State regulators rejected a compromise that would have closed four offshore oil platforms and allowed new drilling for the first time in forty years.

Last summer, when a compromise deal to shutter some platforms in exchange for opening new ones was first approved by Santa Barbara County, it was hailed by some as ‘win-win’ because it put an end-date on offshore oil and gas development in the area. But over the last few months, public opposition galvanized against the proposed new wells.

The 2-1 vote on Thursday by the State Lands Commission to reject the Tranquillon Ridge lease was the culmination of that public opposition, opposition that began nearly forty years to the day earlier, when the Santa Barbara coast suffered from a major oil spill.

Lt. Governor John Garamendi, one of three members of the lands panel, said allowing any drilling in state waters would send the wrong message to oil companies, giving them the impression that California was opening up for business.

>>See also: Bush Lifts Ban on Offshore Drilling - Why It Matters and Why It Doesn’t

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The Bush administration has taken steps to open the Californian coast to oil exploration and drilling in as few as three years. The move could potentially tap more than 10 billion barrels of oil, enough to power the U.S. for 17 months.

The proposal has been greeted with horror in environmental circles, wary of the threat of oil spills, air pollution and increased shipping traffic in an area rich with migrating whales, millions of seabirds, sea otters, fish and crab feeding grounds. According to Richard Charter, a lobbyist for the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, “You couldn’t design a better formula to create adverse impacts on California’s coastal-dependent economy.”

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Background

• The United States consumes nearly 21 million barrels of petroleum per day (7.5 billion barrels per year), one fourth the world total.
• Of the crude oil consumed in the U.S., 66 percent is imported.
• The U.S. is on pace to spend over $500 billion on petroleum imports in 2008.
• U.S. oil production currently occurs onshore in the lower 48 states (2.9 million barrels per day (mbd)), offshore (1.4 mbd, primarily in the Gulf of Mexico), and in Alaska (0.7 mbd).

More Drilling Cannot Make the U.S. Energy Independent

• The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that 10.4 billion barrels of oil are technically recoverable in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)—less than one and a half years of consumption.
• The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that of the 59 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) of the lower 48 states, only 18 billion are off limits under the federal moratorium.
• DOE projects that lifting the OCS moratorium would not increase production before 2017 and that by 2030 production would only amount to 0.2 million barrels per day—less than 1 percent of current consumption.
• Total U.S. proved oil reserves are estimated at 21 billion barrels—less than a 3 year supply at the current rate of consumption.
• Since peaking in 1970, U.S. crude oil production has declined 47 percent. World production could be peaking now.

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Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman has announced his support for a plan to increase oil drilling as a means of paying for increased investment in alternative energy. Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Coleman announced his intention to join the “gang of 16,” a group of bipartisan senators seeking a compromise energy bill that would approve $20 billion over ten years towards the plan. The New Energy Reform Act of 2008 focuses on three overarching principles:

• Increased domestic production of energy resources, including oil and nuclear. This would include a go-ahead to open new areas for oil drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf off America’s Atlantic and Pacific Coasts;
• Transitioning vehicles to non-petroleum based fuels;
• A robust federal commitment to conservation and energy efficiency.

Speaking about the plan on Monday, Coleman said, “Nothing is more urgent, or of greater significance to the American people, than solving our energy crisis. The good news is this bipartisan group truly understands that folks around this country are suffering under high gas prices and are bringing forth real, common-sense solutions.”

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In the wake of this week’s unexpected resignation of EERE chief Andy Karsner, I find the below excerpt from the newsletter more than just a little interesting. Was Karsner resigning in protest to the Senate GOP’s blockage of renewable energy tax credits? Or was Karsner recognizing that all of his efforts with renewable energy were going to be all for not, because he was employed in an administration hell-bent on petroleum? Whatever the answer is, it is hard to believe all of these events are merely coincidental.

