“. . . one has to abandon altogether the search for security, and reach out to the risk of living with both arms. One has to embrace the world like a lover, and yet, demand no easy return of love. One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to the total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying.”
Morris L. West, The Shoes of the Fisherman
The tragedy of the BP spill illuminates the risks we accept to satisfy our energy appetite. Hundreds of thousands of crude oil and natural gas wells (almost 500,000 gas wells in the U.S. alone) pump continuously. The world produces 72 Million daily barrels of crude oil. BP's Gulf spill has been estimated to be up to 60,000 barrels per day. In the scheme of world production, infinitesimal. In the dread of environmental damage and consequence, ostensibly infinite.
The risks do not end where crude oil emerges from the earth. That’s where risk begins. Risk in every facet of discovering, gathering, processing, storing, transporting and delivering energy.
Gasoline: The U.S. daily consumption is 360 Million gallons. Transported to nearly 118,000 filling stations by tanker truck, we give it not a first thought. We put that gasoline into 135 million passenger vehicles and transport it all over our country in our autos, consuming it.
Contemplate this:
- Billions of cubic feet of natural gas pumped through 300,000 miles of underground pipe each day.
- Billion tons of mined coal we transport and burn each year.
- Billions of tons of coal ash on the ground.
- Nuclear power, enriched uranium, its long storage and half life.
- Electricity above us in transmission lines, the largest carry 765,000 volts.
Risk is embedded in energy, whether we make the calculus or not. Why are we willing to accept these risks when the potential disasters are beyond our imagination, comprehension and calculation? We like the convenience our energy intensive world provides. We like the ability to fly to Tokyo today for a meeting tomorrow. We like our iphones, ipads, blackberrys, etc. We also accept that the risk is improbable.
Though painful, disasters are rare. Exxon Valdez was a disaster, yet we accept tankers, albeit now double-hulled, and safer. We accept trade-offs all the time. We risk flying because the convenience outweighs the infinitesimal risk. We risk an energy disaster because of its rarity. We accept environmental risks even though every form of energy we produce puts something bad, small though it may be, into the environment.
When a disaster occurs, we do not have to sit by and watch, stunned and perplexed. At an auto accident, first responders swing into action. Police, fire, EMTs and hazardous materials teams respond with all deliberate speed. They ask no questions about fault, how long it will take or who is going to pay for their response. They secure the roadway, put out the fire, tend to the injured and clean up the mess. They leave the questions and recriminations for later and others. We, the taxpayers, are perfectly willing to pay to have them ready at a moment's notice.
We should have a “SWAT” approach to oil spills. The industry should establish, fund, train, equip and deploy an international team of experts who will, with developed and proven methods, contain any gusher anywhere in the world——fast. Ultimately, consumers will pay for these “Hydrocarbon Emergency Responders” through higher prices. And that's fine, just as we are willing to pay for first responders to a highway accident.
Our government will propound strengthened laws, rules, regulations, practices, etc. to lower the already small probable risk of deep sea drilling. But "trust us" to get it right the next time is not the answer. Notwithstanding the rarity of a catastrophic event, we cannot eliminate it, no matter how good technology, rules and practices become. We accept that and the risks associated with energy as a technologically advanced society. That will not likely change because we are “. . . stubborn in conflict, but apt always to the total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying.”
Accept the consequence though we may, we cannot simply wait for the next catastrophe and allow the response to devolve to fortune and happenstance. Allowing the BP catastrophe to exist as a blip on the energy radar screen, chalked up as a bad experience, does not suffice. Out government’s response painfully demonstrates that there is no expertise in Washington.
Energy is a universal responsibility of the ordinary consumer, government bureaucrat, environmentalist and oil industry employee. Each of us, each stake holder, is responsible. Therefore, every one of us has accepted the risks associated with our gluttonous and growing appetite for energy. That growth is inexorable; it will not change easily and without the complete rethinking of energy policy (a subject for a different Op-Ed piece). Drilling for oil and natural gas is a brute force exercise. Although it is complex, it isn’t quantum physics. And although there is good science behind the advances in drilling technology, that science must be applied by good engineers with good engineering practices. Otherwise, how are we to entrust ourselves with more complex and riskier technologies that will emerge in the future, ultimately replacing fossil fuels.
“SWAT”——Special Weapons and Tactics——should, for oil and gas drilling, become “STTAT”——Special Teams, Tools and Tactics, a rapid response apparatus that world governments and the oil industry institute to suppress the next uncontrollable, deep sea gusher.
Posts
