Science Backs Up Supporters of Offshore Natural Gas and Oil Exploration

An article in today’s Charlotte Observer highlights the fact that even in the face of the devastating accident in the Gulf of Mexico, the science backs up supporters of offshore natural gas and oil exploration who are ready to move forward in North Carolina.

N.C. Senate minority leader Phil Berger said nothing he had heard about the circumstances of the Gulf spill made him think there was reason to reconsider drilling here. Energy exploration could create jobs and income for the state while reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign supplies, he said.

“You don’t hear calls from Louisiana and Texas to stop the oil and gas industry, and they are the ones directly affected by this,” he said.

The drilling industry, he said, has an extraordinary environmental record in the Gulf, with thousands of wells operating for years with nothing approaching the size of the current spill.

What’s more, the situation off North Carolina’s coast is substantially different, he said. It’s more likely that energy companies would find natural gas than oil, which means no spills, he said.

That’s true, said Lincoln Pratson, a professor of energy and environment at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment.

North Carolina’s coast is different than Louisiana’s, he said. After the oil rig exploded April 20 and sank two days later, Pratson checked the likely locations for drilling here. In some areas, he said, drilling could come relatively close to the coast, perhaps 20 miles out, but much of it could be in the Gulf Stream or beyond it.

The Gulf Stream is a warm current that moves up the East Coast and flows so quickly that it would probably prevent a spill from coming ashore, he said, in effect making a spill here a problem elsewhere.

Click here to read the full article from the Charlotte Observer…

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