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That's not what BP said! They did not claim that renewable energy would dominate, they said renewable AND NATURAL GAS would dominate.

The CNBC article is poorly written. If you go directly to the BP Energy Outlook paper it appears to predict that renewables will account for over half of the increased energy demand - but not total power (as least that's how I read it).

Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) in Houston is actually on the list at #41 with 4 petaflops, but right next door is British Petroleum's cluster which I don't see on the list. This says it's 9 petaflops which would put it around #20. Shell also has some large clusters here.. I think around the astrodome area. Exxon has at least one Cray up north in the Woodlands which I don't see on the list either.

Wind and solar are replacing coal and natural gas. People are not waiting, they are replacing.

Not they are not. In absolute terms, natural gas, coal and oil are all growing, and the absolute increase is greater than the increase in renewables.

https://www.bp.com/content/dam... (page 12).

From 2016 to 2017, Coal, Oil and NG grew by 173 Million tonnes oil equivalent, while renewables (excluding hydro) grew by 69 MTOE. Heck, NG alone increased by 83 MTOE, i.e. more than renewables. So the idea that renewables are replacing coal and NG is ridiculously wrong.

I've showed you numerous times Windy. here here and here at least 3 times just recently and many more previously. Don't pretend you don't know you are being dishonest.

Each time the discussion was about coal used for eletricity.

Even now everyone has been talking about electricity and you throw in a number (with a paywalled link, step up from no link at all I guess) that is including industrial coal use as well. Then claiming people are lying. (quite deceitful of you)

Strange that you would claim for the last 10 years. When even your own data shows 10 years ago in 2008 America consumed 535.9 and China consumed 1609.3
It's obvious even using total coal and not just electricity, per person America is way way higher. You can find the year it crossed over if you like. But why did you have to lie about it in the first place?

So you move the goalposts, claim falsely that other people are lying, and then with your moved goalposts you still have to lie anyway to make it seem even worse. You just can't help yourself.

China consumes over 1/2 of the consumed coal on this PLANET EACH YEAR for the last 10 years.

And then there is this blatant lie. You can clearly see the red line is under the black one. Why lie all the time?

50% with 19% of the population is better than 15% with 5% of population(more like 4%)

Again, you continue to be a liar. I said that it was from 15-8%. IOW, like 10 years prior America was around 15%. Now, it is around 8%.
According to BP, America is 8.9% of total world consumption, while your nation is is at 50.7%. Worst of all, China is dropping their Coal numbers by converting coal to methane and then not including those numbers, even though CO2 is actually WORSE, not better.

So get with it porky. Quit LYING.

So people can talk about nuclear power, but the facts are all the growth is in solar and the numbers will only get better.

Here's some facts...

Its overall share of global power generation remains low (1.7%), but that share has more doubled in just three years.

https://www.bp.com/en/global/c...

All growth is not in solar.

In IEO-2017, renewable energy and natural gas are forecast to be the worldâ(TM)s fastest growing energy sources over 2015-2040. Renewables increase at 2.8%/year, and by 2040 will provide 31% of electricity generation, equal to coal; natural gas increases by 2.1%/year. Generation from nuclear is forecast to increase by 1.6% each year. The net nuclear capacity increase is all in non-OECD countries (growth in South Korea is offset by decreases in both Canada and Europe), and China accounts for 67% of the capacity growth. By 2032, the outlook sees China surprass the United States as the country with the most nuclear generating capacity.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/i...

Is it likely that solar will play an important part in the global energy production? Yes, quite likely. What it will not do is replace nuclear power. We will need both.

How about the 2018 report that the NYT article linked?

https://www.bp.com/content/dam...

Page 36: Germany's total gas imports in 2017 totaled 94.8 billion cubic meters of gas, of which 48.5 came from Russia. That's 51.16% if imported natural gas.
=Smidge=

https://www.bp.com/en/global/c...

While we run around closing down nuclear power plants and replacing them with solar the environment gets no benefit at all. I recently read the statistical review on world energy that BP has been publishing for the best part of 50 years now, interestingly they dedicated a graph to the power fuel mix (probably political to get governments of the oil industry's back about CO2, but probably also correct).

