How to industry sign banking alaska permission slip
Cuba poised to drill for oil just 60 miles off the Florida Keys can it be done safely we understand perfectly our responsibility to have clean and safe they go energy now meets with Cuban officials to get answers without a doubt one of the biggest burdens over the last few months has been the price of gasoline President Obama clears the way for more offshore drilling from the Gulf of Mexico to Alaska will it bring prosperity to the North Slope the oil industry is not our enemy or ruin there goes that way of life a look at what drilling could mean to a centuries-old lifestyle and a look into the future a future with more carpet seems like there's an equal chance we could have more carbon in the atmosphere or less covering the atmosphere funny into the century right oh no we'll have more carbon gas power 5000 year old marsh is giving us a glimpse into our climate future this is Gina hello everyone I'm Sonia assure us welcome to energy now a weekly look at America's energy challenges and what we're doing about them domestic oil production is part of a national effort to reduce our dependence on foreign crude is a decades-long challenge last year US oil production hit its highest level since 2003 but the massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the subsequent drilling moratorium resulted in a severe curtailment of the industry that's changing though in his weekly address last Saturday President Obama announced steps to speed drilling for oil on shore and off though as he put it only if safe and responsible among the steps the president directed the interior department to conduct annual lease sales in Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve and to accelerate assessments of oil and gas resources in the Atlantic and the president said he would extend some drilling leases we're also taking steps to give companies time to meet higher safety standards when it comes to exploration and drilling that's why my administration is extending drilling leases in areas of the Gulf that were impacted by the temporary moratorium as well as certain areas off the coast of Alaska the White House move does not mean more American oil rigs will begin sprouting offshore immediately but the Gulf of Mexico will sport a new active oil rig as early as this fall not from the United States but from Cuba a little over a week ago I traveled to Trinidad site of a drilling conference to speak directly with Cuban government and oil industry delegates about their nations plans they confirmed that Cuba state oil company Cupid in partnership with several foreign firms will drill off the islands northern coast just 60 miles from Florida as you might imagine that prospect has ignited fears of environmental disasters that could rival the BP spill the Cuban oil reserves are presumed to be 5,000 feet under sea and about the same depth as bp's ill-fated macondo site the US Geological Survey estimates there are 5 billion barrels of oil Cuba estimates up to 20 billion barrels whatever the number the wells will sit 60 miles from the Florida Keys with Cuba poised to launch its deepwater drilling campaign in the Gulf of Mexico concern is rising in the United States about potential spills after all Cuba and its partners because of the embargo can't place a 911 us home to the closest fastest and biggest response teams that challenge is not lost from the Cuban perspective either for us the common goal is a common challenge Cuba appeared eager to address environmental fears over its deepwater drilling plans in a recent rare appearance at the drilling conference in Trinidad rare because it was an American run conference we need to protect people an environment from this accident from happening the concerns trumped the US embargo prohibiting this kind of interaction concerns not just about safety itself but also about who is building the rig and who if not the US will be drilling in those waters Cuba and its multinational partners including spain norway and italy have seven wells in the drawing board at a cost of one hundred million dollars each this 53,000 tonne rig built china and singapore will do the drilling off the islands north shore if there is a spill the u.s. cannot respond during the BP horizon incident you had about a hundred and fifty six airplanes you had 5600 vessels you had over a million miles of boom that were used and you have about 40,000 responders so just think of that magnitude incident happening in Cuban waters Cuba however claims it has the know-how after all according to Manuel Marrero foz the nation's grandfather of oil as he's known back home Cuba's onshore and nearshore industry has existed for 50 years we understand perfectly our responsibility to have clean and safe the Gulf of Mexico the Cuban delegation was prohibited by its own government from speaking with energy now but in a delicate dance more common in diplomatic circles members agreed to a few of our questions about potential accidents directed by IADC President Lee hunt we are very very sure that we will do everything well still that confidence was tempered by a veiled plea for us cooperation the only way you have to build a new approach the better approach to