Preventing the Next Oil Spill Disaster

The longer that oil is the centerpiece of America's energy economy, the greater the risks of another environmental catastrophe like the Gulf oil spill.

On Wednesday morning, BP plans to put in motion its “top kill” scheme to stuff a muddy sock into the Deepwater Horror five weeks after the big blowout a mile down below.

Maybe it will work. Let’s hope so. Maybe it won’t and racking of brains will continue at the Houston command center.

Bringing oil to market was a whole lot easier in Dad Joiner’s day 80 years ago.

Joiner’s crew discovered the gargantuan East Texas oilfield, a momentous find that fueled the victorious Allied fleets during World War II and powered America’s rise to unquestioned global economic dominance after V-J Day.

Back in the day, the U.S. was a comfortable oil autarky. We produced all the dinosaur juice we needed from beneath dry land here at home.

Oil is no longer so easy to come by, and therein lie the energy risks that America has yet to face up to forthrightly. The longer that oil is the centerpiece of our energy economy, the greater those risks.

We already know about the economic and security dangers of our unseemly co-dependence with petro-regimes that use oil as a strategic weapon and as a cash register to pay for their dark ambitions.

Deepwater Horizon has exposed vividly the environmental risks of scouring the ends of the earth and the deep blue seas to fuel demand that the friendly home fields of Texas, Oklahoma, et al. can no longer supply in full.

Eventually, perhaps as early as this week, the wayward Gulf well will be plugged.

Time for absorbing lessons from Deepwater Horizon will be short, however. As long as the demand for oil increases relentlessly, oil companies will press forward with plans to drill in places out on the edge where, as with the deepwater wells, their extraction technologies have outpaced spill prevention and containment capabilities.

As demand rises, the industry is upping the ante. Drill ships are ready to begin exploring the Chukchi and Beaufort seas north of Alaska, which are as unforgiving as they are pristine. A thawing Arctic Ocean could attract additional offshore oil production in the polar regions. While the risks of oil extractions in frontier environments may never be fully mastered, phasing down oil demand offers a less risky path forward.