Oil Companies Should Not Be Allowed To Drill Offshore

The environmental risk taken by offshore drilling is very topical, made evident by oil spills such as the recent BP oil spill and the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 off the coast of Alaska. In the case of the Exxon Valdez spill up to 250,000 sea birds died, over 2,800 sea otters and thousands of other animals[[http://www.evostc.state.ak.us/facts/qanda.cfm]], (figures from the BP oil spill are not yet complete), having had a massive impact on the local wildlife and leading to a ban on all offshore drilling in America, until George Bush overturned it in 2008 – the recent oil spill suggests this repeal was a mistake. In this way, offshore drilling destroys ecosystems and fish stocks. These resources are vital for humanity to feed its population, and wasteland like much of the coast of southern USA is of no use until cleaned.

There is also a long term effect because the remaining species will have a lower heterozygosity index (the amount of allele variation within a species). This is important because if there is a change in selection pressure, such as a new disease, this could leave the remainder of the species vulnerable as they are less likely to survive because they are less likely to have a dormant allele that becomes advantageous.

The potential environmental risk is massive and thus offshore drilling should not be allowed because it can have such an effect on the environment, both in the short term and long term. Offshore drilling could lead to the extinction of various species, and a ban would be a sure way to help preserve biodiversity.

Another issue with offshore drilling is that if there is an accident it can cripple the local economy as it prevents people from fishing and because any oil spilt will end up affecting the wildlife, as earlier discussed, people will be prevented from fishing which is generally the largest source of income for many local areas. Fishing is important as it not only provides income for the fisherman but also to the restaurants that they sell to. Due to the recent BP disaster many restaurants along the coast line have had to close for weeks because they cannot get fish to sell in their restaurants. As a result of this the local economy has been crippled with many people unable to earn the money they need to be able to afford their basic living costs.

Fish numbers are not just temporarily cut following an oil spill, but drastically cut for a long time. There would therefore have to be very limited fishing in order to ensure that the fish stock does increase and is not lowered further. This means that the local economy will struggle for, potentially, years because they will not be able to fish as much as they did before the accident.

In the event of such complications, as it is in the case of BP, the oil companies are sometimes asked to pay the bill for both the clean-up effort and the efforts to restore peoples’ quality of life (though off poorer coasts, this isn’t always so). BP’s bill now sums $6.1bn [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-10910612]] This means that any offshore drilling has an associated risk of being unprofitable. But the success of other offshore wells mean that this is a risk oil companies continually make, gambling their profitability on offshore drilling. Legislation preventing offshore drilling would prevent companies from taking such costly risks.

Thus offshore drilling should be banned because can have a serious, long-term, effect on the local economy, or can cripple the oil company unfortunate enough to lose the game of Russian roulette.

From the first two points it is clear that mining offshore oil deposits is, at least in some ways, undesirable. It is also unnecessary. The energy offshore deposits can provide pales in comparison to other options. The energy loss entailed by ending offshore drilling in the USA could, for example, be offset simply by wasting less food[[http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727712.700-us-food-waste-worth-more-than-offshore-drilling.html]] Investing in ways of reducing wasted energy – advertising campaigns to discourage food waste, government funding to aid insulation and so on – would be much more effective at helping countries to meet their energy needs.

Even in the provision of oil, offshore deposits are very limited. For example, tar sands and shale oil deposits total around double the amount in reserves of conventional oil (on land as well as offshore).[[http://www.abelard.org/briefings/tar_sands_shale_oil.php]]. As well as lasting us much longer, the result of using this oil would be almost the opposite of oil spills – taking oil-loaded sand and returning it to a cleaner state. So offshore oil deposits do not really offer even a good medium term solution.

Therefore, we do not need offshore oil drilling in order to provide our energy even in the medium term, and should look to option which are more sustainable (such as reducing waste) or at least provide a longer stop-gap to the eventual depletion of oil (tar sands and shale oil).

