BP Permanently Seals Gulf Oil Well 368
rexjoec writes "BP has finally plugged the Macondo well. This announcement came yesterday after $9.5 billion (through September 17) in expenditures and five months of continuous effort."
From the LA Times: "Of the estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil that gushed from the well, 25% was burned, skimmed or piped to tanker ships. A second 25% has evaporated or dissolved, according to government estimates. Another 25%, classified by the government as 'residual oil,' consisted of light sheens on the water, thick goo on the shore and tar balls. The tar balls, though not harmful to humans, are likely to wash up on shore for some time."
You know what I find hilarious? (Score:5, Insightful)
The "potential" for conflict can raise the cost of oil by 5-10 cents in less than a week. The "potential" for supply problsm can raise the cost of oil by as much as 50 cents over the course of a couple of months.
Millions of gallons leaking into the Gulf, however, seem to have had pretty much zero effect on gas prices. Am I wrong? Please put some numbers up showing that I am...I'd really be pissed off if I'm right about that.
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Gah. I meant raising the cost of gas in my first couple of sentences, not the cost of oil itself -_-;;
Re:You know what I find hilarious? (Score:5, Insightful)
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My point is that this is a measurable loss of oil, compared to "potential" loss. Why does "potential" loss impact things more than measurable loss?
Or is this one of those make-no-sense parts of economics I just don't get?
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I know where you're coming from and I can understand some of the confusion but I find it reasonable th
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My point is that this is a measurable loss of oil, compared to "potential" loss. Why does "potential" loss impact things more than measurable loss?
Or is this one of those make-no-sense parts of economics I just don't get?
Potential conflict can spiral into large market fluctuations. While a not insignificant portion of it IS speculation, speculation can backfire. But the numbers we see here, while large don't even really get close to the numbers which can be influenced by regional conflict.
Think about it t
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Re:You know what I find hilarious? (Score:5, Interesting)
Millions of gallons leaking into the Gulf, however, seem to have had pretty much zero effect on gas prices. Am I wrong?
The Maconodo well was in the process of being converted from exploration to production. A non-producing well didn't come into production, not 'a producing well went out of production'. So, the supply wasn't impacted. If demand was level then the price should have stayed mostly level.
Only if oil futures had figured in the Macondo production already, or speculators thought that BP's costs would somehow drive up the world market costs (why would Exxon increase its prices?, e.g. - they wouldn't) would this have affected oil prices. The biggest supply risk right now is from the US Government, but it seem unlikely they're going to undertake the draconian options at this point.
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The biggest supply risk right now is from the US Government, but it seem unlikely they're going to undertake the draconian options at this point.
If we wanted to see real market panic, an over-response from the US government could have easily sparked it. I'm rather glad that the response was a careful "We are stopping it temporarily for obvious reasons, but once we can establish that this isn't a systematic problem we are going to open it up again." Basically a lot of reassuring of investors to prevent spe
Re:You know what I find hilarious? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:You know what I find hilarious? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oil price goes up.
Traders panic and start hedging bets on the retail market.
The entire thing turns out to be a non-event and the price of oil starts to fall.
Traders sit on their retail product they now don't want to move at a loss.
Dropped oil price results in a drop in retail petrol some 6-10 weeks later (since this is your typical refining and transportation delay).
Traders either move product through fixed agreements, or realise they screwed up and recover costs elsewhere.
Your typical oil company is also just a pawn in the same process. If petrol can be bought cheaper from the market than from the local refinery (a not at all uncommon occurrence) then they don't buy from themselves. This is why exploration, refining, and retail sections of these companies are so incredibly segregated.
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Because what was spilled is the raw ingredient. There are levels of refinement that goes on, and other drills being built. Being that it was 1 oil rig. Though Billions of Gallons of oil was spilt it compared to our real consumption of oil it is just a drop in the bucket.
Political conflicts cause more of a rise because it could effect the supply of hundreds or thousands of oil.
