On Thursday, I wrote about the announcement of a new giant oil field discovered by BP in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s in 4,100 feet of water, and the well is over 35,000 feet deep. If it turns out to be as big as BP hopes it is, it might be BP’s biggest Gulf find and deliver half the output of Prudhoe Bay. Big field.
On Friday comes
word that Bobby Jindal and the State of Louisiana have their eye on the prize.
This will be interesting.
[promoted from the diaries by bs]
All bloviating about “Energy Independence” aside, the White House’s new budget proves that the main goal vis a vis the domestic energy industry is to maximize the extraction of tax dollars. The inevitable result will be the permanent crippling of the industry and the loss of millions of jobs. In the meantime, say goodbye to whatever shot at Energy Security that the U.S. ever had.
I’ve also heard a couple of times recently from high-ranking Dept of Interior officials (namely Sec. Ken Salazar and MMS official Chris Oynes) that the government is looking at royalty schemes that would increase its direct take in mineral revenue. Higher royalty rates generally make exploration less attractive from the oil company’s perspective.
Even if Our Energy Future is one of gumdrops, rainbow unicorns and Magic Windmills, it ain’t going to happen tomorrow, babe. Or in 10 years. The grownups in the room must realize that there is a role for fossil fuels (which, together with nukes and non-P.C. renewables account for 99.5% of current energy use), even if it is only to bridge the gap to that new future.
Ooops. There’s the problem. There are no grownups in the room.