In the past 20 years we have gotten nowhere. ~38% of power was generated from coal in 1998, about 38% is generated from coal right now. We can thank India and China, but we can also thank the anti-nuclear west which are falling over themselves to close down nuclear power and put more green energy online, bonus points if you're germany and use coal as a semi-temporary stopgap in the process.

https://www.bp.com/content/dam... Sad summary on page 6.

Bill, not even close to true.
Go to page 39 where it shows consumption.
America is 358 million tonnes oil equivelent. Well, in 2014, we had 325 million in America.So, around 1.1 tonne of oil equivalent.
China used 1893 last year with a population of 1.4 billion. So, that means 1.32 tonnes of oil equivalent.
And note that China's numbers are given by the gov and repeatidly, are upgraded later due to lies from them. So, the 1.32 is a MINIMUM, and it is almost certainly much higher and will go even higher as EVs hit their roads.

BTW, Europe, is 364 million tonnes with a population of 508 million. So, they are using .71 tonnes or almost HALF of what CHina uses PER CAPITA.

Big Oil is not investing in solar power, wind turbines or storage technology which will be the choice of alternative energy for now. Why should they invest in fusion?

Are you sure about that?

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Big Oil is; The supermajors are considered to be BP plc, Chevron Corporation, ExxonMobil Corporation, Royal Dutch Shell plc, Total SA and Eni SpA, with ConocoPhillips Company also sometimes described in the past as forming part of the group.

http://www.bp.com/en/global/co...
https://www.chevron.com/corpor...
https://lubes.exxonmobil.com/L...
http://www.shell.com/energy-an...

Perhaps you should get with the times, "Big Oil" has been investing heavily in renewables for years. But I guess that doesn't fit in your world view, so it is much more convinient to rage about how horrible big oil wouldn't invest in renewable energy. As for fusion, that is a harder question to answer, you would have to actually look into the investors behind each fusion energy project. My guess is that those nasty big oil companies are heavily investing into fusion, as that is what energy companies to.

As ray also points out, you are so far off base it is actually laughable. All those links above took me 30 seconds to find.

That'd be almost funny if British Petroleum had existed in the last decade.

http://www.bp.com/

They may choose to hide the origin of their name, but that's what the B and P stand for.

So, how much are you being paid to post this bullshit?

What bullshit? I asked you some questions. Important questions, given your extraordinary claims.

You've been ranting and raving about all over the comment section of this article about how Anthropogenic Global Warming is a hoax perpetrated by the climate change scientists. I'm asking you why you are making these claims. I hope you'll understand that I'm a little confused about your claims since Shell, BP, and Chevron all acknowledge that climate change is real, and they have billions of dollars at stake. So, I'm curious why you don't believe in climate change, while virtually all of the experts do.

Even the U.S. Army considers climate change to be real and a potential threat.

Suck it up, nothing lasts forever. National Geographic had run into a massive wave of competing internet content and is was starting to struggle. So News Corporation bought it out with one single intent in mind, to milk every bit of trust out of it they could in order to sell corporate propaganda as truth. So expect the likes wind farms kill people and open cut coal mines are beautiful (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-11/abbott-wants-to-reduce-wind-farms-wishes-ret-never-implemented/6539164, Toxic Tony is Rupert's dog) or stuff like this http://www.bp.com/en/global/co... presented as truth rather than PR=B$ etc etc etc (just too many lies too bother listing).

Fox News has run into a real serious problem https://www.google.com.au/sear..., their people are now often attacked when they go out on the street without protection and that is a huge problem when it comes to selling propaganda as news, less and less people believe them and they hate them for doing it. So they desperately need new brands in order to continue to sell propaganda as truth.

1) The big oil companies (read: major campaign donors) haven't decided to try to make money off solar yet

What? BP tried for 30 years.

First, you have entire industries dedicated to profiting off of the idea that the world is about to explode unless we start going green. Solar panel manufacturers, raw materials recyclers, electric vehicle manufacturers, and much much more. Those groups alone profit from studies predicting a bad future.

That is utter crap. Solar panel manufacturing is not that profitable, if it was why is BP winding down its solar division:
http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9025019&contentId=7046515

Recycling is also not exactly a sure fire route to buckets of cash. Somethings it is cost effective to recycle like aluminium and maybe steel but most stuff is cheaper to just throw in a hole in the ground. The problem is that nobody wants a landfill next to their house and so the only money is in making rubbish go away as nobody wants to deal with it. Most stuff is simply too damn hard to split out into its raw materials in order to recycle it without serious government grants.

