The Final Frontier?

Given the extreme environmental risks and high cost of drilling in deep water  made apparent by the disaster in the Gulf, why are oil companies like British Petroleum looking to deep water wells as the "final frontier" of oil exploration? Increasing world demand for oil faces diminishing supplies of easily extracted oil and gas. World demand is forecast to increase at about 2% per year. The Second Great Depression has caused oil consumption to pause. During 2008-2009 there was a net contraction of 3.5%, but demand will outstrip total world capacity between now and 2030. Current world capacity is 88Mbd whilst demand forecasts project demand growing to as much as 115Mbd or three times Saudi Arabia's current export.  As the graphic shows this frontier now extends up to 3.5 kilometers deep. Petrobras' Perdido platform on the Tupi field is the deepest. ;The costs of such wells are extreme. The Tupi exploratory well and related seismic data collections cost $220 million, but oil prices over $50-80/barrel justify the costs involved according to analyst Andrew McKillop writing at Market Oracle.com.

The dire straits outlined, one would think the industry would do more to control the huge amount of wasted resource associated with its operations.  Perhaps 60,000 barrels a day is being lost at the Macondo blowout. Wells with rated capacities of 60,000 barrels/day can attain loss rates of 1200-1300 barrels/day just in normal operations.  Methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, is usually found with oil, but it is flagrantly flared worldwide as a waste product. The World Bank estimates the lost of associated gas in offshore operations to be about 150bcm a year.

If Forty-four considers the OCS deep water deposits to be America's security blanket, he should think again. BP owns a 62% share of the Tiber field on the same Mississippi Canyon formation that the Deepwater Horizonwas drilling before it blew up. Exploiting this resource will be hugely expensive, environmentally dangerous, and supply only 10 days of US consumption, if expected volumes are recovered (200-250M barrels over 10 years). BP says the Tiber deposit could hold 5 billion barrels, but the median figure for recoverable oil is only 5%. Brazil's deep water Tupi field, also considered to be a bonanza, could require as much as $240 billion to develop. Operations in depths of 5,000 feet where sea floor temperatures are near 2℃ are environmentally perilous. Crude does not dissolve easily in seawater under these conditions, and the effects of deep blankets of undissolved oil on marine life are almost entirely unknown.

Eastern Chimpanzees Get Conservation Plan

Conservationists working with African countries in the range of eastern chimpanzees, (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) have developed a ten year conservation plan to save the remaining endangered eastern chimpanzees. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Wildlife Conservation Society released the plan last week according to ENS. Preservation of 16 areas could conserve 96% of the estimated number of chimpanzees-- put at 50,000 primates. Little is known of some chimps living in the still vast Congo basin, so the number could be as high as 200,000. The plan calls for surveys to be conducted to obtain a more accurate population count. It is thought that human encroachment and poaching has resulted in significant population reduction. The causes of chimpanzee population declines are well known, but not easily reversed. The plan envisions 30 to 40 more years of losses, but through international cooperation among the 16 range states it hopes to minimize threats to their survival and ensure viable populations. Saving chimpanzees is proper in its own right, but the morality of the issue becomes even clearer when one considers their obvious intelligence, social and emotional lives, and their rudimentary cultures. Chimpanzees make their own tools, including weapons, and prefer their food cooked. Given time they may even find a use for fire.

image credit:  sciencenews.org

Chart of the Week: Worth their Salt?

Just as the Roman Empire spent larger and larger amounts on its army, driving up the public debt and devaluing the currency, so the United States finds itself at a similar crossroads of history.  At the end of the Republic, Rome made the mistake of opting for military hegemony over what was then a global empire.  The unsustainable financial burden* of this path (among other possible contributory causes) eventually weakened the state to the point that even professional legions could not hold back the barbarian hordes.  Maintaining the stalemate with the Parthian/Sassanid Empire (Persia) was particularly draining of Roman resources.  Today, one will be interested to know what the conservative reaction will be to the proposed trillion dollar cutin the US defense budget, far and away the world's largest, partly because of two wars on the current Middle East border.

