I suspect 5-10 miles would get er done.
South Carolina Ping
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The real battle will likely be the developers and NIMBYs versus the people who want to drill.
If we don’t do something about drilling our own oil, there will be no tourists in NC. Take your pick.
Horse before cart, where are the new oil refiners to be built.
I suspect 5-10 miles would get er done.
South Carolina Ping
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The majority of S. Carolinians would approve of drilling but enviro lawyers paid for by super wealthy beachfront owners will tie this up in courts for years and years. By then we may all be speaking Farsi.
I didn’t realize that was an either-or proposition.
The drilling rigs could be as close in as twelve miles from shore, and still below the line of sight for anybody in the top floor of a 10-story condominimum. So the objection that the drilling rigs would be “unsightly” fails quickly.
The proliferation of sports fishing, where the fish tend to congregate in the near area of the new “reef” formed by the drilling platforms, should more than offset any diminuation of the “recreational” aspects of South Carolina. In fact, the drilling platforms, in their approach to the undersea horizons, may have to go through a layer of Methane Hydrate, estimated in place to be several hundred feet in depth. This substance should be not considered an obstacle, but an additional resource to be developed. By simply scooping up the Methane Hydrate from its layer on the ocean floor, and transferring it to an expansion chamber, it may be possible to extract natural gas from the ocean floor without even the necessity to tap down into a reservoir of natural gas.
Under the conditions in the ocean depths greater than 1,500 feet, the water temperature is a steady 38º F. the ambient pressure is between six and ten times the stmospheric standard. Methane mixed with water forms a chalthrate, a physical state in which the methane molecule fits into the interstices in water, allowing something like 164 times the volume of the gaseous methane at normal atmospheric to fit into one volume of water. So long as the pressure is maintained, or the temperature remains below about 42º F at normal atmospheric pressure, the substance is stable, and may be handled just like normal ice formed by freezing water.
Once above that critical temperature, however, the substance goes through phase change, and the methane is released, leaving one volume of somewhat saline water, and methane gas under pressure.
There is GREAT potential for harvesting this Methane Hydrate from the ocean floor, along the Continental Shelf, and converting it into readily usable fuel to drive power generation stations, as a fuel for motor vehicles (as CNG, compressed natural gas), and as a way to heat homes and drive industry, cheaply, and with an inexhaustible supply, as the ocean continues to generate Methane Hydrate from decomposing organic material that drifts to the bottom of the sea, and is turned into methane as one of the decomposition products.
I read somewhere that offshore drilling relieves the pressure and slows natural seepage and makes cleaner beaches. Do people really think that oil rigs will be 100 yards off shore? Most would not be visible form shore. Put windmills on them and paint them green to make the wackos happy.
Will windmills beautify the beaches. Will these ridiculous wave machines that will litter the seashore with thousand of bobbing devices producing a teaspoon of energy - will they destroy enjoyment of the ocean. Damn right they will - but not a mention of that.
They just don’t want oil - its concentrates economic power and is pro-capitalist.
Drilling is highly unlikely to cause any pollution.
It's a thorny question: Can a state economy based largely on tourism afford to have oil and natural gas drilling offshore?An even thornier question is: Can an article based on the utterly fallacious idea that South Carolina has "a state economy based largely on tourism" be worth the electrons used to ship it to my computer?
For the record:
A look at the distribution of jobs by industry in 2000 shows 24 percent are in trade, 22 percent in services, 19 percent in manufacturing, 17 percent in government, 6 percent in construction and 10 percent in all other sectors. In fact, travel and tourism directly accounts for 6 percent of all jobs and 5 percent of gross state product in the state.
(The above quote is from here, and I believe that the actual 2000 report is this one.)
I have no idea how circuses are getting along with no clowns since it is evident that they have all gone into the newspaper industry.