As to electric vehicles it might be trendy but it is nowhere near as profitable as making good old fashioned gas guzzlers. The US auto industry did not need to be bailed out due to everyone buying electric cars, they needed a bailout because labour costs were too high and because more and more people were choosing to buy foreign cars. Most other countries auto industries have done ok.

The reality is that without government funded research coming out of other countries the huge corporations and oil companies would have just out spent everyone else trying their damnedest to sweep climate change under the table.

What does creationism have to do with human caused global warming?

I think you are confused on that topic for one. Two, my views and the views of most skeptics are not because "the GOP told us so". I have yet to meet one skeptic out of the hundreds I know that has ever made that kind of connection. We believe that humans are not causing witnessed change because we have looked at the data, at the computer models, and have found them to be lacking. Following the scientific method, we as skeptics are just asking for science, namely that warmists prove the null hypothesis incorrect before sprouting off that global warming is a fact. You do realize that no one has proven that the changes we have witnessed are not natural, correct?

And finally: Big oil is not on the side of skeptics. Its on your side of the argument. Big oil gives 100 times more money to big green in donations than they do to skeptics and yet you still parrot that wrong line. Big oil also publicly declares that they believe global warming is the fault of evil man. Why would you post such an untrue statement that would have taken 10 seconds to look up? http://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/sustainability/the-energy-future/climate-change.html

Does that mean you are drinking the kool-aid from big oil than? Its actually a relevant question.

Not to burst your conspiracy theory, but oil companies aren't opposed to solar. Solar cars, yes, but they don't lose everything from reduced coal burning. Some oil companies actively invest in alternative energy.

Oh, that's interesting. What exactly did you buy? How much did it cost? I'd love to learn more details. Maybe I can do the same on my roof.

AU, Melbourne - your mileage may vary (see page 5. Melbourne is pretty shitty when it comes to weather); it also help to have a home rated to "5 star energy efficiency" - even if it not quite far out of the ordinary
poly-crystalline, not the top efficiency but not the top price/kW installed either (I have enough roof space). $7800 for 4.5 kW installed power - they offered plans for finance running for 2 years, but the price was low enough to spare myself of extra loan fees. The guys seems to operate in US as well.

With over $150 Billion in equity* it's a laughable settlement considering the gross negligence BP should be cited for.

[*] - http://www.bp.com/extendedsectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9021229&contentId=7039276

do you understand that you are comparing two different things? Oil companies don't spend all their money on climate change. And most of the money they do spend on climate change, is spent expanding into assets that will profit from climate change, like solar, biofuel, and .

Please tell me you don't actually think it makes sense to compare the two numbers you just did.

You're right, it was originally the Anglo-Persian Oil Company

"[T]he British Petroleum brand was originally created by a German firm as a way of marketing its products in Britain. During the war, the British government seized the company’s assets, and the Public Trustee sold them to Anglo-Persian in 1917."
    -- http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9014441&contentId=7027521

Foolish news outlets, mislabling Anglo-Persian Oil as the obviously German "British Petroleum"

I'm curious, what does 'BP' stand for?

Beyond Petroleum, what else could it mean?

If you're unsure about what that is, read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserves-to-production_ratio

For statistics on the RtP rates see slide nr. 6 of this presentation by BP: http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/reports_and_publications/statistical_energy_review_2008/STAGING/local_assets/2010_downloads/statistical_review_of_world_energy_full_report_slidepack_2010.ppt

You will note that the RtP rate remained approximately constant over the past 14-15 years. Now if you look at the price of oil (page 12 of the presentation), you'll notice a fairly steep price increase, except for the jolt caused by the 2008 banking crisis. This means that oil, whilst still *available* is getting more difficult (and hence expensive) to produce. If you factor in that the rate of consumption is growing and the rate of discovery of new sources is not, you'll see the problem.

Now, panicking (preceded of followed by running out) is not recommended, but neither is cultivating an "Oh but there's still oil aplenty" attitude.

Current trends of production and consumption all but guarantee continued high (and perhaps even higher) prices.

Now how can I state that in a way that is close to your heart? Ah yes. Let's put it this way: expect gasoline prices and your energy bills based on burning oil or gas to continue to rise in the next 20 years as they did in the past 10 years.

