Quantifying, and Dealing With, the Deepwater Spill 343
Gooseygoose writes with a link to this analysis by Boston University professor Cutler Cleveland. "Some reports in the media attempt to downplay the significance of the release of oil from the Deepwater Horizon accident by arguing that natural oil seeps release large volumes of oil to the ocean, so why worry? Let's look at the numbers." Read on for a few more stories on the topic of the Deepwater Horizon spill.
theodp writes with some information on the remote-controlled efforts to stanch the oil's flow: "The work Tito Collasius does sounds a little like science fiction: Men on ships flicking joysticks that control robots the size of trucks as they rove miles beneath the sea in near-freezing depths no man could hope to reach. But BP's spill efforts rest in the hands of underwater remote-operated vehicle (ROV) pilots, who 'fly' the ROVs from command centers aboard ships, joysticks in hand and large banks of screens in front of them offering a view of the challenges they confront in the waters below. ROVs are typically used for commercial (as in the oil industry), oceanographic (science research and exploration), and military (mine reconnaissance and recovery) missions. If you're interested in joining Tito, training's available."
Even if BP were to effect a perfect block for the oil, though, there's still quite a bit of it swirling in the Gulf — you've probably seen some gut-wrenching pictures of the affected wildlife. Reader grrlscientist writes "Some people claim that we should euthanize all oiled birds immediately upon recovering them. But I argue it is our ethical responsibility to protect, clean, and save these birds, even after they've been oiled, just as we should preserve and clean their habitats."
All natural (Score:5, Funny)
See? The oil spill is all natural. Nothing to see here, folks. The catastrophe was all in your minds. You can go back to driving SUVs, voting Republican, and burning rubber tires for fun again.
Re:All natural (Score:4, Interesting)
I first heard this line of reasoning on Fox News and my first reaction was "scale, people." What's funny is that our local Fox affiliate [myfoxla.com] keeps sending reporters up to the beaches of Santa Barbara where there's a fairly large natural oil seep as if to say, "See? It's no big deal..."
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The reasons we are probably seeing things like this is to undo or mitigate the damage to the coastal tourism that is already being seen in the gulf area as a reaction to the spill. This will go more common as more and more industries away from the spill are hit with less and less business from the consumers on the beaches.
This will hit hard around election time if something can't be done to curb the expected negative growth in the economy caused by this. Expect the idea to get really popular in the next cou
Re:All natural (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not THAT hard to understand if anyone tries to present it. Quick, everyone in the world drip one drop of oil wherever they may be. Tiny problem, no big deal.
Now, drip 6 billion drops of oil where you're standing right now (about 300,000 Liters) and see how much trouble it is!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The oil spill is all natural
- just like strychnine and arsenic. Enjoy.
Re: All natural (Score:2)
What's the problem? It is! This stuff is leaking out of the EARTH, with no factory processing, it's just, you know, leaking... All Natural (TM) oil. Just the Earth "doing it's thing".
Maybe you should click the "look at the numbers" link near the top of the article.
Also, I'm starting to hear estimates that the actual rate of leakage may be over twice the worse-case line on the plot at that link.
The actual amount leaked will be argued in court for decades, since one class of penalty is based on that amount. BP has a strong economic incentive to make people think there's less of it than there actually is.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: All natural (Score:5, Informative)
Also, liability for breaking laws, rules, and regulations are not limited. They are breaking a lot of laws, and could be fined a lot, including up to $4,300 per barrel spilled (that could be a couple of $billion) the killing of wildlife (that could cost at least a $billion), and more.
IANAL, YMMV, etc.
Re: All natural (Score:4, Insightful)
Boo hoo. Let me know when its any more unfair than having your livelihood wrecked because some BP fuckheads couldn't keep control of their oil wells. When you shit in the sandbox you should face some extraordinary rules. It isn't a game when you're fucking up my world. If BP ever played by 'fair' rules instead of bribing... I mean, lobbying politicians, drilling and ignoring safety standards, etc we could judge them by fair rules. But they didn't. They broke the rules, they hit below the belt, they rigged the odds and they fucked up. So screw the marquis of queensbury rules, the gloves come off now.
Re: All natural (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets be realistic here, soon this will become a world wide catastrophe taking it beyond Just America as oil starts to get into the international currents and finds itself all over the world. Yeah it's a game, with more pawns than kings and guess what you and I are. Once it's there BP has won the game.
Why? Because realistically no one here cares as long as you can drive and get your groceries. Slowly it will become a blip on the world media and it just doesn't affect you. After a while it will be the whole 'residents lives were destroyed and thats really bad but it's not me' and 'Gee the government really ought to do sumthing about it' kind of apathy will arise and our complacent little lives will once again be complete. Then it will become;
Gee what about that oil spill - yeah terrible, tsk tsk.
