Deepwater drilling will continue off Scotland despite Gulf disaster, says defiant minister

[theHandpuppet]

Source: The Scotsman


Published Date: 09 June 2010
By Christopher Mackie

BRITAIN will continue with plans to open up new deepwater oil drilling operations off Shetland, despite the unfolding disaster caused by the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, a UK energy minister has confirmed.

Charles Hendry said ministers had no plans to introduce a moratorium on new drilling activities along the lines of the six-month ban imposed by President Barack Obama.

<snipping>

"We think it's in our national interest to get the most out of our own indigenous resources," he said. "That means getting the best resources we can out of the North Sea, and that means developing west of Shetland."

Yesterday, Norway followed the lead of the US, its government indicating it was "not appropriate" to open new deep-water areas for oil drilling until the investigation into the BP leak had been concluded....

Read more: http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/world/Deepwater-drilling-will-continue-off.6349092.jp

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Good luck, nitwits.

[Titanothere]

1. Sounds like his country has bills to pay.

You do realize this is the only deepwater blowout that's ever happened right? He's right to keep drilling, just like we should after figuring out what went wrong and fixing it.

[caledesi]

2. Yeah, drill baby drill! That sounds so good!

:sarcasm:

[naaman fletcher]

7. a possible reasonable point..

Is that this was not a random disaster, but was the result of gross negligence. So, properly run rigs are not a big threat. The question is: Is that possible? Or is big oil so big that they can control the regulators? We know the answer in the US at least.

[Karenina]

8. BP has DIFFERENT (and safer) STANDARDS in Scotland. WHY?

This is a must-see Scottish documentary from 1990. It connects quite a few dots:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLu-Hp9--RU

[Yeahyeah]

3. I guess the British know how to do it better than BP,uh,yup yup.

[Nihil]

9. See the link from .8 above ...

Not so much of
> I guess the British know how to do it better than BP,uh,yup yup.
and more of
> I guess the British authorities know how to do it better than the US ones.

But, as you are happy for your government to pimp out your resources without
demanding any of the protection that other countries do, I guess you must be
happy with the results?

[primavera]

4. One is one too many

You don't gamble with what you can't afford to lose. And, as evidenced by the vast majority of the world that does not have oil reserves, yet somehow manages to pay its bills, it is possible to pay one's bills without resorting to gambling. It may not be as easy, but nobody ever said you were entitled to a life of easy affluence and it doesn't involve any risk of committing the environmental equivalent of genocide.

[Titanothere]

5. But those countries get their energy from somewhere. It's called trade.

Not everyone produces everything. And I think you might be surprised how many prosperous countries have an oil industry. Like, almost all of them. Actually, I'd be curious as to which ones didn't. That's not to say they get rich off of it in particular, but it's a factor in their GDP.

[primavera]

6. ... and alternative energy sources and conservation, don't forget those.

Most of Europe save Norway lacks appreciable oil reserves, yet they are among the wealthiest nations on earth. They do of course trade for some of it, but they also utilize a variety of alternative energy sources. In the UK, for instance, all new residential construction is required to come equipped with solar roofing. As a result, those who live in such dwellings not only meet their own energy needs, but most have energy left over which they sell back to the national grid. Germany has been using for years now gas turbines which extract over twice as much energy per unit of fossil fuels than the turbines we use to convert fossil fuels into energy. The Germans have thus cut their need in half and reduced their emissions by half, and yet still get the same amount of energy. To be sure, the German turbines are more expensive than ours, and we want our energy cheap so that we can continue to drive gas guzzlers and crank our a/c with the windows wide open. And truly, Europeans are not as extravagant in their energy consumption as the US is. People drive smaller, more fuel efficient cars, they use public transportation more, they walk and bicycle more, and they typically reside in smaller dwellings that cost less to heat and cool and light and so on. Yet they somehow manage to survive and be happy (and indeed a good deal healthier thanks to the extra exercise and better air quality) without indulging in energy gluttony. Our expectation is that we should get our energy cheaply, so that we won't have to make any adjustments to our gluttony, but, strangely, I don't find that to be a very defensible expectation.