A Hydrocarbon Chernobyl

In this clip from CNN.com, Wolf Blitzer asks Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar “When will the oil spill end?” Salazar admits it could be months. In the end, he cites Chernobyl as a comparable disaster. Who wants to bet that he’ll regret using that analogy?

 
The thing is, he’s not the first one to notice the similarities. Dmitry Orlov outlines them with great clarity, coming to a conclusion that any realist will admit is all too likely:

The energy industry has run out of convenient, high-quality resources to exploit, and is now forced to turn to resources it previously passed over: poor, dirty, difficult, expensive resources such as tar sands, heavy oil, shale, and deep offshore. Under relentless pressure to do more with less, people are likely to try to cut corners wherever possible, and environmental safety is likely to suffer. Before it finally crashes, the huge final effort to wring the last few drops of energy out of a depleted planet will continue to serve up bigger and bigger disasters.

When I ignore my friends harassing me about not driving a car, each time I spend a few extra dollars on CFL or LED lighting, and every time I pack my reusable bags before heading to the grocery store, blunting this upcoming catastrophe is the greatest motivator for my actions. I know I’m not the only one, but I’m afraid there aren’t enough of us.