And ask yourself when the last time you felt strongly about something you actually wrote a letter to your pollycritter saying how you wanted the matter treated or regulations increased or laws or criminal charges pressed instead of just feeling angry and shouting at the TV before you call this flamebait.
We asked for this shit because we just love it when the PR crew goes down on us and makes us feel like it's all right, it'll be alright, see, just an image change away and some funky 'we've learned our lesson now' ads from BP, maybe a name change or a buy out and we will all throw our money at them again. Heaps cheaper than doing it right.
Here's a fun thing to think about, it's not just global warming but every biological support system that sustains life on this planet is in decline.
There I said it, and we will all go on singing and dancing with full bellys until the next disaster.
Re: All natural (Score:5, Insightful)
The game is not the US government the game is a corrupted version the Lobbyist US Government, a government of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations (well at least the corporate executives, the investors quite often get it in the neck at golden parachute time). Of course the lobbyists can get kicked out on any issue or all together, the public just has to demonstrate the collective will to do so.
Criminal negligence should never be allowed, prosecution for the crimes committed by BP, Halliburton and Transocean should be pursued. The executives responsible for those decisions should have their assets seized and spend the rest of their lives in jail. Can't find a way to do it, well, simply claim that some components of the oil are drugs and the companies involved are illegally distributing and dealing it (so seized under drug dealer laws).
A for proof of their criminal negligence, well hey, you would have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to be aware of the evidence of it or a Republican politician to be able to shamelessly publicly lie about what is blatantly obvious or a Fox News presenter/reporter for whom the truth is nothing but a tool by which to extort advertising dollars and lies are what they really sell.
Re: All natural (Score:4, Interesting)
I think we can all agree that the liability caps were a stupid, stupid idea by now and if we retroactively enforce them, we essentially give the government to take down whatever business they don't really like. [...] it is simply unfair to change the rules of a game in progress.
If Congress can retroactively extend the length of copyrights that were granted half a century ago, then apparently changing the rules of a game in progress is A-OK.
Re: All natural (Score:5, Insightful)
And if they aren't, real human beings get screwed over by them.
Yes, you can. And in fact they regularly are, in more complex games, such as D&D. Humans are imperfect and the rules they make sometimes have holes which let some players screw other players.
This is especially true of games where a huge disparity of power exists between players, such as the game of BP vs. real human beings.
And that's a great idea. Businesses aren't holy cows, they are the workhorses of economy; if one acts all uppity, why shouldn't it be put down and shipped to the glue factory?
In fact I say we start the slaughter right now. I, for one, am tired of carrying horses on my back.
Whenever there's a story about some company doing something technically legal but horribly unfair, we get a hundred posts defending their right to do so, saying that the "world is not fair; deal with it". The second someone dares to suggest dealing with it by treating a company the same way, we get cries of "wah! unfair!".
Either fairness is important or it isn't. Either you can do anything you can get away with, or you can't. You can't have it both ways depending on whichever suits you best at the moment. Corporate America, which way do you want it?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The periodic extinction of dominant megafauna (that's currently us) is also natural and just the Earth "doing it's thing".
Just saying.
Re:All natural (Score:5, Insightful)
seeing how [Obama's] superior executive response has been to let BP fumble around forever?
That's because BP are the ones with the greatest expertise here. Frankly, Obama would be acting very irresponsibly if he kicked them out of the cleanup altogether and just made them foot the bill. And with so much at stake, I really wouldn't want the president to act irresponsibly for the sake of making himself look better in the short term.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Deep sea expertise is one thing, but this isn't just a deep sea issue. This is also an issue with an extremely high-pressure oil well gushing out through a fair bit of broken machinery. Ignoring the dynamics of that would be a dangerous mistake, and unfortunately, when it comes to practic
I sure if they say it enough... (Score:2)
...Those people of the effected gulf states will begin to believe it...
Maybe the media can even convince themselves they errored telling everyone its the worse ecological disaster in US history.
Lots of oil and gas are still leaking into the gulf, and the 6000 barrels being captured is not enough especially when you add it to the supposed natural leakage.....
Re: I sure if they say it enough... (Score:2, Troll)
...Those people of the effected gulf states will begin to believe it...
BP and some of our corporate-owned politicians are doing everything they can to keep people from believing there's any problem. BP has reportedly bought $50,000,000 of media outlets for maintaining their image. Also, reportedly, local police are turning photographers away from places where there's coated wildlife to be seen, and saying that they're doing it at BP's behest. (Since when did your local cops work for a corporation?)
Governor Haley Barber is skipping meetings about the problem and telling the
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Build a jig that would attach to the pipe below the flange. Push a tapered brass finger into the open end of the pipe with hydraulics. If the taper is right, it would not require huge pressure.