As these are freely traded Potential means people are worried when people are worried they will hold on to what they have. You ar
The last 25% (Score:5, Informative)
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Is BP paying those fishermen for the next 40 years of lost work?
Is it paying the hotels for the next 20 years of lost business?
It sure seems like dumping a few gallons of oil can get you arrested, dumping millions though is ok so long as you pretend to do something about it.
Re:The last 25% (Score:5, Insightful)
Is BP paying those fishermen for the next 40 years of lost work?
No, but BP is paying for those fisherman to go out and clean the oil. Also 40 years=number pulled out of your ass. The effects of the Ixtoc 1 oil spill were not that drastic and shrimp industries returned to normal in 2 years.
Is it paying the hotels for the next 20 years of lost business?
The hotels are already doing quite well this year as they are hosting all the contractors that have been brought into the region, as are all the restaurants and such with the per diem the contractors are getting paid. And again 20 years=number pulled out of your ass.
It sure seems like dumping a few gallons of oil can get you arrested, dumping millions though is ok so long as you pretend to do something about it.
Yes, dumping millions of gallons of oil is ok (if you consider 20 billion dollars to not be a penalty). That works out to about $95 a gallon, not to mention the additional $1.87/gallon in lost oil revenue.
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Considering no one went to jail I consider it getting off quite lightly.
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Prove that criminal laws were broken beyond a reasonable doubt and people will go to jail. Otherwise it's just political posturing.
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Is dumping not illegal in Florida or at the Federal level?
Where I live it sure is. The cops don't ask why you did it.
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Re:The last 25% (Score:4, Insightful)
Deliberately dumping used motor oil is a crime. Having it spill out of your car onto the pavement because a gasket fails is not a crime, though you may still be required to pay clean-up costs.
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You make it sound like BP dumped the oil deliberately in some sort of gargantuan version of replacing your engine oil and chucking the old stuff at the side of the road.
I've not (yet) even seen any mad conspiracy theory that thinks BP did this on purpose.
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No, but BP is paying for those fisherman to go out and clean the oil. Also 40 years=number pulled out of your ass. The effects of the Ixtoc 1 oil spill were not that drastic and shrimp industries returned to normal in 2 years.
So then fishermen deserve compensation until the fishing industry goes "back to normal" which should be defined as when the fish and shrimp populations return to normal, not based on actual catch since there would be an incentive to under-perform.
This does not even take into account the long term affect on the region. Oil slicks break up into some nasty stuff. If you strip mine a hill and leave arsenic puddles everywhere, you cause that region to be un-inhabitable and non-arable. You need to pay for that if
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So, on one hand, I agree with you. What you imply you want to see seems "fair" in an idealistic way.
On the other hand, this is a lot more confusing. Let's say you own a hotel on a beach, but I own the property between you and the beach. I decide I like trees, so I plant some. They grow. They ruin your hotel's view of the beach.
Can you sue me for the next X years of losses because of people who don't come to your hotel because it now lacks a view?
I assume you'll probably say "no." If you say "yes," I'd
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I would say no because growing trees is legal and not generally dangerous. Unlike using the gulf of mexico as your personal oil disposal area.
Personally I think those street cleaners probably have a decent claim. I would like to see BP actually pay for all the damage, it is the only way they would not do it again.
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I would have to cede the oil vs. trees point. BP was legally drilling though...
OTOH, to me ... negligence would be a big issue in there, and would cause culpability on BP and other companies that may have also been negligent. And also those that were supposed to be regulating, it seems they were negligent, too.
Maybe we should make BP pay and make the government/regulatory body actually change, not just rename itself. Oh, and at least fire anyone that was accepting bribes or whatever else. And also at le
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I don't care if they were setting up an orphanage they caused the discharge of millions of gallons of oil into the gulf.
I fail to understand how it matters what they were doing. The end result is they released millions of gallons of oil onto property they did not own.
