Is the -- how close are we to resuming deep-sea drilling back in the Gulf?
There are reports out there that the administration is talking to BP about resuming deep-sea drilling.
But oil producers were happy to build (or buy) deep-water drilling platforms when those fields seemed economical.
Many oppose the moratorium imposed on offshore deep-water drilling by the Obama administration in the wake of the spill.
And hasn't he been at the forefront of lobbying for more deep-sea drilling?
After the BP oil spill, the administration put a moratorium on an already anemic record of approving deep-water drilling permits.
The blame is being laid squarely on the shoulders of BP, under whose auspices the deep-sea drilling operation is being conducted.
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The U.S. Interior Department's royalty rate for deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico is 18.75%--up from 12.5% two years ago.
President Obama also announced a moratorium on all deep-water drilling projects.
There was a lot of verbiage tossed around about the dangers of deep-water drilling, that no one had any experience with this kind of thing, yada, yada, yada.
That said, many of the newly identified deposits are located in the central North Sea or to the west of Scotland, and will require deep-water drilling which is expensive.
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And in the immediate wake of the disaster, it seemed like it might change everything, as a moratorium was imposed on deep-water drilling in the U.S. in May 2010.
This incident may show that deep-water drilling is too risky, but it might instead be just a perfect storm of ineffective regulation, poor decision-making, and bad luck, with minimal chance of recurrence.
There is no free lunch whether with coal mining or deep-water drilling, or for those who are honest, in the enormous underlying mining and chemical infrastructure needed to build vast arrays of wind and solar farms.
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In a court filing before the hearing, attorneys for BP and the Justice Department argued that the plea agreement imposes "severe corporate punishment" and will deter BP and other deep-water drilling companies from allowing another disaster to occur.
Environmentalists strongly oppose shale-gas extraction due to fears that fracking may contaminate water supplies, the oil-sands industry because it is energy-intensive and dirty, and deep-water drilling because of the risk of oil spills like last year's Gulf of Mexico disaster.
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What is clear is that much useful information is being gleaned about how to deal with a disaster of this kind, which can be expected to happen again, and other kinds of spills, as the prospect of deep-water drilling for oil is realised.
FORBES: Blame Big Bad BP For Now, but Where Is the Next Oil to Come From?
Whether or not the administration puts a temporary stop to deep-water drilling, we can only imagine what effect the added cost of higher premiums for drilling rig insurance and more sophisticated safety equipment is going to be in the months and years ahead.
"Our intention is to move forward thoughtfully, looking at how we can protect the resources of the United States and making thoughtful decisions, " he said on CNN's "State of the Union, " noting that deep-water drilling has been done thousands of times without incident.
Deep-water drilling was supposed to hold off the effects of a decline in world oil production that began in 2005 and is forecast to continue unabated through the rest of this century, just as several billion Chinese and Indians go on an energy consumption spree.
There is little hope of passing urgent legislative business, such as a long-stalled deal on sharing proceeds from deep-sea oil drilling between states, while politicians gossip, plot and counter-plot.
Other energy companies are doing much the same, focusing the booming domestic drilling and also high-risk drilling operations at deep-water drill sites.
We will participate in industry-wide efforts to improve the safety and reliability of subsea blow-out preventers and deep water drilling practices.
Gulf Restoration Network believes further steps must be taken immediately to ensure the safety of oil drilling in deep off-shore waters.
Also, Secretary Salazar has ordered immediate inspections of all of our deep -- all of the deepwater drilling rigs and platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.
The effort, called a "top kill, " involved plugging the ruptured deep-sea well by pumping heavy drilling fluid into it from the surface, nearly a mile above.
The most promising initiatives near term, he thinks, include solar thermal, high-altitude wind power and deep drilling to tap geothermal power.
That amount is less than the company will spend in drilling its ultra-deep Lineham Creek well in Louisiana that I wrote about last week.
The lack of standards for deep water drilling risk management will spawn a litter of over-reaching regulation.
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