Oil Arrives In Louisiana; Defense Booms Inadequate 359
eldavojohn writes "People in mainland Louisiana are seeing the beginnings of the oil's full effects on wildlife in the area. Sticky, rust-colored oil covers the reeds like a latex paint, indicating that the efforts to lay miles of floating booms to keep it away from the fragile marshes are useless. They are experiencing what the Plaquemines (mouth of Mississippi River) saw last week, and it now appears that their defenses were inadequate. Only time will tell how much worse it can get as BP still scrambles for a solution. NPR also ran a story critical of Obama's 'scientific approach' that he promised to use in office and how well it's being applied and holding up during this crisis."
Booming school 101 (Score:2, Informative)
Maybe they just failed booming school 101 and didn't know how to fucking do the fucking booming properly [youtube.com].
And if you are offended by the f-word, well, watch the video to the end, OK? I promise it makes sense.
Booms work (Score:5, Informative)
Booms work when done properly [dailykos.com].
Re:Not very critical, actually. (Score:5, Informative)
You must have watched the same video [youtube.com] I did but you spelled "fucking proper fucking booming" wrong.
Re:BP CEO Hayward Predicts 'very, very modest' Imp (Score:4, Informative)
For the curious:
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/costly_time-consuming_test_of.html [nola.com]
Re:Not very critical, actually. (Score:3, Informative)
Mod parent up, the video might be too intense for liberal (Tipper Gore) ears, but it's something everyone needs to see in order to understand how BP fucked up and how this failure was inevitable.
Re:Not very critical, actually. (Score:2, Informative)
But not Halliburton, who made the part that actually broke. Because they're good ol' boys.
Re:since BP fails Fucking Booming School (Score:5, Informative)
Go watch this [youtube.com] and it will make more sense. They are not, have not, and seemingly, WILL NOT use the booms properly. Booming without capture is useless, you are only slowing down the disaster, not reducing it.
Re:Not very critical, actually. (Score:1, Informative)
"As a liberal, I am very, very upset with the man I voted for right now."
Bush II never did anything out of character.
Bush Light, OTOH, knew he could do whatever he wished because his base had no alternative but to vote for Change We Can Believe In.
No matter how pissed off they get this will not change in 2012, and it's hilarious. Who expected to be Pwn3d by a Chicago political shapeshifter?
Me. I knew what he was even back then, but what was the fucking alternative? Senator grandad and caribou barbie? I would have had to leave the country out of sheer embarrassment if they had been elected.
Just so you all know. (Score:5, Informative)
No one will ever be held responsible for this. Ever. Not now, not ever. Ever ever ever.
BP will pay whatever it ends up costing them to "fix" the spill, or whatever it costs up to the point the government has to take over if that ends up being the case. The government (or at least the people in the senate and house who make any public statements regarding this) won't want to seem like idiots so they'll defend BP's stonewalling and ridiculously low damage estimates. Obama is a completely worthless shill to the right of Richard Nixon and will do nothing.
Then BP will appeal any and all personal liability related lawsuits to the supreme court where in a 5-4 decision (get used to hearing this for the rest of your life) the punitive damages will be thrown out, or dropped and sent back to the lower courts (like what happened with the Exxon Valdez spill) where it will be appealed until the affected people settle for pennies or drop the case since they won't live long enough or have enough money to see it out to the end.
Nothing ever changes, rich people never suffer, and again no one will ever be punished for it. There is literally no hope, and that's not even a joke. There seriously isn't.
Re:Not very critical, actually. (Score:2, Informative)
Clinton never ran a budget surplus. He got close though, but only because he robbed from the Social Security trust fund (just like every president has for the last half-century).
Booms are a scam (Score:1, Informative)
90% of the oil is below the booms so all they are meant to do is block some of the surface oil to hide the problem. Most of the oil forms cloud like plumes below the surface and is unaffected by the booms. Also booms don't work in even mildly rough seas. The dispersants are a similar issue. They only allow the oil to drop below the surface and potentially all the way to the sea bottom. I heard an representative from the dispersant company actually call oil "nutritious" as in providing nutrition for microorganisms. He stopped short of saying the oil and dispersants were good for the environment. That's how scary these people are. Their goal is to hide the oil not solve the problem. Dropping the oil to the bottom hides it. The problem is the natural processes they are quoting happen more slowly in deep water due to less oxygen and colder temperatures so the oil will actually break down more slowly using dispersants but it will be out of sight. So long as you don't eat sea food from the area I guess it can be seen as a plus. The oil will be affecting the area for decades and potentially much longer. The spill was caused by bean counters trying to save a buck. Until they fear the fines this will keep happening. They need to make it hurt. Fine them a billion a week on a spill of this size. Over the top? The area is facing tens of billions in losses so it isn't out of line. If they know they can get hit with a fine in the billions they will be much less likely to cut corners to save a few million. Already we've had politicians saying we shouldn't be too hard on BP. You can tell it's election time and they are going to be looking for handouts. Anyone accepting money from BP after this disaster should be voted out of office, period!
Bzzzt! Wrong, but thanks for playing! (Score:5, Informative)
Clinton never ran a budget surplus. He got close though, but only because he robbed from the Social Security trust fund (just like every president has for the last half-century).
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/during_the_clinton_administration_was_the_federal.html [factcheck.org]
Re:Not very critical, actually. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not very critical, actually. (Score:5, Informative)
The rig, and many other deepwater ones, are in international waters - if we nationalize/kick out all the American oil companies, there will still be Chinese, Venezuelan, etc who will drill without ANY oversight from the U.S.