Call it "Dutch Boy."
Re:I sure if they say it enough... (Score:5, Informative)
Before you post your wonderfully insightful method for stopping the spill, read up on the several thousand other suggestions here [theoildrum.com].
The rest of you just read the various threads anyway. More signal to noise than anything I've seen so far. Even think of donating to help the servers keep afloat.
Heh, (Score:5, Insightful)
Reader grrlscientist writes...it is our ethical responsibility to protect, clean and save these birds, even after they've been oiled, just as we should preserve and clean their habitats
I love it. The BP executives should themselves be forced to help clean birds and other wildlife. It's the grown-up equivalent of writing "I will not pollute the ocean" ten million times on the blackboard.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But of course we all share the blame for this disaster. The root cause, after all, is our collective demand that BP drill for oil and sell it to us. Of course it's likely there were specific things that specific individuals did or did not do that precipitated this disaster, and yes they will have pay for their errors. But I worry about vilifying BP too much. It is almost as if we're trying to assuage our own consciences by mistakenly thinking that if we can just get BP to take the blame then everything
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We can place the root of the blame on our congress for failing to allow for the free market to have prevented this.
Re:Heh, (Score:5, Informative)
For the umpteenth time, only economic liability is capped to 75 million dollars. And that is only if BP cannot be found to be at fault for the spill. Even if it is found to be completely faultless though (rabid dolphins sabotaging the BOP, for example), BP is responsible for every cost associated with the clean-up.
We can place the root of the blame on our congress for failing to allow for the free market to have prevented this.
What? "failing to allow for the free market to have prevented this"? Ohhhh.... I get it. Even if the government regulation is a net positive, it's all because it's actually the free market at work. So if it's good, it's the free market working, and if it's bad, it's the government interfering. Got it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
For the umpteenth time, only economic liability is capped to 75 million dollars. And that is only if BP and/or Halliburton and/or Transocean cannot be found to be at fault for the spill.
Fixed that for you ...
"Some 25 years after the gas leak, 390 tons of toxic chemicals abandoned at the UCIL plant continue to leak and pollute the groundwater in the region and affect thousands of Bhopal residents who depend on it ..."
Re:Heh, (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Heh, (Score:5, Insightful)
"I don't remember ever asking BP to drill for oil."
Actually you did, unless you live a life without using oil, plastics, non-organic food, paper, a good many medicines, and no metals or lumber. Oil is everywhere.
"I don't remember ever asking anyone to drill in an unsafe manner."
Now that statement is entirely reasonable.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you are going to state it like that, you might as well say that if you've ever left your house or had a visitor, or connected with any external utilities, or done any business with anyone anywhere for any reason, then you are the problem.
You can't walk down to the grocery store and walk back and ignore that everything in that store burned diesel or gasoline to get there. You can't receive visitors who drove or even took the bu
Re:Heh, (Score:4, Insightful)
Screw that. I've told anyone who will listen that we need to get off oil and tried to do so myself. I resent being lumped in with all the "drill baby drill" yahoos as part of the problem. Some of us are at least trying to be part of the solution.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe after watching all the birds they cleaned die from ingested oil, they'll feel some pang of guilt for all the lives and livelihoods they destroyed.
Maybe... but probably not. Probably would suggest they're just pining for the fjords.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
You know what? The execs should volunteer. Heck, you know what else? Obama should go there and help with the cleanup - and not just for a quick PR stunt, either, but invest a little in it, do it for a whole day - or even two. People would really respect the guy for it.
(There's talk that people are seeing the Prez as powerless and ineffective, full of hot air over the issue, but I'm not sure whether that's broad-spectrum or mostly just conservative windbags. Either way, it would shut most of them up prett
Re: (Score:3)
I wonder if Obama has too much integrity for his own good. As President, he's got more important things to do with his time than volunteer to clean birds, yet you're right, politically that would go a long way. Likewise, one resident of the area I heard on radio was convinced that he wasn't doing anything because there weren't a lot of military and coast guard ships out there. Sure, there wouldn't be much for them to do since BP is the entity dealing with the problem, but it would create the appearance o
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"Making a good impression" would sort of imply Obama would have to retroactively cease being the single politician who has received the largest financial contributions from BP, though, wouldn't you think??
The Usual Suspects (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdotters are better than the general public at understanding that this BP rupture's quantity of spewing oil is very serious and damaging, even where it isn't obvious on Gulf Coast beaches.
So you should look at who is downplaying it. And then remember next time they tell you something how seriously low their credibility is. That they cannot be trusted. Their usual lying isn't usually as obvious as it is here.
