Thursday was a busy day for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Two teams of scientists pronounced it the worst spill in American history, with between 18 and 39 million gallons of oil already leaked -- many times more than original estimates. And while efforts staunch the undersea gusher seem to have made progress with the "top kill" tactic, oil is still flowing, and there are no guarantees it will work.
In the short term, it's hard to talk about good news. Toxic oil is washing ashore across 100 miles of Louisiana coastline, a giant oil slick is swirling offshore, and eleven men are dead. But a couple of things happened today that may just reveal a silver lining to this catastrophe.
(Above, a satellite image captured on May 24 shows silvery oil hitting the Mississippi River delta. Red portions of the delta indicate vegetated areas, and the oil is most easily visible at the right of the image, as long silver streaks in the water.)
For one, the head of the Minerals Management Service, Elizabeth Birnbaum resigned just before a Congressional meeting was set to convene in the morning. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said she resigned "on her own terms and on her own volition," but speculation was rampant the Salazar has started cleaning house in an agency known for its cozy relationship with oil companies.
President Obama announced a six-month moratorium on drilling permits, and the suspension of exploratory drilling in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas north of Alaska that had been set to begin July 1. Thirty-three deep-water rigs were also ordered to halt in the Gulf of Mexico and millions of acres of oil and gas leases in the western Gulf and offshore of Virginia were canceled.
That's huge news, and a major reversal from Obama's pre-spill announcement that those and perhaps other areas would be newly opened after a nearly 30-year hiatus (which itself came following a massive spill off southern California in 1969).
For the moment, the move raises more questions than it answers. A hold on drilling makes sense for now, but what happens in the long term? Will Obama stick to his guns and keep the moratorium going after the leak is shut off? Will his bold move send a price shock through the petroleum industry (and perhaps result in higher gasoline and/or fuel oil prices) and cause a backlash with voters?
Or, now that he and Salazar "have their boots on the throat" of BP, the MMS, and all new drilling permits, is this the opening that green technology has been waiting for? Will this oil spill finally steer the course of energy policy in this country away from fossil fuels and toward clean, renewable sources of energy?
That's a lot to ask from one oil spill, even the biggest one in U.S. history. But if a horrible environmental catastrophe is going to have a silver lining, that could be it.
Image: NASA, via Physorg
Tags: Geophysics, Natural Disasters, Oceanography
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