• About
  • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
BREAKING: 40% of Fossil Fuels Now Under Development Must Stay in the Ground May 17, 2022
Rocky Mountain Glaciers ‘Past Tipping Point’, with Some Expected to Vanish by 2030 May 17, 2022
UK Activists Block Russian Oil Tanker From Docking in Essex May 17, 2022
EXCLUSIVE: Bid to Revive Doomed Nova Scotia LNG Project Collides with Germany’s Net-Zero Plans May 16, 2022
3,800 Residents Ordered to Evacuate after Flooding in Hay River, NWT May 16, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Climate & Society Energy / Carbon Pricing & Economics

Severe Storms Could Drive Fossils Off U.S. Gulf Coast, Put Local Jobs at Risk

September 21, 2017
Reading time: 3 minutes

Severe Storms Could Drive Fossils Off U.S. Gulf Coast, Put Local Jobs at Risk

catmoz/pixabay

 

With climate-fueled severe storms pummelling oil and gas operations on the U.S. Gulf Coast, some climate adaptation specialists are beginning to ask what will become of coastal communities when their major fossil employers pull out, leaving unusable or wrecked infrastructure behind.

Hurricane Harvey shut down 22% of U.S. oil refining capacity, and “the road back to full operational capacity will take weeks, if not months,” CityLab reports. “It’s no secret that oil and gas infrastructure along the Gulf Coast is increasingly at risk and that climate change could render it useless.” Extreme flooding “threatens the functionality of refineries and processing plants”, while hurricane-force winds “hurtle into well platforms, rigs, and ports with increasing regularity and severity.”

In Louisiana, disappearing wetlands and coastal erosion “expose pipelines to corrosive salt water and ocean currents they were never intended to withstand. Hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure investment could be wiped out.”

All of which leads to tough questions about how long the region’s fossil infrastructure can carry on. “If the energy sector does shift operations away from the Gulf, the local economies that are anchored in oil and gas will pay the highest price,” notes New Orleans-based freelance writer Michael Isaac Stein. “These communities, already inundated by environmental destruction, will face an employment crisis.”

The numbers on the Gulf Coast fossil industry are daunting: with 4,000 drilling platforms in the Gulf and 125,000 miles of pipelines in Louisiana alone, oil and gas employs 2.7 million people across the region, accounting for 12.2% of the jobs in Texas, 11% in Louisiana, 5.3% in Mississippi, and 3.4% in Alabama, according to an American Petroleum Institute-funded study. The question is whether fossils will abandon $800 billion in assets across the four states—and a large part of the answer goes back to the continuing cost of repairing and trying to storm-proof facilities ahead of the next big weather crisis.

“There’s no doubt that moving the bulk of America’s oil and gas infrastructure away from the Gulf would be a mammoth task,” Stein writes. “Still, it’s not unheard of for oil and gas companies to desert their infrastructure when profitability has dried up. This country is littered with the vestiges of once-booming oil and gas operations. The decision will ultimately come down to which option the oil and gas companies perceive to be cheaper: rebuilding America’s oil and gas infrastructure on safer ground, or constantly rebuilding their old facilities while enduring profit-inhibiting natural disasters that halt production.”

He adds that, “either way, the price tag is staggering—and if history is any indication, Gulf Coast communities with the greatest stake in the verdict will not get a vote.”

Citing a study by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, CityLab says the Gulf is in a great position to develop a strong renewable energy industry. “Gulf states could accomplish this transition without federal help by rerouting some of the copious state-level oil and gas subsidies towards renewables,” Stein notes.