Re:The Usual Suspects (Score:5, Insightful)
So you should look at who is downplaying it. And then remember next time they tell you something how seriously low their credibility is. That they cannot be trusted. Their usual lying isn't usually as obvious as it is here.
Let's start with all the D.C. politicians who conveniently remain quiet. Why? I hear more clamoring from the governors of the states being affected than from the voter elected senators and representatives. Why?
How many of the voter elected politicians are on the oil industry payroll? Why? What happened to safety administrator who abruptly "retired" when this whole fiasco blew up (no pun intended). How many oil executives and oil lobby politicians switch roles when things get dicey?
If there ever was a call to separate Business and State, this is it.
Re:The Usual Suspects (Score:4, Insightful)
If there ever was a call to separate Business and State, this is it.
I'm undoing a lot of mod points to say this, but separation caused this mess: A lack of regulatory oversight and trusting that the private industry was putting in adequate safeguards. Business and State need to be working in a partnership -- it's a necessity. There was a disconnect; The people making the laws and doing the regulatory oversight didn't have the training or knowledge to know what measures would be effective (and what was just window-dressing). What we need to look at right now is how that relationship can be structured to best serve the public interest, rather than private interests as it has until now.
I would start by putting people who design and work with these systems in front of Congress and coming up with effective measures the government can take to prevent private interests from causing this amount of damage again.
Re:The Usual Suspects (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the two of you are saying the same thing in the opposite way. There were lots of experts working on the regulations. Unfortunately, they were all experts working for businesses. They knew they were putting in loop holes. Government and business worked together to screw the people in a manner that looked like they were working together for the betterment of everyone.
What we need to look at right now is how that relationship can be structured to best serve the public interest, rather than private interests as it has until now.
See, there was an involvement between the two. They just worked really hard to make it look like they were being helpful while harming the people. Whether it's the banks, the oil companies, or the automotive cartel shooting themselves (and the American people) in the foot in the long term to try to get next quarter's profits up, they work really hard to pretend to be helpful while giving the expert advice and guidance to make some of the worst legislation possible.
Re:The Usual Suspects (Score:4, Insightful)
But I'm not sure how helpful it is to actually quantify it. The amount of oil spewing into the Gulf doesn't really have any impact on the efforts to stop it; it simply must be stopped at all costs and BP is doing everything they can to try to make that happen. If the leak were twice as big, or half as big, the appropriate response would be precisely the same.
So next we have the issue of cleanup of beaches. The amount of oil reaching the beaches is good to know, but not necessarily directly correlated with the amount of oil gushing out of the well - there's a lot of coastline, and the amount of oil hitting each spot will vary.
As for the amount of oil that remains in the gulf itself, it seems to me there's not a whole lot we can do about that at this point. So while there's certainly value in understanding the nature and scope of the problem, in purely practical terms I don't really see how it matters.
When you say "you should look at who is downplaying it," do you mean people who are saying this isn't really that big a deal, and it's not really that much oil? Or do you mean people who are saying the exact amount of oil isn't relevant to the task at hand? If the former, I agree with you, but if you mean the latter, you may want to reconsider.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
As for the amount of oil that remains in the gulf itself, it seems to me there's not a whole lot we can do about that at this point. So while there's certainly value in understanding the nature and scope of the problem, in purely practical terms I don't really see how it matters.
One gulf hurricane in the area will demonstrate pretty effectively why it matters. A hurricane is capable of churning up deep water which means not only would an area need to worry about the oil at the surface but also any of those deeper oil plumes below the surface as well. There's a difference between weathering a hurricane and needing to evacuate due to toxic contamination.
Given that it is expected that this year will be a hyper-active hurricane season it is very important to know the extent of the spil
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
...Or do you mean people who are saying the exact amount of oil isn't relevant to the task at hand? If the former, I agree with you, but if you mean the latter, you may want to reconsider.
Here's the thing. We want the answer. We don't have to justify why. BP is responsible to us, and we want the fucking answer.
If they had hit my child in a car, and I asked 'how fast you were going,' and their answer was "what does it matter let's just call the ambulance" I would destroy them right then and there. period. Irrational or not. I deserve the answer and I don't need to justify why.
The Exon Valdez (Score:5, Insightful)
Take a look at the site of the Exon spill in Alaska. Although it has been about 30 years the beaches are still a total wreck and the area still can not be fished.
Coral reefs may be the worst injuries as they kill easily and may take hundreds of years to rekindle. It is obvious that financially damaged parties will continue to be damaged for decades.
And the large view is even worse. Human population is exploding and we are now absolutely confronted with the fact that oil driven technologies are a horror story. And we are jumping to adopt newer technologies with no way to estimate the great harm that they may generate. After all, only the lunatic fringe believed that oil driven advances were aproblem until the 1970 era.
