Posted by Jonathan Adler:
Anti-Drilling "Snake Oil":
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_08_10-2008_08_16.shtml#1218582790
The Washington Post opposes oil drilling in the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and other ecologically sensitive areas. But the
Post also opposes misinformation about offshore oil drilling spread by
environmentalist groups and others. In particular, [1]the Post takes
aim at three myths about offshore driling:
1. Drilling is pointless because the United States has only 3 percent
of the world's oil reserves. This is a misleading because it
refers only to known oil reserves. According to the Interior
Department's Minerals Management Service (MMS), while there are an
estimated 18 billion barrels of oil in the off-limits portions of
the OCS, those estimates were made using old data from
now-outdated seismic equipment. . . . there could be much more oil
under the sea than previously known. The demand for energy is
going up, not down. And for a long time, even as alternative
sources of energy are developed, more oil will be needed.
2. The oil companies aren't using the leases they already have. . . .
The notion that oil companies are just sitting on oil leases is a
myth. With oil prices still above $100 a barrel, that charge never
made sense.
3. Drilling is environmentally dangerous. . . . According to the MMS,
between 1993 and 2007, there were 651 spills of all sizes at OCS
facilities (in federal waters three miles or more offshore) that
released 47,800 barrels of oil. With 7.5 billion barrels of oil
produced in that time, that equates to 1 barrel of oil spilled per
156,900 barrels produced. That's not to minimize the danger. But
no form of energy is perfect or without trade-offs. Besides, if it
is acceptable to drill in the Caspian Sea and in developing
countries such as Nigeria where environmental concerns are equally
important, it's hard to explain why the United States should rule
out drilling off its own coasts.
Drilling -- offshore or anywhere else -- is no panacea, and the
drilling debate should not distract policymakers from considering ways
to encourage the economical development of alternative energy sources
(such as with [2]prizes). Yet, as the Post notes, "with the roaring
economies of China and India gobbling up oil in the two countries'
latter-day industrial revolutions, the United States can no longer
afford to turn its back on finding all the sources of fuel necessary
to maintain its economy and its standard of living." In other words,
we'll still need new sources of oil in the near-to-medium term.
References
1.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/11/AR2008081102145_pf.html
2. http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_06_22-2008_06_28.shtml#1214255495
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