After hundreds of TV ads telling the American public, "We will be here until it is cleaned up," and putting $20 billion dollars in an account for that purpose, BP is beginning to weasel. What a surprise. If the US does not give them more leases in the Gulf they won't be able to clean up their mess. If a company like BP can't afford to clean up any spills they make should they be given an opportunity to do it again? I don't think so. Multiply BP times the many companies in the gulf and the thousands of wells, working and abandoned and we have the perfect recipe for future disasters. I know oil is essential to our security and pervasive in our modern society, but can we really afford these big oil companies holding us hostage?

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My blog earlier today reported a drilling platform explosion 90 miles off of the coast of Louisiana. Just what those beleaguered folks need.  So-called experts were speculating that it was a gas platform and it wasn't a producing well, therefore it likely didn't pose an environmental risk like the BP spill. The latest news from NPR is that it was indeed an oil platform and an oil sheen was visible in the area. This turned out to be false, but it well could have been an oil drilling rig.The owners of the platform, Houston based Mariner Energy, has had at least 13 incidents of problems including fires since 2006. If they are a typical Gulf platform the thousands of rigs out there pose a significant risk to the environment and the region.

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Today there is another offshore well disaster. It isn't known yet if the well was an oil rig or a gas well. Experts are speculating that it may be a gas well. It is in shallow water (400 feet) and it is classified as a platform, meaning it is not floating but is based on the sea bottom. There were reportedly 13 workers on the platform that ended up in the water as a result of the explosion. The well was reported as a non-operating well. With thousands of operating oil and gas wells in the gulf explosions and spills are inevitable. Gas wells are much less likely to create environmental disasters as BP did but the chance of loss of lives is still there. This points up the real cost of energy from offshore.

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The horrendously expensive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is our wake up call. It will likely change how we obtain oil, where it comes from and what it costs. We know that at some future time it will cost more than it does to get it out of the ground. At that point we must be well on our way to replacing it as the cheap alternative. Oil will not totally go away, as there are many applications that really can't easily replace it, such as flying. We can make airplanes much more efficient, however. There are many promising ways to make fuel like gasoline and many alternatives to the internal combustion engine.

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Do we have an offshore time bomb? The Associated Press reports that there are 27,000 abandoned wells in the Gulf of Mexico. BP alone has about 600 of these. Wells are abandoned for a number of reason. They can become depleted, oil companies can shut them down waiting for a higher oil price, or they can become damaged by storms.  I don't know if you had any idea there were that many wells in the Gulf of Mexico or that so many are abandoned. I sure didn't realize such numbers. Wells that are permanently abandoned are supposed to be sealed with special concrete. Wells abandoned temporarily, for a variety of reasons are typically not sealed as well as those being shut down permanently. Seals can fail for a variety of reasons. Even sealed wells on land can fail. Underwater chances for failure are even greater.

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He's too professorial. He should show more emotion. Where are the marines, the coastguard, the Democrats? Why isn't the government doing more to plug the hole or clean up the oil? This from the very people who hate government and want less government in our lives. You can't have it both ways. There are some things only a central government can do. We can all agree that we need the military, police, firemen, rules to protect the environment, provide clean water, build highways, and hold financial markets at bay from stealing us blind. And most of us in our "Golden Years" like Medicare and Social Security. Most of us can agree that we need to pay taxes to pay for these services...well most of us agree. The government can also make companies who use poor judgment to pay for the messes they make.

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