But I changed my tune after recent accidents involving the platforms, part of more than 300 accidents worldwide in the last 25 years, according to a British study. The scariest for me occurred last September when a cloud of poisonous gas was expelled by a nearby natural gas rig and drifted over the island, sickening dozens of residents and forcing the evacuation of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab School.

Exxon Mobil confessed to the unplanned expulsion of hydrogen sulfide, a fatally poisonous byproduct of all the wells. The noxious, sour-smelling gas is usually burned off by a continuous flame on the rig, which had inexplicably gone out, like a pilot light in the wind