Re: (Score:2)
The PolyagmousRanchMom, told me that the PolygamousRanchBrotherInLaw knows how to stop that oil well.
Ok, he is a Phd in nuclear chemistry, and works for ExxonMobil. And earns his bread through patents. So this solution to the problem we will see . . . when ExxonMobil has their next accident . . .
The PolygamousRanchSister said . . . stay tuned . . .
Re: The Exon Valdez (Score:5, Insightful)
We're past Peak Oil, so oil use will drop as oil becomes more expensive. In a few more decades large scale oil use will be a thing of the past.
Until then ever more difficult, risky and expensive oil production methods will be used, so this will not be the last major accident.
Re: The Exon Valdez (Score:5, Informative)
The heavy fraction does stick around.
Some fishing has recovered at Valdez; others haven't. There is no exposed oil, but there is buried oil. Burial slows degradation.
A good lesson can come from natural seeps. Life isn't adapted to intense releases of oil concentrated in a given location. It is adapted to oil coming into an ecosystem in small quantities. Hence, the oil will be devastating to the Mississippi River Delta, and to a lesser extent, regions adjacent (if winds and currents hit it just right, it could cause some problems in the Keys as well). But at the same time, the talk of heavy oil slicks covering the US east coast, or even more extreme, turning all of the world's oceans to poison (yes, I've heard people make that claim) are pure hyperbole.
If the Mississippi River Delta responds in the same way that the BOC responded to Ixtoc 1, it could be largely back to normal in two years. But there are definitely differences this time (namely, the depth, the extensive use of dispersants, and the low-oxygen waters of the delta). How that will change the picture, who knows. I suspect they'll slow the recovery.
Re: The Exon Valdez (Score:5, Informative)
It's been a lot closer to 20 years since the Valdez spill, which happened in early 1989.
I otherwise have nothing of value to add to this discussion. :)
Re: The Exon Valdez (Score:5, Insightful)
No, NOT stop everything until it's all perfect but how about not being cheap fucks and skimping on safety?!
So far we've heard that BP was pushing for a faster and faster schedule, using only two plugs instead of three, forgoing a final check on the cement, and (think this might have been Transocean) ignoring CLEAR FUCKING EVIDENCE that the seal of the BOP was damaged (clear as in chunks of in the hands of workers that they brought to the manager).
Oh, and stuff like the BOP had low batteries and one of the redundant systems was shot.
And fuck MMS for being a bunch of corporate whores and letting BP FILL OUT THE INSPECTION REPORTS. WHAT. THE. FUCK. IS WRONG WITH THESE ASSHOLES?
That's the problem and THAT is what makes me so furious. Maybe we need more regulation. Maybe we don't. It's kinda hard to tell when it appears that absolutely NONE of it was followed.
I can only wish that some asses get nailed to the wall over this.
Re: The Exon Valdez (Score:5, Insightful)
Regulation doesn't work so well when the people at the top are actively opposed to effective regulation. You don't think all that "drown the government in a bathtub" talk was just for show, do you? This is the "ad absurdem" part of the small government movement.
Re: The Exon Valdez (Score:5, Informative)
Certainly. I'll try my best.
Info on two plugs instead of three, damage to BOP seal, pushing for work to be completed sooner, and partial control loss of BOP: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6490348n&tag=related;photovideo [cbsnews.com]
Key findings from that are here: http://www.hillmanfoundation.org/blog/fcp-embeds [hillmanfoundation.org]
Dead battery and other problems with BOP: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/j/d/jdf15/2010/05/oil-spill-stunner-bop-had-dead.php [talkingpointsmemo.com]
Skipping test of cement linings: http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/costly_time-consuming_test_of.html [nola.com]
MMS letting BP fill out inspection reports: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/25/eveningnews/main6518694.shtml [cbsnews.com]
Did I miss anything?
Blowout preventer failsafes (Score:2)
I guess you might get some unwanted activations, but it might have saved their bacon with something like this.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
They can and are, and this one was. Additionally, some can be remotely triggered by, in essence, sonar pings at a certain frequency. I've read conflicting reports on whether this particular BOP had that capability. None of this really matters, because the crew on the rig hit the button to trigger the ram shears while they still had contact to the BOP and they didn't activate, at least not completely.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
My understanding is that a rubber bushing essential to the operation of the BOP was damaged a few days before during a test of it (or something related) and this damage contributed to the massive failure of the BOP.
Re: (Score:2)
There are failsafes and they may have activated. Remember that not even the ROVs could activate the BOP. The hydraulics are broken or stuck.
What they should have is a shaped charge of explosives that can pinch the well bore shut. No hydraulics, just a very primitive electric ignition system needed.
