Option shortage

After the destruction of a drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana and a fly-over of the resulting oil slick, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist pledged he would do what he could to keep drilling rigs away from the Florida coast. What, we wonder, are the alternatives Crist and other offshore drilling opponents offer? Would they stop all offshore drilling?

We asked because, wishful thinking aside, there are as yet no real alternatives to oil and natural gas as fuel sources. President Barack Obama approved an electricity-generating wind farm off Cape Cod this week. That decision faces a raft of legal challenges from environmental groups. Technical, economic or legal hurdles continue to stymie other energy alternatives.

Fortunately, major drilling-related disasters are rare. In this part of the world, there was one near Santa Barbara, Calif., in 1969 and another off Mexico in 1979. Even so, we must find out what caused the rig off Louisiana to explode last week and make such occurrences even less likely.

Offshore drilling is not only dangerous, it is incredibly expensive. Just replacing the destroyed drilling rig would cost the company that owned it more than half a billion dollars. If oil companies had safer and cheaper ways to produce the gasoline and other hydrocarbon fuels the vast majority of Americans still demand at the lowest price possible, they would take them. Unfortunately, they don't - at least for now.