set it higher standard is sharing for the US government Cuba's pending oil production in the Gulf of Mexico is an issue of concern in April reuters reported that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said quote obviously because it's located 60 miles off the coast of Florida it's an issue that we're monitoring carefully the interior department gave energy now a no comment when we asked them about Cuba's Gulf oil drilling and we'll have more on Cuba's quest for oil a little later in the show meantime thanks to President Obama's plan to increase oil and gas production in Alaska shell has resubmitted plans to start drilling there next year and the EPA says it's close to okaying three offshore permits for the company Alaska's resources lie in the Beaufort and chukchi seas areas which have been hunted and fished for thousands of years by the native Inupiat tribes energy now is Dan Goldstein traveled to the state's North Slope to find out whether offshore drilling can coexist with an ancient way of life as we see in this energy now spotlight this is fried whale steak breaded whale steaks well and this is from a whale in the village of Point Hope Alaska nearly everything on your plate comes from the garden the bounty of sea and land here just making a family dinner from this garden is an effort for masak lane for the bigger things we use the saw this cuts the fish and the caribou it bones each spring the Inupiat community hunts whales in these frigid waters just 150 ton bowhead whale can feed the entire town of 700 for a year but the Inupiat fear their days of traditional hunting could be numbered point hope lies on the coast of the chukchi sea under it 25 to 27 billion barrels of oil a hundred and twenty trillion cubic feet of gas so Pete's lady head shells drilling operations in Alaska in 2008 shall paid the federal government more than two billion dollars for the right to drill off a point hope our wells here in Alaska are shallower relatively simple to design and we have track records of delivering these wells shell wanted to start drilling this summer but opposition from environmental groups concerns over air quality by the EPA and the fallout from the gulf disaster forced it to delay its plans now shell wants to start up again in 2012 Slaby says despite the remoteness of the Arctic drilling there will be much safer compared to the Gulf will we see us fill the like we've seen in macondo and I think the answer to that is no we do not have that volume we do not have that water debt masak lane isn't so sure we're way out here how are they going to bring the equipment the second thing is the ocean is aggressive one of the large assets actually will spend the winter in in Alaska the Nanook a 300-foot ice classed oil spill response vessel most modern in the world that can work in ice deploy a massive amount of recovery equipment but it's not just a potential spill that has resonance uneasy natives fear that shells initial seismic mapping of the oil fields using air guns will create enough noise that caused the whales the inupiats depend on to veer away making them harder to catch Eugene Brauer is a whaling captain it will affect the migration of any noise in front of it well deselect above it whale out from the migration run so it goes out you'll start deflecting to 2025 miles away from the source there goes that way of life she'll says that won't happen we have altered our routes so we actually travel away from coastal areas to keep the pressure off seals walrus coastal animals now just a few hundred miles from the village of Point Hope is the town of Barrow now the roads are still dirt here but as you can see there are a few differences the oil industry is not our enemy Edward EDA is the mayor of Barrow the largest town on the North Slope here only twenty percent of the residents depend on whaling for food that's because Barrow sits surrounded by oil fields there are restaurants taxicabs banks and tourists eager to see life at the top of the world our standard of living has improved dramatically as well as the health due to our ability to have the good fortune to be able to tax the oil industry in the final decision over new offshore drilling is mainly in the hands of the federal government the Obama administration back oil drilling offshore only to put new drilling permits on hold after the gulf disaster now with oil prices close to a hundred dollars a barrel and gas prices over four dollars a gallon the White House is leaning towards opening the Chukchi again at a hearing this month the EPA appeared ready to change its tune and now I think we're very close to an understanding between us and shell about where their opportunity is how they can structure their permit how he can deliver a solid permit back in Point Hope masa clean is working in the city office first up fixing the rundown rec center for the 200-plus children in town it's a challenge the city's total budget is just two hundred thousand dollars fixing the rec center will cost thousands some do want development here they want to have swimming pools and other recreational activities which we don't have and cannot provide masak Lane says she's torn oil revenue could pay for a rec center but she worries about