It's no surprise there's muck to rake up (Score:3, Insightful)
See, for example: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/green/detail?entry_id=64864 [sfgate.com] or http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/06/02/2010-06-02_the_hidden_death_in_the_gulf.html [nydailynews.com]
I am sure BP is doing everything it can to stop the oil gushing out, despite what all the (sometimes idiotic, very amusing) armchair engineers are saying is the "obvious" thing to do.
However, it seems the real battle that will have the greatest impact on the future of this is over who controls the media now, and that's where BP needs to get its hands tied.
Re: It's no surprise there's muck to rake up (Score:2)
I am sure BP is doing everything it can to stop the oil gushing out, despite what all the (sometimes idiotic, very amusing) armchair engineers are saying is the "obvious" thing to do.
However, it seems the real battle that will have the greatest impact on the future of this is over who controls the media now, and that's where BP needs to get its hands tied.
BP does have a big incentive to get the leak stopped, since some damage awards will be proportional to the amount of oil leaked.
Of course, they have the same incentive to make potential jurors think there's less leak than their actually is, and this intervention may be cheaper than intervention at the well head.
The Shaka Plan (Score:3, Interesting)
That's why we need the Shaka Plan for Energy:
1) Replace all coal power plants with nuclear
2) Replace all gasoline imports with coal gassification
Cost-neutral on the price of electricity, price of gasoline at the pump will go down, the influential senators from coal states are happy, and no more funding terrorism in the middle east.
Re: (Score:2)
"Cost-neutral on the price of electricity, price of gasoline at the pump will go down, the influential senators from coal states are happy, and no more funding terrorism in the middle east."
I've seen worse plans. It's definitely realistic about politics. #3 and #4 are good points, but [citation needed] on points #1 and #2.
What? (Score:2)
Why do you think replacing one form of finite energy with dangerous byproducts is superior to another form of finite energy with dangerous byproducts?
Nuclear can be a useful bridge, but we need to learn how to deal with the limitations of the energy that the sun provides on a daily basis, or harness the thermal energy of the Earth's core. Everything else is ultimately unsustainable.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
bad article, bad! (Score:3, Funny)
Just what is a "joy stick" and why would sailors be twiddling them?
Animal ethics? (Score:2, Flamebait)
Because all people use oil or oil-related products in some form, I maintain that it is both ethical and responsible to try to save as many oiled birds and other wildlife as we can. [...] I think that each life is intrinsically valuable and that each animal is deserving of care and protection. In a world where life is not always respected and valued, I think that saving the life of even one bird sends an important message.
Awww... you want to save the animals? Every life is sacred! Well, you can start by saving the life of the tapeworm that took up residence in your body, or perhaps that mosquito that just bit you and gave you malaria. What? You see a breeding ground for those disease-ridden mosquitoes and want to dump the wat
Re: (Score:2)
One problem is that a significant percentage (can't remember the number) of birds die even after cleaning because they ingested oil or oily food.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
> but it simply doesn't make sense to try to save every
> possible bird here,
What harm is there in trying?
> from either a monetary or moral perspective.
Oh, right, you're really just worried about the cost. Of course. But hey, if you add "or moral" in there, it makes it seem like you really thought this out and that you're not really just a greedy miser. You should (do?) work for BP, it's great thinking like yours that got them where they are now.
Absolutely correct (Score:2)
Even with no damage, Florida tourism is suffering. There is no real reason why we should care that people are going to lose their jobs
Even if it was natural... (Score:2)
...there would be at least as much reason to worry. There just wouldn't be any way to stop it.
Feeds from the ROVs (Score:5, Insightful)
so NIMBYs (Score:5, Insightful)
you won't have nuclear reactors with modern technology. france and japan have been relying on reactors for decades. but not in your backyard, no. you know, electric cars, less air pollution, no more funding of geopolitical nightmares, etc.
so instead you'll have thousands of acres of your shoreline turned into a befouled environmental calamity, you'll fund wahhabi madrasas in pakistan through all the money you're giving saudis to drive your SUVs, you'll send your sons, daughters, fathers, mothers to die in pointless wars, you'll fuel global warming, you'll make your cities unbreathable...
but remember, its nuclear power we should be afraid of
read NIMBY's, and reverse your idiotic mental block:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Japan [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Unless they're putting nuclear reactors directly in the SUVs, oil is completely orthogonal to nuclear power.
Oh, I'm sorry. How has uptake of electric cars been going in France and Japan? What percentage of the overall automotive market do they make up?
I'll wait...
you'll wait? (Score:2)
wait for what?