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On the other hand, this is a lot more confusing. Let's say you own a hotel on a beach, but I own the property between you and the beach. I decide I like trees, so I plant some. They grow. They ruin your hotel's view of the beach.
Obvious answer: You own the property between the hotel and beach, BP doesn't own the Gulf of Mexico.
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Actually you can't even ruin the view from someone's house without risking being brought to civil court
Individuals should be allowed to do this, in a civil court... which is where you are supposed to take civil disputes, not criminal activity, right?
Companies should not be allowed to steamroll the civil court to get the citizen to do what it wants.
I don't know enough about the courts to know if the above two things are actually the way it works, though.
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It's the old if you owe the bank $10,000, it's your problem. If you owe the bank $10,000,000, it's their problem.
Re:The last 25% (Score:4, Informative)
Is BP paying those fishermen for the next 40 years of lost work?
Not speaking for BP, but for myself... and not speaking to family owned and operated fishing enterprises, but to the commercial fisheries: FUCK THEM. Their greed pretty much destroyed the Gulf and the Atlantic stocks of the best fish. Man, I am really going to miss tuna. FUCK THEM TWICE, damn greedy savages.
Is it paying the hotels for the next 20 years of lost business?
Not speaking for BP, but for myself... and not speaking to family owned and operated hotels, but the large commercial developers and big corporate resorts: FUCK THEM. They somehow skirted federal wetland laws (DO NOT TOUCH) to destroy miles of coastline so rednecks could have a vacation spot closer to home, instead of traveling to already established resort islands along the coast NC, SC, GA, and FL, like civilized people do. FUCK THEM TWICE, greedy fucking savages.
It sure seems like dumping a few gallons of oil can get you arrested, dumping millions though is ok so long as you pretend to do something about it.
Agreed. Trouble is, everyone only cares about their bank accounts, at the expense of the things we need to live, like a habitable environment.
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Shit happens (Score:2)
BP should get smacked enough to punish them for their insane risks (and discourage anyone else from trying that ever again), but they're not responsible for other people's well being.
Re:The last 25% (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:The last 25% (Score:5, Insightful)
There's fundamentally two ways to make a business responsible for its unsafe actions.
One is to impose government regulations. These are generally flawed, often tuned to avoid expense to the corporation, often require unnecessary things at extra expense, may not be enforced, and are typically something of a pain.
The other is to make corporations civilly liable for what they do. This has its own set of problems, including shell corporations that loot and discard operating corporations, and the ability of large enterprises to wage delaying actions through the legal system.
The worst of both worlds is when bad government regs are used to shield a corporation from well-deserved liability.
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Yes, and yes.
It's more complicated than that, though. Most people are probably not affected at all. But some people are affected in tragic ways. And even though I haven't gotten sick from being exposed to toxins, I AM paying for Superfund site amelioration. Does that affec
Re:The last 25% (Score:5, Interesting)
If my company has a tanker full of gas, and that tanker explodes outside your store due to my company's negligence, cratering the street and making your store unreachable for months. By your logic, my company shouldn't be liable for monetary damage to your store. How would you feel about this? You can say "adapt! change!" all you want, but the bottom line is, there should be no legal justification for this kind of negligence.
They can reimburse you for your losses, but people shouldn't be on the hook for hypothetical future losses 40 years into the future unless actual deaths were involved (You can estimate earnings, and nothing can reverse death, so the losses are tangible)
For example, let's say a massive Cat 4 hurricane came in 2 weeks later and literally washed your store away. Would the company that cratered the street and made your store unreachable be liable for your now non-existant store? Is that hypothetical? It sure is, but so are your 'lost' future profits. There was no guarantee of them.
Remimburse the damage, pay compensation for the inconvenience to establish a new store, and then any associated fines for failing to follow regulations.
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So how much do you think creating a new fishing ground is going to cost? That would be like building a new store.
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So how much do you think creating a new fishing ground is going to cost? That would be like building a new store.
