Slashdot Mirror
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."
and it's making me more ill from reading "shock" stories. Man-made messes are never good, but in popular media - we never compare those events to what happens naturally. Natural oil and gas seepage has been occurring for as long as those items have been available. It's even been noted in recorded history. We also seem to forget that oil, tar, and natural gas are ... well ... natural. There are many natural and deadly events - earthquakes, mudslides, lava, etc.
Then the violin starts on how oil spills kill birds ... again, don't get me wrong. I'm not in denial. Yes - oil spills kill birds. But my rant is about the lack of perspective.Oil spills is near the bottom of most lists (Here's one list: http://www.currykerlinger.com/birds.htm). The estimate is 1-2 million die from this cause. What I didn't know is that glass windows (100-900 million) and cats (100 million) dominate the top half of the list. I don't see the bleeding hearts going off on a rampage to ban windows.
I understand that stories like this are focused. I understand that broadening the perspective may "water down" an issue or a solution to an issue ... but leaving out perspective is just a damned bad habit - and sloppy too.
L'esperienza de questa dolce vita (The experience of this sweet life) - Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
We are paying for the majority of the impact, which is far more than just mopping up the oil, not BP. As others have already raised the issues with your pathetic defense of Big Business that I was going to raise, I will let you respond to them instead. I look forward to reading your replies to Mindcontrolled and Remus.
You do realize that continually defending the owning class will not convince them to let you into their club, don't you? You are their useful idiot, defending the indefensible so they don't even have to sully themselves debating the hoi polloi. And you will be paid for your effort, with their mocking laughter.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The part that failed was the remote controll shutoff! There should be comment moderations for "ignorant" and "foolish." This fits the former. My understanding (from a friend's husband who is a deep-water BOP specialist) is that there was a failure of the concrete plug, followed by a failure of the BOP (speculation being that the failure of the concrete plug damaged the BOP's control wires). Such a double-failure has never happened before. There is also a posibility that there was a third failure, and that the reason that the BOP crimped the line, instead of cutting it, was that it just so happened that the 1 out of 30 feet that was in front of the BOP when they finally did get it to activate was a joint, where the pipe lengths are bolted together. This is much thicker than the rest of the pipe, and it's possible that the BOP activated correctly but couldn't cut through the pipe at that point.
Risk mitigation does not mean removing every possibility of foreseen and unforeseen failure. They did a lot of work on ways to prevent leaks. Black swans - unforeseen collections of forces that overwhelm all systems - happen in every realm of life, which is why resiliency is as much or more important than prevention. And the systems are obviously fairly resilient, considering how quickly they are coming up with solutions to unforeseeable events in very difficult operational conditions.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
You missed the IF part, didn't you? IF they foot the bill. They won't, as you say.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
but it's predicted to hit land in the next 3 days as winds turn unfavorable.
There have been daily predictions of imminent landfall since the leak started. Here is one from back in April. Pardon me if projections 3 days out are taken with some degree of skepticism.
And talking about "evidence of damage" as if present damage is all that matters and the future need not be considered is retarded.
My point is that there have been predictions of immediate massive catastrophe for two weeks now. Hasn't happened. In the mean time the slick has actually started DECREASING in size due to various remediation actions.
Do you understand that the gulf coast is an important breeding area for the pelican?
Important for Brown Pelicans living in that area. The world-wide population of the Brown Pelican is around 650,000 and it is distributed throughout coastal areas of both North and South America. It is not endangered or at risk as a species by this oil spill. The article you linked is very much missing a lot of information. In fact this bird disappeared completely from Louisiana once before and came back.
The fact that it's globs and not a continuous stream, and that despite 2,000 barrels a day being leaked there are not oil slicks visible by satellite, puts the lie to the idea that the natural seepage and this disaster are in any way comparable.
Here is a study of a natural seep in California that totally refutes your statement.
http://www.physorg.com/news161440137.html