NOW THIS IS UNUSUAL - OIL PRODUCTION REDUCES POLLUTION!

Researchers at the Marine Science Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) study the seep fields. During a conversation with SOS Co-Founder Lad Handelman, Dr. Bruce Luyendyk, professor and Chair of the Department of Geological Sciences, estimated the amount of oil being released from seeps located south of Point Conception as at least 10,000 gallons each day.

Now this is really unusual - Dr. Luyendyk confirmed that there is a significant decrease in seep release and pressure as a result of the ongoing oil extraction from the very formations that feed the pollution off Coal Oil Point.

 

So the Santa Barbara Channel is leaking oil – the seeps have been called “an environmental disaster happening in slow motion.” Pretty unusual.

 

Another way this area is unusual - the Santa Barbara Channel is unusually rich in natural resources – resources that can be impacted by oil pollution. It is the only place in the world that serves as feeding and/or breeding grounds to 27 species of marine mammals. Recent studies have focused on the behavioral, thermal, and physiological impacts on marine mammals from contact, inhalation, and ingestion of oil.

Oil can be especially harmful to our resident and migrating seabirds—particularly diving birds that must get their nourishment by entering the water.  Oil destroys the insulation and waterproofing properties of their feathers - this can cause hypothermia. Also, birds that are unable to fly because of oil-matted feathers become easy prey. A review of recent data from the International Bird Rescue Research Center(IBRRC) and the Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network (SBWCN) shows that, offshore between Ventura and San Luis Obispo, it’s likely there are approximately 600-800 birds per year (or more) that become oiled due to seeps.  An unknown number of those (perhaps 50-80%) die from hypothermia.

Seeps pollute the air as well, by releasing methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. To put it in perspective, seeps contribute much more hydrocarbon pollution than all Santa Barbara surface mobile vehicles e.g. cars, trucks, trains and planes (Air Pollution Control District Clean Air Inventory, 2007).

 

Let's discuss - are there other ways to reduce pollution while gaining energy?

CALIFORNIA OIL - A NEW BEGINNING

CALIFORNIA OIL

We at SOS California have seen many changes in the last year. We saw great opportunities - collaboration with a local social media powerhouse leading to a revamp of our website; a re-invitation to testify to the House of Representatives in Washington, DC. But we felt a devastating blow - the loss of Co-Founder Bruce Allen. 

 

Spring is a season of renewal, though, so in that spirit, SOS California would like to reintroduce you to our blog, California Oil.

 

There is an old saying - that anything worth saying is worth saying twice. Maybe, I just made that up...

 

you will see some re-posting, but you'll see lots of new information as well. And, more than anything - WE WANT YOUR COMMENTS.

 

LET'S START THAT ENERGY CONVERSATION!!!

 

IT’S SO UNUSUAL

Santa Barbara, California is an unusual place.  Those of us who live here have chosen this place because we know this.  First there is the unusual beauty – an astonishing confluence of mountains and sea, on an east-west trending coastline in a southern state. This unusual geology also contributes to another interesting undersea phenomenon – natural oil seeps. The Santa Barbara Channel has the second largest natural oil seeps in the world – second only to the Caspian Sea. 

Oil released in large quantities by accident is considered pollution.  What, then, about oil seeps?  They are natural. In fact, it is estimated that the volume of oil emitted each year is equivalent to that of the 1969 Santa Barbara oil blowout, and every four years it approximates the oil spilled in connection with the Exxon Valdez accident.  Are these seeps a source of pollution?

We at Stop Oil Seeps (SOS) California believe that seep pollution, while it occurs naturally, is still simply that -- pollution -- and that there is a solution that falls into that “unusual” category.

Please stay tuned for future posts - and check out our revamped website:
http://www.soscalifornia.org/

SOS EVENT IN SANTA BARBARA NEWS-PRESS!!