Actually, buying the fisherman a new boat and equipment would be like building a new store. But let's say that the fishing ground is destroyed and fishing is no longer possible there. You pay the fisherman the cost to establish the equivalent business in a similar location. How equivalent, how similar? That's for a judge to determine.
As the fishing ground is a shared resource, compensation fo
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I disagree. The wages are to pay for the loss of the use of the resource by this particular user and the damages are to restore the resource and perhaps make sure BP avoids such action in the future.
Re:The last 25% (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, since they'd about fished out the old one...
Honestly, I can't stand fishermen who talk about fishing grounds and fish populations as if they were their property.
I can pretty much guarantee that if they banned gulf fishing for a year, and studied the subsequent catches, they'd find that 5 million barrels of oil is less of a problem for the fish populations than all the commercial fishing.
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I was thinking about this yesterday.
So far, there's no evidence that fisheries have actually been harmed in any substantial way by the spill.
Why not wait and see how next year's catch is, and if it's bad, force BP to pay the unemployed fishermen for another lost season? My guess is that a whole unfettered season of no fishing would do the fisheries as much good as the spill did in damage.
Also, if there's a year for tons of shrimp and plankton to thrive, a whole bunch of them are going to die naturally, sequ
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I agree with the assertion that you should never whine about "leaving where you've been all your life" because it's rooted in an unreasonable aversion to change. Yes, there's a lot involved, but it's not something that's never been done before.
However, going back to the oil problem, in some cases there is no fitting compensation other than uprooting your fishing business and moving to somewhere completely different - on an ocean instead of the gulf. Is BP going to pay for that expense? Or will they get out
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To your first part regarding reasonableness. I deal with legal language like that EVERY day. It's my job. Unfortunately that HAS to have some sort of arbitration (typically via a judge). Almost anyone could see that offering $1,000,000 to some guy who was living in a trailer on welfare would be more than reasonable, but some people WOULD demand more. And likely, the company WOULD offer less.
It is in instances like this were I, even as a very staunch libertarian, see the need for the government to act a
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Lets say you own a farm, and I accidentally burn your farm down killing all your crops and livestock. Should you not be paid for the lost money you could have made from the grain and livestock? I mean, who knows how much the crops would have actually made you since there is no accurate way to determine the total yield since the weather affects it as does market fluctiations. Furthermore, your livestock could have gotten sick and died or could maybe not have grown very big. I understand its a bit different w
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Not quite. His point is the length of time. BP needs to cover the damages, at least in the short term, but can only pay for so long. A few months is certainly not enough but 20 years is very much on the long side of reasonable.
We don't know how this is going to play out, there is very little in common with the Exxon spill other than there was oil involved. The environment, bacteria, location of spill, and effected species are all very different. We've discovered new bacteria that operate at those colde
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Way to miss the point. I sure would be willing to sell those people oil though, if they want to commit to such long terms.
The reality is BP ruined the shared resource these businesses rely on. This is a simple issue of property rights, BP is depriving these folks of the right to use this common property. BP should pay for the loss of access to this property just as these businesses pay for the oil they use.
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Again, you spout nonsense. That oil was paid for and was a private resource, they owned it. The Gulf of Mexico is a shared resource.
Please provide me your address, I want to buy the property next door and start burning tires.
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are you going to provide oil to run the fishermen's boats for the next 40 years?
are you going to provide oil to run the hotels for the next 20 years?
does the free market guarantee continued employment, or is the very basis of capitalism the inherent necessity of the value of ADAPTING.
Tell me where you live, and I will shoot your family. You must adapt to any change I think is right for you (read: me).
But wait, you might ask, where is my right to freedom from interference?
You, however, have less money, and therefore your suffering is irrelevant. Congratulations, you live in the State of Nature, also called the USA.
I know you won't admit to it, but I, at least, find this line of reasoning troubling, and just a little bit undemocratic. Why do you pride yourself on living under a rule of l
Re:The last 25% (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The last 25% (Score:5, Funny)
Ah vigilantism. Is there any problem it can't solve?
