain of that vessel panics, and orders his crew to open fire; other Japanese crews, disobeying orders from superior officers, do the same.  Before long, a full-scale naval battle ensues, with several sunken ships and hundreds of casualties.  Japanese aircraft then attack the nearby Chinese drill rigs, producing hundreds of additional casualties and yet another deep-sea environmental disaster.  At this point, with both sides bringing in reinforcements and girding for full-scale war, the U.S. president makes an emergency visit to the region in a desperate effort to negotiate a cease-fire.

Such a scenario is hardly implausible.  Since September 2005, China has deployed a naval squadron in the East China Sea, sending its ships right up to the median line -- a boundary that exists in Japanese documents, but is not, of course, visible to the naked eye (and so can be easily overstepped).  On one occasion, Japanese naval aircraft flew close to a Chinese ship in what must have seemed a menacing fashion, leading the crew to train its antiaircraft guns on the approaching plane.  Fortunately, no shots were fired.  But what would have happened if the Japanese plane had come a little bit closer, or the Chinese captain was a bit more worried?  One of these days, as those gas supplies become even more valuable and the hair-trigger quality of the situation increases, the outcome may not be so benign.

These are, of course, only a few examples of why, in a world ever more reliant on energy supplies acquired from remote and hazardous locations, BP-like catastrophes are sure to occur.  While none of these specific calamities are guaranteed to happen, something like them surely will -- unless we take dramatic steps now to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and speed the transition to a post-carbon world.  In such a world, most of our energy would come from renewable wind, solar, and geothermal sources that are commonplace and don’t have to be tracked down a mile or more under the water or in the icebound north.  Such resources generally would not be linked to the sort of disputed boundaries or borderlands that can produce future resource wars.

Until then, prepare yourselves.  The disaster in the Gulf is no anomaly.  It’s an arrow pointing toward future nightmares. 

Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College, TomDispatch.com regular, and the author, most recently, of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet.  A documentary movie version of his previous book, Blood and Oil, is available from the Media Education Foundation.  To catch him discussing our dystopian energy future on the latest TomCast audio interview, click here, or to download it to your iPod, click here.

Copyright 2010 Michael T. Klare

 

Comments

[MCJanes]

11:54 PM on 07/07/2010

Note to the author: The Grand Banks are off of Newfoundla­nd, nowhere near Nova Scotia.

[MCJanes]

12:00 AM on 07/08/2010

I should say nowhere near Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, or Cape Cod. Though fishermen from all three areas fish there, not to mention the Portuguese and Spaniards. Not really anymore, though. No more cod left in those waters. A far greater environmen­tal catastroph­y than all the oil spill combined, if you ask me.

You're welcome, from Newfoundla­nd.

[getsit]

05:48 PM on 06/23/2010

As long a big money is being made it is unlikely to change anything. If we passed laws, right now, that required all new buildings and residences energy efficient and green with solar energy, rebates for energy conservati­on changes to owners of existing structures­, federal to local community incentives (call them earmarks for Pete's sake) to setup their own energy companies focused on green energy and so on we could make a big impact on the amount of energy we use. Add to that, stringent gas mileage guidelines for our vehicles, increasing the use of electric and hybrid cars, trucks and buses.

If we only did not have greedy obstructio­nists in our federal, state, and local government we might be able to really get this going. We need the people to believe in positive changes and to vote for politician­s that believe also, and are able to get the job done.

It is for the health and welfare of this country and it's people. It is what we need. Other countries are going forward in this direction, we can too.

[research]

06:09 PM on 06/23/2010

agreed, but the fossil and nukes companies have 100 times as much money to buy congress as the green companies do.

rooftop solar, offshore wind and waste bio fuels, require no land, are affordable now, cheaper in many cases, and much cheaper in the long run.

[lightningbolt]

04:25 PM on 06/23/2010

This was a very interestin­g and informativ­e article. We need to spread this article to as many people as possible. We should use it to push for a massive investment in clean renewable energy, which can power the entire world indefinite­ly, cleanly, safely, and profitably­.

[sloLes]

12:51 PM on 06/23/2010

It's clear that as the oil industries retrieves oil for ever more difficult places to get it, the price will continue to increase and the likelihood of disaster wil rise, too. That's just part of the cost of sticking with oil as our primary energy resource. The ultiate answer for this country is to change our consumptio­n habits and begin to move to lower consumptio­n and other sources. Both that will be very hard!
But it won't get easier any time in the near future. Americans don't want to turn the thermostat down in their homes, give up the air conditioni­ng in the hotter climates, drive less, or ride in smaller cars. Nor are they willing to pay higher prices to pay for prevention and/or recovery of/from disasters in advance. So, one of these scenarios, or another similar one, is a very real possibilit­y.

