"Hell, take the kids on a field trip to volunteer to hand-scrub ducks with Dove next spill."

And while you're at it, Rick, take them to a wind farm to search for eagle carcasses. Can't find any? Well, the coyotes probably got to them before you did. So now you don't have to count them, and can pronouce wind energy "clean."

It's a game, good people, played by everyone--not simply the oil and gas industry. Back to the Paris Accords for a moment. Just who is buying those American "exports?" Do you mean to say the Chinese?

You want purity of thought and action? You will not find it in the human race. All President Trump did was drop the hypocrisy of finding fault with "the other guy." I don't want offshore drilling, but then, I don't want wind farms, either. I rather want the human race to live within its means. Unfortunately, until that happens (if indeed it ever happens), we are going to have to exploit something--and I prefer the "something" that exploits the least.

What is that? It can be oil, gas, and coal, if indeed the alternative merely brings new problems. Just this morning, I was arguing renewable energy with an electrical engineer who admits that all renewable energy requires "backup." Who would fly in an airplane that worked just 30 percent of the time, I had asked? Or repair their cars on top of a 250-foot pole? But that's what we accept in the name of renewable energy. If I'm a hypocrite only 70 percent of the time, at least I'm making progress.

The truth is: We're stuck. If you don't want drilling for oil and gas, stop driving; stop flying; and yes, stop even taking trains. Stop heating and cooling your home. Stop everything to do with fossil fuels. You'll be back wearing coyote skins before you know it, and yes, planting eagle feathers in your hair.

Wow, Al. Even for you that's a lot of meaningless words scattered all over the topic landscape and having nothing to do with the particular thread, although you do bring in some of your favorite hobby-horses. Thanks, though, for being so quickly dismissive of the words of the rest of us who ARE on topic.

"Is there no happy medium?". I suspect there is and I also suspect we haven't reached that yet or companies wouldn't continue to explore and expand capacity.  The free market does a pretty good job at finding that happy medium.  If there were an excess capacity prices would plunge (as they did a few years ago) and companies would stop expanding production.  I'm far from an oil industry expert but pipelines are a means of transporting more effeciently.  That should result in not only lower cost but also less need for transport and eventually I would imagine fewer wells.  It wasn't that long ago (just prior to fracking) that there was a real concern that we would run out of oil, (to the point it was a national security concern).  It also sparked grater interest in alternative energy soulutions. I'm really not in a position to say if we have enough wells today or not but I do know the oil industry gets an undue amount of hate from people that don't consider all of the good that it has brought to their lives.  When renewables or green energy becomes as efficient as oil and gas then oil and gas will dwindle as it should.  But isn't that really what we are all after?  Obtaining the energy we need in most efficient way possible?  Doesn't that efficiency result in the least impact on the planet?  The other side of the equation of course is to continue to strive to reduce our usage of power in general.  That is what we as individuals can do.  

I started a comment decrying the absolutist all or nothing perspective of these comments, but then wild places last comment appeared before I finished writing.  I've revised in light of that comment, and I apologize that it makes my comment even more loopy than usual.

I respectfully but completely disagree with wild places' assertion that the free market does a pretty good job of finding the happy medium, at least the one that Kurt or I or others are thinking of.  My answer to your question "Doesn't that efficiency result in the least impact on the planet?" is no.  Efficiency is a ratio of product divided by inputs: miles per gallon, profit per invested dollar.  The first step in analyzing such assertions is to look at the units or currencies of the product & inputs.  [With multiple inputs we almost always just consider the limiting input in the denominator to make the math tractable.]  In the free market, the numerator product being maximized is value to the decision maker (shareholders, but sometimes executives).  For corporations, the denominator limiting input is usually capital to invest and allocate.  That's economics 101.  Wild places' explanation of price fluctuations and supply vs demand are very much driven by this approach.

But when we are considering environmental impacts or impacts on the planet, the efficiency should be value (e.g., energy) divided by degradation or environmental costs.  That's not how the free market is set up.  Degradation is an externality not considered in economics or corporate optimization unless there are laws or regulations forcing it into the decision.   We have laws for mercury and soot and water pollution, and we argue about regulatory decisions including the "social cost of carbon".  The closest thing we have to a market solution for environmental efficiency are things like tradeable pollution permits and California's CO2 emissions trading: obtaining the greatest dollar value per amount of pollution released.

The one case I know of where environmental costs were integral to a corporate optimization of least impact was in commercial forest management in the Southeast, balancing timber harvest versus conservation of rare species.  Tracts of land could be ranked by their net timber value (timber value minus costs of extraction), and by their value for regional biodiversity conservation.  If you tell a good lumberman they can harvest 10 trees, they'll "high grade" the 10 biggest straightest most valuable trees.  Tell him or her that they can harvest 10 acres, they'll high grade by choosing the 10 acres with the biggest most valuable timber with the least cost of harvest, and do way better than a random 10 acres.  If you tell a good conservation biologist they can protect 10 acres in that area, they will select isolated wetlands and some other unique areas and again, do much better than 10 random acres.  It turns out that because wetlands are more costly to harvest, and larger trees now are in areas that were prepped & planted decades ago and thus not as important for native plants and animals, this high grading can optimize efficiency in terms of timber value relative to ecological impact.  If 50% of the land were allocated to each, perhaps 75% of the timber value and 80% of the conservation value could be obtained.  Or, the optimization may fix one side: "maximize harvest value while fixing conservation value at 50%" or "maximize conservation while obtaining at least 90% of the potential harvest value".  [The last was the actual case, as it was paper company's land.  I moved before they implemented anything, so I don't know the final outcome.]

