Radical Noesis - Thinking outside the box

According to Rigzone, 58% of production is still down from Katrina as offshore repairs were still not complete. All of those rigs are now deserted again as Rita moves through. After Katrina, much of the refining slack was picked up by Texas. Now those refineries are shutting down in preparation for Rita. Twenty-six percent of refinery capacity is in Texas (Rigzone). Much of the diesel production is from the Texas refineries, which is bad news for farmers, transporters, and many private drivers. However, this ultimately effects the cost of most critical goods.

Natural gas is another problem and was already predicted to jump across the board. The shortage and massive price increases will only accelerate with Rita - even of destruction is minimal. Further, 18% of US electric generation is natural gas fueled.

Michael Ruppert of From The Wilderness goes so far as to write: "RITA: Storm May Be the Coup de Grace for the American Economy and Many of Us As Well." He notes that natural gas prices are up 110% and heating oil 70% ... before Rita even makes landfall.

Rigzone has some interesting resources I urge folks to look at.
Mobile Offshore Rigs in the Path of Hurricane Rita (pdf)
Operators with Offshore Platforms in the Projected Path of Hurricane Rita (pdf) - the total is 749 platforms

Of most interest is a Hurricane Rita Interactive Map. This map allows you to see the path of Katrina, as well as the projected path of Rita. It shows both mobile and fixed platform locations. Unfortunately, the map does not show refinery locations.

There are concerns beyond petroleum products. According to a CNN factoid, 160 chemical plants lie in the projected path of Hurricane Rita. These plants are responsible for half of US chemical production.

The South Texas Nuclear Power Project is also in the projected path of the storm (CNN).

If you have watched with horror the "toxic soup" being pumped out of Louisiana, it could be deja vu all over again with Texas - except it could be several magnitudes worse. We can hope that the nuclear power plant lives up to its billing on being able to weather "tornadic force" winds. The plant is going off line, but that doesn't necessarily ensure safety. There are the cooling rods and contaminated water storage that could be problematic.

It is interesting that there is a downplaying of global warming as fueling the hurricanes. This would be a nonsensical argument if there had not been a decades-long false debate over whether global warming is "real" or not. We are now having the same phony debate over "peak oil." When oil companies throw money into "alternative" energy, and Ford announces that it will quadruple its hybrid production over the next few years, then both global warming and declining oil supplies are "real."

What the Hurricanes are doing is sending the U.S. directly into an oil crash scenario. Rather than the "creeping crash" scenario we had been in. We are seeing just how close to the margin we have been running, and how fragile the petroleum infrastructure is. What we will soon see is how dependent we are on that infrastructure.

It is not just the US that is in this mess. Both global warming and peak oil are global issues in a globalized economy. The petroleum drain in the US (and the economic decline) impacts the rest of the world. The global safety margin is no greater than that in the US. The fears of a global economic collapse loom.

The environmental destruction and health risks that accompany Katrina and Rita also loom. The Gulf of Mexico is not a closed system. As the spilled and pumped pollutants enter the Gulf, they will spread from there. No one is even talking toxic clean up as part of the disaster response. The further that destruction spreads from the coast, the less likely it will be contained - or cleaned up.

Pandora is out of her box and she is not going to be easily coaxed back in. In the coming weeks or months, the petroleum and chemical industries may return to some degree of normality. However, the ripple effects of two massive storms aimed at the heart of US petro-chemical infrastructure are going to be with us for a long time. The social effects will last even longer, and the environmental impacts may be effectively permanent. The US cultural response to problems is to avoid them or hide them ... until disaster strikes. Then the response is to get them as quickly back into hiding so that we don't have to think about them (or deal with them). Perhaps the most transformative aspect of recent events will be the death of the culture of denial.