Hazard to navigation?

[jzk]

You think you are going to sail into an oil platform that will be lighted at night?

And, you might even want to throw out a line as these platforms become a haven for fish.

[hellosailor]

"how does this impact navigation? How does this directly effect cruising?"
Offshore drilling rigs have no effect on navigation, except to provide more navigational aids aka landmarks.
It will however affect cruising and navigators, requiring some shifts in courses, or some impacts with the extra obstructions in formerly empty seas. What's that saying? "Shift happens" ? <VBG>

Nearshore wind farms are most likely to be problematic, a thousand new poles to hit?! And since they are often located in areas that already have coastal shipping lanes...Problematic. Either the blades will have to be lifted and spread further apart, or shipping excluded and don't we all love exclusion zones.

Clinton? Nah. The "oil" problem has been documented since the 1950's, there has been fifty years in which to make a domestic energy policy and program and find alternatives, but BOTH PARTIES and ALMOST ALL THE RUBES, ergh, VOTERS, have decided they would rather wait around and let the "Energy Faery" deal with it.

Now the chickens have come home to roost, and those of us who knew and expected it to happen are called by two names: "Collateral Damage", or "The Wealthy" if they were smart enough to invest in it. (Darn, I missed another opportunity!)

[bobsadler]

i have spent pretty much all my working life as an engineer in the offshore oil industry. i can tell you that times have seldom been better for us in terms of employment and rates of pay - it's a bonanza.

i wake up every day and thank god for the greenies and their luddite fellow travellers in the media and politics.

if it wasn't for them nuclear power would be producing most of our energy needs (clean, safe and effectively limitless - look at france) and oil would be $5/bbl.

GO GREEN!!

[waterworldly]

HERE IS THE FACTS FOLKS, PUBLISHED TODAY IN THE NEW YORK TIMES:
A lesser fiction, perpetrated by the oil companies and, to some extent, by misleading government figures, is that huge deposits of oil and gas on federal land have been closed off and industry has had one hand tied behind its back by environmentalists, Democrats and the offshore protections in place for 25 years.
The numbers suggest otherwise. Of the 36 billion barrels of oil believed to lie on federal land, mainly in the Rocky Mountain West and Alaska, almost two-thirds are accessible or will be after various land-use and environmental reviews. And of the 89 billion barrels of recoverable oil believed to lie offshore, the federal Mineral Management Service says fourth-fifths is open to industry, mostly in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaskan waters.
Clearly, the oil companies are not starved for resources. Further, they do not seem to be doing nearly as much as they could with the land to which they’ve already laid claim. Separate studies by the House Committee on Natural Resources and the Wilderness Society, a conservation group, show that roughly three-quarters of the 90 million-plus acres of federal land being leased by the oil companies onshore and off are not being used to produce energy. That is 68 million acres altogether, among them potentially highly productive leases in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska.

[cooper]

It all may be so....but much as wind turbines are a hazard to navigation along with oil rigs,one would hope that the wind turbines would be PERMANENT and not necessitate the changes in charts that FINITE resource infrastructure demands. If the wind stops blowing we havnt got a forum to continue discussing these matters.....To quote a previous poster....Go Green.

[ssullivan]

Originally Posted by Kai Nui

All valid points, but again, how does this impact navigation? How does this directly effect cruising?
What about concerns over increased commercial marine traffic, increased debri durring construction, and any other issues that might better fit this catagory than whether or not this will improve our energy situation.

The first thing that popped into my mind was:

"What about that new oil well that isn't on the specific chart I have from 2 mos before it was built?"

Sounds dangerous to have so many objects in the water.

[Fishspearit]

Originally Posted by bobsadler

i have spent pretty much all my working life as an engineer in the offshore oil industry. i can tell you that times have seldom been better for us in terms of employment and rates of pay - it's a bonanza.

i wake up every day and thank god for the greenies and their luddite fellow travellers in the media and politics.

if it wasn't for them nuclear power would be producing most of our energy needs (clean, safe and effectively limitless - look at france) and oil would be $5/bbl.

GO GREEN!!

Bob, as a lifelong engineer in the offshore oil industry, you should know better. I'm all for nuclear power also, but don't try to pretend that it's an answer to our oil problems. We produce our energy with coal and natural gas in this country, oil makes up 1%.

In January 2008, 50.3 percent of the Nation’s electric power was generated at coal-fired plants (Figure 1). Nuclear plants contributed 19.5 percent, 19.8 percent was generated at natural gas-fired plants, and 1.2 percent was generated at petroleum-fired plants. Conventional hydroelectric power provided 6.2 percent of the total, while other renewables (primarily biomass, but also geothermal, solar, and wind) and other miscellaneous energy sources generated the remaining electric power.

from Electric Power Monthly

While the rigs are great places to spearfish, and I'm all for more reef habitat, this sudden new push to start drilling on the coastline feels more like a knee-jerk reaction to a spike in prices rather than a coherent long term strategy.