That means that alternative (especially renewable) energy sources definitely merit our attention, despite the increase in proven reserves.

A working in the petrochemical process industry (transformer oils and such), I have to say that if you are using oil that is heavier than water, you are using the wrong oil.
Bitumen, the heavy, nearly solid stuff, has a density about the same as water. The "regular" oils are about 800 g/liter IIRC.

I'd say you aren't paying attention.

Ok, rather than continue this pointless one liner garbage, I looked at your history.

It'd be better for you to pull your head out of...the sand and pay attention to the real world, but OK, whatever.

You wrote:

Government grants people the privilege of creating another fictitious person they can hide behind to escape responsibility for their choices. Where'd the government get the authority to create people out of thin air?

Statements like this are colossally idiotic. Corporate personhood treats corporations in some areas like people, but the law never confuses corporations with people.

Riiiight. The Supreme Court decided that Our Corporate Person Masters (may they live forever!) don't have any limits on their free speech rights when it comes to political campaign contributions. No confusion there at all.

A lot of places have limited liability corporations that act almost the same as the US ones do,

The US isn't "A lot of places."

I don't understand why this is such a difficult concept for you government-worshipers to grasp.

The US was an experiment, intentionally designed to be different from the rest of the world. Because most of the rest of the world is broken. The federal government is here to protect our freedoms. Not to protect a bunch of rich blue-bloods from the consequences of their decisions. Well, that was supposed to be the theory, anyway.

without the fiction of corporate personhood. And their corporations commit the same sort of abuses as US corporations do. For example:

Ah, yes. Good ol' Dutch East Indies. We really should have learned from their monstrous example, realized corporate personhood is one of the single worst ideas ever, and moved back to sanity.

Corporate personhood played no role in the notorious corporations of that era.

The government granted a bunch of special privileges to a collective of rich business owners. Who then proceeded to abuse those privileges in really horrifying ways. This led (directly or not) to a genocide or two. Call it corporate personhood or call it fascism. It was evil then, and it's evil now.

Hard to get much more serious than Deepwater Horizon. How many people died? Environmental devastation, swept under the rug. There are still worries about species going extinct, and how safe fish from the Gulf are to eat. BP got a slap on the wrist over it.

The "slap on the wrist" appears to be at least $8 billion dollars just in

According to yahoo finance, BP's gross revenue for the past 3 years was around $890 million. Assuming their accountants are even vaguely honest (dangerous assumption), call that 25 years lost income. So calling it a "slap on the wrist" was an understatement. But thinking it was a real punishment is just blazingly stupid.

direct costs. And the lawsuits really are only starting. BP is already settingt aside money for a $20 billion fund for claims which should be full by the end of 2013. These amounts aren't "slaps" but a significant portion of BP's total stock valuation (which currently is a bit over $140 billion down from a peak just prior to the accident of something like $170-180 billion). Also, if you were inclined to figure out how many people died in the Deepwater Horizon accident rather than ask pointless rhetorical questions, you could have googled it to see that 11 people died.

Those were the direct deaths.

Which were bad

I'd say you aren't paying attention.

Ok, rather than continue this pointless one liner garbage, I looked at your history. You wrote:

Government grants people the privilege of creating another fictitious person they can hide behind to escape responsibility for their choices. Where'd the government get the authority to create people out of thin air?

Statements like this are colossally idiotic. Corporate personhood treats corporations in some areas like people, but the law never confuses corporations with people. A lot of places have limited liability corporations that act almost the same as the US ones do, without the fiction of corporate personhood. And their corporations commit the same sort of abuses as US corporations do. For example:

Ah, yes. Good ol' Dutch East Indies. We really should have learned from their monstrous example, realized corporate personhood is one of the single worst ideas ever, and moved back to sanity.

Corporate personhood played no role in the notorious corporations of that era.

Hard to get much more serious than Deepwater Horizon.

How many people died? Environmental devastation, swept under the rug. There are still worries about species going extinct, and how safe fish from the Gulf are to eat.

BP got a slap on the wrist over it.

The "slap on the wrist" appears to be at least $8 billion dollars just in direct costs. And the lawsuits really are only starting. BP is already settingt aside money for a $20 billion fund for claims which should be full by the end of 2013. These amounts aren't "slaps" but a significant portion of BP's total stock valuation (which currently is a bit over $140 billion down from a peak just prior to the accident of something like $170-180 billion).

