To comply with the demand for more fossil fuels in recent decades, oil companies have been urged to search for other alternatives to petroleum production in addition to the regular on-land drilling method. Offshore drilling, the process of extracting oil and gas resources on the continental shelves of oceans, has skyrocketed in the oil and natural gas industries. Massive production facilities sit atop undersea towers, some descending deeper than the height of the world's most ambitious skyscrapers. Environmentalists, in return, lashed out vigorously against offshore drilling, showing that oil spills from these elaborated oil platforms can impose serious, even fatal, damages to marine organisms and habits. Despite tremendously fierce opposition,
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A cost-benefit analysis conducted by economists Milken Institute and Peter Passell concluded, “At $50 per barrel the benefits of producing 10 billion barrels of offshore oil would be $323 billion greater than its costs” (Bailey 1). As it seems, accounting expenditure factors such as environmental costs and greenhouse gas damages, this process, in the end, will still yield tremendous revenue. For this reason, opponents contend the economics of authorizing more outer continental shelf oil drilling such that the benefits from such production substantially outweigh its costs. If this was to be true, however, the chances of oil spills would increase proportionally as well, creating more harm to the environment by draining out aquatic habitats. More damages done requires greater amounts of time, money, and resources to recover what was destroyed, or at least what is left of it. Consequently, all these problems piled up will loop back, and, in return, negatively affect the economy. Take the Deepwater Horizon blowout, for example, a subsequent oil flow of three months that wiped out many aquatic organisms. As a result, not only did the crisis affect innumerable fisheries, causing them to shut down, it had severely threatened businesses that depends on tourists in five states (Savitz 1). Thus, the millions of dollars used for hiring workers, scientists, and purchasing dispersants in the environmental cleanup, typically supported by the federal government, must be taken out of the yearly budget. This leaves other sectors, a majority of which fuels economic growth, minimal funding. With the increasing numbers of oil-related accidents, more money would have to be set aside for its expenses, meaning funds to the economy will have to hold. Therefore, the claim that profits from offshore drilling will outweigh
A cost-benefit analysis conducted by economists Milken Institute and Peter Passell concluded, “At $50 per barrel the benefits of producing 10 billion barrels of offshore oil would be $323 billion greater than its costs” (Bailey 1). As it seems, accounting expenditure factors such as environmental costs and greenhouse gas damages, this process, in the end, will still yield tremendous revenue. For this reason, opponents contend the economics of authorizing more outer continental shelf oil drilling such that the benefits from such production substantially outweigh its costs. If this was to be true, however, the chances of oil spills would increase proportionally as well, creating more harm to the environment by draining out aquatic habitats. More damages done requires greater amounts of time, money, and resources to recover what was destroyed, or at least what is left of it. Consequently, all these problems piled up will loop back, and, in return, negatively affect the economy. Take the Deepwater Horizon blowout, for example, a subsequent oil flow of three months that wiped out many aquatic organisms. As a result, not only did the crisis affect innumerable fisheries, causing them to shut down, it had severely threatened businesses that depends on tourists in five states (Savitz 1). Thus, the millions of dollars used for hiring workers, scientists, and purchasing dispersants in the environmental cleanup, typically supported by the federal government, must be taken out of the yearly budget. This leaves other sectors, a majority of which fuels economic growth, minimal funding. With the increasing numbers of oil-related accidents, more money would have to be set aside for its expenses, meaning funds to the economy will have to hold. Therefore, the claim that profits from offshore drilling will outweigh