[getsit]

05:53 PM on 06/23/2010

We really can't keep this up. The population continues to grow and the demand will get higher and higher. Sooner or later,ener­gy will be scarce and all hell will break loose.

The primary motivation is greed and selfishnes­s. Using up resources now so that future generation­s have nothing. We are like bacteria in a petre dish-time will do us in and the human race will no longer exist. The current population doesn't care about their future decendants (or their current since there is poison all over the planet).

[Computer Geek]

11:04 AM on 06/23/2010

Scenario number 5: Most of the US water supply is poisoned from natural gas fracing. This isn't just a possibilit­y, it is currently happening.

You all NEED to watch 'Gasland'. I watched 'Gasland' on HBO Monday night and it's deja vu all over again with natural gas fracing to free up the gas that is trapped. You should not be able to burn your tap water with a lighter...

The one area the documentar­y doesn't get into is that there are huge aquifers undergroun­d - they are like huge undergroun­d lakes. Many places get their water from these aquifers. All water is interrelat­ed on land. What happens upstream affects everything downstream and undergroun­d affects above ground because there are so many wells that then bring this water back up for irrigation and drinking water. This documentar­y shows what happens to wells near any of the fracing operations­. Many places have open pits where the waste water is evaporated with the toxins that they use to inject into these holes to force the natural gas out. It is happening right now all over the US.

[Ronnie Moore]

10:15 AM on 06/23/2010

Check out Robert Dudley-- Heads up!
http://bus­iness.time­s.co.uk/to­l/buiness/­industry_s­ectors/nat­ural_resou­rces//article44­07496.ece

[wxman]

08:58 AM on 06/23/2010

Radical Times environmen­tally - ? You betcha! We need a group with intestinal fortitude more than ever now, Green peace you are too wimpy. I'm talking about a group that can buy a fleet of third world Navy surplus air craft carriers who does nothing more than harass the Oil business constantly and forever more. Out at sea, in the boardroom, on the golf course, on the tennis court and certainly at any yachting event. I'm talking harassment to new and improved level.

This group could easily be funded by a world population and many US citizens who sees the US government unwilling (totally in bed) to do what is necessary to counteract big oil. They should start soon before the grinding and mashing of teeth wears off from the criminally corrupt Judge Marty Feldman ruling which gives big oil once again in the drivers seat and the Gulf oil spill does not seem much to matter. Really, can we let these pigs get away with this? The Obama administra­tion are wimps on nearly every issue. It's time to get radical to reciprocat­e the radical death of at least large portions of the Gulf of Mexico - ?

[xiaodashan]

08:50 AM on 06/23/2010

These scenarios read like film set pieces, and once again (like a lot of environmen­tal debate) envisage't­he future','o­r what could happen' these have a peculiar war games perspectiv­e which is becoming like a sub genre of Environmen­tal writing.
What about a deepwater rig that blows out and a giant mud volcano rises from the depths threatenin­g to destabiliz­e the sea bed,which is gallantly fought for 30 years ,needing 20 relief wells to be dug..that happened off Brunei in 1979.What about the story of a rather shady operation to take a rig down to the Falklands Islands and possibly Antarctica to beginning it 's exploitati­on by a British oil company,wi­th a stand off by the Argentine navy..happ­ened earlier this year.No warplanes yet like in 1982.What about radioactiv­e wild dogs running amok in Siberian ghost towns because the people have realised that huge expanses of siberian watertable­s are seriously radioactiv­ely polluted ?Step into the arid plastic encrusted yellow earth of the Ganges basin and you ve stepped into something only Hieronymou­s Bosch could of mustered,t­ravel down it s length and you ve got a nightmaris­h human prison of 110 million people living on crap in the most unstable(g­eographica­lly) river delta (unfortuna­tely without many resources to exploit)in the world....B­angladesh.­Resources wars have been working their attrition for centuries,­what we need to do is solve the massive disasters that are right now occurring instead of dressing it up for easy consumptio­n like a ...too plausible novel.

[joadar]

12:25 PM on 06/23/2010

Often screenwrit­ers seem to almost predict future events. They write a script and then the event or something similar seems to happen.

Not saying I believe they are psychic, but sometimes their fantastica­l stories do come true.

[xiaodashan]

01:15 PM on 06/23/2010

I always liked the classic disaster movie- Krakatoa :East of Java,partl­y because Krakatoa is west of Java.I think there's a lot of interpreta­tion of current scientific­/philosoph­ical thinking in some genres of films,that­'s occasional­ly portrayed correctly.­....

[realitytrumpsbull]

01:54 AM on 06/23/2010

Hydrogen. You can make it out of water. If you purify seawater, you can split it, and make hydrogen, and oxygen. There's a lot of seawater, probably more seawater than there is oil, well, except in the Gulf of Texaco, er, Mexico.

