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The Obama administration is standing by its decision to impose a deep-sea oil drilling moratorium. A judge suspended the six-month ban yesterday but the White House is going to appeal. It says a temporary stop is needed to re-assess the safety of hundreds of oil rigs in the Gulf. The United States is not alone in re-assessing its deep-sea oil drilling operations in the wake of the BP spill disaster. So are other countries like Brazil and Norway. Michael Klare is the author of “Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy.”
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JEB SHARP: I’m Jeb Sharp and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston. There was a setback today in the effort to stop the oil spill in the Gulf. An underwater robot apparently collided with a venting system set up by BP. The company was forced to temporarily remove the vent that’s been collecting oil as it gushes into the water. Also today, the Obama administration is standing by its deep sea drilling moratorium. A judge suspended the six-month ban yesterday, but the White House is going to appeal. It says a temporary stop is needed to reassess the safety of hundreds of oil rigs in the Gulf. The United States is not the only country reassessing its deep sea oil drilling operations right now. Michael Klare is the author of “Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy”. He says there are several known basins worldwide where deep water oil drilling is happening.
MICHAEL KLARE: In the western hemisphere the main ones are the Gulf of Mexico, obviously, and the Canadian Maritime Provinces off Newfoundland and New Brunswick and then in the southern part of the western hemisphere, off of Brazil; that’s a major new developing area. Then off of West Africa in the Gulf of Guinea is another major site. And then we’re looking at the Western Pacific off of Australia, China, Viet Nam, Indonesia and the Philippines. Those are the major areas.
SHARP: Now it sounds like some countries are rethinking their deep water plans. We see this week that Brazil has postponed a 25 billion dollar stock market flotation that could delay its efforts off shore. Is some of this deep water drilling now in limbo as a result of the disaster in the Gulf?
KLARE: There is a certain amount of, naturally a certain amount of reflection about what happened in the Gulf in terms of, is everybody prepared to deal with the kind disaster that they encountered in the Gulf of Mexico? In other words, every country wants to be sure that the rigs operating in that territory are not going to go through the same kind of disaster.
SHARP: What is the find in Brazil and what are the challenges there?
KLARE: In 2007 Brazil found a very large reserve of oil in deep water off of Rio de Janeiro, about 100 miles off of Rio de Janeiro. And it’s called the pre-salt find because the oil is found underneath a mile and a half of water and then two and a half miles of rock and salt. It’s believed to be the largest new field of oil discovered in the past 30 or 40 years. But getting it out of the earth is going to be extraordinarily difficult. You’re operating in ultra deep water with salt and sand that’s shifting and this is going to be a case that will put to the test whether technology can really operate at the outer margins of environmental risk.
SHARP: And I know you’re a skeptic, but could there be a scenario where deep water drilling does become significantly safer over the years?
KLARE: Well, I’m a skeptic because I believe that these ultra deep water wells are operating in places that are really pushing the environmental envelope and the further out they go, the deeper they go, the more problematic the geology is becoming. We’ve discovered in the Gulf of Mexico that the geology can behave in unexpected and problematic ways for which we are not prepared.
SHARP: Michael Klare, you’ve studied this for a long time and this disaster in the Gulf has finally at least made people here really focus on this issue. I just wonder what you’re noticing about the reactions, the debates, the decisions. Anything that strikes you that’s different now?
KLARE: Well I do think that people are understanding that technology sometimes doesn’t work, that it breaks down and that it may not be able to save us from the mistakes that we make. There is a sense of that in the Gulf, that my gosh, one after another of these multi-million dollar systems that are supposed to operate under extreme conditions failed. And all of the rescue attempts failed. And I think that’s a very healthy lesson for us to learn at this moment when we’re being asked to support ever-more risky energy options; that these technologies that we’re told are infallible are fallible.
SHARP: Michael Klare directs the Five Colleges Program in Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College in Amherst. His most recent book is “Rising Power, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy”. Michael Klare thanks so much.
KLARE: It’s been my pleasure.
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