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Hundred-Ton Dome To Collect Oil Spill
eldavojohn writes "After failing to contain the Gulf oil spill any other way, a massive containment dome had the finishing touches put on yesterday. It amounts to a giant concrete-and-steel box made by Wild Well Control that is designed to siphon the crude oil away from the water. They expect an 85 percent collection with this device. It's not a pretty situation as Google Earth illustrates."
That number would be more encouraging if the amount coming out were not so massive. This spill is going to create a lot of suck for years to come.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Pay politicians more money to make sure they can continue drilling.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Actually, it's the UK filling the Gulf with FAIL
Slow Down, Cowboy! It's been 60 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment.
Consider R'ing TFA. Second link has pics. Dear Lord, people, who in the world ties your shoes in the morning?
The cofferdam, although not being tried in this deep of water is really their best option at this point.
I've been amazed at the Oil industries apparent inability to do any contingency planning. If this dome technology is known to be the best quick-fix for containing this type of oil leak, they should have had a few of them already built and sitting on a back lot in Port Arthur, just in case.
Instead, they have to construct them from scratch when the emergency presents itself. That's resulted in a huge waste of time as the clock is ticking and the environment becomes more and more damaged.
Having spares would have been a cheap insurance policy. Don't these people even think about risk mitigation?
SpyDock: Scientific Python in a Docker container
Who pays for the mistakes? Who pays for the environmental impact? If BP were forced to shoulder the entire cost of this mistake, they would go bankrupt. And so, as usual, it is the rest of us who will have to pay. Socialism for the rich, paid for by the poor.
If you and I lived next to each other, and I ran a pipe from my toilet into your yard, you would be pretty pissed off, wouldn't you? You'd probably demand I stop shitting in your yard. And I would say, "Human civilization can not exist without environmental impact, shit happens, get over your knee jerk reaction and get used to it, hippie."
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Thanks for telling us the equivalency of one imperial unit with another imperial unit, that helps a lot!*
* sorry if I broke anyone's sarcasm meter.
"condemn an entire industry because of one accident" ... one accident and their complete lack of preparedness for it.
If it was some fly-by-night corp, this would be expected. BP is a bit bigger and more established and should have had measures in place to deal, or attempt to deal, with this sort of scenario. And considering they seem to cook off a rig or two (in the event hurricanes don't do it for them) when ever it looks like oil prices aren't where they want them to be at they should at least be prepared to deal with the cleanup.
Please tell me you aren't someone who is going to condemn an entire industry because of one accident. No human enterprise ever attempted managed to get underway without mistakes.
If it's an industry where one mistake translates to environmental and economical damage on the scale we are witnessing at the gulf coast right now, then yes, condemning (and perhaps even abolishing) said industry may be the right thing to do.
Let us assume for a moment that the USA is pushing the world towards a climate catastrophe at an ever-increasing pace. Millions of people will die if nothing is done to stop this. We are getting ever closer to some "tipping point" where doing anything will be impossible and we just get to stay on the ride until the very end.
Sounds dire, right?
OK, so now we have this oil well accident that some want to call an ecological disaster of unimaginable proprotions. That this accident illustrates how incredibly stupid it is to drill for oil, and even worse to do so in some ecologically sensitive area.
Fine. Let's stop. How about if we give people a chance here to explore alternatives. We should stop all oil imports, all oil refining and just say it is over. The Oil Age has ended. This sort of alternative action would actually do something and be quite different than a lot of hand-wringing and people protesting without any real effect. Sure, there would be some immediate impact and people would die - perhaps fewer than are killed each day on highways.
I'd say after six months of this we might be able to carry on an intelligent debate on the real issues. Right now, I'm not seeing a lot of that. There is plenty of hand-wringing and plenty of pontificating on how bad things might be in the future.
There is a big difference between 1-2 million birds dying in one geographic location over a short amount of time versus hundreds of millions spread relatively evenly across the globe. It also doesn't stop at birds. Crabs, clams, crawfish, fish, etc, etc.
Roughly a quarter million people die each day. That doesn't mean that wiping out the population of Buffalo NY every now and again is "ok". It would simply devastate the area (for other humans who live around there, etc.. probably good for the environment tho...).
I know this stuff happens naturally and I get that. Natural disasters have more or less hit the "reset" button on the planet a few times. But going out and causing it (intended or not) is stupid and entirely preventable. Just because an asteroid or another event pretty much wiped out life on the planet in the past doesn't mean that killing/poisoning large quantities of life now, no matter how small in comparison, is a-ok!
I'm would be all for off-shore drilling if:
1. There was a constant inspection regime paid for entirely by the industry. In other words, there is an armed government official with absolute power to stop drilling, and his salary paid entirely by whoever owns the well and the platform.
2. All caps on liability were removed and the owners of the well and platform were forced to pay all costs of a spills, without limit of any kind.
