The environment thread

[BigSqwert]

 

Agent Smith from The Matrix was right.

 

We human beings are a virus, a cancer, a plague of this planet.

 

A new analysis of seafloor video indicates that nearly 70,000 barrels are gushing out every day, NPR reports. That is at least 10 times the U.S. Coast Guard's original estimate of the flow, and "the equivalent of one Exxon Valdez tanker every four days."

Edited May 14, 2010 by BigSqwert

[Balta1701]

The Winner of the 2000 election is getting an honorary degree across campus from me.

 

I'm watching his talk online and my head is quibbling with his units already.

[Balta1701]

Agent Smith from The Matrix was right.

 

We human beings are a virus, a cancer, a plague of this planet.

When I saw the video, I figured it wouldn't be long before someone could do that.

 

Frankly...I think he's probably overestimated it, because that video is from early in the leak they said, and at that point we actually could gather a reliable estimate from the areal extent of it, before the fires and chemical dispersants started hitting it. But yeah, the estimate currently out there is probably low by a factor of 5.

[Balta1701]

I think it's now fair to say that the worst case scenario has moved from "A couple of Exxon's" to "The entire reservoir drains into the gulf".

For instance, at the depth of the gushing wellhead—5,000 feet (about 1,500 meters)—containment technologies have to withstand pressures of up to 40,000 pounds per square inch (about 28,100 kilograms per square meter), he said.

 

Also, slant drilling—a technique used to relieve pressure near the leak—is difficult at these depths, because the relief well has to tap into the original pipe, a tiny target at about 7 inches (18 centimeters) wide, Simmons noted.

 

"We don't have any idea how to stop this," Simmons said of the Gulf leak. Some of the proposed strategies—such as temporarily plugging the leaking pipe with a jet of golf balls and other material—are a "joke," he added.

 

"We really are in unprecedented waters."

 

...

 

If the oil can't be stopped, the underground reservoir may continue bleeding until it's dry, Simmons suggested.

[Balta1701]

This story reminds me a lot of, well, every other regulatory agency in the government over the past 8 years.

The federal Minerals Management Service gave permission to BP and dozens of other oil companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico without first getting required permits from another agency that assesses threats to endangered species — and despite strong warnings from that agency about the impact the drilling was likely to have on the gulf.

 

...

The Minerals Management Service, or M.M.S., also routinely overruled its staff biologists and engineers who raised concerns about the safety and the environmental impact of certain drilling proposals in the gulf and in Alaska, according to a half-dozen current and former agency scientists.

 

Those scientists said they were also regularly pressured by agency officials to change the findings of their internal studies if they predicted that an accident was likely to occur or if wildlife might be harmed.

 

...

In a letter from September 2009, obtained by The New York Times, NOAA accused the minerals agency of a pattern of understating the likelihood and potential consequences of a major spill in the gulf and understating the frequency of spills that have already occurred there.

 

The letter accuses the agency of highlighting the safety of offshore oil drilling operations while overlooking more recent evidence to the contrary. The data used by the agency to justify its approval of drilling operations in the gulf play down the fact that spills have been increasing and understate the “risks and impacts of accidental spills,” the letter states. NOAA declined several requests for comment.

 

The accusation that the minerals agency has ignored risks is also being levied by scientists working for the agency.

 

Managers at the agency have routinely overruled staff scientists whose findings highlight the environmental risks of drilling, according to a half-dozen current or former agency scientists.

 

The scientists, none of whom wanted to be quoted by name for fear of reprisals by the agency or by those in the industry, said they had repeatedly had their scientific findings changed to indicate no environmental impact or had their calculations of spill risks downgraded.

 

“You simply are not allowed to conclude that the drilling will have an impact,” said one scientist who has worked for the minerals agency for more than a decade. “If you find the risks of a spill are high or you conclude that a certain species will be affected, your report gets disappeared in a desk drawer and they find another scientist to redo it or they rewrite it for you.”

[FlaSoxxJim]

I think it's now fair to say that the worst case scenario has moved from "A couple of Exxon's" to "The entire reservoir drains into the gulf".

 

Balta, is there any idea what the size of this reservoir is?

[BigSqwert]

BP CEO:

 

The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.

 

 

[BigSqwert]

^^And my favorite HuffPo comment on this topic:

 

The amount of poison that I would like to give this man will be tiny in relation to his total volume of bodily fluids.

[StrangeSox]

Balta, is there any idea what the size of this reservoir is?

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/14/us/14oil.html

BP’s chief executive, Tony Hayward, has estimated that the reservoir tapped by the out-of-control well holds at least 50 million barrels of oil.

 

Take with large grains of salt.

 

BP CEO:

 

Assuming he weighs a buck-eighty, and a .50 cal bullet weighs only about .1 lbs, why, that's hardly anything at all!

 

[Balta1701]

Balta, is there any idea what the size of this reservoir is?

BP would have mapped this reservoir seismically and had a good answer to that before they started drilling. But a lot of that information is proprietary, so you have to go by public statements.

BP's CEO did say this:

Tony Hayward, has estimated that the reservoir tapped by the out-of-control well holds at least 50 million barrels of oil.

For comparison, the amount the Iraqis dumped into the Persian Gulf in 1991 (the worst oil spill in history) was about 12 million barrels. The Exxon valzez was about 250,000 barrels spilled.