Obviously made up / Wild A*sed Guess (Score:4, Interesting)
That each of these four options accounts for exactly one quarter of the oil is obviously made up or at best a Wild A*sed Guess. They lied from day one about the amount of oil released, and we're supposed to believe this?
That's only 75 percent (Score:2, Interesting)
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The Liberia episode is quite good as well.
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The final 25% of the oil — the equivalent of four Exxon Valdez spills —- is of greatest concern to scientists. It is drifting 3,000 to 4,300 feet below the gulf's surface, in vast clouds of atomized droplets that could alter links in the chain of life.
This "dispersed" oil was broken into droplets, about the width of a hair, either when it shot at high speeds from the well's broken pipe or when it came into contact with the 1.8 million gallons of the controversial chemical dispersant Corexit.
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How about you go read the LA Times article linked in the summary, after which you can answer that question for yourself?
Nice and sugar coated (Score:3, Insightful)
I love how they make it sound like the oil just went away.
Hundreds of workers worked 10+ hour shifts every day on the shores cleaning up oil and dead animals for the past months. I'm not sure if that continues even now but the spill is certainly going to have lasting affects on the sea floor and gulf waters.
Thank goodness... (Score:2)
But the lawsuits have on ly begun (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But the lawsuits have on ly begun (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not saying that the specifics of this case are right, but thats what you have to do if you sue for damages with long term repercussions.
Lets say I run into you with my car and break your hand. You would need to sue me to recover the following costs:
- Immediate medical care (ER, ambulance)
- Surgery to correct your hand
- Lost wages from the immediate time away from work
- Cost of physical therapy
(heres the important part)
- Cost of long term followup visits
- Cost of pain meds (even say, Advil) because of long term discomfornt
- Lost wages from not being able to use your hand 100% ever again
- Cost of followup visits if your hand flares up again
- Cost of treating the arthritis that is now likely to develop
You can only sue me once. You may not come back and sue me again in 15 years when it acts up after feeling fine for a decade.
Similar thing is going on here. The fishermen just plain don't know whats going to happen in the long term. The legal term is "make me whole". BP did something to harm them and the fisherman isn't made whole again unless all of his costs , short and long term, are recovered. The fisherman doesn't get to go back in 5 years and sue BP again after he finds out his fishing area is a wasteland because the fish are gone.
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The problem is that a) No one can see into the future to see what those ACTUAL damages will be, and b) Many of the people suing will be greatly exaggerating their damages, if not committing outright fraud. Again, I don't envy BP the mess they will be dealing with on this--especially since every ambulance-chasing trial lawyer and his brother are going to be pouncing on this, and I doubt that judges are going to be very sympathetic to the evil oil company.
Regarding A: NevarMore made the same point, that you can't know what the actual damages will be.
Regarding B: I'm pretty sure you still have to prove your claim is reasonable.
Whether the oil company is evil is irrelevant, the judge's lack of sympathy will probably come from the fact that the company is responsible for an environmental disaster.
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That's why the court system is an adversarial one. The defendant and the plaintiff both get to make a case, and the judge or jury doesn't have to award the full amount being claimed if they don't think it's a fair amount.
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That would be just fine. This particular situation has more than enough attention on it that this trick will not work for a great many claims. All one has to do in that case is "opt out" of the class action suit. Then the right to sue will remain intact.
Re:But the lawsuits have on ly begun (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit. They are going to weasel out of this like all big companies do when something like this occurs. Google "bhopal union carbide", for a great example.
In a just world they will have to pay every inflation adjusted dime since the fishing industry was damaged to when it fully recovers. In our world they won't.
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Just ask the natives who were harmed by the Exxon Valdez -- most of them have died without receiving what the COURT DEMANDED -- and even after Exxon got new politicians to put a cap on penalties.