3. Any evidence of ignoring of safety requirements would lead to lengthy prison sentences for all involved, and a ban on the companies involved in the accident of no less than five years from any extraction.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Those who think letting the oil sink is a bad idea are a distinct minority. ...
There are creatures that will be effected by oil on the sea floor like crabs and such, but it's still better than letting it run ashore.
I don't think you understand the full consequences of oil on the sea floor.
Every time a big storm comes through,
(and this is the Gulf of Mexico... hurricane central)
the sea floor gets stirred up and oil gets carried to shore.
The gulf coast is going to have oil contaminations problems for years.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Please tell me you aren't someone who is going to condemn an entire industry because of one accident.
Because of course this is the first major incident that has dumped vast amounts of oil into the environment.
After six months you would be too busy shooting anyone that came to steal what was left of your canned goods and fresh water to have any sort of intelligent debate on the issue.
Score: 4, Insightful? Have you all lost your minds?
Immediate cessation of oil refining into gasoline means that the entire infrastructure we have to deal with getting food from farms to people in cities goes bye-bye. Since 90% of the population in the Western world lives in cities, that means 90% of the population starves. I don't know about your math, but killing off 90% of the population is still more people than are killed each day on freeways.
Never mind that backup generators at critical infrastructure points like, oh, I don't know, hospitals and telecommunications stations are powered by diesel.
Furthermore, even a moderate proposal like a gradual phase-in tax on gasoline doesn't work for the same reasons. Seems reasonable, right? Just gradually tax gasoline more and more until other energy alternatives are cheaper? The problem with that is you've effectively taxed food more and more, and for people that struggle to make ends meet, you've condemned to starvation again.
That's why the government subsidizes alternative energy instead of doing something drastic. Corn/ethanol subsidies are (in hindsight) stupid (I'm a nuclear fan, myself), but at least they are trying something that might work instead of trying something that would have a significant negative impact on their chances to get re-elected.
News flash: you aren't sparking intelligent debate. You're either an anarchist, completely brain-dead, or both. Which is it, Dr. Strangelove?
So similar to the Mine Safety and Health Administration? Or how about the SEC? We've seen how well those have worked out. Any time you have a small regulatory body working in a single industry you end up with conflicts of interest. Industry players come into the agency to control it, ex-agency employs go to industry to show how to game it, and lots of expensive dinners all around.
Both of those amount to "bankrupt any company that has an incident". Remember that for 2) "pay all costs, without limit" actually means "pay all costs until the company goes bankrupt". While that might sound great to you in theory, in practice it's a terrible idea. Take a look at Arthur Anderson - exactly what you describe happened to them after Enron. Did 85,000 employees that had absolutely nothing to do with Enron deserve to have their lives thrown into chaos as the company imploded? Also bankrupting BP wouldn't really do anything structurally - the other big oil companies (Shell, Exxon, etc) would just pick up the pieces and everything would go on as if nothing happened.
The only thing I agree with you on is the need for criminal action against directors. Far too often companies see regulatory fines (and appeals to avoid them) as simply part of the cost of doing business, as is blatantly obvious in the case of Massey's WV mining operation. Start threatening criminal action against supervisors for repeat offenses and they'll suddenly have a real incentive to implement real protocols.
OK, so now we have this oil well accident that some want to call an ecological disaster of unimaginable proprotions. That this accident illustrates how incredibly stupid it is to drill for oil, and even worse to do so in some ecologically sensitive area.
Yes we have some people making these claims. These people are irrational or have an agenda. The fact of the matter is that all that the actual damage we have documentation of so far (despite all the journalists looking for disaster evidence) are one dead jellyfish and two birds that needed to be cleaned of oil contamination. Otherwise no significant oil contamination in ANY sensitive marshes or wetlands.
The fact is that oil is itself a product of natural biological processes, and nature does have mechanisms for dealing with it over time. The Gulf itself is naturally and continuously contaminated by seepage from oil deposits, to the tune of an estimated 2,000 barrels a day. Every day. Over a history of millions of years. The ecology there has adapted to deal with oil, although not the large quantities from a point source like this incident without some damage.
The fact is that once this spill is contained the ecosystem will recover. It might seem to take forever if you are a fisherman working those waters, but to call it an ecological disaster is just silly.
The only true ecological disasters this planet faces is the accumulated biosphere pressure of human overpopulation and the occasional asteroid strikes.
Yes. This very low cap of the liability is a prime example of successful lobbying in DC.
1. There was a constant inspection regime paid for entirely by the industry. In other words, there is an armed government official with absolute power to stop drilling, and his salary paid entirely by whoever owns the well and the platform.
Bit of a conflict of interest there don't you think? Do you seriously expect an inspector to readily shut down production on the person that pays their salary? If so you are FAR more optimistic and trusting of human nature than I am.
2. All caps on liability were removed and the owners of the well and platform were forced to pay all costs of a spills, without limit of any kind.
