With a nod to the recent drop in the price of light sweet crude and the mad dash by producers to slow production to counteract said drop in price, I thought I would (once again) try to focus attention on the environmental impact of offshore drilling. In a near-future where Global Climate Change will already be jeopardizing the continued survival of some 1/4 to 1/3 of the world's species, we can no longer afford to be cavalier in our environmental behavior.
Back to the current price of oil for a minute:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
Light, sweet crude for November delivery rose 97 cents to $88.78 a barrel in midday trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell $6.07 to settle on Monday at $87.81, the lowest level since Feb. 6.
Prices have fallen almost 40 percent since reaching a record at $147.27 on July 11.
"We’ve just seen a huge shift in sentiment where the focus isn’t on supply anymore. It’s on demand, and that demand continues to weaken," Ritterbusch said.
It's amazing how efficiency and conservative behavior (forced or not) by consumers can scare the crap out of the fossil fuel industry. But that's not really what I wanted to talk about, so let's get back to those species that are facing extinction.
It appears there have already been nearly incalculable changes in sea life across the globe due to climate change associated with global warming trends, but we are woefully behind in the proper analysis of such:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/...
"Climate change is affecting ocean temperatures, the supply of nutrients from the land, ocean chemistry, food chains, shifts in wind systems, ocean currents and extreme events such as cyclones," Dr Poloczanska said. "All of these in turn affect the distribution, abundance, breeding cycles and migrations of marine plants and animals, which millions of people rely on for food and income. Development of the Integrated Marine Observing System, announced in 2006, is an important step forward but securing data over the time scales relevant for climate assessment will not occur until near 2030."
Dr Richardson said the situation is made more urgent as emerging evidence suggests marine organisms may be responding faster to climate change than land-based plants and animals. "As the climate is warming, marine plants and animals are shifting towards the poles and their timing of peak abundance is occurring earlier in the year," he said. "The slower dynamics of the ocean also means that some changes such as ocean acidification will be irreversible this century."
Okay, so: there's already a lot of stuff going on in our oceans that we are barely cognizant of. Generally speaking, radical changes like this always result in the accelerated extinction of some species. Whether we've already reached a tipping point with global warming or not, or whether we can arrest some of these changes by modifying our emissions behavior, the fact is our oceans are under major duress right now, and the last thing we need to do is launch another attack on them. Which brings me to the main topic of this diary.
Offshore drilling is not merely as simple as poking a hole in the seabed and sucking the oil up. Much like extracting from an oil shale field, massive amounts of chemicals, lubricants and treated water are used to facilitate the movement of the oil up and out. Even with the newest of technologies, the sheer volume of these byproducts that escape to pollute the ocean floor is staggering.
Now, I fully understand even the most devoted conservationist has a "sensory overload" limit, and an excessive amount of technical data often just turns into mental noise. But try to take some of this in, because it's important:
http://www.offshore-environment.com/...
Drilling fluids and cuttings:
Drilling wastes deserve special attention. The volume of drilling wastes usually ranges from 1,000 to 5,000 m3 for each well. Such wells can number into dozens for one production platform and many hundreds for a large field.
Drilling cuttings separated from drilling muds have a complex and extremely changeable composition. This composition depends on the type of rock, drilling regime, formulation of the drilling fluid, technology to separate and clean cuttings, and other factors. However, in all cases, drilling fluids (muds) play the leading role in forming the composition of drilling cuttings.
As a result of many technological operations and procedures, drilling muds and cuttings are saturated with hundreds of very different substances and compounds. It is their discharges into the sea that pose one of the main ecological threats during offshore oil production. In particular, many countries express concern regarding biocides, which are used to suppress microflora in the drilling and other circulating fluids. The list of such compounds includes over one hundred names. The most widespread biocides used in the oil and gas production practice include sodium salts of hypochlorite, formalin releasers, and glutaraldehyde as well as biguanidine and quaternary ammonium, and a number of other compounds. The composition of some compounds is not always known. Some biocides are highly toxic. Many countries either discourage (for example, in case of carbamates and thiocarbamates) or prohibit (for example, in case of dichlorophenols and pentachlorophenates) their use by the offshore oil and gas industry.
Drilling discharges also contain many heavy metals (mercury, lead, cadmium, zinc, chromium, copper, and others) that come from components of both drilling fluids and drilling cuttings.
Produced waters:
Produced waters usually include dissolved salts and organic compounds, oil hydrocarbons, trace metals, suspensions, and many other substances that are components of formation water from the reservoir or are used during drilling and other production operations. Besides, produced waters can mix with the extracted oil, gas, and injection waters from the wells. All of the above make the composition of the discharged produced waters very complex and changeable. It is practically impossible to speak about some average parameters of this composition, especially because reliable and complete analytical studies of these wastes are very rare.