The TRUTH of the Exxon Valdez disaster was that Exxon only got rights to be in pristine waters and the only harbor they could use for hundreds of miles for a song because they promised the Indians who owned those lands that they would get the most advanced radar and avoid hitting ground.
Well, they didn't put in all
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But, on the upside, I bet they'll damn sure be properly maintaining those blowout preventers from now on.
If past accidents are anything to go by, then no, they won't be properly maintaining anything.
The oil industry seems to be somehow insulated from the normal process of learning from failure.
Did they actually SEAL it? (Score:2, Troll)
I have to wonder if, after all that time, they actually let the well empty itself and claim to have plugged it.
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Maybe when they say they "sealed" it they mean that they threw a seal at it. Also, maybe it was a baby seal. And maybe it had fur. Those evil bastards...
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Today's crude oil price is ~$75 - 80 per barrel. 4.9 million barrels * $80 per barrel = ~ $368 million worth of oil spilled, at today's prices. That's a LOT, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to the revenues the oil producers log.
If they were spending all that money exploring & drilling at 5k+ meters of depth for a mere 4.9 million barrels, then we're much closer to peak oil & an economic collapse on account of energy crisis than anybody has suggested.
why not untar the gulf... (Score:5, Funny)
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That extracts the tar, we want to bottle it up.
tar -cvf gulf.tar gulf coastline ;)
Besides a Bad PR Strategy... (Score:2)
I mean, I realize that a half billion people would have descended on it in angry, wet mobs, but...it's an oil well. There's hundreds like it still in operation. If they could safely get it back in operation, rather than forgo all the effort to FIND oil and get it drilled, why not....simply continue pumping?
Maybe it was a lost cause on re-connecting everythi
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is there any GOOD reason why they simply didn't repair the blowout preventer, hook up a new dipstick, set up a new rig, and keep on a-pumpin'?
It was way too damaged. They tried to attach pipes several times, with fairly limited success.
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Re:Besides a Bad PR Strategy... (Score:4, Informative)
is there any GOOD reason why they simply didn't repair the blowout preventer, hook up a new dipstick, set up a new rig, and keep on a-pumpin'?
There's two answers:
1) The legal one is once a well goes out of control, it gets the death penalty. Sounds on the surface as stupid as punishing a gun instead of a shooter... however this "gun" cost BP within an order of magnitude of $100M to drill. Wells are really quite expensive to drill. This lowers the wealth of the world as a whole by $100M but more specifically it lowers the wealth of BP by $100M, thus being very motivating for funding groups like BP to hire drillers (TO) whom don't screw up.
2) The semi-technical answer is rapid, uncontrolled sand flow pretty much destroys the pipes and other down hole stuff. It would be way faster and cheaper to drill a new well than to repair this one. Its sort of the difference between duct taping something together in a movie plot therefore its possible vs actual business operation. What I'm getting at is testing and certifying casings and hangers and parts is really cheap when its on the surface, and really expensive when its buried in the earth.
counting... (Score:2)
...am I reading wrong if I don't see destiny of the last 25% of oil?
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It was all in the depths of the Gulf. You saw where 75% of it came out of the deeper waters. 100% - 75% equals...
Tell me liees tell me sweet little lieees . (Score:2)
I make a point not to buy from BP anymore (Score:2, Informative)
You should too.
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Re:I make a point not to buy from BP anymore (Score:4, Insightful)
Hey, here's an idea for the poor, unfortunate station owners and their employees who are so downtrodden by the rightful boycotting of BP-supplied stations: go work for or get your fuel supply from SOMEONE ELSE besides BP. I've seen more stations switch brands over the years than I can count, some without changes in management or even significant changes in employees.
BP is not the only oil company in existence, nor are the various stations they supply the only ones out there which need able-bodied employees. Add to that the fact that there appear to be plenty of jobs to be had elsewhere, despite the slump in the economy.