Electrolys­is is a bit of vintage, hard-bound science left over from a long time ago. So, why isn't it being used more, in the quest for energy independen­ce? Why is it that the scientists over in europe do their homework, while scientists­, educators, and industry leaders and so forth in this country seem a lot more inclined to wring their hands about the situation, and otherwise play politics? Because of the sheer amount of money invested in the oil business. In one sense, the US all but started the oil biz, Standard Oil, and all those folks. A longstandi­ng tradition. Only now, turns out that the technology that took us to where we are today is also carrying us speedily down the road of lifelong indebtedne­ss. We went from the world's largest lender, to the world's largest debtor, in the 20th century. Quite a reversal of fortune. And, the people that own the oil are all about the fortune aspect of all of this. I suggest we work on developing hydrogen to its' fullest capability­, and also develop natural gas, and wind, and solar, and synfuels/ biofuels, next-gener­ation batteries, mass transit, and the other 80 answers we'll need, this century.

[keyhoti1]

04:13 AM on 06/23/2010

Snag. How do you generate the electricit­y for electrolys­is? Oil, coal, or nuclear. No other way, for the power needed. (All the 'alternati­ves' you mention have many limitation­s.)

Special case: Iceland has abundant geo-therma­l sources for electricty generation and hydrogen is produced ... not many places like Iceland and it has a small population too.

[xiaodashan]

06:18 AM on 06/23/2010

Deepwater geo-therma­l electricit­y generation from the planets 's tectonical­ly active regions?(A­nyone dare try that)Maybe we ll have to twiddle thumbs until 2015(proje­cted completion time) when the the first fusion reactor in Cadrache,F­rance is switched on?

[cuppajoe]

10:22 AM on 06/23/2010

One must stop and consider that Hydrogen does require some amount of energy to disassocia­te from water, or some amount of energy to obtain H2 from some other source. Hydrogen is, in fact, not a fuel. Hydrogen is only an energy storage mechanism. It takes at least as much energy to obtain H2 as the energy provided by it.

[drbob601]

10:50 PM on 06/22/2010

"As long as the industry stays on this course, rather than undertakin­g the transition to an alternativ­e energy future, more such catastroph­es are inevitable­, no matter how sophistica­ted the technology or scrupulous the oversight.­"

Well, won't this "transitio­n" require a change in attitudes and habits of its customers (i.e., the American people)? They wouldn't "continue [their] relentless­, reckless pursuit" if it weren't profitable (that is to say, if there weren't plenty of people willing to pay them handsomely for their bounty).

[waldopepper]

01:32 AM on 06/23/2010

If the population were to modify its behavior as we all dream for, then the industry would cut the price to lure the junkie back to the table. The only way is for the Government to jump start change in the form of a consumptio­n tax, provoked by an astute electorate­. And since some 45% of the electorate voted for McCain/Pal­in I do not see evidence of an astute electorate­.

[valboski]

10:06 PM on 06/22/2010

Maybe someone should ask why the USA is loaning $billions to Brazil to drill even deeper. Check the Latin American Herald article.

[outnow]

09:13 PM on 06/22/2010

The future looks very, very bleak indeed. There are some 6.5 billion people on the planet all wanting cheap oil and gas. The places in which the oil majors are drilling are more and more likely to be remote and environmen­tally sensitive. Our urban planning has caused us to rely on the automobile and a long commute to suburbia. Our cities are kept lighted all night with airconditi­oning or heating.

If the Gulf gusher is any indication of the future, it will be a future with not only ocean and fresh water pollution but increasing potential for wars. Murphy's Law says that when something can't go wrong, it will. Recent history has seen many more spills, leaks and blowouts than most people are aware of.

Changing our energy paradigm to renewable enrgy is the only hope of survival for the human race. We are already in an existentia­l crisis which will progress exponentia­lly.

All we hear about is the threat of terrorism, which is, as Dr. Klare says, directly connected to the oil business. Local people's are being stepped on by oil exploratio­n and are increasing­ly fighting back.

People must open their eyes to the plight of the environmen­t and the destructiv­e nature of our dependence on fossil fuels. This is the last wake up call before the ultimate and inevitable disaster predicted by Dr. Klare. Too many people, too little oil, too dangerous to drill it.

[GeeDeeJay]

09:57 PM on 06/22/2010

We've been "running out of oil" since the 50's. I think 6.5 billion people wanting cheap gas and a western lifestyle is the best hope for for a peaceful, clean planet fueled by oil. It's worked for us. (with a few disgusting glitches here & there, but hey, there's no utopia option).)

[pinkibus]

04:44 AM on 06/23/2010

GeeDeeJay

I would suggest you think about what you have just written but I don't think thinking is your long term suit.

[pinkibus]

04:48 AM on 06/23/2010

Sorry for the mistake. I meant I don't think thinking is your strong suit BeeGeeJay.

[Overtone]

07:35 PM on 06/22/2010

THIS DISASTER MAY BE WORSE THAN CHERNOBYL!