a spill destroying for community that would lose everything else they even had right now that they're rich with the subsistence it's a the freezers are full with the subsistence foods and may not have lots of money but lots of love and food and the choice they are being based with is either to choose their garden or choose the money on the North Slope of Alaska Dan Goldstein energy now if its permits come through in 2012 she'll says it will operate two giant rigs simultaneously to drill two wells in the Beaufort Sea and up to three wells in the Chuck cheap so far shell has shelled out three and a half billion dollars just gearing up to drill when we come back we're going to talk about everything we just heard our panel mixes it up over more drilling should we or shouldn't we and we'll tackle Cuba's venture into the Gulf of Mexico plus the carbon crystal ball what the past is telling us about our climate future how can we reduce our dependence on oil imagine if we could harness all this kinetic energy who is shaping our energy future China will produce more than half the solar panels in the entire world if you're going good polity batteries you can then store the wind when there's no wind store the soda when there's no so that energy now is the only TV newsmagazine exploring our challenges hybrid technology saved the military 250 million dollars it makes sense to make this ship now energy now on ABC 7 welcome back to energy now we just took a look at President Obama's plans to speed up both onshore and offshore oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico Alaska and possibly in the Atlantic and we looked at Cuba's offshore drilling plans just 60 miles off the coast of Florida well joining us in the mix to debate drilling is raiola doer senior economic advisor of the industry lobby the American Petroleum Institute on a real director of the environmental advocacy group environment America and in Raleigh North Carolina Daniel Whittle the Cuba program director at the Environmental Defense Fund thanks all of you for joining us and I'm going to begin here in the studio and actually if I could with you Anna what is your reaction to the president's plan well we're very disappointed that the president is so focused on expanding offshore drilling and therefore risking our pristine coastlines particularly the Atlantic Ocean particularly the coast of Virginia where I actually like to go to the beach that he's so focused on that instead of focusing on the things he's doing to get us off oil the oil industry in general realness seems to be saying kind of the same thing not so happy just baby steps not so happy that's right well it is baby steps it's better than nothing but we still have a long way to go when it comes to a national energy policy looking at our resources that we have here in the United States we have great opportunities to develop our oil and natural gas we think a lot more can be done we could bring a million jobs to the market we can bring 194 billion dollars into the federal treasury if we are allowed to go ahead with a lot of this development so there are things we can do and we'd like to do and we'd like a policy that supportive of domestic development and support of two of energy efficiency a policy that works for all of us but on oil you are saying lot more a lot more absolutely we have a lot of opportunities we're not going for them I don't think anybody's arguing about whether or not you do it safely and responsibly that's not an option it has to be done safely but when are we never I mean you just brought me all you should see okay did you both how do you how can you say that we are apps I mean we haven't had I know God forbid another accident to put things in place well a lot has been done in this past year in terms of addressing some of the issues from that spill a year ago we now have an offshore safety center that we're developing we have containment systems in place we have a lot of things that we've beefed up the offshore safety procedures we form task forces to address each in every aspect of that spill to see are there any holes is there anything else we can do much as you were doing any accident you could back over figure out what went wrong and move ahead that's what we leave on is kind of going breathing deeply you don't agree I gather well we woke up a year ago to the thing that some of us have worked all of our lives to try to prevent which is a catastrophic oil spill off the US Coast lines and unfortunately I hear what rail is saying about wanting to do things more safely but the reality is that the oil industry is right up there in Congress lobbying to weaken even the safety standards that have been put in place since last year's BP oil spill so this is this is a dirty and dangerous industry disagree with that we are working hard developing is offshore safety center we have as a matter of fact the American Petroleum Institute are charged since 1990 is developing recommended practices best practices and we share this we have offices around the world our focus is safety our focus is doing things did you support the bill that was reserved and it's that's it's got rejected a Senate there are ways back the safety standards did you support that bill well they obviously disagreement here let me bring down middle in okay if I if I could Dan you're an environmentalist your view on whether the industry is ready and I have to say I have toured a major containment system fast response system in Houston are you comfortable that they're ready considering to what may happen and if I could bring Cuba into this with Cuba getting into the mix I don't think anyone knows if we're ready yet I just spent a week last week and Trinidad with a room full of oil drilling contractors from around the world and the point made is that oil drilling in deep waters of the Gulf and along the eastern seaboard is extremely challengin
