Why Deep Water Drilling May Lead To Massive Disaster

Deep water drilling is not the answer to our energy conundrum and neither is nuclear.

The Gulf oil disaster will be huge in the future as earlier the US congress allowed oil drillers to make their own rules and trusted them. There are now more than 20,000 deep oil wells that were capped off with no standards, and they are starting to leak oil.

Running a deep oil rig like RIG or Diamond offshore with helicopter pads and a small city of workers cost over a million a day rental. So they can only extract less than 40 percent of the oil because the rest costs more than one million a day. This is the reason they leave 60 percent under pressure that we cannot imagine.

Just think about 1 mile of water plus 1.5 miles of land under the water pressing down on the oil well that is 2.5 miles down counting the land and water and capping that pressure off. The old companies say we do not need regulations and make money for the short term, but what happens with all such “trust us” capped wells start to leak, 20.000 wells leaking one after another, making the BP thing looks like a minor event look like an ant. Everything will be destroyed in the entire gulf, but the big oil guys will have to move on and USA does not have the funds or resources to fix a problem that is 20,000x worse than the BP little even does it.

Take note that it is just land pressure in Texas and when they hit a well the oil will blow to the surface and they cap it off. Think of what happens when you add one mile of water on top of that. Water is much heavier than land. You would be crushed and could not dive one mile down. Even diving 200 feet down in a non-pressurized diving gear need luck. I am sure there are very few manned mini subs that can stand that pressure even to get down one mile.

So drill baby drill! is a great slogan, but they omit saying the cheap oil is gone, not like a old Texas well with zero people around and it is pumping on its own. They omit that the rig renal rates are not cheap.

Hence, a separate group of science people may not surely support deep water drilling. Share your views.