To put it bluntly, BP made so many poor decisions that it's as though they set this up to fail. This is the kind of fuckup that bring forth a punishment as damaging to BP as the spill itself is to the environment.
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Re:I make a point not to buy from BP anymore (Score:5, Interesting)
You should too.
A feel good idea. With no, to negative, results.
1) They're going to change their name in a couple months / years. Guaranteed. Bet you won't notice.
2) Carried out to the logical conclusion, if everyone shunned BP, our own govt (aka all of us) will have to pay the full costs of cleanup. I'd much rather voluntarily pay my tiny fraction of the costs and in return get a tank of gas in my car, than have the govt forcibly take everyone's money to pay for the full cost of cleanup and we get nothing but a larger national debt...
3) Gas stations are mostly franchises. So, the only people you're punishing are your local gas station owners whom randomly selected the wrong marketing firm. The guy down the street whom contracts to Exxon for his marketing, will simply buy the excess gas from BP and you'll never be the wiser. Punishing the local station owner is the same bullying mentality as screaming at a supermarket cashier or other McJob personnel, as if they have anything to do with it or as if your actions will have any effect.
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Its done this way because the production of oil wells do not equal the consumption of the same companies oil refi
Permanently sealed... (Score:2)
And 25% just put itself back in the oil field? (Score:3, Insightful)
Or is in huge underwater clouds of atomized droplets and hence out of sight and mind.
Just like in Iraq, the US simply declares victory (Score:4, Insightful)
BP+US has treated the entire disaster as simply a public relations problem. Control the media message, attack and suppress any contrary evidence, and thus define reality. At least until the guilty have escaped any consequences and the gullible are left to pay the real costs.
And my observation here is to note the similarity to U.S. petro-military operations in Iraq (and the rest of the Middle East). Both were caused by hubris and greed, and the official "solution" to what is clearly a complete and total clusterfuck is just PR "rebranding" - to simply leave and declare victory.
Without independent observation and analysis, in either the Persian Gulf or the Gulf of Mexico, who has any idea of what's really happening?
But from the similarities I'll bet this disaster will continue exactly like Iraqistan: lots of smiling photo ops of the CEO's of state, the occasional human interest story about the hardships suffered by the little people (carefully avoiding any link to those responsible), and the suffering and environmental devastation and the death will keep going on and on.
Gulf of Mexico, Persian Gulf.
Same hydrocarbons, different day.
"My fellow Americans, major combat operations in the Gulf have ended. In the battle of Macondo, the United States and our oillies have prevailed."
"Emission Accomplished"
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Not that you care what's really happening - as your reply makes it clear your mind is already made up. Unless the 'independent' analysis agrees with your existing bias, you'll just claim it to be a product of the "petro-military complex".
Why is the summary whitewashing? (Score:2)
The tar balls, though not harmful to humans, are likely to wash up on shore for some time.
Just as rat poison is not harmful to humans, so long as you don't ingest it.
Comparing with other big oil spills (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The prospect may have held 50 million barrels (7.9×10^6 m3) producible reserves of oil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macondo_well#Location [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not the margin of error. It's the 25% that's still in the deeper water. That's why they mentioned three ways the oil came out of the mass of the water and it didn't add up to 100%.
That other 25% is getting into the plankton, fish, shrimp, and marine mammals. Part of it's undoubtedly in the gulf stream on its way to the coast of the UK and Ireland. Part of it will remain in the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, and the western Atlantic. This last 25% will take years or decades more to break down after the
Re: (Score:2)
They did cause it this time but oil leaking from the sea floor, and sometimes in large quanities, is a natural phenomenon. Oil seep has happened before and it will happen again.
That's like saying deforestation isn't a concern because trees occasionally fall down on their own.
Re: (Score:2)
... how did this get modded up?! O_o
It didn't, not as of this posting at least. What you're seeing is the result of a karma bonus modifier. The default setting is that if someone has good karma it will add 1 to the score for your viewing pleasure. You can change this in your settings if you'd rather avoid it.