Even tar sands don’t offer a long term solution. There is a finite amount of oil. Output may already be falling. Offshore deposits, while extending the time which we can rely upon oil, can never eliminate the bogey man of the western world – the eventual end to oil reserves. In the long term, our reliance on oil must end totally. It seems stupid to be wasting our currently fairly cheap energy and time scouring the bottoms of the oceans for the last drops of oil. All that money could be invested in other avenues such as solar or tidal power which won’t lead to billions of dollars of damage, and for those concerned with things other than money these sources will last for as long as we can see.

There are other reasons for investing in renewable sources beyond necessity which support development of renewable sources as soon as possible. Renewable resources are a key strategy in reducing CO2 emissions, because they do not involve combustion. In an era where we are increasingly certain that society is contributing to global warming, this is incredibly important.

Renewable resources are also becoming more and more efficient, especially in the case of solar power. The amount of energy available to us from sources such as solar power is astonishing; if 1% of the sahara desert were covered with concentrating solar panels, it would create enough energy to power the entire world. [[http://www.inhabitat.com/2010/06/21/solar-energy-from-sahara-will-be-imported-to-europe-within-5-years/]] Already, we have seen a solar plane make a 24 hour test flight [[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38142746/ns/technology_and_science/]] With such developments as these, surely it makes sense to continue to invest in renewable energy sources.

Thus, it seems banning offshore drilling would ensure we look beyond very short term fixes to the energy crisis and force oil companies instead to develop long term solutions, diverting investment towards providing a future for mankind in a sustainable way.

Far from having ’30-year intervals’, and resulting from ‘irresponsible companies’, blowouts and other oil spills are frequent and industry-wide.

The same website used to prove that BP was abnormally unsafe has another article proclaiming the exact opposite, that “BP was not behaving very differently from everyone else.”[[http://bit.ly/agmpAn]] In fact, Transocean (the contractor who operated the Deepwater Horizon rig) are in many ways more responsible for the spill: Transocean had been carrying out the drilling, owned the rig and a crucial piece of safety equipment – the 450-ton blowout preventer – which failed to stop the accident.[[http://bit.ly/cvD93I]] Far from being ‘irresponsible’, Transocean recently received an award for its abnormally good safety.[[http://bit.ly/9eOSZ2]] This shows the problem is not limited to a few companies, but is rampant through offshore drilling as an industry.

Oil spills from offshore drilling are far more frequent than the opposition was willing to accept – a table of blowouts lists 36 notable spills in the period in which the opposition claimed only one would occur.[[http://bit.ly/bsMNAf]]

Norway, far from demonstrating the safety of drilling with suitable precautions, shows instead the impossibility of eliminating risk. Gullfaks C is “out of control” and there is a real risk of a blowout.[[http://bit.ly/b7gbRi]] On top of this, the Norwegian government, realising that they are simply lucky not to have suffered an event similar to the Deepwater Horizon spill, have banned offshore drilling while they review regulations[[http://bit.ly/cMtWbW]].

Deepwater drilling acts at the forefront of the technological boundary, so risks can never be eliminated.[[http://bit.ly/cO5VdO]] Oil spills are therefore inevitably going to occur if offshore drilling continues, and the devastating impacts of oil spills which have already been outlined, coupled with this invariable risk, mean that offshore drilling should be banned.

What will keeping offshore drilling do? It will add a few years to oil production, which will still end in around four decades.[[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/world-oil-supplies-are-set-to-run-out-faster-than-expected-warn-scientists-453068.html]] It will increase global dependence on oil, when really we should be doing all we can to encourage nations to start moving to more longterm resources, ones which provide a sustainable future.

Trying to stop a shortage by depleting resources quicker seems to be one of the worst policies that could be implimented. Sometimes decisions have to be taken for the good of all of us and not just the few who want some more money. Getting off our addiction to oil sooner, while there is still plentiful supply as a potential fall back, is a wise move, and using funding which would otherwise go to offshore drilling will speed development of renewables. Oil companys themselves see the future outside oil, [[http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKL1516882320080115]] and its time the opposition did too.

