It's worse than we know

Anthony, you're a nice guy but incredibly naive about business. You think that businesses only get big bc of "regulation" and that use of natural resources will be done "responsibly" without taking into account the inherent GREED that is part and parcel of the profit motive?

But you think THIS is a disaster?? Just wait until global warming catches up with us! The same people who were saying "drill baby, drill" and "human-caused global warming is a hoax" and "population control is a government conspiracy" will be begging... BEGGING.... for someone, anyone, to save them from disaster.

And guess what?? Nobody will be able to. There will be NO savior. The pooch, as they say, will have been screwed. Some disasters are just too big to be fixed, and this is one of them.

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Sig

When it comes to capping the well, the Gov't has no real resources to deal w/ this event because it has no NEED to. The Gov't isn't in the oil drilling business. The oil companies are the ones who invested $$ in R & D, created this technology, and know how to use it. The experts on that matter, those who really know what they are dealing with, are the ones at point of this issue.

And that's how it should be. But the response part, the building of sand berms to protect the marshlands....that should have been done WEEKS ago. That's where Gov't should have gotten the HELL out of the way, but instead, dragged its feet and is now responsible for untold miles of shoreline literally being killed.

The problem here is the depth of the well. Because of the environmental concerns, this well was drilled further out to see and deeper than it needed to be. Guess what.... an oil gusher in shallow water is far easier to cap than one 1000's of feet down.
To say " Oh, just ban drilling ", is ridiculous. There's nothing but open water between the gusher and the shoreline, so what the hell difference does it make if the spill is 5 miles out or 50 ? The relevant issue here is, if there's an accident, how quickly can resources be brought in to deal with an contain the damage. Here, because the well was so deep, specific resources had to be brought in from god knows where, a team assembled to figure out exactly what's wrong, how to attack the problem , all of which is so deep no divers can even reach.

If this event had taken place in far shallower water, it'd have been capped weeks ago.






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Rappy, I should have limited my statement to banning DEEP WATER oil drilling, which is what I meant. My point is that the blowout preventers, well-capping equipment, and even the well casings- have not been tested in such extreme conditions. BP's response plan was inadequate and ill-informed, according to those who've read it PEER, of which I'm a member) and if the Minerals Management Service had actually done their job as a government agency instead of living in BP's pocket they would have never let BP start drilling until the plan was fixed.

Also, I would ban oil drilling in sensitive coastal areas such as near marshlands, estuaries, kelp forests, coral reefs, marine preserves, and so forth.

I'm wondering how quickly barrier islands could have been tossed up. the guy who was promoting it said that trees could have been been growing on them already. Really??? Doesn't sound likely. It's a moot point, but it would be interesting to see if they COULD have been put up in time, or if that is just frustration talking.

Anyway, my point is that if you're going to let business be business, you've also got to let government be government- doing their jobs effectively and not acting as a beard for irresponsible/ criminal activities)/

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Quote:

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Originally posted by SignyM:
Anthony, you're a nice guy but incredibly naive about business. You think that businesses only get big bc of "regulation" and that use of natural resources will be done "responsibly" without taking into account the inherent GREED that is part and parcel of the profit motive?

But you think THIS is a disaster?? Just wait until global warming catches up with us! The same people who were saying "drill baby, drill" and "human-caused global warming is a hoax" and "population control is a government conspiracy" will be begging... BEGGING.... for someone, anyone, to save them from disaster.

And guess what?? Nobody will be able to. There will be NO savior. The pooch, as they say, will have been screwed. Some disasters are just too big to be fixed, and this is one of them.

---

Hello Signy,

The world is gradually rolling towards a bigger share of safe, renewable energy sources. A trundling behemoth, to be sure, but trundling and shuffling slowly in the correct direction.

I have been saying this for nearly a decade, and I'll say it again now. The people who are shouting loudest about global warming are doing themselves and the world a disservice.

The world needs less pollution and more renewable energy. Neither of those things can be accomplished as the result of an argument about the temperature of the planet. Every word spent on talking about the temperature of the planet is a word wasted. Indeed, it's a word misspent and laid at your own feet like sharp tacks.

People like to breathe, they like to eat, and they like to have money. They like to see green things and growing things. They don't like other people hurting them, their families, or their country. The average person is greedy.

These basics of human nature can solve all of the problems involved in global warming. No temperature discussions are required.

I saw a group of people build a house designed to minimize waste and provide all of its own energy needs, and none of them said one word about global warming. That's the road to take.

--Anthony



"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

"You can lose a quark you don't girth." -Dreamtrove's words to live by, translated by Ipad

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Hello,

As of this instant, the CNN live feed of the leak is showing clear waters and no leak.

Can anyone verify if this is correct?

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

"You can lose a quark you don't girth." -Dreamtrove's words to live by, translated by Ipad

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Quote:

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello,

As of this instant, the CNN live feed of the leak is showing clear waters and no leak.

Can anyone verify if this is correct?

--Anthony

---

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37394541/ns/gulf_oil_spill/

U.S. official: Flow of oil from spill has stopped
But BP says it will be 48 hours before success of 'top kill' will be known

WASHINGTON - The flow of oil from the broken well in the Gulf of Mexico has stopped, the Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen claimed Friday, but BP warned it would be a further 48 hours before it was known whether the "top kill" procedure had been successful.