*"It's time to stop talking about fiscal discipline and national security threats as if they're separate topics: debt is a national security threat, one of the greatest we know of," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer , D-MD, said in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Unsustainable debt has a long history of toppling world powers." www.thecable.foreignpolicy.com

Dead Zones No Joke

US Person used the term "dead zone" in discussing the possible effects of the unprecedented oil gusher now polluting the entire Gulf of Mexico. The term is appropriate, and not just idle hyperbole. Scientists who have surveyed the Gulf for methane levels have found levels of methane as much as 100,000 times normal within a five mile radius of the wellhead. Such high concentrations of methane below the surface can cause bacterial blooms that consume the natural gas and deplete oxygen dissolved in seawater. The survey team found areas were oxygen was depleted up to 30% of normal. If depletion of oxygen continues, "dead zones", where no other marine life can survive are created. An earlier scientific study found giant oil clouds beneath the surface in which methane levels were recorded at extremely high levels. (10,000 times background level). This study confirmed earlier findings by a third team from the University of South Florida. More studies are needed as the conditions do not appear to be uniform, and surface levels of methane are approximately normal.

'Toontime: Modern Slavery

[credit: Tom Toles, Washington Post]

Democrats managed to eek out a Wall Street regulatory bill after weeks of contentious negotiations, minus a truly tough prohibition against derivative trading by big banks.  They were not successful in passing an extenuation of jobless benefits.  The Repugnant filibuster held tight, and majority leader Reid gave up the fight on Thursday.  Once again, that arch hypocritical spy in the Democratic caucus Ben Nelson (?-NE) was at the epicenter of the defeat.  His refusal to commit left the Demos 2 votes short of 60. Despite trimming the bill down from $134 billion to $33 billion, not a single Repugnant was willing to support extending benefits to Americans unemployed for more than six months. Go fish...but not in the Gulf.

Florida Beaches Get Slimed

Seen those commercials from Florida tourism advertising miles of pristine beaches on which to play? Not so much. Pensacola Beach in Florida's panhandle got hit with the crude escaping from the blowout near the Mississippi River delta on Wednesday. Eight miles of goo stained the white sands. Local officials say the response so far has been inadequate. Perdido Key is particularly hard hit. Workers cleared 8 tons of oil waste from a barrier island. But the stuff is everywhere and the longer it sits in the sun and sinks into the sand, the harder it is to remove the contamination. Residents of Pensacola Beach said it took four hours to clean 60 feet of beach. Yesterday, a remote control submersible knocked into a venting system which caused oil workers to take the containment cap off the wellhead to prevent a buildup of pressure reaching a drillship collecting crude. The well spewed oil at full force for 11 hours.  Current containment capacity on site is 20,000 to 28,000 barrels per day.  The revised  figure used by the Coast Guard for the well flow rate ranges from 35,000 to 60,000 barrels per day.

Whales Face Momentous Vote

Update:Ah, there is good news today!  Whales have won a reprieve at the IWC meeting in Morocco. The international body has decided to postpone a vote  on whether to allow the resumption of commercial whaling. Apparently the buzz at the meeting was not whaling, but the secret effort by Japan to buy votes to end the moratorium. Public outcry against whaling also helped convince the Commission to table the issue for now in the face of a deadlock. ;The substitute chairman, Anthony Liverpool of Antiqua and Barbuda was implicated in the vote buying scandal. His hotel bill from June 13 to June 28 at the Atlas Amadil Beach Hotel was paid by Japan Tours & Travel linked to Japanese businessman Hideuki "Harry" Wakasa who lives in Houston, Texas. The proposal would have allowed commercial whaling in the Southern Ocean sanctuary for a period of ten years. It was in essence, an immoral endorsement of the idea that humans can only save the whales by killing them

{17.6.10}Japan will take its ethnocentric, decades long battle to resume commercial whaling to the IWC at a meeting in Morocco next week, where a final vote on ending the twenty-four year moratorium will be taken.  "Small people" around the world have been signing petitions against the resumption of commercial whaling, but pressure from the other side has been considerable too.  The Times of London reports an undercover journalist was able to interest an official from Guinea in financial aid in return for their vote at the IWC.  Ibrahima Sory Sylla told the reporter that Japan had already made a generous cash donation to his minister, and that they would make a good counteroffer.  According to the Times, Japan has gained the support of 38 of the IWC's 88 members.  It needs 75% of the vote to overturn the ban.  As part of the newspaper's undercover investigation, journalists posing as anti-whaling lobbyists approached six small countries with offers of financial aid in return for their votes at the IWC. The countries indicated they were willing to consider the offers of support, and revealed the extent of Japanese vote-buying during discussions.