Therefore, while we acknowledge current dependence on oil, we feel this shouldn’t simply be accepted but actively discouraged, and a ban on offshore drilling would be one such way to wean ourselves off of oil.

We have outlined the problems offshore drilling can pose, both environmental and economic, arguing why safety measures are insufficient to prevent oil spills and how the huge problems oil spills can cause mean that the risks are too great to be acceptable. We are not convinced that the ‘acoustic switch’ the opposition suggest would prevent Norway from suffering any oil spills – their own source highlights that it is unknown whether such a device would work outside models.[[http://ow.ly/2owSV]] We continued by outlining practical alternatives to offshore drilling, such as other sources of oil in the medium term but particularly renewable energy sources for the long term. Finally, we re-emphasised why it is important to ban offshore drilling now rather than simply wait until offshore deposits run out and find replacements then. We believe that together, these points for a convincing argument in favour of a ban on offshore drilling.

Unfortunately, we were unable to reasonably debate, within the motion, whether the pleasure of eating fish is sufficient to outweigh the risk of choking. We hope that there can be further debate to solve that issue!

Some of our arguments depend on the claim that banning offshore drilling will increase investment in renewable energy sources, something which the opposition deny. We believe the profit from offshore drilling for the most part remains as profit, rather than being invested in renewable sources, while a ban on offshore drilling would make developing new energy sources unavoidable. It would force oil companies to invest in alternative sources. While some of this investment would invariably be spent simply on producing other forms of oil, we maintain that more would go to developing renewable supplies than oil companies would spend if the simply had higher profits. Renewable supplies would therefore be developed sooner than if offshore drilling was not banned, making it more likely that a solution would be found before the energy apocalypse.

New ways of making the most out of renewable sources are already being developed[[http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/august/new-solar-method-080210.html]] – with solar power now cheaper than nuclear power and rapidly approaching oil in terms of price per unit[[http://www.ncwarn.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/NCW-SolarReport_final1.pdf]] – and increased investment would speed this technological development.

We therefore believe that, as well a being desirable, a ban on offshore drilling is very feasible and should therefore be implemented.

As outlined in other points, we the proposition strongly feel that BP is not a single irresponsible company, but representative of the industry as a whole. We also feel that, while it is politically tough to challenge oil companies due to the high profitability, the great risks outweigh the benefits.

Nations’ use of their own resources is already voluntarily limited in the developed world in areas where the environmental risk is thought to outweigh the benefits – for example London has a greenbelt on which development is banned in order to preserve the environment – and far from protecting nations’ rights, allowing unfettered access to oil resources is a means by which MECs exploit LEDCs, with multinational corporations pocketing most of the profit. While not all oil producers are exploited – Saudi Arabia for example does benefit greatly from its oil – often the Western world is ready to accept lower prices resulting from corrupt governments pocketing the income, which in turn cements their grip on power and disbenefits the majority of that nations’ population.

The opposition claim the fairness of this legislation is a black and white issue. However, as with almost all issues, it is far less clear cut than that. Environmental legislation is invariably going to be unfair to some. It is crucial, for example, to limit CO2 emissions in order not to unfairly cover Bangladesh in ocean through global warming. However, limiting CO2 emissions is unfair on oil producers and on developing nations yet to get beyond the stage Western economies went through in the industrial revolution – either choice is unfair to some.

Similarly, banning offshore drilling is vital to preserve the environment and encourage sustainable development, both of which are necessary for a fairer future.

Therefore, fairness can just as easily be used as an argument in favour of a ban as it can for an argument against a ban.