$10/ gallon gas?
or $20/ gallon gas?
india, china, brazil... they're using more and more oil. the sources are only getting deeper and more expensive
at what point do you see the need for change?
but thanks for the shortsightedness. thanks for the belief that oil is going to last forever and has no downsides. you're mental stagnation and acceptance of a sucky status quo is a huge help. i love well-funded islamic fundamentalist nutjobs and i love choking on fumes
thanks for your ignorant complacency
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
double the cost of electricity. do it nearly all renewably. accept that doubled electricity costs are the costs of SAFE, SUSTAINABLE, CLEAN power. and call that the baselines requirement of civilized power generation. If it's too expensive to do with safe, clean, sustainable power, it's too expensive to do, period.
oil is for plastic. and less and less of that as time goes on.
it can absolutely be done.
nuclear power in a best case scenario still leaves us guarding a pile of dangerous material (not just t
ugly. (Score:2)
TFA [theoildrum.com] is a good example of why everyone should have the Readability bookmarklet [arc90.com] handy.
Oil is not the sole feedstock for society. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm getting sick of people saying that modern life is dependent on petroleum. Sure.. things won't be as easy, but we can make all sorts of things, and won't be giving up all the technological developments of the last century just by switching feedstocks!
This will not drive us back to the middle ages, in the middle ages, we didn't have electricity!
Reducing petrol use in transport, even by only 50% will increase the amount of "easy oil" available for use as chemical precursors for the stuff that can't easily be made from coal or fresh biomass.
Agriculture scares me the most because modern ag pretty much involves turning diesel into meat. But we can make changes here, too.. there's no reason we cant farm electrically, we're already using electricity for irrigation. What scares me the most is a ill-considered switch to biofuels as we could quickly starve ourselves trying to grow massive quantities of fuel from food crops.
This stuff isn't rocket science and I'm getting more and more angry about the lack of political will to start adapting rather than burying our heads in the sand.
Re:Yeah, right. (Score:5, Insightful)
People are cruel, shallow, and small minded.
All of us are some of the time.
All a misanthrope needs to do is sit back with a beer and watch humanity destroy themselves with their shallowness and stupidity.
Stupidity often burns me out too, but if we just sit back and do nothing we will run out of beer (and food, and clean air, etc.) and suffer greatly long before the end. So heave a sigh, shed a bitter tear, and roll up your sleeves for another tortuous round of cleanup and rebuild.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
it may never burn out, like this fire that has been burning for 35+ years: The Door to Hell [youtube.com]
We also have the Centralia mine fire [roadsideamerica.com], going since 1961 in Pennsylvania, US (39 years.)
With the possibility of more of this stuff happening (see the Guatemalan sinkholes trying to swallow buildings into huge underground caverns), I'm beginning to see a problem. If something happens in your town but I can't leave relocate for financial reasons, like the bad economy plaging us and how hard it is to find cheap housing or sell/buy another house, there could be a "calculated risk but I must live here anyway" tren
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
2010 - 1961 = 49 years there buddy.
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Not that I recommend blowing it up, mind you, but isn't there a lot of water in the Gulf of Mexico which will serve to starve it of oxygen? (and steal heat, and such).
I was under the impression the risks of trying to blow it up with an explosion were more along the lines of "it's still leaking a bunch, and the hole is much messier now and even harder to cap."
Re:Don't try and blow it up (Score:5, Informative)
Don't try and blow it up it may never burn out, like this fire that has been burning for 35+ years: The Door to Hell
Hint #1: Oil/NG needs oxygen to burn.
Hint #2: There is a serious lack of free oxygen 5,000 ft underwater.
I'm pretty sure we don't have to worry about an underwater wellhead catching fire and never burning out.
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Re: Silver Lining? (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe this is the final push we need to actually invest money as a notion in alternative energy?
Or not... if the right wing gets involved.
Don't confuse the "rich wing" with the "right wing". The vast majority of Republican politicians just want to rule for the benefit of the rich. The whole social-conservative / southern strategy / religious right association is just a mechanism to get people to vote against their own best interests. If you admit you want to rule for the rich, you've got a big problem in a Republic with universal suffrage, since the rich are by definition a tiny fraction of the public. But politicians know that if you can
Re:Silver Lining? (Score:4, Funny)
Then CmdrTaco posted something like "testing, testing" in the seemingly redundant beta.slashdot.org introductory discussion. When I saw that he was already modded "troll", I followed suit and modded him troll for laughs. For mysterious reasons, the discussion no longer exists.
I never got mod points after that.
Re:Raises the Question Where Does Oil Come From? (Score:5, Insightful)
from long dead organisms
You answered your own question. If you don't believe the answer the geologists give you, feel free to read up on petroleum geology, and do some basic back-of-the-envelope calculations yourself.
There are four ways to answer a question. From best to worst:
1) Figure it out yourself
2) Trust the experts
3) Proclaim it an unanswerable mystery
4) Make up something
You're one rung off the bottom. Climb on up!
