EV World: The World of Electric, Plug-in Hybrid, Fuel Cell and Alternative Fuel Vehicles
EV World: The World of Electric, Plug-in Hybrid, Fuel Cell and Alternative Fuel Vehicles
CONTRIBUTOR: Bill Moore
DATE: Tuesday, 30 August 2005
HURRICANE KATRINA: THE REAL "OIL STORM"?
As I write this, New Orleans and the American Gulf Coast is being pummeled by Hurricane Katrina. Communications are spotty. CNN and The Weather Channel reporters are braving high winds of 125 mph, inches of rain per hour and tides surging to 25 feet.
We have no idea of what damage is being inflicted on homes and businesses in the region, but officials in New Orleans, which is actually below sea level, were sufficiently concerned to order a complete evacuation of the city. An estimated one million people complied. Those who didn't have taken refuge in the New Orleans Super Dome, whose roof has been partially torn away.
While reporting has naturally focused on the human-side of the event, the financial impact started to be felt hours and thousands of miles away, as traders drove the price of oil up more than $4 to over $70 a barrel. Natural gas went to over $12 briefly. As Katrina spun up from a Category One to a Category Five, energy companies shut down their offshore oil and gas production platforms, getting their crews out of harm's way. But in the process, they shutdown 600,000 barrels per day of oil production. Gulf Coast refiners followed suit, taking one million barrels a day of production offline.
What is unknown at this point, is what damage, if any, the region's oil and gas industry has suffered. Where any of the offshore platforms capsized or seafloor pipelines damaged? What about the many chemical and oil refinery facilities? What about the nuclear power plant near New Orleans?
The real irony about this event is how uncannily accurate the writers of Oil Storm were with the initial premise underlying their docudrama that aired earlier this summer. They depicted a Category 5 hurricane called "Julia" -- just one letter off -- striking the exact same area over Labor Day, 2005 -- just one week from now. That fictional storm severely damaged the oil and gas pipeline facility in Port Fourchon, Louisana, southwest of New Orleans, starting a cascade of events that sent America into a severe oil crisis.
We won't know for hours yet the fate of this vital part of America's petroleum and gas infrastructure. I am hoping that in this case, life doesn't imitate art, but clearly, events like this illustrate just how vulnerable we are to such disruptions.
The other under-reported part of this story is what I see as a direct link between the high water temperatures in the Gulf that fed Katrina, global warming, and our burning of those very same fossil fuels. This storm is likely to cost billions of dollars in damage. We just have to stop procrastinating and get serious about cutting our CO2 emissions. If we don't, we're likely to experience more Katrinas, aggravated by rising sea levels from melting polar glaciers.
CONTRIBUTOR: Bill Moore
DATE: Tuesday, 30 August 2005
HURRICANE KATRINA: THE REAL "OIL STORM"?
As I write this, New Orleans and the American Gulf Coast is being pummeled by Hurricane Katrina. Communications are spotty. CNN and The Weather Channel reporters are braving high winds of 125 mph, inches of rain per hour and tides surging to 25 feet.
We have no idea of what damage is being inflicted on homes and businesses in the region, but officials in New Orleans, which is actually below sea level, were sufficiently concerned to order a complete evacuation of the city. An estimated one million people complied. Those who didn't have taken refuge in the New Orleans Super Dome, whose roof has been partially torn away.
While reporting has naturally focused on the human-side of the event, the financial impact started to be felt hours and thousands of miles away, as traders drove the price of oil up more than $4 to over $70 a barrel. Natural gas went to over $12 briefly. As Katrina spun up from a Category One to a Category Five, energy companies shut down their offshore oil and gas production platforms, getting their crews out of harm's way. But in the process, they shutdown 600,000 barrels per day of oil production. Gulf Coast refiners followed suit, taking one million barrels a day of production offline.
What is unknown at this point, is what damage, if any, the region's oil and gas industry has suffered. Where any of the offshore platforms capsized or seafloor pipelines damaged? What about the many chemical and oil refinery facilities? What about the nuclear power plant near New Orleans?
The real irony about this event is how uncannily accurate the writers of Oil Storm were with the initial premise underlying their docudrama that aired earlier this summer. They depicted a Category 5 hurricane called "Julia" -- just one letter off -- striking the exact same area over Labor Day, 2005 -- just one week from now. That fictional storm severely damaged the oil and gas pipeline facility in Port Fourchon, Louisana, southwest of New Orleans, starting a cascade of events that sent America into a severe oil crisis.
We won't know for hours yet the fate of this vital part of America's petroleum and gas infrastructure. I am hoping that in this case, life doesn't imitate art, but clearly, events like this illustrate just how vulnerable we are to such disruptions.
The other under-reported part of this story is what I see as a direct link between the high water temperatures in the Gulf that fed Katrina, global warming, and our burning of those very same fossil fuels. This storm is likely to cost billions of dollars in damage. We just have to stop procrastinating and get serious about cutting our CO2 emissions. If we don't, we're likely to experience more Katrinas, aggravated by rising sea levels from melting polar glaciers.
posted by Marcel at 4:23 AM
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