Is It BP, Cabot and Chesapeake, Or Is It Us?

By now, we've all seen the photos of the helpless oil covered birds struggling for their lives along the Gulf Coast. Those photos make me incredibly sad, and of course, fuel the collective anger building against BP. It's so easy to lay the blame at the feet of the big, bad oil company. Just like, over in Pennsylvania, when there's a gas well blowout, or there's fouling of water from another drilling 'mishap', it's easy to lay the blame at Cabot or Chesapeake or any of the other gas companies that are 'responsible.'

But the anger is somewhat misplaced. It should be directed at all of us, with our insatiable appetites for cheap energy. We demand cheap energy, and view it as practically an American birthright to build big houses and drive big cars and consume lot and lot of energy. We've made it politically untenable for our leaders to enact policies that would drive up the cost of gasoline through increased taxes (and thereby reduce demand), or establish land use policies that would penalize wasteful land use and sprawling development in favor of denser transit oriented development. We continue to allow the building of 5,000+ sq. ft. houses that consume obscene amounts of energy. We want our instant-on electronics and fruit in the winter flown in from South America.

As the low hanging fruit, in petro terms, becomes less and less available, the energy companies have to cast a wider and riskier net to find new sources.  So the oil companies end up drilling in mile deep ocean and the gas companies turn to hydrofracking with dangerous chemicals. The energy companies, and the politicians and regulators they're closely aligned with, sing in unison that it's safe. It's always safe when they need some law passed, policy enacted or permission granted, whether it's drilling in the deep gulf, in the arctic wildlife refuge or on somebody's farm just uphill from the Delaware River. But what's so clear from the BP debacle in the gulf is that it isn't 100% safe and nobody can guarantee that it is.

I agree so wholeheartedly with President Obama that this is a wake up call to America that we need to start seriously reducing our petro dependence, and not just give it lip service by raising fuel efficiency in cars by a couple of miles per gallon or buying a half dozen compact fluorescent bulbs.

Comments

[Bix]

Here's what we have coming when and if natural gas drilling arrives:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/07/texas.gas.line.fire/?hpt=T2

[ar]

This one is the wake up call? What were the gas lines of the 70s? What was Exxon Valdez? What was $4-plus gas a year or two ago? We don't wake up. We get, maybe, outraged for a moment, and then we forget, and nothing changes. That isn't some gloomy attitude; it's not some negative buzz kill; it's objective, undeniable, historical fact, repeated again and again and again. Isn't it?

[keith]

I agree we all share some culpability, but still..... "penny wise and pound foolish" And how fitting that it's a British expression.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/sex-lies-and-oil-spills_b_564163.html

[Slam Busy]

Enough with the gas Dave.

Where are the May 2010 numbers and data?

It's almost the middle of June!

Regards,
Slam

[David Knudsen]

The May data is coming. But, hey, I've been busy for the past week actually working with buyers, and that's what puts food in the dog bowl.

[Slam b]

O.K.

But I don't like the May 2010 numbers from what I see or hear.

Slam b

[Bix]

Dave is right to blog on this. Gas drilling is a major issue for property values and real estate sales. If unrestrained gas drilling comes to the Catskills, and encroaches on the second-home areas of the western part of the county, it will have a major impact on real estate values.