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Oil Arrives In Louisiana; Defense Booms Inadequate
eldavojohn writes "People in mainland Louisiana are seeing the beginnings of the oil's full effects on wildlife in the area. Sticky, rust-colored oil covers the reeds like a latex paint, indicating that the efforts to lay miles of floating booms to keep it away from the fragile marshes are useless. They are experiencing what the Plaquemines (mouth of Mississippi River) saw last week, and it now appears that their defenses were inadequate. Only time will tell how much worse it can get as BP still scrambles for a solution. NPR also ran a story critical of Obama's 'scientific approach' that he promised to use in office and how well it's being applied and holding up during this crisis."
NPR also ran a story critical of Obama's 'scientific approach' that he promised to use in office and how well it's being applied and holding up during this crisis."
The story isn't actually very critical. At least the editors/journalists involved in the creation of the article don't seem to be critical at all to me. If you feel the need to comment on this sentence, please please read the article first. It's mostly about how a couple of scientists are critical of the fact that stopping the flow has been prioritized over providing an accurate measurement of how much oil is leaking per time unit. Obama said he would release a directive detailing what his science policy (FTA: "he promised a science-based, data-driven approach to solving problems") means, but hasn't done so, even though the deadline he'd promised was already almost a year ago, and at least one scientist says it could have provided guidance that could have made a difference in this situation. It appears that the aforementioned prioritization might be in conflict with solving problems in a "data-driven" way.
...the booms went bust.
Chaos maximizes locally around me.
It could easily turn into the most worst environmental disaster in US history. It is already affecting basic grammar skills.
BP should pay a very, very modest fine.
It depends on what the actual flow rate is. If it is in the range of 20,000 barrels per day and they manage to close the thing off in the next few weeks, the gulf will probably shake the oil off fairly quickly (especially with various mitigation strategies eliminating thousands of those barrels).
If it is at 70 or 100 thousand barrels per day, then probably not.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Maybe they just failed booming school 101 and didn't know how to fucking do the fucking booming properly.
And if you are offended by the f-word, well, watch the video to the end, OK? I promise it makes sense.
Booms work when done properly.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
No duh.
What did you expect? That he goes and says something along the lines of "we expect this to be the worst oilspill in the history of mankind, poisoning the beach of southwest US and Mexico for decades, if not centuries"?
The crap any corporate PR goon spills isn't worth the airtime given to it. They will of course downplay anything and everything, every time. Either they're lucky and it is actually less dramatic than everyone thought, then everyone will be happy they were honest. Or everyone will have forgotten about it by the time it impacts (not bloody likely, this is the coast of the US, not the coast of some godforsaken African country). Or IF the shit really hits the fan, everyone will be too busy worrying what to do to remember that the corp shill spilled more garbage than there is oil.
Frankly, is anyone still listening to these greasebags?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'd consider twice or three time the company net worth quite "modest".
Maybe then oil compnaies will start taking security serious and not "the nuisance necessary to keep the insurance premium low".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
For the curious:
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/costly_time-consuming_test_of.html
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
If you ask me, the entire system is designed to make the most profit for people that are already extremely well off. Its a joke.
Sounds like capitalism to me.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Go watch this and it will make more sense. They are not, have not, and seemingly, WILL NOT use the booms properly. Booming without capture is useless, you are only slowing down the disaster, not reducing it.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
If that's the NPR story I heard, the simple refutation was given by an administration official, something along the lines of "there isn't a different response to a 1,000 barrels per day vs. a 5,000 barrels per day leak - either way its a disaster that must be contained, and the priority is to contain it."
Decisions driven by good scientific data are extremely important, but if there is only one possible decision (big oil disaster and major huge oil disaster both require an all-out response) then the details can wait until AFTER the bugger has been capped.
Sounded like a non-issue to me.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
It's sort of tiring listening to it after a while though. It becomes profanity theater. Not really needed to get her point across.
"Additionally, we could easily use ultra-capacitors to power electric cars that would take us in a range of 500 + miles and have fast recharging."
Wake me when I can order a suitable cap from Mouser or Digikey.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
No one will ever be held responsible for this. Ever. Not now, not ever. Ever ever ever.
BP will pay whatever it ends up costing them to "fix" the spill, or whatever it costs up to the point the government has to take over if that ends up being the case. The government (or at least the people in the senate and house who make any public statements regarding this) won't want to seem like idiots so they'll defend BP's stonewalling and ridiculously low damage estimates. Obama is a completely worthless shill to the right of Richard Nixon and will do nothing.
Then BP will appeal any and all personal liability related lawsuits to the supreme court where in a 5-4 decision (get used to hearing this for the rest of your life) the punitive damages will be thrown out, or dropped and sent back to the lower courts (like what happened with the Exxon Valdez spill) where it will be appealed until the affected people settle for pennies or drop the case since they won't live long enough or have enough money to see it out to the end.
Nothing ever changes, rich people never suffer, and again no one will ever be punished for it. There is literally no hope, and that's not even a joke. There seriously isn't.
I'm on the scene monitoring things in Louisiana, working for a government agency. Other than that I have no dog in this fight. I am neither a fan of nor do I hate Obama.