"They have been able to stop the hydrocarbons from coming up the wellbore," Allen said on ABC's Good Morning America. "I think the real challenge today is going to be sustain the mud on top of the hydrocarbons and reduce the pressure to the point where they could actually put a cement plug in."

=============

God Bless our friend Cement!

How long before it's safe to eat anything from those waters...

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Maybe I'm the dumbest person on the planet, but don't oil rigs have to pump the oil? What the hell is causing this stuff to gush out of control?

You can dig a hole on a beach 30 feet from the ocean, and hit water. The water isn't going to shoot up like a geyser out of control...that is my incorrect analogy. Someone please fill me in!

-------------------------------------------------

70's TV FOREVER

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Quote:

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Originally posted by AURaptor:

When it comes to capping the well, the Gov't has no real resources to deal w/ this event because it has no NEED to. The Gov't isn't in the oil drilling business. The oil companies are the ones who invested $$ in R & D, created this technology, and know how to use it. The experts on that matter, those who really know what they are dealing with, are the ones at point of this issue.

---

Okay, since you've conceded my point, why are you still complaining about the government not taking over and capping the well, when you admit they have no expertise in doing so?

These so-called "experts" aren't flying blind here. It's not as if this has never happened before. I described above exactly how and where it happened in almost exactly the same way, down to almost every single detail, and THE SAME PEOPLE WERE INVOLVED!

So why didn't they have better equipment, knowing full well the history of failure of what they have? Why didn't they have a better plan, knowing full well the history of failures their emergency plans have had? Why didn't they already have a relief well 80% or 90% drilled before they tapped this reservoir of oil, knowing full well that last time this exact same thing happened, and they tried the exact same measures to stop it, and every one of those measure failed, KNOWING that the only thing that has ever worked before on this kind of thing was drilling a relief well, why aren't they required to drill a relief well, just in case, and leave it just shy of completion, in case they need to finish it in a hurry?

Quote:

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And that's how it should be. But the response part, the building of sand berms to protect the marshlands....that should have been done WEEKS ago. That's where Gov't should have gotten the HELL out of the way, but instead, dragged its feet and is now responsible for untold miles of shoreline literally being killed.

---

Sorry, but there are protocols that must be followed before undertaking any such project. Jumping in willy-nilly has had many deleterious effects on wetlands in the past. Ludicrous as it sounds, someone had to run the studies and find out if building man-made islands was going to have a worse effect on the marshlands than the oil would if it reached shore. That sucks, but that's the reality of it. Sometimes you send hundreds of firemen running into a burning building, and it collapses and kills them all, along with the people they were trying to save. Nobody wins. I think there was a very real hope that the oil slick would somehow miss that fragile wetlands area and slip off to the east, but it didn't.

Quote:

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The problem here is the depth of the well. Because of the environmental concerns, this well was drilled further out to see and deeper than it needed to be. Guess what.... an oil gusher in shallow water is far easier to cap than one 1000's of feet down.

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"Because of environmental concerns"? It wasn't the environmentalists who asked for permission to drill offshore in deep water; it was the oil companies. To imply otherwise is to engage in rationalization on a massive scale, and it's just flat-out fabrication and lying. Oil companies are BEGGING to be allowed to drill in deep water, and they're assuring the government that they are fully prepared for any emergency while doing so. They aren't drilling these wells with a sense of trepidation, saying, "Oh, we really don't want to do this, but the big bad government and those ultra-powerful environmentalists are making us, and we don't think we're anywhere close to prepared if anything goes wrong. I mean, we just don't have the equipment to deal with this kind of stuff, and we'd have to inspect the equipment we do have three or four times per year to even certify any degree of safety at all."

That's a conversation that has never, ever been heard on an oil platform or in a petroleum company's boardroom.

Quote:

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To say " Oh, just ban drilling ", is ridiculous. There's nothing but open water between the gusher and the shoreline, so what the hell differ

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Oppyh, of course you're not dumb. You just don't have the facts, that's not about being dumb. If you were serious, please stop that kind of thinking, you don't deserve it!

The oil pocket became oil because of the humongous pressure it's been under for centuries. BP stuck essentially a "straw" in the pocket, which caused the pressure to shoot the oil out. As long as there's no "straw" to capture the shooting oil and put it somewhere, the pressure keeps gushing it out into the water, which of course has a much lower pressure.

I may have done it simply and poorly, but does that help answer your question? I KNOW there are others here who can give you a better, scientific explanation, I just got here first. They will no doubt follow.

Gawd, I hope you're right and it has stopped! That would be a miracle of amazing proportions--and no, we couldn't credit BP if it has stopped, they caused it through their own profit drive and ignoring of warnings in the first place, and I wonder if it's worked why they didn't try it sooner?

I can't find anything but MSNBC (for all people put them down here, wouldn't it be delicious if they had it before anyone else?), but I'm still looking. And praying.

If so, now the REAL battle begins, but at least there's hope.


"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10

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