The opposition here seem to be exaggerating the extent to which domestic oil production can help satisfy the demands of oil wealthy nations. In the case of the US, for example, the world’s largest consumer of oil, only 35% of it’s daily oil consumption comes from domestic sources. If the US were to use all of the oil they currently produce, it would still only provide them with 41% of their daily demands. [[http://www.nationmaster.com/country/us-united-states/ene-energy]]

The idea that Opposition pollution would be significantly reduced with locally drilled oil for whose transportation little resources are needed only really holds for countries which both produce less oil than they use and have large offshore deposits, which is a rare thing indeed.

The US again provides an interesting example, as it has an estimated 86billion barrels of offshore reserves. But even this astounding sum would support the US for only 11 years, provided none of it was sold.[[http://articles.sfgate.com/2008-07-22/news/17173127_1_drilling-offshore-oil-oil-fields]] So even where the opposition’s point holds, the benefits are slight.

Further more, the idea that offshore drilling performed by MEDCs will be better environmentally than onshore drilling by LEDCs doesn’t hold. For example, to quote a source used by the opposition:USA Today
When oil is brought up from beneath the ocean floor, other things are, too. Chemicals and toxic substances such as mercury and lead can be discharged back into the ocean.

The water pumped up along with the oil may contain benzene, arsenic and other pollutants. Even the exploration that precedes drilling, which depends on seismic air guns, can harm sea mammals.

[[http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2008-07-13-offshore-drilling_N.htm]]
This shows that offshore drilling has serious consequences that outweigh the very slight benefits the opposition are citing.

The opposition’s point is littered with mistakes or fallacies. Not all offshore deposits are off MEDCs, and LEDCs with offshore deposits and not-as-strict-regulations would drill in the ocean as well as on land. If their lack of regulation on land is an issue, drilling offshore too would simply amplify their mistakes to an international problem rather than just a national one.

Reduced demand would not make producers stop operating – drillers would slow production to ensure maximum profit for their stocks, as OPEC already do regularly,[[http://bit.ly/9aj8A2]] but they would still drill eventually under the same lax regulations, with the same environmental impact.

We fail to grasp how reduced demand would encourage oil producers to make their oil production more eco-friendly. If anything, we feel that there would be incentives to cut costs no matter the environmental impact to maintain profits.

The opposition also either demonstrate a feeble grasp of economics, or are deliberately being deceitful. Increasing supply does not lower demand. In fact, basic economic theory shows that increasing supply increases demand [[http://bit.ly/9LFpSS]]. So by increasing the supply, you may lower the price in the short run, but you will also speed the depletion of oil.
Perhaps you mean that countries supplying themselves will then have lower demand for imported oil, and they may export some to increase global supply, but to treat these are two separate ways in which prices will be cut is deceitful – they are flipsides of the same coin, and it would be more honest simply to talk of the increase in supply.

Despite fallacious presentation of the point, it is true that increased supply of oil would reduce the price. However, as previously stated, the amounts of oil are too small to have a big impact on prices.

Thus, we feel the global economic benefits are limited, and the fallacious presentation of the opposition’s points suggest that they too realise this point is weak

The proposition don’t deny there are some environmentally friendly effects, but we do deny the suggestion that these are at all comparable to the environmental problems caused.
It is farcical to say that seepage has”more long-term consequences” and that oil drilling is safer than natural seeps. While large amounts of oil do seep into the sea all the time, it is simply untrue to claim that this is particularly harmful. Because the seeps are natural, the surrounding environment is adapted to cope with the oil in a way it cannot for masses released by accidents with offshore drilling.[[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/01/000127082228.htm]] For example, the oil released through seepage is at such a rate that microbes are able to break it down at the rate of production and there is no build up[[http://www.eoearth.org/article/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill]], with only enough for a very thin layer ever able to reach the surface. This surface oil causes no problems and continues to be broken down or evaporated. By contrast, oil spills flood smaller areas with lots of oil over a shorter period and overwhelm microbial systems.

We struggle to comprehend how the opposition can point out the minor issues of seepage with horror and yet be so blasé about the much greater issues resulting from offshore drilling.