Obama Lifting Oil Drilling Moratorium
October 12th, 2010
The Government is doing all it can to please the Oil interests and their constituencies in the Gulf of Mexico states of Louisiana and Texas. This will irritate environmentalists but apparently there are some new safety regulations being implemented. This is not the direction the US energy policy needs to be moving in. But the facts are that most of the energy needs of the world come from fossil fuels. Until there is a serious effort to break that dependency, it will continue to the last drop of $500 a barrel oil.
Offshore drilling ban could be lifted Tuesday
By MATTHEW DALY (AP) – 29 minutes ago 10/12/10
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is lifting a moratorium on deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, officials said Tuesday.
The Interior Department scheduled a 1 p.m. news conference in which Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is to "discuss the current suspensions on deepwater drilling," the Interior Department said.
Congressional officials told The Associated Press that Salazar planned to lift the moratorium, on the condition that companies would first have to meet a a host of new safety regulations. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak ahead of the official announcement.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said earlier Tuesday that the government is close to having the plans in place to lift the ban that was imposed after the massive Gulf oil spill.
When asked if he was saying the ban will be lifted this week, Gibbs said: "I do."
He emphasized that the move would include new requirements for those seeking to drill exploratory wells. Those entities and the companies they represent will have to prove they have the appropriate steps in place to contain a worst-case scenario.
The administration has already imposed new rules to make offshore drilling safer. The moratorium is set to expire Nov. 30.
Todd Hornbeck, CEO of Covington, La.-based Hornbeck Offshore Services, said lifting the moratorium would leave the industry in a "de facto moratorium stage" until the government fully explains how new drilling permits will be issued.
"We're still in the dark," said Hornbeck, who heads up one of the companies that sued to block Interior's initial moratorium. His company provides vessels and other services for the offshore industry.
"The devil is in the details, as they say, and the industry hasn't seen the final requirements for what we would have to do to be able to actually get a permit issued," he added. "Until that is done, lifting the moratorium may be just a moot or perfunctory act. … Right now, I'm skeptical that it will be anytime soon that permits will be issued even if the moratorium is lifted."
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
The total world energy demand is for about 400 quadrillion British Thermal Units — or BTUs — each year (Source: US Department of Energy). That's 400,000,000,000,000,000 BTUs! A BTU is roughly equal to the energy and heat generated by a match. Oil, coal and natural gas supply nearly 88 % of the world's energy needs, or about 350 quadrillion BTUs. Of this amount, oil is king, providing about 41 percent of the world's total energy supplies, or about 164 quadrillion BTUs. Coal provides 24% of the world's energy, or 96 quadrillion BTUs, and natural gas provides the remaining 22%, or 88 quadrillion BTUs.
For more on this
http://ecology.com/features/fossilvsrenewable/fossilvsrenewable.html
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