Diminishing returns

The idea of diminishing returns means to me that at a point in the increase of some work or production one hits a point where anything done more might indeed cause a loss -- in revenue, for example, or profits, another. I would liken it to you can only take a straight line so far before it has to bend and return from the direction from which it came. Well, those are my descriptions. They may not be true but they are mine. So much for definitions. Hope you get a feel for what I am talking about.

I was glad to hear that the Obama administration seemed recently in agreement with off-shore drilling. Wow! I long thought we ought to do that. Cost of gasoline coming from off our shores was getting too huge; anything to reduce that cost and decrease our country's reliance on others worked for me, I thought. Well, the other side, the protectors, raged about the idea. They had been raging for a long time, and here it was again. I thought, we are going to win this one over the protectors. Surely, all their hype about offshore pollution could not be right. We are smarter than allowing that - I thought.

Well, turns out, they were probably right and I was probably wrong. Imagine that. Last week a rig out in the gulf exploded, apparently killing 11, and driving the rest - close to 100 - to a need of being rescued at sea. The thing, the rig on a floating platform, then burned up and fell into the ocean. Humm. But what about the oil in the pipe coming from down under? They are not sure about that, yet. Smart? Maybe not.

Then I read today they had been drilling 30,000 ft into the earth's crust to get that precious stuff (black gold), and that from 5,000 feet below the floating platform that exploded! Turns out the rig was halted a couple years ago because of potential problems, and another company bough it and started the drill again. Included in the story was how critical things get the deeper one goes. This brings me to my point, my topic - diminishing returns.

Maybe we ought not be trying so hard so deep in the off-shore. Maybe we ought to be working more toward another sustainable energy use. Maybe, indeed, we are about the point of diminishing returns on oil exploration. Maybe we ought not be going off-shore to find what it takes to fuel our machines. Maybe.

It seems odd that when folks who wanted permission finally got it something so telling occurred. A big explosion speaks louder than words? Perhaps an indication of diminishing returns.

Yet, this is not the total answer. People have hit diminishing returns before and took corrective action to process and continued on. What would we have done had we quit with Apollo 13? Huh?