Offshore Oil Drilling , livre ebook

pages

English

Ebooks

2011

Écrit par
Nick Hunter

Publié par
Capstone Global Library

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pages

English

Ebooks

2011

Lire un extrait

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus

Publié par

Capstone Global Library

Date de parution

13 juillet 2011

Nombre de lectures

EAN13

9781406236323

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

7 Mo

Accessible yet sophisticated book that covers risks behind off-shore oil drilling and asks readers to think about whether or not the risks are worth the temporary supply of additional oil. In light of the BP Horizon spill, are there ways to safely obtain oil from the ocean floor?

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Publié par

Capstone Global Library

Date de parution

13 juillet 2011

EAN13

9781406236323

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

7 Mo

OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING

HOTTOPICS

OFFSHORE OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING OIL DRILLING

HOT TOPICS

OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING

Nick Hunter

Raintree is an imprint of Capstone Global Library Limited, a company incorporated in England and Wales having its registered office at 7 Pilgrim Street, London, EC4V 6LB – Registered company number: 6695582

Text © Capstone Global Library Limited 2012 First published in hardback in 2012 The moral rights of the proprietor have been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS (www.cla.co.uk). Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission should be addressed to the publisher.

Edited by Adam Miller, Andrew Farrow, and Jennifer Locke Designed by Clare Webber and Steven Mead Original illustrations © Capstone Global Library Ltd Illustrated by Jeff Edwards Picture research by Ruth Blair Production by Eirian Griffiths Originated by Capstone Global Library Ltd Printed and bound in China by Leo Paper Group Ltd

ISBN 978 1 406 22665 2 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Hunter, Nick. Offshore oil drilling. – (Hot topics) 333.8’23214-dc22 A full catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Acknowledgements We would like to thank the following for permission to reproduce photographs: Alamy pp.8(© Ron Scott),17(© Joe Baraban),29(© Accent Alaska.com),33(© Sergiy Serkyuk), 36(© Imagestate Media Partners Limited – Impact Photos),41(© Peter Titmuss),42(© Idealink Photography),43(© Pascal Saez),46(© Robert Harding Picture Library, Ltd.); Corbis pp.5(© Martin Harvey),13(© Alain Nogues/ Sygma),18(© US Coast Guard/Handout),20(© Xinhua/BP LIVE FEED/Xinhua Press),21(© Julie Dermansky),35(© Bettmann),46(© Julie Dermansky); Shutterstock pp.6(© Rob Wilson),11(© Aguaviva),25(© Photodynamic), 27(© scoutingstock),28(© Becky Stares),39(© gallofoto),49(© BlueOrange Studio).

We would like to thank Kristen Kowalkowski for her invaluable help in the preparation of this book.

Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders of any material reproduced in this book. Any omissions will be rectified in subsequent printings if notice is given to the publisher.

Disclaimer All the Internet addresses (URLs) given in this book were valid at the time of going to press. However, due to the dynamic nature of the Internet, some addresses may have changed, or sites may have changed or ceased to exist since publication. While the author and publisher regret any inconvenience this may cause readers, no responsibility for any such changes can be

accepted by either the author or the publisher.

cONtENtS

Black gold......................................................................4

What is offshore oil drilling? ................................8

How does offshore drilling work?...................12

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill .......................18

Environmental impact...........................................24

Is offshore drilling necessary? ...........................30

Politics and oil security .........................................34

What are the alternatives?...................................38

Controlling “big oil”................................................44

The future for offshore drilling .........................48

Sources of energy.....................................................50

Glossary........................................................................52

Further information................................................54

Index .............................................................................56

Some words are printed in bold,like this. You can find out what they mean by looking in the glossary.

BLack GOLD

Finally, the oil had stopped leaking from the damaged well. Many metres below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, the latest attempt to cap the leak seemed to be working. Oil workers, politicians, fishing communities, and others around the Gulf Coast and across the world held their breaths. They hoped that, after almost three months of oil pouring into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, they could start to count the cost and repair the damage done by the world’s biggest oil spill.

On 20 April 2010, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, 84 kilometres (52 miles) off the coast of Louisiana, USA, killed 11 workers. As the rig burned and sank 1,500 metres (5,000 feet) to the sea bed, huge quantities of oil began to leak from theoil well. Oil drilling is nothing new to the people of the Gulf Coast – there are around 4,000 oil and gas rigs close to the US coast. However, the Deepwater Horizon disaster showed many people the huge dangers that come with oil exploration.

Dangers of oil exploration Even when things don’t go wrong, finding and extracting oil can have a major impact on the environment. Drilling and transporting oil takes place in the oceans in wilderness areas affecting delicateecosystems. Burning oil products in cars and power stations releases huge quantities ofcarbon dioxide (CO )that most scientists believe is responsible for major changes 2 in our climate.

Our dependence on oil also has human costs. Eleven lives were lost in the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and drilling for oil and gas on isolated rigs far from the coast is always dangerous. The search for oil has tested technology and safety limits. This has led to growing concerns as the search for oil moves to more hard-to-reach places, including deep under the sea.

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