Also, if you were inclined to figure out how many people died in the Deepwater Horizon accident rather than ask pointless rhetorical questions, you could have googled it to see that 11 people died.

So in the past few posts of yours, you made at least three big errors. Why don't you get a clue first before you post further?

The company suing is a JV funded by BP and DuPont in order to commercialize the technology described in the Patent. How is that an effort to shut down efforts to wean us off crude oil?

http://www.butamax.com/_assets/pdf/butamax_advanced_biofuels_llc_fact_sheet.pdf

BP is actually the largest alternative energy company in the world with investments in solar, wind, hydrogen, and a variety of biofuels.

http://www.bp.com/modularhome.do?categoryId=7040&contentId=7051376

Slashdot for the lose..

BP is not a majority US owned company. In fact, large numbers of UK pensions have been invested in the company. Whether it's too big to fail or not is another issue... http://www.bp.com/extendedsectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9010453&contentId=7019612

I'll sleep just fine at night after investing in a company that is building the largest solar power plant in Australia, the company who continually invests lots of money in renewable energies. How about a company which invested $200m in clean fuels orders of magnitude better than required by local regulations?

Oh and I don't like pelicans. Have you ever had one crap on your car? The shit stinks and is hard to get rid of.

BP has a consumer solar division, sells LPG directly to individuals, has a consumer lubricants division, and produces a vast array of petrochemical products for business use (and in quantities far smaller than "supertanker").

Not that I believe a boycott will do much to a company that derives their income primarily from producing a product that is traded as a commodity, but the above comment was too asinine to pass up.

http://www.bp.com/productsservices.do?categoryId=37&contentId=2007985

The report can be found here:

http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9034902&contentId=7064891

The link in the article, http://www.bp.com/securityerrorpageredirect.jsp, is an error page.

The report can be found here:

http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9034902&contentId=7064891

The link in the article, http://www.bp.com/securityerrorpageredirect.jsp, is an error page.

The link points directly to an error page. I mean, it actually points to securityerrorpageredirect.jsp!

http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9034902&contentId=7064891

Life that can talk to us, mind you... We have enough two-bit overlords on Earth as it is...

Insurance also is such a factor. the first 10 Billion (US situation) is insured by the plants, anything over that would be paid by taxes. Compare that to the cost of Chernobyl ( ~ 235 Billion) or 3 mile island (close to a billion).

First question: What sources are you using for Chernobyl? Second: What year dollars are you using?

TMI isn't as big of a deal - $1B is 'only' around double to triple the cost of decommisioning a reactor that hasn't melted down.

On Price-Anderson: It's acctually around $8.9B for an accident; because of the way Price-Anderson is structured, increasing the number of plants will increase the cap.

Currently Lloyd's charges around $400k/year for $300M of coverage.

Consider the gulf spill, Bhopal, etc... Is there any disaster in the billions where the government doesn't get involved?

I mean, TMI was comfortably contained within the cap, and the Chernobyl plant would have never been allowed to operate in the USA.

BP hasn't managed to bust the cap yet for the gulf oil spill yet, $4B thus far, so they might still manage to.

Still, we're talking about a major, major oil spill here. Increasing Price-Anderson levels might be good, but as you mention, hydro power can carry similar risks - imagine a New Orleans with tens of thousands potentially dead.

The question becomes one of how much risk is there, really? I mean, Chernobyl wasn't even encased in a containment dome, all US reactors have them. TMI DID have a dome - look at the cost difference. $1B vs $200B. TMI happened earlier than Chernobyl and has influenced design decisions since then. We've run simulations involving ramming the domes with a plane - it's a lot like what happens if you run an airliner into the hoover dam - there's a big difference between a concrete pressure vessel and a building.

In the end, I don't want 100% nuclear, but I do want it to be part of the solution. My theoretical mix is something like 40% nuclear(1), 15% hydro(2), 15% wind, 15% solar, 15% 'other'. You use the hydro to help balance out the wind/solar.

1: double that of today
2: Because our hydro power is already around maxed

Probably the same IT people who made some kind of monstrosity of an Excel macro to display live video in an Excel window.

BP posted what they said was the original.