By DREY DAILEY News-Press Staff Writer     More than two dozen people heard Dr. Scott Hornafius discuss the positive impacts of the oil industry Thursday at the Cabrillo Pavillion Arts Center May 23, 2014 6:29 AM The oil industry benefits the environment in a number of ways, a scientist said Thursday at a community forum.   Dr. Scott Hornafius, president of Elk Petroleum and visiting research scientist at the Earth Research Institute at UCSB, held a talk titled "What Is The Oil Industry Doing To Reduce Green House Gas Emissions?" at the Cabrillo Pavilion Arts Center. The forum was hosted by Save Our State California. "Every time I get into an oil project, it ends up cleaning the environment," Dr. Hornafius told the crowd of more than two dozen people. "I'm not talking about small change. I'm talking about really spectacular changes in the environment. "   Oil production can reduce natural oil seepage, Dr. Hornafius said. Pumping has cleaned the tar off the beaches in Santa Barbara over the past 40 years and reduced Santa Barbara's air pollution, he said. This cleansing of above-ground oil pollution worldwide also reduces methane concentration in the atmosphere, Dr. Hornafius said.   Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, increases productivity of oil and natural gas wells. The practice has come under criticism from environmental groups, but Dr. Hornafius referred to it as "the crime without a victim. "No clear evidence exists of fracking being harmful, he said. Instead, fracking has allowed a switch from coal to natural gas, resulting in a 30 percent decrease in carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation in the United States. "When the fracking revolution happened, we had so much natural gas in this country and we couldn't export it," Dr. Hornafius said. "It was trapped here. The price of natural gas and oil in our country de-coupled." The price of natural gas in the United States collapsed, due to an influx of natural gas and a reduced reliance on oil.    Dr. Hornafius's daughter, Kayla, a graduate student at Miami University of Ohio, gave a presentation on the benefits of capturing carbon dioxide emissions from corn ethanol and other biofuel plants, then using the carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery from old wells. This plan would create "carbon negative oil," meaning it would take carbon from the atmosphere and redeposit it into the Earth, removing one of the major contributing gases that contributes to the greenhouse effect. Negative carbon oil is the only method of retrieving oil that results in the actual removal of carbon from the atmosphere, but at this point it is blocked by California regulations, Dr. Hornafius said. "We're going to do this project in Nebraska. We're going to make carbon negative oil. We're going to see if there's any interest in making carbon negative oil. We're going to see if anyone cares," Dr. Hornafius told the News-Press. "The only state that has in place legislation that would incentivize people to make carbon negative oil is California, but the regulators are trying to not allow that to be a solution." email: ddailey@newspress.com

SOS California Invites Public to Discuss What the Oil Industry is Doing to Reduce Greenhouse Emissions, May 22

Thursday, May 22

9:15 - 10:30 am

Cabrillo Pavilion Arts Center

1118 East Cabrillo Blvd., Santa Barbara

A public forum discussing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and what the oil industry is doing to reduce them will be held at the Cabrillo Pavilion Arts Center in Santa Barbara at Thursday, May 22. The event will feature J. Scott Hornafius BA PhD (Geology) and the discussion will include the impacts of oil production and fracking in shale gas reservoirs and capturing CO2 emissions, as required by the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard legislation.

Topics to be covered:

• Oil production reduces natural hydrocarbon seepage, which cleaned the tar off the beaches in Santa Barbara over the past 40 years and reduced Santa Barbara's air pollution due to oil production from Platform Holly, but also caused a worldwide reduction in the methane concentration in the atmosphere due to oil production around the world.
• Fracking in shale gas reservoirs lowered the price of natural gas, which caused power plants in the US to switch from coal to natural gas over the past five years, resulting in a 30% decrease in the CO2 emissions from electricity generation in the US. The same CO2 emission reductions could occur worldwide if fracking were to spread outside of North America.
• Capturing CO2 fermentation emissions from corn ethanol and other biofuel plants and using the CO2 for enhanced oil recovery to make carbon negative oil will remove CO2 from the atmosphere, and provides a way for California to economically reach the goal of reducing the carbon intensity of its transportation fuels by 10% by 2020, as required by the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) legislation.

About J. Scott Hornafius

J. Scott Hornafius BA PhD (Geology) - Executive Director of Canning Petroleum Pty, Ltd has 30 years of global experience in oil and gas exploration and development. He was President and CEO of MegaEnergy, Inc., from 2000 until 2011, during which time he oversaw the land, geophysical, drilling and production operations of the company. Scott still serves as a Director of MegaEnergy and is founding shareholder of the company. MegaEnergy was a pioneer in the Marcellus Shale development in Appalachian Basin, and is currently involved in two Marcellus Shale Horizontal drilling projects in Pennsylvania. While serving as President of MegaEnergy Scott raised $15.5 million in private equity from sophisticated oil and gas investors, and was responsible for negotiating $120 million in asset sales. Prior to founding MegaEnergy, Scott had a successful career with Mobil Oil Corporation, including management and technical roles in projects involving onshore and offshore California exploration, heavy oil steam floods, horizontal drilling projects, and North Sea and Gulf of Mexico deep-water exploration programs. Scott served as Geological Manager in Papua New Guinea for Mobil Oil in 1989-1991 and was a secondee in 1997-1998 to the Licensing Branch of the Department of Trade and Industry in the British government, in which he administered the 8th Landward Round.

