Not+to+drill

NO MORE DRILLING

America has been kicking the can down the road for a very long time now. Oil as the main source of energy for America is expensive, detrimental to our environment and there are better alternative energy sources ready to take over in the very near future. This is the right time to phase out drilling for oil and phase in the cleaner energy sources of the future.

The environmental issue of drilling for oil is well known. Drilling effects both on shore, and offshore environments badly. Oil drilling leaves devastating scars on the earth. Most oil drill sights are far away from everyday life so most people don’t see first hand the problems they cause. As if the entire process for drilling for oil isn’t bad enough, the real environment problems come from oil spills. According to the (National Geographic Channel), the Gulf of Mexico oil spill may become the largest U.S. oil spill in history. The fact that it happened so recently goes to the fact that even if we do have the technology to make safe oil rigs and tighten up the procedures on drilling, the oil business and oil overseers are in bed with one another and would rather pocket and dance around these safety measures rather than see them through. Over 210,000 gallons flow into the Gulf of Mexico from the oil well fracture, and it is estimated that it will cost in the billions to clean it all up. To put this into perspective, this is the fourth oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in the last 50 years alone. America cannot continue to allow these environmental disasters to happen. All of the animals that are affected by these spills cannot speak for themselves. According to an article by (Freudenrich, 2008 pp.5) a Prudhoe Bay corroded pipeline dumped 200,000 gallons of crude oil onto the Alaskan tundra. This was a small oil spill. Endangered species such as the polar bear and other environmentally sensitive wildlife would almost parish if a major spill were to occur.

So let’s talk about these safer alternative energy sources on the horizon for America. Wind energy is one of those alternatives. According to an article by (Gellatly, 2010) the eastern seaboard has one of the largest untapped wind supplies in the United States. Wind is fast becoming one of the better cost effective renewable energy sources available to the United States. Advancements in wind turbine technology coupled with new wind mapping technologies such as “SODAR” (a way of measuring wind movement by detecting the effect on sound waves) helps to make this source a viable option to oil in the near future. Solar energy is another alternative on the rise. The expense for setting up solar paneling is slowly coming down, making solar energy a very promising form of clean safe energy over oil (Pare, 2011). To show how solar energy has improved, there has been a increase from 3.6 to 6 billion dollars last year alone in the solar industry. Other clean energy methods like biomass(the process of turning certain waste products into ethanol), and hydro energy are also making strives to be dependable sources of energy. Although none of theses alternative energy sources are completely ready to take over for America’s energy source, there’s no reason to start increasing the amount of oil drilling. Instead it is time to increase focus on these newer and safer energy sources.

The price of oil is higher than ever before. It’s not headed down, only up. America’s oil output isn’t even close to the amount the country consumes. This leads the U.S. to import the rest of the oil needed to sustain our energy needs. These foreign countries, most of which are Muslim run governments; control the price at which we buy our oil. Current events tell us that many of these countries are at odds with the America. The price will continue to rise or worse yet, the flow of oil could stop completely. According to (Canter, 2008) America burns or uses roughly about 21 million barrels of oil a day. The U.S only produces about 5 billion barrels a day. The U.S. consumes too much and produces too little. Drilling for more oil on American soil won’t solve anything, as the output still won’t equal demand. America spends too much money on foreign oil, over 13 million dollars each hour is shelled out to foreign countries and over 25 billion to Persian Gulf imports alone.

The country needs to move in a different direction. Although initially expensive, most of the alternative energy methods for mentioned will take the U.S. and the world well into the future, a cleaner, safer, environment and wildlife friendly future. A future the world can be proud of.