I'm not aware that there are any caps on liability (please cite if you know of any) other than the flesh eating lawyers employed by the oil companies. Given the results of previous litigation the oil companies seem to be able to defend themselves rather effectively.
3. Any evidence of ignoring of safety requirements would lead to lengthy prison sentences for all involved, and a ban on the companies involved in the accident of no less than five years from any extraction.
Sounds great on paper but the problem is in the details. How do you decide who goes do jail and who doesn't? It is NOT an easy question to answer. Furthermore the companies involved are huge multinationals. BP isn't an American company and most of their revenue does not come from the US. Explain to me how you plan to shut down BPs operations in the US gracefully and not seriously disrupt the energy prices and product flow. If you think that is a simple thing to do you haven't really thought about it.
The fact is that oil is itself a product of natural biological processes, and nature does have mechanisms for dealing with it over time. The Gulf itself is naturally and continuously contaminated by seepage from oil deposits, to the tune of an estimated 2,000 barrels a day. Every day. Over a history of millions of years.
The prairie of the American Midwest naturally deals with periodic drought in a variety of ways; we're still finding out about interesting feedback systems that operate(d) in the native grasslands. That stability didn't make it impervious to abuse by humans bent on using unsustainable farming practices that killed the soil and started the Dust Bowl.
We do not know precisely what the introduction of a sudden, large, concentrated amount of additional seepage is going to do; we can only speculate given past experience. Past spills usually caused ecological damage that lasted for decades. Unless we want to wait for thousands of years for the ecosystem to correct itself, we're going to be responsible for doing the cleanup ourselves. It's going to be expensive, and it's rather likely that in spite of our best efforts, the Gulf's marine life will suffer severe losses. If you ignore "green" concerns, fishermen have been the first ones hurt here; the tourist industry is close behind (happy Cinco de Mayo). It won't do any favors for the region's shipping industry, either, nor for post-Katrina New Orleans.
The fact is that once this spill is contained the ecosystem will recover. It might seem to take forever if you are a fisherman working those waters, but to call it an ecological disaster is just silly.
What the heck would it take for you call an event an ecological disaster? Burning rivers? Blighted coral reefs? Rotting heaps of dead baby seals? Exxon-Valdez was universally called a disaster, and this has every indication of being a bigger spill. We have yet to see whether the oil will cycle inland significantly to affect US river systems and wetlands, but this WILL affect ocean life. As to "evidence" of damage, we're still waiting for the oil to come to land; Google Earth had satellite data showing that much. The hope, today, is that we won't have to wait for stupefying evidence of tragedy before taking action to mitigate its effects. Back during the Dust Bowl, the US Congress couldn't be bothered to sign in agricultural reform law until someone was able to crack the Senate's windows during a session and allow Midwestern dust to cover the room. Hopefully, we've learned something in the most-of-a-century since then.
If there is an all out no holds bar war against Iran, and it spirals out of control when China, Russia and Japan get real antsy about things, plus losing one third of the planet's oil supplies within a few days...we might not have the time to do much of anything, plus the expense would be huge.
We can do it now, but not later, the changeover costs would be un-doable. Make sub prime so called crisis look like a 7-11 stickup. There are too many potential planet impacting black swan type events that could really screw the pooch on a smooth peaceful and economical transition to alternatives to petroleum. And once something bad happens like that, the race to own the remaining supplies could further exacerbate potential bad news situations, ie, major resource wars. Real wars, not little teeny wars like we have now.
I agree with Ratzo, we needed a huge push starting back right after the OPEC embargo, and we dropped the ball bad. It stagnated after the tax credits ran out in the mid 80s, and weren't renewed until very recently (and I think they should come back at a full 100% to stimulate alternatives), and the oil industry all of a sudden flooded the planet with cheap oil as well back then, real cheap. That worked, killed off solar and the push for electric cars, etc for two decades more or less. They did not want any alternatives to their products to succeed. They *like* having energy monopolies and cartels, makes big money constantly with vendor lockin.
We had electric cars a century ago. Heck, jay leno owns one, and the original batteries still work! This BS that electric vehicle aren't practical until they can go 300 miles with an onboard charge is nuts. We've had that "solution" for a long time now, it is called the 50 mile, they could build it today relatively cheaply, electric car, then the generator trailer, for those occasional long trips where you need to go that far. Most people just do not need a 300 mile range day to day to day vehicle, they just don't drive that far except once in awhile. The generator trailer could be rented for longer trips, or owned by the driver and used as an emergency whole house generator as well, for those times it is needed. This would work until such a time as they really do improve the batteries, and the battery pack doesn't cost more than the rest of the vehicle. We have boutique car builders now with examples, and home DIY guys have proven that the tech exists just swell for an electric commuter car.but no majors have them forsale yet. "coming soon" and in the meantime, look at these hydrogen million dollar prototypes we have...nuts. Or they want to push hybrids, the most rube goldberg of designs.