Now read the article carefully. Like this part:
"Francesca Grifo of the Union of Concerned Scientists says it could have been useful in the Gulf of Mexico.
"I'm just very frustrated with how long it has taken for us to have this order," she says, "particularly in light of these events, where this kind of guidance clearly could have made a difference in this situation.""
So what does the reader naturally expect? Obviously, an explanation of how the guidance would have made a difference -- oops, make that a CLEAR difference -- in this situation. Well, you can expect all you want, but you're not getting it from this article.
Then there's this:
"In a teleconference, Jane Lubchenco of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said a group of government scientists came together just this week to seek a scientifically defensible measurement.
"We've always said that it is extremely important to get a reliable flow rate," she said. "But we've known all along that doing so would be extraordinarily difficult.""
I hope you, as a reader, aren't expecting to find out why it would be important -- let alone EXTREMELY important -- to get a reliable flow rate figure. 'Cause you aren't getting it from this article.
I don't know why Lubchenco said this. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen addressed this issue early on. He said it's NOT important whether it's 5K barrels or 200K barrels -- we'd be doing the same thing in either case, and so it would be a waste of time and resources trying to figure out a number that, in the end, would be at least 50 percent speculation anyway.
- AJ
Have the gov force BP to pay about $1 per gallon to any boat that pulls up along a designated barge and pumps out what they have captured.
All those fishermen/boats docked at port suddenly have a new source of revenue. Let free enterprise figure out how to capture that oil.
Are we to believe that a company with profits equal to a middle sized nation's GDP cannot afford to plug this hole? Sure, it may take hauling 500.000 tons of rocks from the coast, and would cost a few billions of $, but BP can very easily afford that.
Believe you me, the only reason why this crisis is lasting this long, is because BP is doing it piece-meal, so as to not affect the profits almost at all. The upper management at BP are nothing but goons of the worst kind, the most die-hard corporate psychopaths you can imagine. So what if the ecosystem is completely compromised, if it will never recover, if livelihoods of millions will be affected? They don't give a shit. They didn't give a shit when they lobbied (and continue to do so) the govt. to decrease safety regulations, when they cut costs and increased workloads for cost cutting and profit, and when they decided to overlook the reports of pieces of the blowout preventer valve breaking off - and in fact, forcing the oil rig workers to continue as if nothing happened.
Oh yeah, and these executives don't give a shit about the people who died on the platform, either.
Please someone tell me, why shouldn't these soulless suits be lined up and shot, and the event televised for the education of other similar corporate psychopaths?
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Clinton never ran a budget surplus. He got close though, but only because he robbed from the Social Security trust fund (just like every president has for the last half-century).
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/during_the_clinton_administration_was_the_federal.html
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Additionally, we could easily use ultra-capacitors to power electric cars that would take us in a range of 500 + miles and have fast recharging
lol
I know this must be a naive question, but I seriously can't find the answer. Why is it so hard to separate oil and water? Don't they kind of separate themselves? And since the oil is actually worth something, why aren't there companies lining up to skim the free oil?
Would something like this actually work? You have to believe there's a lot readily available in the SE. http://www.wimp.com/solutionoil/
I get it! I GET IT! Zarro Boogs found!
A reliable flow rate is important if you want to try to understand how a leak of as much as 100,000 barrels/day during a time when we are supposedly retrieving "only" 1,734,000 barrels per day in total from the Gulf is related to declining oil prices.
Put another way: "Gee...how come just one leak is equal to 1/18th of the total amount of oil that is supposedly being pumped out of the Gulf of Mexico? When there are "nearly 4,000 active oil and gas platforms" in the Gulf of Mexico?"
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
What's with all the people blaming Obama for the failure of BP to contain or control their oil spill / environmental disaster? He's the President and he has an opinion - but he doesn't have any control over the spill itself or the folks at BP. About the only thing he could do would be to send the Army Corps of Engineers in to take care of the problem and that's not an easy choice to make. If they succeed, it'd be a big win. But if they failed then not only would BP escape blame but the ACofE and Obama would have to explain why their plan failed.
It's a big clusterfuk because in our wisdom we let British Petroleum (BP) do business in our country but they're a foreign corporation. Do you want to punish them or make them pay for all the damage they've done and continue to do? Sure, now how would you propose to do that? For extra credit, accomplish this goal without interrupting the flow of gasoline to all the BP (Arco and probably other) stations in this country and also avoid a diplomatic incident with our (for now) friends in the British Empire.
But that's not likely; instead we have some idiots who see this as a chance to promote their political agenda and a bunch of others who feel their sense of entitlement being threatened. Get a clue: if you want your toaster waffle to be piping hot, it requires energy. If you insist that nuclear is too dangerous, coal is too dirty, and oil is too dangerous and expensive then you're going to have to deal with cold frozen waffles while you huddle in the dark. There's no happy energy unicorn that's going to descend from the sky to save all of us. The solutions to these problems aren't clean and pretty and they don't make the forest animals happy. But if we don't solve the problems then life is going to be much less than it is now in a third-world kind of way. There's still some time but you can't wait forever for something that's never going to happen.