Offshore Oil Spills Cannot Be Eliminated,
So Question Becomes How Best to Minimize and Mitigate

KEY WEST, Florida – It is unlikely the United States can replace fossil fuels with alternative energies for a generation or two, at best. Cutting dependence on foreign oil requires off-shore drilling where it is nearly impossible to guarantee we will never repeat accidents such as “Deepwater Horizon” in the Gulf of Mexico or the Exxon Valdez in Alaska.

According to industry experts and conservationists alike, the question is how to bring accident rates to a bare minimum and more quickly and effectively mitigate them when they occur.

That will be one of the topics of discussion next month at the EcoSummit in Key West, Florida, a four-day conference that plans to bring together representatives of business, industry, government and conservation organizations to discuss some of the most challenging environmental issues facing the planet (http://ecoweekfloridakeys.com/summit/index.php).

“It’s just a fact that we’re tied to fossil fuels for the rest of our lives,” said Ed Overton, a professor emeritus of environmental sciences at Louisiana State University and one of the participants in the EcoSummit. “The only way to cut consumption is to raise prices to where it becomes objectionable to people to use fossil fuels. But you’d have a massive negative economic impact on the country, and if you are an elected official, you’d be voted out of office.”

Jorge Piñon, a visiting research fellow at the Cuban Research Institute in Miami and another EcoSummit participant, said consumers would not be the only ones who would rebel at skyrocketing fossil fuel rates.

“Believe it or not, oil companies hate high oil prices,” said Piñon, the former president of Amoco Oil Latin America. “They lower consumption patterns and provide economic incentive for the development of mass transportation and other sources of fueling transportation, such as electric cars, hydrogen, CNG, and so on.”

Although in many area, last year’s “Deepwater Horizon” blowout is fading from memory, the consequences of offshore drilling are very much as issue in Key West because Cuba is expected to begin drilling in the Straits of Florida in December.

Given the probability that the Western Hemisphere will be dealing with offshore drilling for many years, Overton said, “What do you do to be prepared to deal with accidents if and when they do occur?” He suggests ready response teams that react quickly, as fire departments react to fires.

“Having teams and equipment at the ready all the time will be very costly,” he said, “especially when you consider that really horrific oil accidents occur only about once in every 20 years. Smaller events, where you also could deploy the ready teams, are more frequent. The oil companies should pay the cost. It will be passed on in higher fuel prices, but consumers probably won’t notice, because it would be a penny or two a gallon.”

Should there be an accident with the Cuban rig, he added, the United States might not be able to respond because of a 50-year-old embargo against the island nation, Overton said. The only loophole might be an exception made to the embargo in 2000 to allow for shipment to Cuba of “humanitarian products.”

“This is one of the reasons it’s so important as we move ahead on some of these issues that the effort be a global one,” he said.

The EcoSummit, which will be held at the historic Tennessee Williams Theatre, costs $375 for all sessions. One-day packages are available for $150. Reservations can be made at: http://ecoweekfloridakeys.com

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Jean Heller, The Visions Group, 727.424.4349 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it