Grissom Island, part of THUMS.
I’ve written about these artificial islands before. As a lot of you know, they have a certain sentimental value for me, for a few reasons:
1) They were approved for development the year I was born;
2) They were landscaped by one of the designers of Disneyland, Joseph Linesch—and, like a lot of Southern Californian kids, I’ve got more invested emotionally in the Disney empire of the 1960s than I necessarily want to admit;
3) I lived near there for a summer during the early years of my dad’s second marriage, and remember watching the pretty lights out over Long Beach Harbor; and
4) I know that the petroleum industry is more important to this state’s revenues than a lot of my lefty friends acknowledge. At the same time, tourism, boating and surfing are also very, very big deals to us—and tourism is an extremely high-dollar industry. I grew up in a beach town, Santa Monica, and I don’t want to see any of California’s staggering beauty take a hit. But I also know that a little bit of effort can keep oil facilities from being eyesores.
No, I don’t think it has to be a repeat of the 1960s sensibility of the THUMS Islands and their almost kitch-ey landsaping. In fact, a lot of what can be accomplished these days can take place beyond the horizon, so it isn’t visible from the beaches at all (though boaters and yachters must be considered, as must the needs of marine life and the effect on waves). But the picture so many Southern Californians have of those rigs off of Carpinteria and Santa Barbara—bald, abrupt, and rather ugly—is not accuate at all. And those platforms off of the 101 are a decade older than THUMS. Neither, of course, reflects what further development off of the Southern California coast would look like. But THUMS shows what is possible, and what was done before development was largely frozen in the 1960s.
The day after tomorrow, I’ll be driving down to Long Beach to meet up with some of my energy-blogging friends and the lovely Jane of API. We’ll have dinner, and I’ll get to take a peek at my beloved THUMS islands the following day.
As usual, this is a highly corrupt situation: Big Oil will probably buy me another plate of pasta, in exchange for listening to Jane admonish us, that “this is just for general educational purposes. I don’t care what you write. I don’t care if you write.”
Which, you know . . . I wish my clients and husband were that tolerant. Or you readers, for that matter.
More: The Oxy overview of the THUMS installation (yes; Oxy owns it now). There’s an interesting story about it here, as well.
As usual, the real energy bloggers will be on hand to ask grownup questions. I shall be there to write for the lay reader, rather than for policy and industry pros. That means that I get to be the airhead, but everyone’s always very nice about that.
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If you don’t mention “carbon footprint,” “peak oil,” or any of the other chubracabras
of some of thsoe new policy and industry “pros,” you won’t be the airhead.
Carbon is the stuff of life on Earth. Drill here. Drill now. Take control of our energy future one completion at a time.
At the same time, tourism, boating and surfing are also very, very big deals to us
The same points are brought up when discussing drilling off Florida. My response? tourism won’t matter a hill of beans if no one can afford to travel to you.