What the name of America’s most tragic oil rig reveals

Horizon The name of what will almost certainly become America’s most infamous oil rig can help us understand what is really happening in the Gulf of Mexico. The Deepwater Horizon disaster illustrates at least two realities about America’s energy future.

The first name of this ill-fated rig tells us why this oil spill has become worse than any previous accident in American oil production. Deepwater oil is not the same as the offshore oil we have become accustomed to. Drilling five miles and more below the seabed brings new risks and uncertainties that require know-how which is not yet within our grasp. Are we ready for the unpleasant surprises that arise when the oil doesn’t behave as expected at these depths?

That’s where the rig’s second name helps clarify a choice that we face. We are on the Horizon of a new era of oil extraction in which the experience gained in producing oil from less remote places turns out not to be directly transferrable. What we are witnessing in the Gulf of Mexico is an enormously expensive exercise in learning by trial and error, as engineers and scientists figure out how to adapt techniques for plugging blowouts at shallower depths to this new reality. Will we pursue this horizon of deepwater drilling to the waters off of Miami Beach or Chesapeake Bay?

The experience gained from eventually resolving the Deepwater Horizon disaster might embolden us to take on the risks of producing deepwater oil, and pursuing other reserves of unconventional and remote oil which offer their own special risks. But a far more sustainable course of action would be to conclude that preventing the need for such extreme measures of oil extraction will be far less costly than curing the resulting problems.

Proven technology and policy measures could slake America’s thirst for oil more reliably than the new methods we are pushing to perpetuate the flow. In our transportation system, millions of barrels of oil each day could be saved by doing three things: using more energy efficient vehicles; filling them up, and; using vehicles that can be powered by fuels other than oil. Whether it’s aboard high-speed trains, expanded public transportation, shipping more goods by rail and water, we should embrace moving freight and people without oil before we drill another five mile deep well.

A great start toward advancing the infrastructure needed to do this would be to raise the federal gasoline tax by 50 cents a gallon and invest the additional funds into electric mobility infrastructure, from high-speed trains to trolley buses and battery powered local delivery trucks. Taxing mobility more might seem politically challenging, but as President Obama has already begun to discover, riding the roller coaster of bad news that comes when we enter the zone of the Deepwater Horizon brings its own political peril.

Photo credit: colemama/flickr

Reader Comments

1 comments

Prophetic indeed

From: VivekAnand, Jun 4, 10 05:40 AM

Greetings Anthony,

The Deepwater Horizon indeed presages a new dawn and I believe no punitive or legislative action is going to stop this disaster from taking it's course.

I'd like to present a bold new design vision that can take us from here (not good) to there(much better).

It is what I call In-Dust-Real Designs for a Post Carbon World.

Please see my site

www.squareandc.net

Any constructive feedback is welcome. If you feel inspired, please spread the word.

The site is dense but true!

Regards,
VivekAnand

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