it's complex and it's risky so I think in the u.s. we need to take time to get it right we need to carefully look at the commission's recommendations which have not been voted on yet and just and just get it right before we make the same mistakes that we've made last summer well let me let me move further on because you mentioned that conference in Trinidad and actually that's where you and I met because I attended the conference as well it was a huge deal that Cuba was there so let's bring that into the into focus here and Cuba is going to be drilling very very close to Florida so in terms of safety the Cuban said they said to me that they are ready and prepared are you comfortable with their preparedness no one has taken this issue more seriously than the Cubans I'm happy to report I've been working in Cuba for a decade on environmental law and protection primarily on marine and coastal ecosystems coral reefs fisheries and where Cuba is getting ready to drill there are extremely sensitive environments at stake both in Cuba and then Florida in the southeast us so I'm confident they're going about it the right way they're trying to bring American scientists and oil industry experts into the into their efforts the embargo currently restricts the United States from getting involved for example should there be a spill so give us a sense though and you brought this up what might happen for the American coastline should there be a major Cuban spill well if there's a major Cuban spill oil will go through the Florida Straits and may or may not hit the Florida Keys more likely will come up the east coast of Florida and as far as North Carolina before shooting off to the North Atlantic the question is how fast could Cuba contain and respond to the spill under the embargo very fast okay so should American companies be allowed to respond absolutely that's one thing that the administration can do right away is to provide a license to those companies with the know-how the capacity and the expertise to respond quickly Anna let me ask you about that should American companies be involved or should there be some way should the government be thinking of a way to stop Cuba from doing this or to penalize foreign companies that work with the United States if they're going to work with Cuba and kind of stopping in the bud well look all the things that Dan laid out in terms of the threats to Florida's coastline are things that we're concerned about whether you drill off Cuba's coast or whether you drill off Florida's coast which is what the American Petroleum Institute wants to do so we're very concerned that while the oil industry says they want to do things safely they're lobbying this week in the Senate to roll back the safety standard we are going to need oil and natural gas for decades to come we have opportunities here in this nation and if we don't take advantage of them others will so so we have an opportunity to supply our own supplies and to grow those supplies we have an opportunity to bring the best technology in the world to this job and we have a big job to do and we're ready to do it we should have had the best technology last summer in BP and we did not a debate obviously that is going to continue I hope all of you will come back thank you very much a Q a final note for now on deepwater drilling nations around the globe have been developing techniques and designing equipment for decades more than 40 years ago Scotland unveiled the mercury a drilling vessel it called revolutionary take a look in this energy then from 1969 Scotland moving into position for tests together with the new Rigby offshore mercury a vessel that will revolutionize deep-sea drilling for the mercury is the world's first self-propelled ocean-going drilling vessel a rig that needs tighter types nor acres and can sail 7,000 miles without replenishment when in action the Derrick's eject down to the sea bed by operating this interior control Carole leaving the whole poised in the air in the search for gas oil and other minerals the rig is a big step into the future today there are 326 offshore oil and gas drilling rigs in the world 33 of those belong to us companies and 32 are in the Gulf of Mexico when we come back a glimpse at our climate future in a five-thousand-year-old marsh carbon dioxide concentration of the atmosphere is what the whole marsh will be growing in at the end of the century we're fighting for AJ and we can all breathe easier we're fighting to make every section a smoke-free section for a day when even vehicles quit smoking we're