Oil users OF late, the ODT might well be renamed the Offshore Daily Times.
Photos of the drill ship Noble Bob Douglas are seen more often in ODT pages than Sandra Bullock in grocery store tabloids.
Opinions expressed have been highly polarised and clearly stated.
One camp is unlikely to sway the other to their point of view with words, so why does the attention and clamour continue unabated?
Because Kiwis are passionate and literate about serious matters, such as rugby and offshore drilling.
New Zealanders understand the risks of oil-well blowouts, damage to sensitive ecosystems, loss of fisheries, the health dangers of unchecked ground level pollution from automotive and diesel exhaust, the ticking clock of depletion of fossil resources and the biggest tamale of all: rises in ''greenhouse gases''.
Balanced against that weighty list is the need for the following: resources for our factories, jobs for our citizens, income for our private companies, a favourable balance of payments, and tax dollars for government.
And the biggest enchilada of all: we want to drive our cars.
Being an American from the Gulf Coast, whose shores have been fouled by spilled oil many times, I would like to offer another perspective.
The second major oil find in Texas occurred in 1903, in my home town, at the Goose Creek Oilfield, which remains in production to this day.
By 1910 the field was in full production, and the first offshore oil wells were flowing.
The water was just four feet deep, but still offshore.
The derricks have been dismantled, but the piping still delivers crude oil onshore.
Both my grandfathers worked either in those fields or in the local refinery, which has evolved over the years to become the largest single producer of petrol in the world.
My upbringing and education were paid for by oil, but most of my career has been spent in the production and promotion of renewable fuels, especially ethanol, which can have a positive energy balance to the planet as they derive from photosynthesis of plant matter.
I knew our ''side'' had won when one of the largest US refiners bought up ethanol plants and became one of the largest producers, praising the fuel where they had once decried it.
Despite the large and growing use of ethanol, fossil petrol (gasoline) is the dominant source of energy pushing cars down the highway, and it will remain so for decades to come.
This is how things are and will be.
Besides advocating renewable biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel, the only way to make a statement is not to drive.
I doubt many consumers will have that level of commitment.
I do not.
Plus, it is impractical for commerce.
Jet airplanes?
Trucks?
Diesel-powered locomotives?
They need crude-based fuels.
Oil has been spilled on American soil since the 1900s, when gushers sprayed into the air as they hit pay.
Then there was the Exxon Valdez in Alaska, and most recently, the big BP mess in the Gulf of Mexico, which time and tides seem to have ameliorated.
Thank goodness for that, or else the shrimp, fish, crab, and oyster harvests upon which millions depend would have been decimated for decades to come.
BP made a mess of it by not assuring the blowout preventer was truly in place and operational, as it hoped it was.
Turns out, hope is a poor strategy.
Americans asked ourselves if we wanted to drive our cars, knowing the risks to our shores and to livelihoods, and we said yes, getting into our cars and voting with our pocket books.
This is despite TV images of oil-covered beaches and marshes from Texas to Florida, birds dead and dying covered in crude oil.
What else were we going to do?
A resurgence in petroleum production has pushed the US back near the top of world statistics.
This means that the world petroleum pool that is providing Kiwi fuels is partly US-derived.
Thus, when you drive your car, but complain about possible drilling offshore near New Zealand, you are saying that you wish for the citizens of Louisiana to assume the risk that you are unwilling to shoulder so that you may continue to drive your car. This is a classic case of nimby - ''not in my backyard''.
Not a good look.
So, where do I stand?
Not on the precarious fence.
So long as we choose to drive cars, buy cling wrap, paint with latex house paints, and so on, I vote to poke those holes in the seabed so that New Zealand shares the risk and improves its balance of payments.
At the same time, do whatever you can to promote clean, renewable technologies to replace fossil fuels.
• Dr Wells, a part-time lecturer in the chemistry department at the University of Otago, has more than 35 years of industrial experience, nearly all in alternative fuels to replace petrol. He has delivered more than 50 papers at international symposiums, and served as a White House adviser on oxygenated fuels.
