Beyond Petroleum

The Gulf of Mexico is being flooded with petrol. "A drop in the Ocean" the BP CEO initially said. Somehow oil seems to have a disastrous effect on living things in its vicinity even when there is relatively little of it. And all because of a leaking pipe. Sounds trivial. It isn't.

Not from a technical perspective - the world's best engineers are struggling for weeks to resolve the situation. Not from an environmental perspective - it will take months if not years to clean. Not politically - it looks like the US government has managed to vent internal tensions towards an external foe. The greatest impact yet is likely to be on the prosperity of British pension holders. With 1/7 of British pension funds dependent on BP and the company losing half of its market cap and likely to spend billions on compensating the victims of the spill, British pensioners will be at least 10% poorer.

The funny thing is that, potentially, the most significant impact of this ecological disaster is that it is galvanising US public opinion against big oil. For the first time people are starting to feel they really do need to look "Beyond Petroleum". Ironically what started as, some say, a cynical branding exercise by BP's previous CEO - Lord Browne - may end up as reality. With big oil lobbyists a bit more subdued (still by no means shrinking violets), Obama's environmental legislation may be passed by the Senate. Call me an optimist, but I can see a silver lining.

PS 490km down. 510km to go.