GUEST BLOG: Shirin Brown – Deep sea oil drilling – At what cost?

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Auckland Council governing body decides today whether it will support Block 16 exploration permits.    If oil were to be found off the coast, the economy could grow by an extra NZ $2.1 billion, or 1.7%, a year over 30 years, with an extra 5500 jobs.  

One of the issues is that New Zealand has a clean green image which is heavily branded and marketed.  We have some of the top destinations in the world with visitors flocking here because of the pristine environment.  

I also thought we’re trying to keep the coal and oil underground.   Firstly, as a future insurance policy so we have some when other reserves elsewhere run out, secondly because climate change is upon us and the priority is finding cleaner energy solutions, and thirdly because the technology is untested and unreliable under the current conditions.  

The Macondo well, responsible for the  2010, Deepwater BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico  took 87 days to plug in conditions that are not as deep or as treacherous as off the coast of New Zealand.  

Five years after the BP oil spill, the Louisiana economy has still not recovered.   Some beaches remain shut and the cost of the spill on people’s livelihoods is still being worked out.  BP has paid out $18.7 billion in fines and says that another $50 billion have been paid out in claims.    

Wait hang on – so BP is paying out US$68.7 billion for the effects of an oil spill and our government is suggesting we offer exploration permits to oil companies, when their payout for one spill is more than our anticipated gains over the next thirty years?  The risks, combined with the fluctuating oil prices suggest that drilling is more risk than it’s worth.  

For more information on the Block offer and the discussion in the governing body meeting, see the meeting agenda.  If you’re concerned about the implications of exploration to the marine environment, the coastal environment, the economy, or even recreational fishing, you might like to join the protest at 9.00 am outside the Town Hall or lobby councillors.   You would not be alone in rejecting mining exploration at sea.  Christchurch City Council opposed the Block 15 offer earlier this year saying a wider public consultation was necessary with more consideration of the effects.  

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

 

Shirin Brown is a teacher,  film-maker and playwright and currently teaches in digital media and film theory at AUT.     She was elected to the Waiheke Local Board in 2013 and has always felt it is important to speak out against injustice and for the rights of women and minorities.      Her early memories include standing outside the South African embassy in London,  protesting against the poll tax and demanding that the US stop their covert actions in Nicaragua.  

 

6 COMMENTS

  1. The amount of risk for the perceived profit is crazy.

    Are the council going to join the government in giving $10 million in science grants too?

    Local and Government are crazed on ‘paper profits’ that are not even realised and their fictionalised trickle back to local economy anyway.

    The real evidence of effect is Rena, Deepwater BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and many others.

    If you want to profit from oil you have to actually do it like Norway and take a tax of 87% and then reinvest it. Can anyone imagine any thing like that in NZ with our low commodity hungry government who actually pay oil companies grants? We can’t even get a 10% Auckland petrol tax through.

    How Norway manage their resources…. including cracking down on illegal fishing etc. That is why they are rich and our stupid free market addicted government is poor and propping up selling our country and our environment and making us poorer via TPP.

    Because the government is highly invested, (oil profits are taxed at 78 per cent, and in 2011 tax revenues were $36-billion), it is as interested as oil companies, which want to maximize their profits, in extracting the maximum amount of hydrocarbons from the reservoirs. This has inspired technological advances such as parallel drilling, Mr. Lindseth says.

    “The extraction rate in Norway is around 50 per cent, which is extremely high in the world average,” he adds.

    Norway has also managed to largely avoid so-called Dutch disease (a decline in other exports due to a strong currency) for two reasons, Mr. Lindseth says. The GPFG wealth fund is largely invested outside Norway by legislation, and the annual maximum withdrawal is 4 per cent. Through these two measures, Norway has avoided hyper-inflation, and has been able to sustain its traditional industries.

    In Norway, there’s no industry more traditional than fishing.

    “As far back as the 12th century they were already exporting stock fish to places in Europe,” explains Rashid Sumaila, director of the Fisheries Economics Research Unit at the University of British Columbia Fisheries Centre.

    Prof. Sumaila spent seven years studying economics in Norway and uses game theory to study fish stocks and ecosystems. Fish don’t heed international borders and his research shows how co-operative behaviour is economically beneficial.

    “Ninety per cent of the fish stocks that Norway depends on are shared with other countries. It’s a country that has more co-operation and collaboration with other countries than any other country I know,” Prof. Sumaila says.

    “That’s [partly] why they still have their cod and we’ve lost ours,” he adds, pointing out that not only are quotas and illegal fishing heavily monitored, policy in Norway is based on scientific evidence and consideration for the sustainability of the ecosystem as a whole.

    Prof. Sumaila cites the recent changes to Canada’s Fisheries Act, as a counter-example: “To protect the habitat, you have to show a direct link between the habitat, the fish and the economy,” he says, adding, “That’s the kind of weakening that the Norwegians don’t do.”

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/canada-competes/what-norway-did-with-its-oil-and-we-didnt/article11959362/

  2. Auckland Council has today voted to support oil exploration off the city’s west coast.

    I’m so disgusted. Even worse this NatLite talk cop out talk…

    Mayor Len Brown said the council was “handcuffed”, as it did not have the final say on whether drilling went ahead.

    (OH so we will agree it anyway??)

    Len Brown said it was better to present a submission with recommendations on how drilling should be managed, rather than throwing out the plan altogether.

    (OH what a NatLite approach, umm can’t be bothered to make a decision so support a yes position while pretending you are not pro oil speculation!)

    Councillor Wayne Walker called the decision “gutless”.

    Shirin Brown from the Waiheke Local Board addressed counsellors in a last ditch attempt to sway their vote. She says New Zealand exudes a “clean green” image and if there was a disaster such as the Rena in Bay of Plenty, the main port of call for tourism in New Zealand would be tarnished.

    Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner Steve Abel called on the council to have the “political courage” to vote no on the issue.

    “We need oil like a heroin addict needs heroin – we don’t need it, we are dependent,” he said.

    Throughout the meeting similarities were drawn between the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Gulf of Mexico oil spill, which saw 4.2 million barrels of oil spill over 87 days, and a potential disaster on Auckland’s West Coast.

    Christchurch and Kaikoura councils have already strongly opposed the move.

  3. Can we rub their noses in the oil as it washes up on the west coast beaches? Shame on all councillors who voted in favour. – is there any way of getting a list so I can see who to bad mouth at election time?

  4. I say we hook Cameron Slater and Paula Bennett up to treadmills with a series of conduits attached, feeding into a reservoir. The various oils and fatty substances could be used for heating state houses. This would reduce not only the use of fossil fuels, but also reduce spending on health, both for them and state house tenants. Everybody wins.

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