 

That assumes, of course, that BP's public estimates can be trusted. It seems pretty obvious by the fact that they held off for a long, long time before releasing that video that they knew their leak rate estimates were too low and they were hoping one of their doming procedures worked so that they could suck it up and no one would ever get a really good number of how much leaked. There could easily be politics playing into that number as well.

[Balta1701]

BP CEO:

"When oil's in the water does it get wet, or does the water get oily instead, nobody knows, oil-spill man"

[BigSqwert]

Some cringe-inducing commentary from Palin and this mess via Sullivan.

[kapkomet]

This story reminds me a lot of, well, every other regulatory agency in the government over the past 8 years.

 

 

Yup. Every motherf***ing bad things that happens, anywhere, anytime, is George W. Bush's fault.

[StrangeSox]

Yup. Every motherf***ing bad things that happens, anywhere, anytime, is George W. Bush's fault.

 

Every bad thing that happens as a direct result from GWB's s***ty policies is, at least partially, his fault.

[kapkomet]

Every bad thing that happens as a direct result from GWB's s***ty policies is, at least partially, his fault.

 

 

Yup. And by that same token, the current administration has had a year and a half to correct this "s***ty policy", now hasn't he? So he's got just as much oil on his hands as GWB. And, for the record, it was an accident, so neither are to "blame"... but you people can't get the f*** over your hard on Bush hatred.

[StrangeSox]

Yup. And by that same token, the current administration has had a year and a half to correct this "s***ty policy", now hasn't he? So he's got just as much oil on his hands as GWB. And, for the record, it was an accident, so neither are to "blame"... but you people can't get the f*** over your hard on Bush hatred.

 

Yeah, they have had time to correct. They haven't. That doesn't change who started the s***ty policies when.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/14/us/14agency.html

 

It was an "accident" that, as of now, has all the hallmarks of incompetence, cutting corners, marginal legality and fraudulent testing and reports. Running a red light while drunk and plowing into a tree is an "accident", too, but it comes with responsibility.

[kapkomet]

Yeah, they have had time to correct. They haven't. That doesn't change who started the s***ty policies when.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/14/us/14agency.html

 

It was an "accident" that, as of now, has all the hallmarks of incompetence, cutting corners, marginal legality and fraudulent testing and reports. Running a red light while drunk and plowing into a tree is an "accident", too, but it comes with responsibility.

 

 

Yup. And the policy has been in place for a lot longer then "10 years". Again, you people want Bush to be Obama's savior in that he inherited every problem in the world, just stop it. Take some responsibility and STFU.

[StrangeSox]

What are you even going on about? Bush had s***ty, heavily-pro-business-especially-in-energy policies. I just said Obama really hasn't done much to fix them until this major clusterf*** happened.

 

I really don't know what the right solution is here or with regulation in general. We see what happens when we deregulate--we get f***ed over by businesses. We see what happens when we regulate--we get f***ed over by businesses and their paid-for politicians.

[kapkomet]

What are you even going on about? Bush had s***ty, heavily-pro-business-especially-in-energy policies. I just said Obama really hasn't done much to fix them until this major clusterf*** happened.

 

I really don't know what the right solution is here or with regulation in general. We see what happens when we deregulate--we get f***ed over by businesses. We see what happens when we regulate--we get f***ed over by businesses and their paid-for politicians.

 

Oh yes, we get "f***ed over". OMG. Evil f***ing capitalists.

 

You talk about a strawman arguement. We get this argument about everything now, and gee, I wonder why that is?

 

There are some pretty good common sense answers about a lot of things, but everybody's too busy being led around by their penis complexes to ever solve anything.

[Balta1701]

Oh yes, we get "f***ed over". OMG. Evil f***ing capitalists.

Yeah...because you know what is good? Dumping an enormous plume of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. That's as good as you can get.

 

What would we do without Kap defending BP's right to spill oil, for the good of mankind.

[Balta1701]

Yup. And the policy has been in place for a lot longer then "10 years". Again, you people want Bush to be Obama's savior in that he inherited every problem in the world, just stop it. Take some responsibility and STFU.

And if the Obama administration tried to shut down a drilling operation for safety violations? You'd be the first one out there calling him a socialist and saying that it's a terrible idea to make business have to spend more money on things they'll never need. Or you would have been before this mess.

[Balta1701]

Yup. And the policy has been in place for a lot longer then "10 years". Again, you people want Bush to be Obama's savior in that he inherited every problem in the world, just stop it. Take some responsibility and STFU.

And if the Obama administration tried to shut down a drilling operation for safety violations? You'd be the first one out there calling him a socialist and saying that it's a terrible idea to make business have to spend more money on things they'll never need. Or you would have been before this mess.

 

Conservatism can never fail. It can only be failed.

[bmags]

What about the capitalists in the shrimping industry who are getting destroyed not due to better competition, but because some other capitalists who are always right because they are capitalists completely f***ed up trying to cut corners and created a disaster. Oh he who attempts to make money can never be wrong.

[StrangeSox]

Oh yes, we get "f***ed over". OMG. Evil f***ing capitalists.

 

Yeah, we really did here. You're actually going to white knight BP and defend deregulation in this case?

 

Edited May 15, 2010 by StrangeSox

[lostfan]

Yeah really, using this case as an argument against deregulation is like using the Shahzad Faisal case to argue against Mirandizing terrorism suspects (Faisal basically gave up everything after being read his rights plus he was a U.S. citizen).