Not true. The Deepwater Horizon [wikipedia.org]:
The rig was last located 50 miles (80 km) off the southeast coast of Louisiana.
That means it was well within the limits of the USA's Exclusive Economic Zone [wikipedia.org], which goes up to 200 miles from a country's coast. No other countries have the right to exploit marine resources within this area. As you can see in these pictures, the EEZs of USA [wikimedia.org] and Mexico [wikimedia.org] cover most of the Mexican Gulf, which means there's no way China, Venezuela, Russia or even Switzerland will ever drill there.
Re:The NPR article is HORRIBLE. Here's why. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not very critical, actually. (Score:3, Informative)
It matters quite a bit. For instance, if the drilling mud does not work, the plan is to try a variety of different sized materials such as shredded rubber and gold balls. The size and composition of the right mix depends on the flow rate. The success rate of other plans depends on the flow rate. We are trying plans based on false data and I don't see how you think just 'throwing everything at it' is any kind of a plan.
Re:BP, you're horseshit. (Score:3, Informative)
"Please someone tell me, why shouldn't these soulless suits be lined up and shot, and the event televised for the education of other similar corporate psychopaths?"
The Chinese do shoot people who commit corporate crimes such as selling poison milk. It makes great sense compared to executing those who commit crimes of passion. People behave themselves out of fear. Corporations know no fear, but public execution would get their attention. It should be used on those who commit economic as well as ecological sabotage. Bernie Madoff comes to mind.
Re:Not very critical, actually. (Score:5, Informative)
A very common misconception here. Simply plugging the leaking riser pipe will accomplish nothing as the riser pipe will burst shortly after you plug it. The main purpose of the BOP valve at the top of the well head is to regulate the pressure going up the relatively thin walled riser pipe. The riser has to be fairly thin otherwise its too heavy to hang from a surface ship. It can not sustain the full well pressure. This MUST be shut off at or below the well head valve.
You really want the Army.Marine Corp handling this? Guys with absolutely zero experience with oil drilling? The same guys that couldn't figure out how to kill the oil well fires in Iraq and had to contract it out to the industry experts?
Re:Bzzzt! Wrong, but thanks for playing! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not very critical, actually. (Score:4, Informative)
What part of readily available and works did you miss? BP still chose to use what was already on-hand somewhere (not a piddly amount off in Britain) of a chemical that has historically been used effectively.
Which US companies do you propose we hire? How about the ones with lots of deep sea drilling an oil clean expertise. Oh that's right, they are already on the job being paid by BP. I still don't understand the misconception that there are experts out there who are not already on this.
The only thing the Navy has that can go to that depth is their deep submersible rescue vehicles. They would be far less useful than the specialty ROVs that are already on site. The use of ROVs as is, must be carefully coordinated so you don't entangle their lines and you don't want a third party running something down there. I can speak with some authority on this as I happen to work with large underwater structures via ROVs and top-side support barges.
At this point, oil booms at sensitive areas with proper collection will only limit the damage. There just isn't enough oil booms or even production capacity in the world to totally contain this.
Re:Bzzzt! Wrong, but thanks for playing! (Score:3, Informative)
You do realize that those figures include all printed money as well, right? Says so right on the page. So, as the economy expands and we print more money so that we don't have deflation, those numbers will go up.
A reliable flow rate is important if you want... (Score:3, Informative)
A reliable flow rate is important if you want to try to understand how a leak of as much as 100,000 barrels/day during a time when we are supposedly retrieving "only" 1,734,000 barrels per day [gravmag.com] in total from the Gulf is related to declining oil prices.
Put another way: "Gee...how come just one leak is equal to 1/18th of the total amount of oil that is supposedly being pumped out of the Gulf of Mexico? When there are "nearly 4,000 active oil and gas platforms" [noaa.gov] in the Gulf of Mexico?"
Re:Why is oil so hard to separate from water? (Score:3, Informative)
google on "kevin costner centrifuge"
(about 27,000 hits)
Raw crude acts a little different than
what you are most likely thinking about
(ie. motor oil and gasoline, etc.)
Without actually dissolving in salt water,
it actually somewhat comes apart.
The lighter stuff goes to the surface but
a lot of the heavier compounds like
asphalt and thick tar will eventually
settle on the bottom.
But WHILE this chemistry physically sorts
itself out, globs of this stuff can be
somewhat boyancy neutral...drifting neither
on the surface or on the bottom. The TV
newscasters sometimes refer to these as
"plumes". Picture it as looking somewhat
like kelp except made of heavy oil goo.
Most pumps are designed for water and dont
work real well when stuff with high viscosity
literally "gums them up". Centrifuge action
will sepearte the oil, but getting the soup
in and out of the machine is sticky business.
Re:Not very critical, actually. (Score:5, Informative)
"The biggest debt producing thing Bush passed was Medicare part D"
Ummm, what about the Tax cuts and the optional Iraq war? That's about 2.5 trillion right there.
Re:Not very critical, actually. (Score:3, Informative)
Your reference to the Mythical Man Month is irrelevant to the discussion. Measuring the flow of oil and cleaning up the oil are independent tasks that can be run in parallel without slowing each other down. This is not a situation where the mythical man month applies.
Re:Not very critical, actually. (Score:3, Informative)
Why the Hobson's Choice? Can't FEMA be criticized for their slow response while also criticizing the poor planning of the local governments? I think with a disaster on the scale of Katrina there's plenty of criticism to be shared with all involved.