“The next step would be to overhaul the policy and regulatory landscapes of Gulf states to make them more attractive to renewable energy businesses,” not necessarily by deregulating, but by making rules and policies consistent enough to avoid discouraging renewable energy investment.



in Energy / Carbon Pricing & Economics

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

‘New New Math’ Means Keeping Even More Fossils in the Ground: McKibben
International Security & War

U.S. Can’t Drill Its Way to Energy Security, Jenkins Warns

May 19, 2022
33
New Legislation Requires Massachusetts to Reach Net-Zero by 2050
Ending Emissions

IEA Predicts Record Renewable Energy Expansion for 2022

May 12, 2022
54
Wildfire
Clean Electricity Grid

U.S. Utilities Warn of Hazards, Rolling Blackouts as Heat Waves Increase Demand

May 12, 2022
315

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

BREAKING: 40% of Fossil Fuels Now Under Development Must Stay in the Ground

May 18, 2022
408
Mounting Drought Risk Confronts London, Other World Cities

Mounting Drought Risk Confronts London, Other World Cities

May 19, 2022
74
Lack of Consent Drives Indigenous Opposition to Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mining Plan

Lack of Consent Drives Indigenous Opposition to Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mining Plan

May 17, 2022
205
Wildfire

U.S. Utilities Warn of Hazards, Rolling Blackouts as Heat Waves Increase Demand

May 12, 2022
315
Fossils Fret as McKenna Sends Mammoth LNG Project to Cabinet Review

EXCLUSIVE: Bid to Revive Doomed Nova Scotia LNG Project Collides with Germany’s Net-Zero Plans

May 16, 2022
461
Floating Tidal Project Linked to Nova Scotia Grid in Canadian First

Floating Tidal Project Linked to Nova Scotia Grid in Canadian First

May 17, 2022
151

Recent Posts

85,000-Hectare Fort Mac Wildfire Expected to Grow for Days

Six Traumatic Years After ‘The Beast’, Fort McMurray Remains Loyal to Big Oil

May 19, 2022
34
‘New New Math’ Means Keeping Even More Fossils in the Ground: McKibben

U.S. Can’t Drill Its Way to Energy Security, Jenkins Warns

May 19, 2022
33
Ontario Contemplates ‘Ultra-Low Carbon’ Super-Agency

Ontario’s New Highway 413 Would Boost Emissions, Bake In ‘Auto-Dependent Sprawl’

May 19, 2022
33
Newfoundland Offers Suncor $175 Million to Restart Terra Nova Offshore Oilfield

Newfoundland Opens New Round of Offshore Oil Bidding

May 19, 2022
25
Farmers’ Mental Health Strained by Climate-Driven Weather Extremes

Farmers’ Mental Health Strained by Climate-Driven Weather Extremes

May 19, 2022
25
Calgary Company to Supply 180 MWh of Battery Capacity to Alberta Grid

Calgary Company to Supply 180 MWh of Battery Capacity to Alberta Grid

May 19, 2022
30
Next Post
Haiti Faces Cholera Threat as Matthew Storms Through U.S. Southeast

Island Leader Blames Fossil Use ‘Profligacy’ As Hurricane Maria Pushes Through Caribbean

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}

2022 ONTARIO GENERAL ELECTION

KEEP UP WITH ONTARIO’S CLIMATE CHANGE ELECTION

election-checkmark
Get Election Notifications

2022 ONTARIO GENERAL ELECTION

KEEP UP WITH ONTARIO’S CLIMATE CHANGE ELECTION

election-checkmark
Get Election Notifications
The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

2022 ONTARIO GENERAL ELECTION

KEEP UP WITH ONTARIO’S CLIMATE CHANGE ELECTION

election-checkmark
Get Election Notifications

2022 ONTARIO GENERAL ELECTION

KEEP UP WITH ONTARIO’S CLIMATE CHANGE ELECTION

election-checkmark
Get Election Notifications
The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

2022 Ontario General Election

Keep up with Ontario’s Climate Change Election

election-checkmark
GET THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

2022 Ontario General Election

Keep up with Ontario’s Climate Change Election

election-checkmark
GET THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST
The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

2022 Ontario General Election

Keep up with Ontario’s Climate Change Election

election-checkmark
GET THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

2022 Ontario General Election

Keep up with Ontario’s Climate Change Election

election-checkmark
GET THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST
The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Are you sure want to unlock this post?
Unlock left : 0
Are you sure want to cancel subscription?