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How Bad Is the Gulf Coast Oil Spill?
Dasher42 writes "Claims are circulating on the Internet that the Coast Guard fears the Deepwater Horizon well has sprung two extra leaks, raising fears that all control over the release of oil at the site will be lost. The oil field, one of the largest ever discovered, could release 50,000 barrels a day into the ocean, with implications for marine life around the globe that are difficult to comprehend. So, considering that losing our oceanic life, with subsequent unraveling of our land-based ecosystems, is a far more possible apocalyptic scenario than a killer asteroid — what do we do about it?" Other readers have sent some interesting pictures of the spill. One set shows the Deepwater Horizon rig as it collapsed into the ocean. Others, from NASA, indicate that the spill's surface area now rivals that of Florida. The US government has indicated that it intends to require BP to foot the bill for the cleanup. And the Governator has just withdrawn support for drilling off the California coast.
We worry about nuclear plants going Chernobyl, but how much do we worry about that chemical refinery 20 miles away? If it had an uncontrolled fire, it could spew toxic chemicals into the air that would be about as disastrous as fallout. It's like worrying about a plane crash when you drive like a maniac.
Yet we still need oil, so we'll keep pumping. Greeks protest and riot when they realize they are going to have to start paying for their entitlement programs, and we complain when we need to pay more for gas. Well, we can't have it both ways. If we want to live 25 miles from where we work, we're going to have to pay for it. If we don't pay for it at the pump, then we'll have to pay for it when a shared resource, like the ocean, is destroyed.
I'm still a supporter of offshore drilling. Ask me again in a year, when this whole episode has concluded (or not), and I may change my mind.
It is very similar to the Ixtoc pemex 'spill' of 1980. It flowed for almost a year before they got it closed. It ruined the Texas coast for years, You couldn't even walk on the beach without taking a can of kerosene to wash the tar off your feet. That leak was at less than 200 feet. This one is at 5000.
1 And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key of the shaft of the bottomless pit; 2 he opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft.
Personally I was reminded of the dwarves digging too deep and unleashing a Balrog upon Middle Earth. Have we learned nothing from Tolkien?
It is sad that the US has swung so far to the right, with such extreme abuses of power that Nixon now comes across as a relatively honest moderate.
It's swung so far in the direction of statism that "left" and "right" have become devoid of any real meaning. Both used to mean a set of political principles. Now they're just two different approaches to the same goal of expanding government. What is now called "right" wants to expand government for the purposes of defense and national security. What is now called "left" wants to expand government for the purposes of social engineering and entitlements. The result is the same and the two ideologies are little more than excuses or justifications.
The two-party system has done to politics what a reasonable person would expect a duopoly to do to a market. The former fails to serve the interests of the voter just like the latter fails to serve the interests of the customer. In both scenarios the voter and the customer are viewed as a means of maintaining power.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
The price of oil will be set by the supply and demand of the other producers if BP raises it's price.
...as we all learned in Econ 101. For those who went on to Econ 102, things are not so simple. There, they tought us about oligopoly, where markets are dominated by a small number of large players who can collude with each other to achieve results different than a perfectly competitive commodity market would achieve.
Most likely, prices will rise whether or not supplies are pinched. Why? Because every oil company knows that this crisis is a "cue" to restrict supplies in concert, and the public will accept the crisis as the obvious cause of increased prices.
The liability fight will probably not be quite what most expect. By statute, a rig owner's out-of-pocket liability for a spill is capped at around $75 million. In exchange, they pay a tax of about $0.08/barrel into a common fund which will be used to pay for claims beyond the cap. At the moment, the fund stands at about $1.6 billion. (Though the per incident payout from this fund is capped at $1 billion.)
The benefit of this system is, of course, that oil companies aren't exposed to devastating liability; instead, the liability is spread across he entire oil industry. This is also the problem: no individual oil company has an adequate economic incentive to avoid risky behavior.
caritj.org
One of the problems is that the US and Britain do not have as strong requirements as other countries for deep water drilling. For example, several other countries require an acoustically activated remote shut-off valve.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704423504575212031417936798.html
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/01/nation/la-na-oil-spill-investigation-20100501
Halliburton is under investigation for problems cementing near Australia and they had just done this to this rig. About half of the blowouts that have occurred in the gulf were due to cementing problems. There's also concern that curing cement raised the temperature of methane hydrates causing it to become unstable.
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