AT: Hurricanes Kill Economy

AT: Hurricanes Kill Economy

1. Economy resilient to Gulf hurricanes—oil companies are prepared for storms and safety procedures prevent oil spills.

IHS Media Center, 6/4/2008. Leading global source of critical information and insight for customers in a broad range of industries. “IHS: Despite 2005 Hurricane Damage in Gulf of Mexico, Average Annual Hurricane Disruptions to Production are Modest,” http://energy.ihs.com/News/Press-Releases/2008/IHS-Despite-2005-Hurricane-Damage-in-Gulf-of-Mexico-Average-Annual-Hurricane-Disruptions-to-Producti.htm.

HOUSTON, TX (June 4, 2008) – As the hurricane season begins, IHS Inc. (NYSE: IHS) said today that the average impact on oil and gas production from hurricanes over a 45-year period is relatively modest and its impact on supply is typically short-lived. IHS came to this conclusion after analyzing production data spanning 1960 to 2005 to better understand the overall impact of hurricanes on Gulf of Mexico production. “Based on our IHS production data from 1960 through 2005, which includes record levels of damage from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 and significant hurricane impact from four other hurricanes in the last decade, an average Gulf of Mexico hurricane season would likely disrupt only 1.4 percent of the annual oil production and 1.3 percent of the annual gas production,” said Steve Trammel, a senior product manager at IHS. “While Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were an exception, historically, our data shows the overall impact to be much less than most people might expect.” Trammel said this historically low impact on production is primarily attributable to industry planning. “The oil and gas companies are very focused on the safety of their personnel,” he said. “Operators make the decision to pull crews off rigs well before a storm moves into the Gulf. Therefore, most disruptions to production are caused by suspension of operations as a safety precaution in the event that an approaching hurricane does threaten offshore production. As a result, average hurricane disruptions are short-lived with full production re-established within a month.” When Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005, they combined to impart record damage to offshore Gulf of Mexico oil and gas production and facilities, which helped push oil and gas prices to record levels by January 2006 and increased fears about oil and gas supply shortages. Following the two storms in 2005, The U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) reported that 3,050 or 75 percent of the platforms, 22,000 miles or 67 percent of the pipelines, and about two-thirds of the region’s refineries were in the path of the storms. By mid-December 2005, IHS data showed that cumulative shut-in oil was 101.7 million barrels, 18.5 percent of yearly Gulf oil production, and shut-in natural gas production was 526.2 billion cubic feet, 14.4 percent of yearly Gulf natural gas production. Trammel added that the last decade recorded six major hurricanes (including Katrina and Rita) that caused significant production curtailments in the Gulf of Mexico. Most of the production from hurricanes Opal (1995), Georges (1998) and Lili (2002) was restored within a month, he said, although Hurricane Ivan (2004), disrupted 471 million barrels of oil production and 140 billion cubic feet of gas production. According to a May 22, 2008 press release issued by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center, the outlook for the 2008 hurricane center calls for considerable hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin, with a “90 percent chance of an above-normal season in the Atlantic Basin this year.” The Center’s outlook calls for a potential of 60-70 percent chance of 12-16 named storms, including six to nine hurricanes and two to five major hurricanes (category 3, 4 or 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale). The Center defines an average season as yielding 11 named storms, including six hurricanes and two major storms. Hurricane Katrina, a Category 5 storm, achieved 175 mph winds before it dropped to Category 3 and struck Louisiana on August 29, 2005, making it the most destructive storm to ever strike the U.S. in terms of economic impact. Hurricane Rita struck the Texas coast on September 24, 2005 as a Category 3 storm having achieved sustained winds of 180 mph. In response to the increase in major hurricanes striking the Gulf of Mexico in recent years, Trammel said the petroleum industry has improved evacuation plans, and shut-in and restart procedures to ensure safety and to mitigate leaks and production loss. “Within economic limits,” he said, “offshore structures are being engineered to withstand Category 5 hurricanes. In addition, the MMS has mandated new design specs for offshore facilities and has issued a series of Notices to Lessees and Operators, called NTLs, for rig fitness requirements, platform tie-downs and ocean current monitoring, which are all tied to hurricane season.”

2. Empirically denied – Katrina should have caused their impacts

3. Overall impact to hurricanes is neutral.

CBO, 9/7/2005. Congressional Budgetary Office. “Overall economic impact of hurricane close to neutral,” Copy of a Letter Sent from the CBO to Bill Frist, Mongabay, http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0907-cbo.html.

Summary: The CBO projects 400,000 people will be unemployed due to Hurricane Katrina. Further, the hurricane is unlikely to have much impact on overall economic growth in the United States. Generally, the overall impact of natural disasters is often close to neutral since lost output from destruction and displacement is then compensated for by a big increase in reconstruction and public spending. The government may spend as much as $200 billion in the aftermath of the most costly hurricane in U.S. history.

AT: Ice Age

1. No uniqueness – no impending ice age now.

Thompson ’08 [Andrea, Live Science, Jun 12, “Could Waning Sunspots Bring On New Ice Age?” http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,366061,00.html]

No impending ice age

Though there is debate about how and whether the Maunder minimum actually caused the Little Ice Age, scientists have proposed a few hypotheses as to how it could have done so. One idea springs from the fact that the sun emits much more ultraviolet radiation when it is covered in sunspots, which can affect the chemistry of Earth's atmosphere. The other is that when the sun is active, it produces tangled magnetic fields that keep out galactic cosmic rays. Some scientists have proposed that a lack of sunspots means these cosmic rays are bombarding Earth and creating clouds, which can help cool the planet's surface. But these ideas aren't yet proven, and anyway, the sun's contribution is small compared to volcanoes, El Niño and greenhouse gases, Hathaway notes. Even if there were another Maunder minimum, he says, we would still suffer the effects of greenhouse gases and the Earth's climate would remain warm. "It doesn't overpower them at all," Hathaway said.

2. The next ice age won’t cause extinction.

Snook ’07 [Jim, Geologist, Ice Age: Cause and Human Consequences, p. 172]

The next glacial breakup phase will be very had on living things because of a major decrease in atmospheric carbon dioxide and lower precipitation. However, I suspect that the next breakup phase will not cause the extinction of many animal genera like the last one did, for several reasons. With all of the fossil fuels burned, there will be an increase of carbon dioxide in the ocean-atmosphere system. Many compensating mechanism that will affect the carbon dioxide in the system include deposition of carbonates in shallow seas and utilization by ocean plants. In addition, we do not know how much carbon dioxide will be added to the system by volcanism. Glacial cycles after the next one are too remote for us to make any viable predictions. We do not know if there will be another great extinction with the same cause as the one that occurred near the end of the last ice age, but it is a possibility.

Directory: files -> documents
documents -> North Mankato Taylor Library
documents -> In the Red and Brown Water
documents -> -
documents -> I. Disaster Summary Sheet II. Tropical Cyclones
documents -> Cbp and Trade Automated Interface Requirements Appendix: pga december 22, 2015
documents -> Ace abi catair customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements
documents -> Ace abi catair customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements
documents -> Mobile audio/video recording systems
documents -> Cartographic Concepts for Realizing a Location Based umts service
documents -> 1/ Background Statistics Human development index rank

Download 2.71 Mb.

Share with your friends: