EnviroWave by Robert Green

The Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006 passed by the US Senate opens 8.3 million acres of gulf waters have been opened to extract oil and gas. Enough resources are believed to reside in these waters to service US petroleum and gas requirements for 15 years or more.

This is great news if we a concerned about our reliance on foreign oil, but we might see additional risks rise. Offshore drilling has been a deeply contested issue for the gulf states due to environmental reasons for decades.

A local supply of gas and oil has some tremendous benefits, but there is a bottleneck in the production system. The U.S. does not have the refining capacity to deal with this new supply. The main reason for this is that people do not want a refinery, or other chemical plant in their backyard. We witnessed the impact on gas prices as hurricane Katrina (2005) disrupted the gulf coast's production and distribution systems when refineries were damaged.

I believe it's good for our country to reduce our dependance on foreign resources, but as we consume and deplete these resources, we should seriously invest and transition to alternative energy sources, alternative fueled vehicles, production plant(s) and equipment with the goal of eliminating our demand on non renewable resources.

Robert