About SOS California

SOS California is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing the environmental impact of natural gas and oil seep pollution upon our ocean, our beaches and air quality through education and awareness.

For further information contact Judy Rossiter, judy@soscalifornia.org

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It's Time to Educate Santa Barbara about Natural Oil Seeps!

Up until approximately 30 years ago, Santa Barbara schools would include facts about the offshore natural oil and gas seeps (located in the Santa Barbara Channel) within their curriculum. Unfortunately, today the knowledge of why we have tar on our SB beaches is not as readily available to both students and teachers. Often the offshore oil production take the blame for oil slicks in the water and tar on our white sand beaches, while the fact is actually just the opposite: offshore oil production has contributed to a cleaner marine environment in Santa Barbara.

This morning, SOS received a testimony from a concerned parent of a Santa Barbara student:

“I am a native to SB. My son came home and told me about a teacher (high school) that was almost in tears about getting tar on her feet on a SB beach and blamed the oil platforms for the problem.  I had to explain to him that it's from "natural oil seeps" in the SB Channel and that long before we were here the Chumash used the tar from the beaches to repair their boats. I told him the teacher was wrong to tell the class the tar was from oil platforms.  Then I did a quick search on google and found you. Your website is very helpful and educational.”

This exemplifies some of the issues in the Santa Barbara community that we at SOS California would like to address:

1. The lack of information about the oil in the water/tar on the beaches due to changes in the local educational curriculum - and the world-wide phenomenon that is unique to Santa Barbara (home to the 2nd largest offshore oil & gas seeps in the world!)
2. The perpetuation of myths from our children's ill-informed teachers/educational system (where is our environmental educators on this?)

Help us inform our local community about the concerns with natural oil seepage! We would like to invite any Santa Barbara local to the discussion.

• What are your experiences with tar on the beaches?
• What did you learn about it in school?
• How do you think we can change the way we educate our community about these issues?

Please SHARE your experience, it is valuable to us, you and the Santa Barbara community!

SOS Testifies at Hearing in Washington DC

SOS Testifies at Hearing in Washington DC   "Energy Independence:  Domestic Opportunities to Reverse California's Growing Dependence on Foreign Oil."  Los Angeles Basin Crude Oil Supply study forecast shows that by 2020 over 80% of California's oil supply will be imported from foreign countries.