From the EERE newsletter:

U.S. Agencies Look to Oil Shale and the Arctic for Petroleum

With world oil prices near record levels, the United States is investigating ways to increase domestic petroleum production. According to DOE’s Energy Information Administration (EIA), the United States currently consumes 24% of the world’s oil but produces only 10% of it, causing us to import about 60% of the oil we consume. One potential new source of domestic petroleum is oil shale, a fine-grained sedimentary rock containing organic matter from which oil can be produced. The largest known deposits are located in a 16,000-square-mile area covering parts of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, of which about 72% is on federal lands. Last week the Bureau of Land Management published proposed regulations for establishing a commercial shale oil program. Commercial development is not expected for several years, but the U.S. Department of Interior estimates that Western oil shale potentially holds 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil. The United States consumed about 20.7 million barrels per day in 2006, so that’s more than a century of current U.S. oil consumption. See the Interior Department press release and the EIA’s “Energy in Brief” on U.S. oil consumption.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has completed its assessment of the undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and natural gas that exists north of the Arctic Circle, an area that includes the northern one-third of Alaska. According to the USGS, about 90 billion barrels of undiscovered oil lie north of the Arctic Circle, including about 30 billion barrels of oil in the “Arctic Alaska” region, which extends to the north, east, and west of Alaska. That sounds like a lot, but it’s barely four years of U.S. oil consumption. With a decreasing amount of sea ice in the Arctic, many Northern nations are now considering the future possibility of offshore oil exploration in the Arctic Circle. See the USGS “ Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal.”

Of course, other options available in the United States are increased drilling of conventional resources and reduced petroleum demand. According to the American Petroleum Institute (API), domestic oil and gas drilling is already up, with 50% more exploratory well drilled in the second quarter of 2008 than in the corresponding period a year ago. While most of that drilling is targeting natural gas, an estimated 5,219 oil wells were completed in the second quarter, marking the highest number of second-quarter oil well completions since 1986. The API also notes that U.S. oil demand was down significantly for the first half of 2008, with deliveries of all oil products down by 3%, for an average demand of 20.08 million barrels per day. As a result, U.S. oil imports sank to their lowest first-half level since 2003, at less than 13 million barrels per day. See the API press releases on the drilling activity and the petroleum demand.

Doesn’t it seem to you that it is outside the office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s scope of responsibility to be preaching about the benefits of developing oil-shale and drilling in the arctic?

Related Posts:

• Assistant Secretary of Energy Andy Karsner Announces Resignation
• Bush Administration Proposes Fire Sale of Rocky Mtns. for Oil Shale Development
• Billions of Barrels Under the Bakken Shale

Public lands within the Utah region and elsewhere have been a longtime target for oil drilling and government granted leases but always with the understand that wilderness and public lands in close proximity to national parks were typically off limits. That is, until the Bush administration decided to green light drilling near national parks in Moab, Utah in 2002. Although park scientists protested that the national parks could take decades to recover from the shock waves caused by local oil derricks, the administration claimed that parks would “barely notice changes,” according to a New York Times article published on February 8, 2002.

In February of this year, proposed oil drilling in the Great Salt Lake region was met with great resistance from residents and local and national environmental groups, such as The Friends of the Great Salt Lake and the Wilderness Conservancy who at the time I wrote this had received nearly 10,000 signatures in protest of the drilling from around the world.

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Step Right Up And Be Amazed

It struck me today that our fearless leaders, would-be’s, and corporate giants seem to think we’re all a bunch of rubes gathered outside a carnival sideshow, leaning on the barker’s every word.

Urging Congress to lift its ban on offshore oil and gas drilling, our fearless leader, you know, President Bush, told lawmakers, “There is no excuse for delay“.

It got worse, “Families across the country are looking to Washington for a response.”  Gimme a break.

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1-Difficult to Extract Oil & High Environmental Impact

High oil prices are making it economically viable to utilize oil that is difficult to extract. One example of this is just north of the border.

In the U.S., our single biggest source of foreign oil is from Canada. Although this may be reassuring from a foreign policy standpoint, much of this oil comes with a steep environmental price tag. Known as tar sands oil, 2 tons of sand are needed to produce one barrel of oil in a very resource and energy intensive process.

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