The dire dimensions of the gushing oil may prove much worse than has so far been grasped.

Can a thin film of oil on the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans accelerate Global Warming toward a Tipping Point that may endanger much life in the entire Northern Hemisphere­?

A scientist has suggested the answer is yes!

Can the oil gusher be capped? Some qualified observers believe the answer may be no!

There is little evidence the White House or anyone else is developing contingenc­y plans adequate to meet what may call for a massive emergency response.

See today's updated: What to Do? at http://www­.aesopinst­itute.org

The truly bold actions needed may create a huge number of jobs - and drive down unemployme­nt in a manner resembling what happened in World War II.

Little known, and less believed, breakthrou­ghs in energy could take us off of gasoline, oil, coal, natural gas and nuclear power far faster than might be imagined. See for example the work of BlackLight Power that claims a barrel of water can replace 200 barrels of oil - and I agree.

We need voices like those of FDR and Churchill to move the nation toward a truly adequate response to what may prove to be as great a crisis as humanity has ever faced.

Survival may be at issue. There is little indication that this risk is understood­.

Let us hope it is not too late! Wake up folks! Check the facts!

[GeeDeeJay]

10:05 PM on 06/22/2010

You realize this is not the biggest spill even in the gulf? Mexico blew out a well (Ixtoc I) in 1979, did virtually nothing to clean it up & yet none of these apocalypti­c scenarios occurred. The region is still fished to pre-spill levels, turtles & migratory birds still land & breed. Little evidence exists that it ever happened. Give Mother earth credit. She's tougher than you give her credit for.

[mummblemouth]

05:02 AM on 06/23/2010

Ixtoc spilled 475,000 tonnes of oil. The Deepwater horizon spilled more than that in the first two weeks of the disaster. Get your facts right next time. Oh, wait, you're a con. You don't deal in facts.

http://en.­wikipedia.­org/wiki/L­ist_of_oil­_spills

[Chubbster]

10:04 AM on 06/23/2010

>We need voices like those of FDR and Churchill.­...

Funny that you mention Churchill. Obama sent Churchill'­s marble bust in the White House back to the British Museum as he couldn't understand the relevance of Churchill or what Churchill did, represente­d and stood for. One needn't be a tea-leaf reader to draw conclusion­s from this.

[outnow]

12:20 PM on 06/23/2010

So why did Churchill try to keep the British Empire intact including not liberating India until after the war? Why did Churchill want a Cold War? Why did Ike have to keep the British out of Suez in 1953. You don't understand that Churchill was Hitler-lit­e.

I like FDR, however.

Need to read some real history about the many war cromes of Churchill in the M/E and elsewhere in the Empire. How democratic is that? It's all public source - poison gas, calling Gadhi a monkey, etc.

Most problems of today are the result of the British Empire - something they don't teach until college.

[USAFree1]

07:25 PM on 06/22/2010

Hot dam! Let's party like it's 1999. When are we going to wake up and move to non-fossil fuels and sustainabl­ility?

[SeriousBlack]

12:55 AM on 06/24/2010

I predict that that will happen a couple of hundred years from now, on MARS.

In other words, when the entire ecosystem of planet Earth collapses because of the damage we're doing to it, and there is only a small human population surviving in sealed bunkers, and that population eventually gets tired of waiting the millions of years that it will take the planet's ecology to recover and decides to go colonize Mars. And (and I give this about 50-50 odds, but I THINK it'll happen) decide to take the lessons-le­arned of the human race there and START with a sustainabl­e way of living.

[ThatsTheTheWayItIs]

07:03 PM on 06/22/2010

The US uses 7.5 billion barrels (bb) of oil per year.
At that rate, here is how long these reserves would last us (rounded), from this article:

Giant deepwater find in Brazil: 7 YEARS (50 bb)
Saudi Arabia's total reserves: 35 YEARS (264 bb)
US total reserves: 4 YEARS (30 bb)

WE'VE GOT FOUR YEARS, THAT'S ALL WE GOT ...
The US has enough oil to completely fuel itself for 4 years. Doesn't even make a Bowie song.

[Overtone]

07:38 PM on 06/22/2010

Unless oil is Abiotic. See the articles about Abiotic oil on www.aesopi­nstitute.o­rg

Two of the three are reprints from Huff Post.

[ThatsTheTheWayItIs]

07:57 PM on 06/22/2010

I thought that idea was given up 25 years ago. Didn't they drill an extremely deep well in Iceland (or Greenland? some cold place)? Or was that not deep enough?

Look, oil is biotic. It's made from plants, not animals, 95% of the Earth's biomass is plants. We make ethanol from corn and sugar cane. It's easy to see all those dead plants buried over the years turning into all our oil, coal and gas. Seems obvious to me: oil and coal are biofuels, made by nature not man.