Why the coast is key to the survival of New Orleans
The following is a guest post by Mark Davis, a senior research fellow and director of the Tulane Institute on Water Resources Law and Policy at Tulane Law School. The opinions expressed are his own.
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill the importance of the ecosystems surrounding New Orleans, and their vulnerability to mankind’s manipulations and mistakes, has never been clearer. Equally clear is the fact that for New Orleans to transform itself and create a better future, the metropolitan area must enter into a new, wiser relationship with the land and water surrounding it.
The fate and fortune of New Orleans have always been, and will always be, tied to the coast. In the past, New Orleans has had a troubled relationship with its watery environs. The proximity to the Mississippi River and the Gulf made the city’s founding and its rise to prominence possible. But the risk of flooding from the river, torrential rains, and the Gulf made it a hard bargain with nature from the beginning.
The vulnerability of New Orleans to storms and rising seas has been growing for more than 100 years as the buffering coast began to erode. Because the causes of that coastal collapse are mostly traceable to economic activity such as oil and gas canals, dredging navigation canals, draining and filling wetlands for development, it was easy — indeed, it was policy — to discount the growing risks and to blindly hope somehow things wouldn’t get bad and, if they did, someone else would fix them.
Water also shaped the distinctive culture of the region. The port of New Orleans made the city one of the great points of entry for immigrants, adding a cosmopolitan flavor to the city known in only a handful of other American places. In stark contrast to the metropolis of New Orleans, the meandering bayous, bays, lakes, swamps, and marshes of the surrounding delta gave isolating refuge to Native Americans, expatriate Acadians (today’s Cajuns), runaway slaves, Vietnamese, and others, forging a network of landscape-oriented cultures that remains, at least for now.
Today, New Orleans’ recovery and prosperity are tied to reestablishing sustainability to its surrounding landscape.
Too much at stake for long drilling moratorium
Deepwater oil production in the Gulf of Mexico accounted for 23 percent of all oil produced in the United States last year, and 7 percent of all crude consumed in the nation’s refineries, according to the Energy Information Administration’s “Annual Energy Outlook.”
Offshore production has risen 770,000 barrels per day since 1990, helping offset declining output of almost 2.9 million barrels elsewhere. In the Gulf, deepwater has been the fastest growing segment in recent years, accounting for more than three-quarters of all production last year.
Before the blowout of BP’s Macondo well, and the subsequent drilling moratorium, EIA forecast deepwater output would rise another 35 percent to hit 1.67 million barrels per day in 2015, up from 1.23 million bpd in 2009. By then, Gulf deepwater output would account for almost 29 percent of all oil produced in the United States.
Some analysts have suggested Macondo puts a large share of this forecast production in jeopardy, tightening the forward supply picture significantly. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has labelled it a potential game changer. President Barack Obama has seized on the spill to urge the country to “embrace a clean energy future.”
In practice, though, deepwater production is so important the United States has no alternative to continue exploration and raising output if the country is to have any real prospect of meeting predicted energy needs at acceptable prices without jeopardising energy security by raising imports even further.
EIA predicts slower growth in liquid fuel consumption over the coming two decades mostly as a result of increased energy efficiency. Gasoline demand may even have peaked, at least the component derived from petroleum, as a result of increased ethanol blending under the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS).
But efficiency improvements, as well as biofuels, and other renewable, are unlikely to completely meet all future needs on their own.
Hi John
Thanks very much for your thoughtful comment about my column “Too much at stake for long drilling moratorium”.
As you say the relevant (global) metric is Gulf deepwater production as a percentage of world output. I’ve written about this in a previous column “BP’s crisis is no Three Mile Island” published last week, where I described the global supply impact as “marginal”.
The full story is on the web here: http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/20 10/06/11/bps-crisis-is-no-three-mile-isl and/ or
Or I have reproduced it below.
For the United States, though, there is, rightly or wrongly, a discussion about cutting dependence on imported oil barrels. Yes I know there is a difference between physical and price security. But in terms of the political debate, physical security matters, as I am sure you appreciate.
In that respect, I don’t see a long-term moratorium on deepwater drilling in the U.S. Gulf, let alone in other countries such as Brazil. Simply put the industry has invested too much, and both the United States and other countries need the marginal barrels too much, to end this.
