The American Chemistry Council (ACC) has called for a solution to be found to end the drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico.
The ACC President and CEO, Cal Dooley, made these remarks in The Hill's Congress Blog. Dooley noted the potential harm to US Manufacturing, including chemicals manufacturing, of policies that will reduce the availability and increase the price of energy in the future.
Whilst the moratorium is understandable, as a reaction to events in the Gulf of Mexico, the issue needs to be considered in its wider context. Whilst this blog has long argued for a policy of sustainability and energy efficiency, the world is still highly dependent on fossil fuels and we are very far away from having an energy future based entirely on renewables.
Peak Oil is a major subject by itself, but all experts agree that we are well past the peak of oil discovery and that we are approaching, in the short-to-medium term, the peak of oil production. This means that oil and gas production from unconventional sources, such as shale gas, is increasingly important and we must also continue to find and safely and efficiently produce oil and gas from all conventional sources.
This does not mean that we should take unnecessary risks in doing so but instead should find engineered solutions to our issues and operate under a regime of thorough oversight and regulation. The Gulf of Mexico incident was a tragedy and steps must be taken to prevent this from happening in the future but we cannot afford to call a halt to deepwater production at this time.
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