This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez spill. At the time, it was the biggest oil spill in US history. As far as the cleanup is concerned, the Exxon spill is far from over. But Exxon isn’t the spill that weighs on American minds. I wrote the following post in June of 2010, when an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform stole the title of the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. 21 years after Exxon, and BP proved that oil spills are still a big problem—four years after Deepwater Horizon, has anything really changed?
Oil supplies the United States with approximately 40% of its energy needs. Billions upon billions of gallons are pumped out of our wells, brought in from other countries, and shipped around to refineries all over the states. 1.3 million gallons of petroleum are spilled into U.S. waters from vessels and pipelines in a typical year. Yes, it would be great if we never spilled a drop of oil. No matter how hard we may try, though, the fact is that nobody is perfect, and oil spills are an inevitable consequence of our widespread use of oil. The question is, once the oil is out there, how do we clean it up?
Nowehere is this issue more glaring than in the Gulf of Mexico right now, where 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil are spewing out of the remains of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig every day. The spill has enraged an entire nation. But perhaps my grandfather put it best, when I asked him what he thought about how BP and the US is responding to the spill.
“They’re friggin’ idiots.” Continue reading “Repost: Conversations With My Grandpa”
