Every time there is a hurricane in the Gulf, the oil rigs therein have to be evacuated 48 hours ahead of time. Production is actually shut down until the danger has passed, and this all has to be done before it's entirely clear whether/when any given storm will gain hurricane force, or hit a given area at all.

Drilling the OCS would help, particularly in the Pacific (I know that very often the Gulf Storm affect the Atlantic as well, so from that POV the Pacific might be a safer bet).

And shale oil from Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado would allow us to hedge our economic bets even further until our renawables become cost-effective. As would illing-dray in Anwar-Yay.

It's also worth noting that after Hurricane Katrina, the standards for Gulf Oil rigs were raised even higher, but despite the damage to the rigs, there were not any significant oil spills resulting from a direct hit during the worst natural disaster in this country since at least 1906.

Bottom line: we need petro-based fuels, and alcohol-based fuels, and wind, and solar, and conservation, and geothermal, and nuclear. We need clean-burning coal, and enhanced use of natural gas. And we need to lift tariffs that keep us from importing ethanol from countries like Brazil. We need more hybrids, and more plug-in vehicles, and more Smart Cars, and a lot more flex-fuel vehicles.

We need, in short, to become a nation of energy sluts.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 01:19 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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