Shouldn't these hurricanes smash to hell the whole offshore drilling argument?

[Seen the light]

According to John McCain, the solution to the energy crisis is more offshore drilling right? The same offshore drilling that's caused these ridiculous spikes in gas prices here in the South at least after Katrina and now Gustav and Ike?

You know what I mean? Please, someone needs to make an ad out of this or Senator Obama needs to hammer this point home during the debate. Just rewind back to this weekend during the debate and tell the whole world that offshore drilling is what's helped us into this mess.

(For reference, the gas station closest to my house here in NC was $3.65 a gallon last Wednesday. It spiked to $5.37 a gallon during Ike.)

[catgirl]

1. You make a good point here (nt)

[saltpoint]

2. It should. And for us, it surely has. But in GOP Fantasyland, off-shore

drilling is a divine command, abstinence works, and leprechauns guard pots of gold at the end of rainbows.

[billyoc]

3. Meanwhile, oil dropped below $100.

Price gouging and speculation are to blame, not the weather.

[Seen the light]

5. But why did those things occur?

Because of the hurricane excuse.

Also, we apparently were still spared the worst case scenario with oil production in the US even WITH Ike's fury.

[Cronus Protagonist]

8. God's angry with America for not doing His will

We need to punish the immoral more to stave off any future national disasters.

[Sal Minella]

10. Certainly shoots down the BigOilMen's "It's all supply and demand" argument,

doesn't it. OPEC has cut back production, major hurricane in the gulf, and oil drops below $100/bbl. while the price of gas skyrockets. The greed of the oil companies knows no bounds.

[dbonds]

4. And there are two oil rigs that are free floating right now.

[minavasht]

13. And there are a lot more

that are still on their places.
According to this http://www.colby.edu/environ/courses/ES212/atlasofmaine/projects_pdf/ES21205_gulfwind.pdf there are 6000 of them.
According to this http: http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/09/100-of-gulf-of.html 717 are manned.
Current production in the gulf is 1.3 barrels of oil per day.
What is the current consumption? Over 20 million barrels. A day.
Now the platforms are concentrated. If there were more in other areas , a single hurricane will not affect all of them like Ike did. It is that simple.

[dbonds]

14. Not sure what your point is.

And I think you got the production number wrong, at least by a few orders of magnitude.

[minavasht]

15. a) 2 out of 717 (or 6000) is nothing

b)US of A uses a LOT of oil that needs to come from somewhere.
c)Without oil our economy will collapse.
d)The more we get here, the less we have to import.

According to wiki, in 2007 we imported 66% of the oil we used.

[dbonds]

16. Was talking about them being damaged

This wasn't about production. I think you tried to turn it into a need to drill post.

[iamjoy]

6. Windmills Wouldn't Do So Well Either...

check out this video to see it in action:

http://www.snopes.com/photos/accident/windmill.asp

[BlooInBloo]

7. Doesn't matter - the electorate is stupid. Reality is unimportant to them.

EDIT: Hilarious subject typo.

[Greg K]

9. Unfortunately, it'll just make them refocus on ANWR.

[VeggieTart]

11. In the sense that most of the rigs would be in hurricane territory, yes

At one point, Ike filled the entire Gulf of Mexico. This means any rigs or what-have-you in the gulf are shut down for days as the storm makes its way through the gulf and then inland. And remember, when weather reporters give the coordinates, that's just the eye of the storm. The storm "bands," as the weather folks call them, extend typically for hundreds of miles from the eye, meaning you've got crappy weather for several hours before and several hours after the eye passes through.

And it seems that in the past few years, the worst storms are Gulf storms. I could probably Wiki it and do a bit of research, but since, say, 2000, haven't the worst hurricanes originated in the Gulf or, if they didn't, gotten more severe as they pass through the Gulf than they were in the Atlantic Ocean? I'm sure there are exceptions, but I'm positing a general rule here.


In my view, it's a safety issue; how safe is it to have all these drilling apparatuses in areas vulnerable to severe storms?

[pitohui]

12. i don't see how the hurricanes are relevant one way or another

what's relevant is that we have a strategic petroleum reserve, there is never any reason for prices to spike out of control because of hurricanes (which are a routine event in the gulf of mexico in august and september and something that we should have collected ample reserves over the years to cover

the fact that the prices have been allowed to spike and the oil companies and gas stations price gouge should be cause for criminal proseuction of the oil company/gas station or whoever the hell else is responsible

obviously bush/cheney collude by not making any proper use of our strategic reserve, they apparently think it's a hole in the ground into which we pour oil to keep prices high

there have ALWAYS been hurricanes in the gulf in late summer, there will always BE hurricanes in the gulf in late summer, it doesn't mean we can't drill, we have a pretty good system for shutting down and evacuating the rigs, as usually happens a number of times in a summer -- i can't think of the last time life was lost on an offshore rig as a result of a hurricane, i'm sure there are cases, but they're generally evac'd well in advance

the point we should be asking is, where is the strategic reserve? why is this gouging be allowed to occur? some folks need to go to jail