Re:Raises the Question Where Does Oil Come From? (Score:5, Funny)
Isn't it obvious? The Gulf of Mexico is the site of an ancient volcano (roughly 75 million years old) where billions of organisms were deposited from spacecraft strongly resembling DC-8's, then nuked from orbit.
Re:Raises the Question Where Does Oil Come From? (Score:5, Informative)
Millions of years of dead plant and animal life, plus shifting tectonic plates (and ever-changing coastlines), can give rise to vast undersea reservoirs of oil. Even the oil industry geologists know it: how do you think they find these reservoirs? [mssu.edu]
But we all see what you're trying to do there. Hmm, maybe oil isn't from dead plant life after all! Maybe it occurs naturally in the Earth's crust, where God put it! Gosh, maybe there's a practically infinite supply! Maybe it's even naturally renewed! Why, that would mean that all this talk about needing to find alternate energy sources is just a load of hooey! Ha ha, those environmentalist whackos sure are stupid, just like Rush said!"
It's a story being advanced by people who either (1) have a vested interest in the continued profits of oil companies, (2) refuse to believe that the earth is more than 6000 years old, or (3) have a political axe to grind against environmentalists.
And at this point, I've pretty much lost my patience with all of those camps.
Wow! (Score:2)
Hey look! It's the aptly named troll of assertions!
Aww, isn't that cute... no, no, don't ask him to cite anything. He'll scurry away.
abiogenesis of petroleum was a mainstream theory (Score:5, Informative)
mostly out of favor nowadays
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin [wikipedia.org]
Re:Wow! (Score:4, Informative)
A University of Illinois research team is working on turning pig manure into a form of crude oil that could be refined to heat homes or generate electricity... Years of research and fine-tuning are ahead before the idea could be commercially viable -MSNBC
circumstantial evidence strongly favors a [biogenic] origin for almost all found to date. -The Straight Dope
Our findings illustrate that the abiotic synthesis of hydrocarbons in nature may occur in the presence of ultramafic rocks, water, and moderate amounts of heat. -WorldNetDaily
Skeptics say that while traces of abiotic hydrocarbons may exist, little data support the idea of economically meaningful deposits. "Companies have been looking for oil for 100 years. If all this abiogenic stuff is there, why haven't they found it?" asks geochemist Geoffrey Glasby, who spent nine months investigating the matter for a 2006 review paper in Resource Geology. He concluded the totality of the evidence did not support the concept. -Forbes (my link) [forbes.com]
You may want to read the articles before you cite them.
PS: WorldNetDaily? Really? What's next, Mad Magazine and Star?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We've long known that hydrocarbons can occur without biogenesis - and finding new sources of them, or methane on Titan, isn't any sort of revelation despite media labels like "game-changer".
However, as far as I'm aware we've never found any abiogenic petroleum - long-chain, more complex hydrocarbons (primarily paraffins and cycloalkanes) than the much simpler/smaller hydrocarbons like methane. It's possible abiogenic petroleum exists of course, but it's never been discovered in commercially-significant quan
Re:Raises the Question Where Does Oil Come From? (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems like there's far more oil than can be accounted for by dead organisms alone.
The total global biomass has been estimated to be 2000 billion tonnes with 1600 billion of those tonnes in forests.[13][14]
Net primary production is the rate at which biomass is generated in a given area, mainly due to photosynthesis. Some global producers of biomass in order of productivity rates are
* swamps and marshes: 2,500 g/m/yr of biomass[15]
* tropical rain forests: 2,000 g/m/yr of biomass[16]
* algal beds and reefs: 2000 g/m/yr of biomass[15]
* river estuaries: 1,800 g/m/yr of biomass[15]
* temperate forests: 1,250 g/m/yr of biomass[15]
* cultivated lands: 650 g/m/yr of biomass[15][17]
* deserts: 3 g/m/yr of biomass[17]
* open ocean: 125 g/m/yr of biomass[15][17]
* tundras: 140 g/m/yr[15][17]
(Multiply by millions of years...)
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Obviously a load of horse shit, but so is the earth being 6k years old.
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Given millions of years, there are a LOT of organisms around. They came to be buried the same way everything else does over time. If we have to dig up a town a few thousand years old, why not a millions of years old pool?
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The earth is very old and we are going through millions of years worth of dead organic matter in coal and oil. There is/was a huge amount of it but the easiest stuff to get is the oil. The deep stuff is there due to plate movement, it was probably a swamp on the shore of a continent once.
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There is some debate about oil, but coal is so clearly associated with ancient plant life I don't think anyone could really argue its origin is anything else.
Re:Sarah Palin knows the reason for the spill....p (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)