Fixed that for you. Surprising how quickly we assume truthfulness on the part of people who try to slip an untruth past us once. Just because their explanation is plausible doesn't mean it is legitimate. I mean, I'm not proposing the opposite is necessarily true, either, but it seems silly to assume trustworthiness of someone who has just demonstrated otherwise.

BP posted the original. All they photochopped were three of the screens, two of which were blank (one says "loading") and one of which looks like it's staring directly at a bright light. You'll also notice the source for the replacement screens are just three of the other existing screens.

And just how do we know the "original" they posted isn't also photoshopped, but this time by somebody competent, hmm...? ;-)

BP released the full version of the image they admit was shopped for style. Some claim this image is not of the 'HIVE' response center either and was taken in 2001. This version of the image shows indications on the monitors photographs that it was taken on 16/07/10. (See middle screen above white screen).

http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/incident_response/STAGING/local_assets/images/HIVE_houston01.jpg

The clues are in the image metadata:

Title: HIVE at Houston Command Center 16 July 2010

Authors: Marc Morrison

Date Taken: 06/03/2001 3:16 p.m.

Program Name: Adobe Photoshop CS4 Macintosh

OMG Fake? No... it also shows it was taken with a Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III ... now this 20 megapixel camera wasn't out until 2008, and certainly wasn't around in 2001.

What is unexplained in this the large monitors in this shot are the window titles showing 'Microsoft Excel' but perhaps these are some custom Excel based application that BP uses to display the ROV video feeds.

So frankly I find this whole event uninteresting. Someone didn't set the date stamp in a camera or a system somewhere along the way.

This is not a isolated incident however, so why is BP photoshopping so many images and doing such a amateurish job of it? (Ok maybe that latter part needs no explanation).

So the real question is: why does someone with such questionable photography and photoshopping skills get to use such an awesome camera? Life isn't fair.

Agree completely..

here is the original photo (unphotoshopped to my knowledge) which the whole thing started over:

http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/incident_response/STAGING/local_assets/images/HIVE_houston01.jpg

See those 3 monitors with nothing on? - they put some images on them.. whoop dee doo! I can even understand why they would with the one in the middle - the brightness of it dominates the shot.

Would you like them to go back into the command centre and take another picture, or would you prefer them to get on with working on the leak?

As someone mentioned earlier - its just sensationalist journalism looking for more hits by jumping on the "BP = evil" campaign. Not that I'm saying BP are not evil, just that in this case they've not done anything in particular of note.

BP released the full version of the image they admit was shopped for style. Some claim this image is not of the 'HIVE' response center either and was taken in 2001. This version of the image shows indications on the monitors photographs that it was taken on 16/07/10. (See middle screen above white screen).

http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/incident_response/STAGING/local_assets/images/HIVE_houston01.jpg

The clues are in the image metadata:

Title: HIVE at Houston Command Center 16 July 2010
Authors: Marc Morrison
Date Taken: 06/03/2001 3:16 p.m.
Program Name: Adobe Photoshop CS4 Macintosh

OMG Fake? No... it also shows it was taken with a Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III ... now this 20 megapixel camera wasn't out until 2008, and certainly wasn't around in 2001.

What is unexplained in this the large monitors in this shot are the window titles showing 'Microsoft Excel' but perhaps these are some custom Excel based application that BP uses to display the ROV video feeds.

So frankly I find this whole event uninteresting. Someone didn't set the date stamp in a camera or a system somewhere along the way.

This is not a isolated incident however, so why is BP photoshopping so many images and doing such a amateurish job of it? (Ok maybe that latter part needs no explanation).

BP posted the original. All they photochopped were three of the screens, two of which were blank (one says "loading") and one of which looks like it's staring directly at a bright light. You'll also notice the source for the replacement screens are just three of the other existing screens.

Essentially it's a piss poor (and I mean PISS poor... anyone with photoshop experience could hack that trash out in minutes) touch-up by a company that should be acutely aware of it's current reputation.

TLDR version.... BP /facepalm

There are live video feeds from the ROVs. The ROVs move around and go on and off duty on a regular basis (sometimes they're at the surface), so the view is constantly changing, but at the moment Skandi ROV2 is staring at the top of the new cap/BOP system and Boa Deep C - ROV 1 is staring at the point where all the well-related gear goes into the sea floor (called the "mudline"). There's no oil or gas coming out of any of it.