In that vein, I am in favor of gas and oil drilling in some places that are less sensitive and risky, and against drilling in higher risk areas like the Arctic Ocean or sensitive areas.  I am in favor of wind power when turbines are designed and located so bird and bat impacts are minimized, and against locating them in passes and other locations that will kill many birds and bats.  I am in favor of widespread rooftop solar power, and solar power in already degraded parts of the Mojave and Coloradoan deserts, and against siting it in relatively pristine areas and important wildlife corridors between parks and other protected areas.  I am accepting of solar power in the Amargosa Valley, but against the permits for mining groundwater much faster than recharge for cooling to increase the efficiency and profits of those solar plants, imperiling Devil's Hole and the Ash Meadows wildlife refuge.  I drive a fuel efficient car and organize my life to average less than 6000 miles a year (more than half that is vacations!), and try to mitigate my impacts: I don't have to walk everywhere or else roll coal in a modified hummer.  In all cases I'm not dealing with a profit over investment efficiency, I'm dealing with energy (or utility) over environmental impact.

EC, Al, and wild places likely would draw the tradeoff optimizations at different points than I would.  I would hope we could use the marginal value theorem to optimize across the different energy sources (another useful mathematical trick).  Because we likely put different relative values on impact on birds versus impact on fish and springs versus impacts of oil spill in different locations, we would come to different results.  But these would be answers to the right question in terms of environmental tradeoffs.

My point is that the free market simply does not address these questions or make these tradeoffs.  The free market does not optimize in terms of cost to the environment.  In a free market, the solar plants would make substantially more money for their owners by pumping and evaporating groundwater until the aquifer was depleted.  Wind turbines will be located in windy passes to generate more power and revenue per turbine no matter how many birds & bats are killed.  Oil companies will drill wherever they have the highest expected return on investment, dig canals crisscrossing the coastal marshes even though that will cause coastal collapse during hurricanes, and get the most oil and revenue they can with their investments.  They will explore and expand production to maximize revenue.  So no, removing all regulations on public lands and waters for energy dominance will not magically optimize energy production versus environmental costs or minimize the impact on the planet via the free market.

In the free market, the numerator product being maximized is value to the decision maker (shareholders, but sometimes executives).

Tom, that comment reflects your naivitey regarding markets and economics.  Shareholders and executives aren't the only decision makers.  In fact, they are a minor subset.  The real decision makers are the consumers.  The consumers are making the decisions regarding the trade-offs.  The consumer may not want another drill rig offshore or next to a National Park, but by driving his gas guzzling RV around the country, his actions say its worth it. 

EC--

As long as I'm being naive, how about a nice "efficiency" example from the Rocky Mountain & Colorado Plateau region?  Where tested, current natural gas production leaks 1-20% of the methane between the wellhead and the pipeline infrastructure.   Profit-maximizing efficiency explains that pattern: it costs more to prevent those leaks than the additional gas would sell for, especially since royalties aren't assessed on the gas coming out of the formation or even at the wellhead, but rather at the first transaction, so there's no cost to that escaped gas.  The Obama era rules required reporting gas at wellhead as well as gas at the end of the pipe to consistently quantify losses, fixing of the most egregious leaks, and something approaching best available feasible technology for new wells & collector pipes.  Those regulations have been rescinded or put on hold.  [So have regulations on royalties based on the price at the first arms-length transaction, so we're back to one subsidiary selling to another subsidiary at an articficially low price, with royalties at that low price.]  While there are diminishing returns on investments in preventing leaks, efficiency in terms of yield fraction per million cf in the ground, or maximizing gas produced per well, per square kilometer, or per gas field, would all have much less leakage & wastage as the optimum.

In my analysis, consumer demand and price elasticity may drive total production, but consumers are not decision-makers for where the oil and gas are produced.  We as citizens can attempt to get our representatives to set policies on which public lands and waters are open to development, but the direct control of where wells go is by corporate decision makers who are funding those wells, and what they are (and should be) maximizing is their return on investment and total profit.  Even on the margins, in the limited cases where consumers and cities attempt to set up consumer choice power to let consumers pay more for less harmful energy, investor-owned utilities fight tooth & nail and lobby against allowing such consumer decisions over the tradeoffs.

Is your non-naive analysis more than "if consumers buy it, companies will produce it?"  Does it explain the _where_ on drilling?  Does it explain the high levels of escaped natural gas?  If you can explain paterns that your non-naive analysis explains, then I'll learn and perhaps be a bit less naive tomorrow.

 but consumers are not decision-makers for where the oil and gas are produced.

Sure they are.  It is in pursuit of the lowest cost offering that producers seek the lowest cost source.  If they don't, consumer demand will diminish to the detriment of the producer.  As to the efficiency of escaping natural gas, you explained it yourself.  It cost more to stop the leaks than it is worth.  

"than it is worth" to the executives trying to maximize their profit.  A large fraction could be captured at costs well under the current market price of natural gas.  

Are you arguing that if consumers use any natural gas, we are deciding in favor of the cheapest to produce locations, irrespective of the environmental consequences?  If I use any wood, I am deciding in favor of logging the most profitable old growth?  If I use toilet paper (I do!), I am deciding in favor of clearcutting the Tongass?  If so, then we need to somehow get externailities like environmental impacts of production into the calculation of "cheapest to produce", so that the price signal drives "better" decisions.  Yet the current administration is going in the opposite direction.