Another characteristic of the chemical composition of most produced waters is their very high mineralization. It is usually higher than the seawater's salinity reaching up to 300 g/l. Such mineralization is caused by the presence of dissolved ions of sodium, potassium, magnesium, chloride, and sulfate in produced waters. Besides, produced waters often have elevated levels of some heavy metals [Neff et al., 1987] as well as corrosion inhibitors, descalers, biocides, dispersants, emulsion breakers, and other chemicals.
Recent studies have revealed that produced waters frequently contain naturally occurring radioactive elements and their daughter products, such as radium-226 and radium-228. They are leached from the reservoir by formation waters and are carried to the surface with produced waters, oil, and gas. During contact with seawater, these radionuclides interact with sulfates, precipitate, and form a radioactive scale. In spite of a relatively low level of radioactivity, concern exists that this process can create centers of increased radioactive risk. This phenomenon has become a focus of attention in a number of countries. Applying the regulations defined by some international agreements, such as the London Dumping Convention (1972), that do not allow discharges of radioactive material into the marine environment are considered to be justified in this case [GESAMP, 1993].
Other wastes:
Large quantities of produced waters, drilling muds, and drilling cuttings, discussed above, as well as discharges of storage displacement and ballast waters are the source of regular and long-term impacts of the offshore industry on the marine environment. Besides these discharges, sometimes the need arises to conduct a one-time discharge of short duration. Such situations include, in particular, chemical discharges during construction, hydrostatic testing, commissioning, pigging, and maintenance of the pipeline systems. The pipeline discharges usually contain corrosion and scale inhibitors, biocides, oxygen scavengers, and other agents. The volumes of these wastes can be rather considerable. In the North Sea, they reach up to 300,000 m3 of treated water discharged over a short period (hours to days) [GESAMP, 1993]. The discharge regime usually ensures that the dilution decreases the concentration and toxicity of the wastes to safe levels beyond a 500-meter radius from the place of discharge [Davies, Kingston, 1992].
Atmospheric emissions:
Atmospheric emissions take place at all stages of oil and gas industry's activities. The main sources of these emissions include:
* constant or periodical burning of associated gas and excessive amounts of hydrocarbons during well testing and development as well as continuous flaring to eliminate gas from the storage tanks and pressure-controlling systems;
* combustion of gaseous and liquid fuel in the energetic units (diesel-powered generators and pumps, gas turbines, internal combustion engines) on the platforms, ships, and onshore facilities; and
* evaporation or venting of hydrocarbons during different operations of their production, treatment, transportation, and storage.
In spite of the fact that some countries now prohibit flaring of oil-associated gases, it remains one of the major sources of atmospheric emissions in the world. These gases are dissolved in the crude produced oil. As the pressure goes down, they bubble out in amounts up to 300 m3 for each ton of extracted oil. The associated gases give about 30% of the gross world production of gaseous hydrocarbons. However, because of the undeveloped technology and lack of required capacities and equipment on many field developments, up to 25% of all associated gases are flared. In Russia alone, the volumes of annually burned (flared) oil-associated gases reach up to 10-17 billion cubic meters [VNIIP, 1994]. Astronauts have witnessed that the view of the gas-burning torches, for example above Western Siberia or the Persian Gulf, is an impressive proof of the large scale of human economic activity and, we would add, of its bad management as well.
Components of atmospheric pollution caused by oil and gas development include gaseous products of hydrocarbon evaporation and burning as well as aerosol particles of the unburned fuel. From the ecological perspective, the most hazardous components are nitrogen and sulfur oxides, carbon monoxide, and the products of the incomplete burning of hydrocarbons. These interact with atmospheric moisture, transform under the influence of solar radiation, and precipitate onto the land and sea surfaces to form fields of local and regional pollution.
To summarize: pollution from offshore drilling operations occurs from below the sea floor all the way up to the upper reaches of the atmosphere, causing both localized ecological damage as well as regional and global damage. I'm not sure there is another human activity that could pollute so completely as offshore drilling, and yet two out of three of us have been convinced it's the right thing to do.
In the court of public opinion, the polluters have won their case. That they won it through deceit, fear-mongering and pseudo-science will be small consolation to our descendants, who will understand all too well the catastrophic mistakes we are making now.
But that future is not set in stone. We must continue this conversation, in check-out lines at the grocery store; at back-yard neighborhood cookouts; at dinner parties and fundraisers; and yes, even while we're pumping $4.00 per gallon gas into our cars. Especially then, because we can't afford to let frustration make us forget that we are the stewards of our environment. It's not somebody else's job, it's ours.