Why Bother Drilling Deeper?

Offshore oil drilling is one of the most commonly debated endeavors that the US has partaken in. On one side, you have the environmentalists, who are concerned about the effects of this drilling on our environment. On the other side, you have the oil companies, who need to make money by providing increasing amounts of oil to support America’s demand for the resource and the energy it can produce. Many people feel that they need to take a side with one of these entities and fight for said group, but I do not feel that this is necessarily true. When evaluating the factors that should be most important when considering the expansion of offshore drilling, the most important factor that people should look at is the alternative methods of producing energy in America, rather than which side has the “best” ideas.

Whenever a new bill comes out proposing expansion of offshore oil drilling, you always have the environmentalists opposing the bill, and the oil companies agreeing with the bill. There is never a way to make both parties happy. Even if there is a compromise between the two and a smaller number of drilling plants are approved, then both parties are still unhappy, because the environmentalists don’t want any increase at all, while the oil companies want as much increase as possible. In reality there is no way to please both entities, because one wants no offshore drilling at all, and the other wants to fill the entire ocean with them to turn more profit. John Broder, a writer for the New York Times, illustrates this constant displeasure between the two groups in his article titled U.S. To Open New Areas to Offshore Drilling. In this article, Broder discusses a proposed plan for offshore drilling in America. This plan offers a compromise by only adding a few offshore drilling rigs compared to the many requested. Even with this relatively even plan, “Oil industry officials quickly criticized the plan,” and, “Environmental advocates responded vehemently to the new plan,” (Broder). Both entities can never be pleased, so it becomes rather pointless to argue or debate. What we should be focusing on is how we can create a viable source of energy that can make money for the oil companies and keep environmentalists happy. The US cannot depend on oil forever, so why not focus on finding alternative sources while we are relatively comfortable with the sources we have now? This would fix our issues when deciding whether or now to expand offshore drilling, because it would eventually become obsolete. This would not be a quick process, but if it were embraced by oil companies, then both in the long run, oil companies could make lots of money selling clean, renewable energy, and environmentalists would be happy about the new path the oil companies are taking.

Some companies are realizing this already and starting to research renewable energy, but they don’t put nearly as much resources into this alternative research compared to their main oil and gas production. A good example of this is demonstrated in an article by Jad Mouawad in the New York Times. Mouawad says that the oil company Shell, “Spent $1.7 billion since 2004 on alternative projects,” but that the amount was much smaller than the, “$87 billion it spent over the same period on its oil and gas projects,” (Mouawad). I firmly believe that if major companies truly put in the effort to find a renewable energy source, they could not only become very wealthy, but also solve the problem of depending on a nonrenewable resource, and keep environmentalists happy. This would all take dedication and a leap of faith by major oil companies, but it is going to have to happen eventually, so it’s better start now than later.