Drilling an expensive, dangerous, experimental well in a deep abyssal plain where hundreds of existing conventional platforms have long been producing crude from shallow water, continental shelf sites suggests what critics of offshore drilling have been saying all along: that all the easily (and safely) recoverable reserves have already been thoroughly explored. There may be more oil out there, but the point of diminishing returns has long since been passed.

So why engage in such a risky enterprise? Economically it may make sense for those who are gambling with other people's money, and for those who are willing to take high personal risk because of the potential for enormous reward. But politically, it makes no sense at all. Why take such huge chances when it is highly unlikely there will be an overall, collective benefit even if you do get lucky as an individual. The answer is now starting to become clear: as long as offshore drilling is restricted, those who for their own interest oppose a policy of energy conservation and industrial and consumer restraint can always justify their agenda by claiming that only the stubborn refusal to drill, drill, drill is responsible for the problems resulting from energy dependence. Energy shortages mean high energy prices. The fact that the rig was owned by a British firm and managed by a South Korean company suggests there is little American business enthusiasm for this risk. Let's face it, American executives prefer making their money by shuffling paper in the banks and securities (and commodities!) markets, not getting their hands greasy in the real world.

The Deep Horizon disaster represents a highly expensive failure for those who thought they could get away with it and get lucky. Actually, I have no problem with that; a society afraid to take risks cannot make progress. We must occasionally take chances like this if we are to improve, even if it means we sometimes have to pay a high price. But I submit that politically and economically, there is little will to actually take this kind of risk when there are still fortunes to be made by marketing foreign cartel petroleum. I suspect the call to "drill, drill, drill" is coming from those who don't really want to, they just want to see their political opponents embarrass themselves by opposing it. As long as the greens and hippies and liberals oppose offshore exploration, the enormous problems raised by reliance on foreign oil cannot be blamed on a policy of unlimited consumption at all costs.

But maybe there is a God after all. This duplicitous political strategy had its own unforeseen risks, and now they are painfully obvious to the public, who may be asking itself if maybe the hippies and greens weren't right after all. I am getting an incredible flash of deja vu over this; as I have mentioned here before, I had just left a job working overseas as a government propagandist for the nuclear/electrical generating industry when the film "China Syndrome" premiered where I was living (in Pennsylvania, of all places!). My former public relations colleagues were all over the media, bleating how "irresponsible" the movie was, how nothing like that could "possibly happen", and how technically ignorant, economically naive and politically radical the producers of the movie were. Having just worked in that industry, and perfectly familiar with both the technical and policy aspects involved, I knew better.

As it turned out, just a few days later, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident occurred, and the film was demonstrated to be not only eerily prophetic, but actually quite restrained and conservative in its predictions compared to what actually happened at TMI. The fictional plant failed because of shabby workmanship and cover-ups by crooked contractors. At TMI, there was nothing technically wrong with the plant, and the crew was not only competent, but heroic in their response. The problem occurred because of unforeseen circumstances, for a variety of reasons , the plant was just too complicated and it got away from its masters. It was after all, not a result of villainy, just an accident. As R. A. Heinlein once put it, in a similar context, "Blow-ups Happen".

It's sad. I derived no satisfaction from those events, nor from the Deep Horizon accident. I am not opposed in principle to either nuclear power nor offshore drilling, and philosophically, I am ready to concede it is impossible to live a life without risk, indeed, to attempt to do so is itself highly risky.
But the co-opting of these issues for self-serving political and ideological ends has unforeseen costs of its own, and those costs, unfortunately, will have to be born by all of us.