When the passions have died down, the solution will be continued deepwater exploration with enhanced safeguards to ensure a blowout like Macondo does not happen again. Will other things go wrong in future? Other types of accidents? Yes, probably. No type of engineering is perfect. But at least we can learn the lessons from Macondo and try to do better in future.
Thanks again for your thoughtful reply
John
BP’s crisis is no Three Mile Island
The catastrophic blowout at Macondo has sliced 40 percent off BP’s market capitalisation, and led analysts to speculate about lasting reductions in deepwater drilling and the resulting impact on both long-term oil supply and the fate of climate change legislation.
The underlying fear is that Macondo is the oil industry’s Three Mile Island, an accident that turned public opinion against nuclear power for three decades.
Investors are right to fear the long-term impact on the company. But they exaggerate the impact on the wider industry and the prospects for climate change legislation. BP however faces a very changed operating environment in future.
MARGINAL SUPPLY IMPACT
Deepwater and ultra-deepwater petroleum wells are just one of a suite of advanced technologies energy producers have been using to extend the peak in conventional oil production.
In its 2008 World Energy Outlook, the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimated worldwide deepwater and ultra-deepwater reserves at 200 billion barrels. This is relatively small compared with conventional oil reserves (2.1 trillion barrels) let alone total hydrocarbons (6.3 trillion barrels, excluding unproven methane hydrate technology) (http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/ce/HYDROCARBONS.pdf).
Even complete loss of deepwater and ultra-deepwater oil production would have only a marginal impact on total energy supply in the decades to come.
Just wondering if there were any fines or penalties for the management or companies responsible for the “Three Mile Island” disaster. It would be great if someone has a link they could send me respecting this information. Thank you
from The Great Debate UK:
BP Gulf of Mexico crisis will transform the oil industry
-Kees Willemse is professor of off-shore engineering, Delft University. The opinions expressed are his own.-
The news that a huge metal cap has been successfully placed over several of the leaking oil vents at the Deepwater Horizon site marks a potential turning point in the Gulf of Mexico crisis.
It is already estimated that each day some 10-15,000 barrels of the oil that are spilling out into the ocean are being captured and diverted to ships on the sea surface.
Despite this engineering success, a complete end to the oil leakage is unlikely until new relief oil wells are completed -- a drilling process that could take most of the summer, and potentially into the autumn. This is because the newly installed metal cap is unlikely, even in the best case scenario, to stop all of the oil spilling out.
In advance of the completion of the relief wells, a potentially major new complicating factor is the arrival of the hurricane season last week.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is already predicting between 8 and 14 hurricanes this season, with perhaps a similar number of smaller storms, any of which could complicate (or indeed force a postponement) of the ongoing mitigation and clean-up activities in and around Deepwater Horizon.
from The Great Debate UK:
How much damage will the BP oil spill cause?
-Kees Willemse is professor of offshore engineering at Delft University. The opinions expressed are his own.-
Last month’s explosion at the Deepwater Horizon rig continues to result in the leakage of an estimated 200,000 gallons (910,000 litres) of oil into the Gulf of Mexico each day.
According to U.S. President Barack Obama, “we are dealing with a massive and potentially unprecedented environmental disaster”.
While the leak is extremely serious, and Obama’s words may ultimately ring true, the leak is (as yet) not one of the top 50 biggest oil spillages from either oil rigs or tankers in historical perspective:
• Some 7-10,000 tonnes of oil are so far estimated to have leaked into the Gulf of Mexico from Deepwater Horizon. • The Exxon Valdez leaked some 36,000 tonnes of crude oil on the shores of Alaska. • The largest ever off-shore leakage of oil occurred in 1979 in the Ixtoc-1 spillage when an estimated 476,000 tonnes of oil polluted the Gulf of Mexico (Bay of Campeche). • The biggest ever on-shore spillage occurred in the aftermath of the 1991 Iraq War when an estimated 1.4 to 1.5 million tonnes was released in Kuwait by Iraqi military forces.
Most at risk from the Deepwater Horizon spill are the coastlines of Texas, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana, including the wetlands near New Orleans where millions of migratory birds are currently nesting, and fish spawning.
The oil spill could also be catastrophic for the Gulf Coast’s substantial seafood industry, including oysters and shrimp.
