Is it really BP’s fault?

Is it really BP’s fault?

 At first glance this seems a stupid question.

 But how many of us stop to think about where our hydrocarbons come from when we fill up our cars. In fact, I would bet that the majority of us just grumble about the high price of gasoline.

 So why are we drilling deep in the Gulf of Mexico? Why are we scraping away the vegetation around Fort McMurray and greatly depleting the Athabaska River? Why are we creating artificial ponds of water made so toxic by the residues from tar sand mining that migratory birds landing on them are killed in their hundreds? Why are we contemplating drilling for oil deep under the Arctic Ocean – a place so remote that, should a well leak, we would have far more trouble controlling it than BP is now facing?

 Part of the reason is political. The USA has long been trying to become less dependent on imported petroleum. For the purposes of their argument, Canadian petroleum is clearly considered “domestic”.

 The other reason is that we expect energy to be cheap. If you want blowout safety equipment and environmental protection, you must be prepared to pay – and we are not. In fact, bad though it is, the oily mess in the Gulf of Mexico is considerably smaller than the pollution caused by years of cumulative petroleum leakage from wells and pipelines in Nigeria’s “Rivers” province. But that is far away on someone else’s patch, so we don’t know about it and probably wouldn’t much care if we did know.

 We could make these problems go away if we were willing to rebuild our society so most of us could walk or bicycle most of the time. We could make these problems much less severe if we simply drove the cars Europeans drive – they use half the fuel ours do!

 In fact, at some point in our future we will have to do both of these things because petroleum will become too costly to burn. “Peak Oil” is not some abstract concept. It is a very simple fact – all good things come to an end. That bottle of 25year-old single malt you were given last Christmas is likely gone by now. In like fashion, every oil well eventually delivers its last barrel. The facts are simple: oil exploration discovers one barrel of oil reserves for every two barrels we pump. The easy-to-find and readily accessible oil fields have all been found. Our most recent discoveries are in remote, hard to access locations, or environmentally sensitive, or in deep water, or too close to well-educated populations to be exploited.

 Isn’t it time for our overpaid politicians to seriously consider developing “Plan B”?

 I can already see people crying that “electric cars”, or “the hydrogen economy” will save us.

 I’m sorry to rain on the parade. If electric cars were that wonderful, we would have had them years ago. In fact, we did have them. One hundred years ago, there were more electric cars on the roads than internal combustion ones! Unfortunately, electric cars have several fatal flaws, and driving range is just one of these. Hydrogen fuel cells are a great idea, but the fuel cell and hydrogen storage apparatus alone account for about $1,000,000 per car, and then you need seats, a radio, etc . . . Affordable hydrogen is another issue . . .

 Even if these problems were readily solved, anybody who commutes to work will tell you that replacing gasoline-powered cars with some other car will not solve the traffic jam problem. The solution to the problem must look beyond simply seeking out an alternative way to fuel cars.

 Whether “Peak Oil” is 5, 15, or 50 years into our future, the earlier we prepare for it, the less disruption our society will suffer when it finally arrives.

 And, if you want to see who is responsible for the oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico, look in the mirror!

Peter Bursztyn, Barrie, June 11, 2010.