[cooper]

Come on....Nuclear...yet another FINITE resource....my father was involved in the nuclear industry in France at the end of the second world war....as a senior engineer. Even then they recognized that the minerals needed to be dug up and where FINITE. The decision is temporary leaving future generations to clean up OUR mess. The relevance to sailing is that apart from local and annoying navigational hazards, it is unlikely that wind, or solar will effect our climate and weather patterns.

I note with interest that one of the largest factories in the world is being built right now in the USA to produce solar technology from an Australian who couldnt get the backing from Australia.....

....... I am pissed off about this...I hope you Americans grab this and make us feel bad....

[cooper]

In January 2008, 50.3 percent of the Nation’s electric power was generated at coal-fired plants (Figure 1). Nuclear plants contributed 19.5 percent, 19.8 percent was generated at natural gas-fired plants, and 1.2 percent was generated at petroleum-fired plants. Conventional hydroelectric power provided 6.2 percent of the total, while other renewables (primarily biomass, but also geothermal, solar, and wind) and other miscellaneous energy sources generated the remaining electric power.

.....

to our eternal shame........If I hear one more person say...."but we cant afford it"......

[scotte]

The Santa Barbara Channel here on the west coast has a bunch of oil rigs. We transited this channel last December, mostly at night, and they were in no way a hazard to navigation. They are all on the chart, and they are so big (and at night with so many lights) you'd have to really not be paying attention to hit one.

They do make great relative bearing targets for DR, which we did just for the heck of it (good practice).

[ssullivan]

What about those unlit gas well heads in Lake Erie?

I transited there a few years back. These were charted in a vague sense, but since it was the middle of night, all I could do was hope I wasn't going to hit one and go down.

I'm just not for crowding up the seas with garbage. Seems like the wrong approach.

And my little political tidbit for the Americans - in smaller font because it's not important to the thread:

How can people argue Democrat vs. Republican? If you are, you're just playing into the game... they're keeping you busy fighting each other when you should be opting for a new party... I mean come on... 2 parties to choose from? It's nearly a dictatorship.

Clinton, Bush, McCain and Obama are all garbage. We need other options. Unfortunately, there are none.

(End political mumbo jumbo... sorry for letting a little out)

The unlit gas well head in Erie make a good parallel to what kinds of hazards will end up out there if we start developing the oceans for commercial use. It's our last refuge of nature. I'm out here because I don't like a lot of neighbors, society or industry and buildings polluting my land up. At sea, you have a pristine place. Now, this idea talks about wrecking that with windmills, oil wells, gas pipelines and god know what else.

I say, leave the water alone.

If they build this crap, I'm going to have to start working on a spaceship because this planet is getting too crowded!

[hellosailor]

Sean-
"Sounds dangerous to have so many objects in the water." Actually, it is only the MOVING objects in the water that are dangerous. Watch what you wish for.<G>

After hearing all the great things about the French nuclear industry, I tried a little digging and found out that yes, they have some 58 plants built with licenses from US technology. And yes, they have a much more aggressive spent fuel recycling program. But now, they still have unrecyclable spent fuel collecting in multiple locations, and NO ONE IN FRANCE WANTS IT BURIED IN THEIR BACKYARD. The same problem we have in the US, who wants to host a 50,000 year toxic repository when recorded history only goes back for 5,000 years? Hmmmm.....

Knowing the French, they will either cleverly sell these capsules to Iraq and Pakistan, or find a way to eat them. There is no mention of putting them on a missile and launching them into the sun--yet.

There are many mentions that nuclear is an incredibly complicated and dangerous way of boiling water to turn a steam turbine.

[ssullivan]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

There is no mention of putting them on a missile and launching them into the sun--yet.

This seems ideal to me. Build the right containment vessel (that can survive unplanned reentry) and just send it off to the sun.

[Fishspearit]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

There are many mentions that nuclear is an incredibly complicated and dangerous way of boiling water to turn a steam turbine.

So complicated and dangerous that the U.S. Navy has been using nuclear power on it's subs(my boating reference) for 50 years without any significant incident. So complicated and dangerous that those same nuclear reactors have been operated and maintained by twenty-something college dropouts all those years.(I know, I was one of them) So complicated and dangerous that our antiquated nuke plants are still putting out 20% of our nations electricity.

The only thing complicated and dangerous about nuclear power is the huge amount of misinformation and phobia-generated distrust of the unknown.

[hellosailor]

Aw, comeone, Fishspearit. You know that not every high school dropout is qualified to become a bubblehead, some of them have to make do with maintaining Apaches and Strykers.<G>

And while the USN has made good use of nukes on subs and carriers, remind me again of why they chose not to deploy nuclear on the rest of the fleet? Something about cost effectiveness, quality control, crew training...And "there but for the grace of god" it wasn't easy for the Soviets to do the same thing. How close did Three Mile Island come to slagging down? Do you really think Indian Point would have held up, if the ragheads divebombed it instead of the WTC?

Ever try to get "total" costs of nuclear power, including the government programs, government development, government security, and the cost of watching the waste until it is "safe" to walk away? Ah, you won't readily find those.

Aren't there just plain safer bets? As well as cheaper ones, for those of us who don't need to run silent and deep three months at a clip?