Last few hours they've been driving all around the wellhead looking for leaks. Nothing so far.

Note: because the ROVs could move at any time, check the first link if the latter two go off line or move.

There are live video feeds from the ROVs. The ROVs move around and go on and off duty on a regular basis (sometimes they're at the surface), so the view is constantly changing, but at the moment Skandi ROV2 is staring at the top of the new cap/BOP system and Boa Deep C - ROV 1 is staring at the point where all the well-related gear goes into the sea floor (called the "mudline"). There's no oil or gas coming out of any of it.

Last few hours they've been driving all around the wellhead looking for leaks. Nothing so far.

Note: because the ROVs could move at any time, check the first link if the latter two go off line or move.

There are live video feeds from the ROVs. The ROVs move around and go on and off duty on a regular basis (sometimes they're at the surface), so the view is constantly changing, but at the moment Skandi ROV2 is staring at the top of the new cap/BOP system and Boa Deep C - ROV 1 is staring at the point where all the well-related gear goes into the sea floor (called the "mudline"). There's no oil or gas coming out of any of it.

Last few hours they've been driving all around the wellhead looking for leaks. Nothing so far.

Note: because the ROVs could move at any time, check the first link if the latter two go off line or move.

I thought I read somewhere that it was an exploratory well that they were planning on abandoning. Just because oil is coming out doesn't mean that it is currently economical to collect it there. If oil exploration continues here, whoever does it would certainly just drill a new well anyway.

That's not really how it works. Yes, the well was 'exploratory' in that they were not sure they could get oil out of that particular place. But what they were doing before they fucked up big time was 'closing' the well: Sealing it off until they could bring out the production crews who would place pipelines to the feeder system (they have to collect it somehow and just spilling it into the ocean appears to have a bunch of problems associated with it) and the various bits and pieces that make up a production well.

But if the relief wells go as planned, they will pump mud down to stop the flow and then cement the thing closed. Theoretically, there isn't anything that would prevent BP (or somebody else) from drilling another well into the same formation and starting the process over, but that seems politically unwise.

Here's the direct feed link from BP - http://www.bp.com/liveROVFeed
It starts all feeds on load, click on the videos themselves to get a decent fullscreen res look at each..

Before I did that though, I did a little digging to find out how many other projects BP has in the Gulf of Mexico just to see if maybe they have a high percentage rate of success and this is just one of hundreds or something,
It turns out BP has only 9 (admittedly huge) projects in the Gulf of Mexico. Source
(count the number of projects in the ride hand column)

I had to find that in the way back machine because BP took down the page listing their Gulf of Mexico projects. They even still link
to it (again, look at the column on the right "Gulf of Mexico Facilities) but they broke the link. It's funny, when I peruse that page (via the way back machine) BP brags about their "new and untested" tech that they use to go to "unprecedented depths". It looks like their a little ashamed of it now.

Anyway, after seeing that they only have 9 facilities in the Gulf maybe this well is better sealed off. I went looking for a reason to trust BP with reopening this well and getting the oil and gas they went there for but a 1 in 9 failure rate is not impressive. Seal that sucker off.

You could weld a valve onto the top, but if you try to close it, the pressure will seek relief elsewhere. If you get really, really lucky, it just blows out the weld and rejects the valve.

Actually, they are planning to put a "capping valve" at the top of the BOP soon, replacing the top hat thingy they have in place now. They are giving very serious consideration to unbolting the flange at the top of the BOP, then bolting a new riser on top.

Also, they are already collecting oil through from the side of the BOP, via the lines and manifold they were using for the top kill attempt, so even if they did seal the top of the BOP, there would still be some pressure relieved via those lines. However, since BP is not talking about shutting the top of the BOP, they must not believe there is enough pressure relief through the top kill manifold to ensure that the well casing won't fail.

Here's a quote from a recent conference call by BP:

"And then – and then in terms of the capping valve, I’ve always told you that we have three options that we’re working. That remains. The – we’re starting to favor the flange-to-flange connection. It brings some advantages in terms of its ability to hold back more pressure. In fact, we believe it has the potential to actually hold the full pressure of the well. However, its challenges are around installation and the teams have been working a lot on all of the different tools and equipment that would be required to do that."

Full transcript of the call is here.