Offshore drilling keeps energy cheap
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Editor,
Did anyone notice that President Trump just opened up 76 million acres to offshore drilling? Now, before you political liberals, renewable energy advocates, panic-stricken environmentalists, and other strange creatures, get all excited and start exhaling extra CO2, think about this:
Offshore from Louisiana there are 3,200 oil platforms which produced, in 2008, 25 percent of America’s domestic oil. In the same year, Louisiana produced almost 30 percent of America’s commercial fisheries. Only Alaska produces slightly more. Alaska has 6,640 miles of shoreline; Louisiana has only 400.
So, before any of you start sweating and whimpering about more offshore oil platforms, take a look at what’s under them: seafood. With 7.5 billion people to feed, we need all the food sources we can develop. Those platforms have become artificial reefs producing an explosion of marine life 50 times more abundant than the surrounding Gulf bottoms.
Florida’s waters are almost sterile by comparison. Florida zealously prohibits offshore drilling. Their fishing fleets have to go to Louisiana to find anything worth catching.
For more commentary, read “The Environmental Benefits of Offshore Drilling” by Humberto Fontova ( June 2, 2008). Google it, you’ll get it.
Cheap energy from those platforms makes it possible for the seafood under them to be processed and transported to consumers at an affordable price.
Let the oil flow. Cheap energy has kept 7.5 billion people from starving. If we stop using coal, oil and natural gas, most of us will starve to death in the dark. Since 1980 there has been an 80 percent increase in the use of fossil fuels. They now supply 86 percent of the world’s energy. See page 44 of Alex Epstein’s book, “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.” Google the title and download the first chapter free. It’s good reading.
Dale P. Ferguson
Polson
