Interesting point, and not one I have seen elsewhere.

No different from the routine sinking of ships and autos to create reef environments. It’s unfortunate that so many have not researched the fact that modern drilling does not have the negative impact that occurred 50 years ago and ,as you show, creates some environmental benefit..

This lib is for drilling within US controlled areas. Even if we go green…whatever that ultimately means, we still have to supply uninterrupted energy sources in the interim. That interim is much longer than some would have us believe.. Domestic drilling is safe and essential to sustained American growth.

I’d really like to see a push for much more nuclear production but I think domestic drilling has a better chance .

But environmentalist seem to ignore it, go figure. Along with artificical reefs, man made structures in the oceans have been a haven for wildlife and has been common knowledge to scientists since the 70’s.

The people I always encountered acted llike Haliburton and Cheney had pump stations set up in the Gulf to fill the blowholes of every passing whale. Hard to claim infinite greed of oil industry and then claim they would flaunt environmental laws at ridiculous costs. I work in oilfield sevices and we have environmental people on full time who actually make global warming videos. Doesn’t make much sense to me.

Join the RedState Strike Force

The more the gov’t tries to screw with the oil market, the better for the oil producer (which is me). The best year for oil & gas was 1981, on the heels of Nixon’s price controls and Carter’s Windfall Profits Tax.

Then Reagan decontrolled oil & gas. There was actually an oversupply of both & prices were low for 20 years.

But, OTOH, it’s bad policy for the overall economy & the country’s security. So much for greedy, self-interested oil men.

Any fisherman on the Gulf Coast will tell you where the fish are - near “the rigs” (really platforms, mostly). At the end of a platform’s life, they are often “reefed” - sunk in a controlled fashion in a designated artificial reef area, specifically for marine life & diving. If the oil operator saves money by doing so, the savings are split with the state wildlife dept.

If anything’s detrimental to the marine population, it’s agricultural runoff, which causes an annual “Dead Zone” (scroll down for bibliography). And the main culprit there is BIG CORN, heavily subsidized entrant into the energy industry.

Many don’t know, don’t understand, or don’t care that oil moves form offshore platforms primarily in pipelines, the safest method from an environmental standpoint. The worst method to move oil around is in boats, which sooner or later is going to spill. The less domestic oil we produce, the more foreign oil we have to bring in in boats.

Also in the “don’t know, don’t understand, or don’t care” category is the fact that an offshore operator is required to report any spill of oil which causes a sheen on the water - there is no minimum reportable quantity. See this old diary.

Ahhhhh. Don’t get me started, Moe!

The article seems to prove that artificial reefs are benefitial for marine life. But to say that this proves that we need to expand offshore drilling is just rediculous and not a logic argument.

If the objective is to benefit marine life by increasing the amount of artifical reefs, then there are better, safer way to do it. How about just having a program that creates artifical reefs? It is very simple to do. All it takes it just to dump large metal/plastic/composit object in the ocean. For example, I once read an article how in New York they threw old metro cars in the ocean, to create large artificial reefs.

Imagine a program where all the old cars, busses, trucks, train cars are first cleaned up from oils, etc, and then dumped into the ocean so the marine life can form around those artifical reefs.

This would achine the objective of benefiting the ocean life, without building all those oil rigs that could break and leak oil And even, if you argue that the chances of accidents are very small, you must acknoledge that there are absolutely no chances of accidents with the program I described above.

…Obama’s cap-and-trade program will destroy Louisiana’s offshore oil and gas sector and put tens of thousands of hard-working Americans out of work.

http://www.thehayride.com/2009/04/scalise-trashes-cap-and-trade.html

As long as we make products out of plastic, there will be drilling for oil.
I don’t know of any vehicle that runs on Obungholes unicorn pelets.
Some day this will come back around. hopefully

I don’t see any fishermen commenting. There is no better place to tie up or fish off of than an old platform if you want Grouper (or Sea Bass).

along those same lines…. Facts go right over Liberal heads!