WASHINGTON, DC - April 4, 2014 Alice Green, Member of the Board of Directors of SOS California, testified before the House Committee on Natural Resources about the "domestic opportunities to reverse California's growing dependence on foreign oil." In her testimony, Ms. Green, an environmental consultant with an undergraduate degree in Biology (University of Pennsylvania) and a Masters Degree in Marine Resource Management (Texas A&M), summarized key facts surrounding the potential benefits of developing the offshore energy projects proposed for the OCS and State waters along Santa Barbara County. With the use of new technology, she explained that these oil and gas reserves can be access by existing infrastructure and directional drilling - there is likely no need for additional facilities.  ...With proven directional drilling technology, formations in the Santa Barbara Channel are accessible mostly from land-based slant drilling with no offshore spill risk... reserves are near existing infrastructure and producible within approximately 18 months with State and Federal approval.     --Alice Green, SOS California For the past seven years SOS California has been educating the public about the environmental impact of hydrocarbon seep pollution in the ocean. California beaches are washed with oil seepage - daily - from state and OCS waters along 100 miles of the central coastline. The offshore natural oil and gas seeps pollute the marine environment, killing seabirds, sickening surfers, and are a significant source of air pollution in Santa Barbara County. ...Producing these reserves could have an extraordinarily beneficial effect on the environment by removing about 80 tons of methane gas - per day - from the atmosphere.   --SOS California  The environmental impact of these "natural occurrences" is substantial, and SOS believes the economic impact from the unrealized revenue that basically washes away every day is significant as well. New OCS royalty revenues ultimately could reach 1 trillion dollars and provide permanently cleaner beaches, directed funding increases for schools and other essential services, and long-term subsidy increases for renewable incentives. A 2013 study by Dr. Mark Schneipp, Director of the California Economic Forecast, demonstrates that allowing production in state and federal waters offshore California would provide broad economic benefits while creating up to 100,000 high-paying technical jobs. According to the California Energy Commission, California produces only about 37.2 percent of the petroleum it uses. In 2007, the state spent nearly $50 billion for gasoline and $9.7 billion for diesel. Petroleum-based fuels account for 96 percent of the state's transportation needs. The tremendous and growing cost of oil imports was addressed by the Committee, with Ms. Green questioning the assumption that the U.S. will be able to continue to borrow overseas money for the next 30 years, while running a 600 billion dollar a year trade deficit primarily due to imported oil. More important, a Los Angeles Basin Crude Oil Supply study forecast shows that by 2020 over 80% of California oil will be imported from foreign countries.  ...Led by Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, Iraq and Columbia, foreign suppliers now provide most of California's oil supply.  --Rep. Tom McClintock  With California currently importing over 60% of its oil from foreign sources, in addition to oil from Alaska, we are highly dependent upon coastal oil tanker transportation. Ms. Green cited ta study by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) warning that tanker spills represent a far higher catastrophic risk than offshore production, and emphasized that tankering creates a much greater carbon footprint than producing California's offshore reserves. Further, Representative Doug LaMalfa and California Senator Jean Fuller explained to the Committee that California is losing its oil and gas infrastructure, as producers are leaving the state in response to the demand of oil producing states, such as North Dakota. Concurring with Ms. Green, Sen. Fuller explained that California has a unique opportunity to generate significant revenue and create thousands of new jobs by opening up energy production.  This hearing is about choice: To continue to import oil or open up production in California.      --Representative Doug Lamborn, Committee Chairman    Educating the public about how advances in offshore oil and gas technology and safety systems have allowed California to benefit from the reductions in coastal seepage pollution is paramount for SOS California. Informing the public - and policy makers - about the potential revenue and energy resources available to the state and county is the mission of SOS. We believe that a healthy partnership between the environmental community and the energy industry is the bridge to our renewable future. To that end, SOS California provided the Committee on Natural Resources with fact-based research including: The extent of pollution caused by natural oil and gas seeps How peer-reviewed studies have proven that extraction of oil and gas resources has been responsible for reductions in coastal oil seepage pollution, resulting in cleaner beaches and improved air quality along the California's central coastline  How exploration and production of offshore reserves can be conducted in an environmentally safe manner How expanded offshore production in California would dramatically reduce the cost of oil imports and oil transportation in California waters How potential new offshore oil and gas royalty revenues can fund the transition to a renewable energy infrastructure

SOS California 1187 Coast Village Rd - #455 Santa Barbara CA  93108 805.969.9259		www.soscalifornia.org

Santa Barbara Nonprofit to Testify at Congressional Hearing in Washington DC on California Energy Independence

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Santa Barbara Nonprofit to Testify   at Congressional Hearing in Washington DC   on California Energy Independence:  Domestic Opportunities to Reverse California's Growing Dependence on Foreign Oil SANTA BARBARA, CA  -  Alice Green, a Member of the Board of Directors of SOS (Stop Oil Seeps) California, has been invited to testify before the House Committee on Natural Resources in Washington on April 4th about the "domestic opportunities to reverse California's growing dependence on foreign oil."  Ms. Green, an environmental consultant with an undergraduate degree in Biology from the University of Pennsylvania and a Masters Degree in Marine Resource Management from Texas A&M, writes a blog (www.californiaoil.blogspot.com) relating to offshore energy production, policy issues and resource management. In her testimony, Ms. Green will outline the environmental damage caused by natural oil and gas seep pollution in the Santa Barbara Channel and the economic impact from the unrealized revenue that basically washes away every day.  She will also summarize current knowledge surrounding the potential benefits of developing the offshore oil and gas reserves, referencing the fact-based research in the SOS California Supporting Documentation provided to the committee. Topics will include: How peer-reviewed studies have proven that extraction of oil and gas resources is responsible for reductions in coastal oil seepage pollution, resulting in cleaner beaches and cleaner air in Central California How exploration and production of offshore reserves can be conducted in an environmentally safe manner A forecast that by 2020 California will be importing 80% of its oil from foreign sources How expanded offshore production in California would dramatically reduce the impact of oil imports and oil tanker transportation in California waters A 2013 study by the California Economic Forecast which outlines how permanently lifting the moratoria and allowing production in state and federal waters offshore California would produce broad economic benefits including more than 100,000 high-paying technical new jobs How potential new offshore oil and gas royalty revenues can fund the transition to a renewable energy infrastructure Testimony and Supporting Documentation will also provide information on energy projects proposed for the OCS and state waters along the Santa Barbara County coast. CONTACT: Judy Rossiter 805.969.9259 SOS California is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing the environmental impact of natural gas and oil seep pollution upon our ocean, our beaches and our air quality through education and awareness. SOScalifornia.org Blog: California Oil