fighting for clear skies over every silly and healthy lungs throughout the country the American Lung Association isn't just buying prepare we're fighting for all the things that make it worth breathing join us in the fight at fighting for air at work wonder what we focus on here at energy now touches on efforts to reduce the globe's carbon footprint the question is what might happen if it continues to grow instead well not far from us here in Washington DC a team of Smithsonian scientists is gauging what life might be like by the end of the century if nothing changes energy now is chief correspondent Tyler suitors had an opportunity to look into our climate future right in our own backyard in this energy next just outside the nation's capitol in a little corner of the Chesapeake Bay is our planets future here the year is 2100 and for the last two decades this has been a second home to gary / esta I have a piece of tape on the pipe so I know how far down the pic Carly this home is part of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center how do you stay out here doing this for 20 years I love it this is my office it's not a better place to work his work involves reading the environments tea leaves or salt marsh leaves to be more precise leaves growing in dozens of pretty low-tech time machines these translucent tents they are the latest twist in the longest-running carbon dioxide experiment in the entire world they simulate what our climate might be like 90 years into the future inside this this chamber the atmosphere carbon dioxide concentration of the atmosphere is what the whole marsh will be growing in at the end of the century you found the level and you just keep pumping and co2 to maintain that level that's right the level of co2 upon McGonigle's referring to is just about double the carbon dioxide we have in the air right now that's where the world's leading climate scientists expect us to be by the year 2100 by raising carbon dioxide levels that high the Smithsonian team can then track how our earth will respond to change respond to what we humans are doing to our planet isn't that something that we all learn in our first biology class that carbon dioxide is good for plants of course you're going to grow more well yes and no I mean we know that plants need carbon dioxide but it wasn't clear at first whether giving them more carbon dioxide would do anything and indeed it does it acts like a nutrient it acts like fertilizer yes but it is also a pollutant so let's be clear about this doubling our current co2 levels will help certain plants grow poison ivy for one will apparently thrive but that could also bring higher temperatures and longer droughts changes for the worse changes that are already underway one thing that I like about this picture law too is you can see the species shift but I was talking about you can see this is all grass and now now you see that this edges are all moved in that shift Perez's showing me happened over the last 18 years but the very same picture it's proof that not everything here changes as quickly as the artificial climate do you recognize the beard if not well then the University of Tennessee hat should be a dead giveaway did that kid know what he was getting into oh yeah yeah I already yeah you know this and this is you know the basic kind of stuff we're doing we got a measuring stick you know and a free dating / esta and his old equipment the research material itself these soil samples they date back to the early 18th century so this Marsh has the ability to grow upward and as it does you can see that storing carbon this is it's a carbon sink yeah it's a carbon sink all everything that's brown in here was gas in the atmosphere that the plants took out and then when they died it got buried but our current carbon pollution be exhausted from our cars the emissions for most of our electricity generation the earth has never seen man-made carbon emissions like this and we're polluting our planet with a lot more than just carbon emissions so even if more co2 is good for plants nitrogen pollution which were worried about in Chesapeake Bay and other estuaries around the world tends to have the sit effect so it's almost a set of scales that are balancing each other right if we keep the estuaries clean and the elevated co2 may actually help the marsh build soil if the estuaries become polluted with nitrogen then that benefit from carbon dioxide is cut down in half or so it seems again is an equal chance we could have more carbon in the atmosphere or less carbon in the atmosphere by the end of the century right oh no we'll have more carbon in the atmosphere that's a guarantee at this yeah yeah there's all put the house on that one how's that going of course but ghana goal and / esta won't be around to collect on that bet but their hope the reason for their research it's that will all be a bit better prepared for the climate path that lies ahead it's beautiful office yeah usually just me I like that in Edgewater Maryland Tyler suitors energy now and that's it for this week's energy now want more you can find us online at energy now calm and on youtube facebook as well as twitter at energy now news I'm thyristors I'll see you next week
