More catastrophic oil spills to come

[Turborama]

As we tap out the last of the Earth's "easy oil," exploration moves into more experimental territory. Riskier territory. More remote and, too often, more environmentally vulnerable territory.

As our world continues in its fire-breathing-vampire-of-petroleum ways, we're likely to see more frequent and more devastating spills like the Deepwater Horizon, as geologist http://scienceblogs.com/highlyallochthonous/2010/05/drilling_for_oil_is_more_risky.php">Chris Rowan's blog over at ScienceBlogs rather chillingly warns:

In an attempt to quench this thirst, attention is moving into more technically challenging areas, with more complex geology and often in the deeper waters of the outer continental shelf. The increasing complexity of the equipment required to drill in such areas increases the number of things that can go wrong, and the location of the drilling makes dealing with catastrophic failures much more difficult, as we are seeing all too clearly this week.

As the world's desperation for oil piques and the cost of oil increases, oil companies will be more and more inclined to ignore risk. Already we see the hungry, lidless eye of big oil gazing with lust at the oil fields of the Arctic, where decreasing sea ice, ironically driven by global warming, is making exploration there more economically attractive. We need to put a lid on that -- and a damn sight faster than BP is putting a lid on the Gulf spill.

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Chris Rowan concludes that since oil demand isn't going away, and the oil companies are going to be reaching further, regulation needs to mitigate the danger of future spills:

(Oil) demand is driving drilling in places where accidents of this sort - major, hard to stem leaks - are going to be a major risk, and our safety regulations should be evolving to adjust to this new reality. As a start, I'd propose that emergency shut-off valves cease to be an optional extra on drilling rigs.

Continues: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/more-catastrophic-oil-spills-to-come/blog/11745

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