The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico may have been one of those unlikely accidents waiting to happen, but it did. I don't know about you, but I had absolutely no idea the sources of oil these rigs tap into can be a mile or more below the surface of the ocean. A mile or more. Think of the undersea pressures -- and the risk. You think something might go wrong with something like that? But in spite of all the drilling that's done in the world these accidents are pretty rare. The question of course is, are they rare enough?
Accidents happen at nuclear power plants, too, but the oil industry seems to have those beat. There just seems to be a lot more exposure for oil rigs and ocean-going tankers. Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said something interesting this week on Bill Maher's HBO show. Many more American lives are at risk protecting our oil sources in the Middle East than in the effort to exploit sources of oil here at home.
Well, that's fine. But there's something to be said for these alternate energy sources we could have been exploiting since the 1970s. Take solar power. What's the worst thing that could happen? Someone could get a really nasty sunburn. Or wind power -- a lot of toupees could get blown off. OK, you could be scalded by geothermal steam. But catastrophic damage? The potential just doesn't seem to be there.
Maybe some of these environmental wacko green ideas aren't so ridiculous after all.
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