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Gulf Oil Leak Plugged?
RobHart writes "The LA Times is reporting that the Gulf oil leak appears to have been plugged by the 'top kill.' 'Thad Allen, who is coordinating the government response, says the well still has low pressure, but cement will be used to cap the well permanently as soon as the pressure hits zero.'"
So you hold the CEO personally responsible for this mishap? If that's the case, then I don't think anyone gets to complain about how much money CEOs make.
I mean, if I were the head of BP and every decision that was made pointed directly at me, then I'd for sure want a bajillion dollars a year.
That's a lot of pressure to be under.
I mean, what if that BP truck driver falls asleep at the wheel and kills a family of 4? That's on me, right?
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if you had a policy which ignored industry and federal and state and local standards on driver hours per week or hours per day, and it was reasonable to conclude that your policy played a role in the driver falling asleep, then yes.
If, on the other hand, you had a policy which reinforced (or even outdid) the safety procedures, and despite quality employee and contractor screening, despite training, despite good policy, something bad still happened (individual negligence or simply bad luck), then no.
In short, management's role is reducing the likelihood of major disasters. Did they do their job? I don't know the answer, but I suspect that the next few years will include a number of investigations to figure that out.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
Not responsible for the mishap, responsible for the inadequate response. Keeping officials away and not trying to solve the leak *period*, but trying to solve the leak by extracting the oil.
Whew...I was getting worried about this one. But, it looks like we can chalk up another victory for Obama and his environmental record. This incident should put a stop to offshore drilling, which is good. The price of gasoline should go up to eight dollars a gallon, that should keep people from wasting it.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Actually - that's almost exactly it. Right there. If it is shown that this resulted from systemic faults or negligence on the part of BP management, and is something that results from decisions of the "Very High Up" - i.e. safety shortcuts, speed at the expense of safe(er) procedures, known faults with safety equipment and/or a culture of "get it done fast".
Things that management knew about, condoned, encouraged or "looked the other way", then I believe we should hold the CEO and entire personally responsible. That is (one of the many things) that is wrong with corporate culture in the world now. All the profits and percs of a "human" and none of the responsibility. I think if the CEO and board of corporations were held personally responsible then we'd see a lot less screwing of the public. I'm all for that and the "corporate death penalty".
If you were the CEO of said trucking company, and encouraged or looked the other way when your drivers were falsifying log books, driving extra hours, and ignoring the safety concerns of your maintenance contractor, and your tired driver plowed into a shopping mall with a tanker truck of propane because he was tired, then yes I DO hold you responsible. If that's not the case, and the guy was just an idiot or had too many tacos at lunch and got distracted, then no.
I generally consider myself to lean libertarian - but what we have now in the US is too many cases of privatizing profits and socializing losses/screwups - and that to me is the worst of all worlds.
There is an insane amount of engineering that had to go into this. Getting it wrong would have been an even bigger disaster.
For some excellent discussions on all of this, head over to http://theoildrum.com/
Possibly for the reason that it's never been done before at this depth. Remember, whatever finally works will be paraded around by armchair generals as "what they should have done first".
Hindsight can be a cast-iron bitch sometimes.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Right, because the relief well doesn't have anything to do with, you know, being a relief well.
I think what he is pointing out is that most of the people who want the CEO's to be directly responsible for everything are the same people who think they can set a cap on what private citizens can earn.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
I have a feeling expanding foam doesn't expand too well at over 2,000 psi.
And here, in a nutshell, the problem with American politics. It doesn't matter how bad we are, as long as you are worse.
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guess which one took the longest
I'll take "What is BP had to get permission from the feds" for $500 Alex.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
I'm sure the thousands of Coast Guardsmen, non BP engineers, private fisherman and volunteers working to actually solve and alleviate the problem are likewise eternally grateful for your willingness to contribute by adapting and innovating snarky comments about other people's efforts while sitting on your ass ;)
Well, right now, CEOs are both highly overpaid and free of responsibility. Which one would you prefer they relinquish?
With great power comes great responsibility... this is the rule I want enforced.
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Because there was a chance that it could make the situation worse. They were trying things first that if they went wrong would not make the problem worse.
I guess I'm a little more cynical than this. I assumed they were trying things that would cost them the least money first.
In theory, those are the same. Factor in the potential cost of failure alongside the cost of the procedure itself. The top kill probably costs less than many of the other methods (a 93-ton, four-story-tall concrete dome can't be cheap), until you factor in the risk and cost of failure (top kill can make more oil leak, which in turn makes future attempts more expensive).
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
"Real" engineering is not like your geek job. When the rig blew, people died, and others needed immediate rescue to survive - and BP was there for that. There were several in-place preventive measures as part of the disaster prevention plan, but they failed - largely due to poor management culture endemic to BP, where warnings from the guys on the rig were ignored. BP certainly deserves blame for that. The same cultural problem led to the gas pipeline blowout, if you remember that.
Efforts to plug the well started immediately, and as there's no way to know what will work, several parallel efforts were all started. Lots of silly /.ers who seem to think this is like fixing a down server are asking questions like "why didn't they drill the relief well first, since that's the only permanent fix". They did start the effort to drill the relief well immediately; it will be done in August IIRC. This isn't a down server - real engineering work is required here, real heavy equipment must be designed, built, shipped to a port, loaded, and shipped out to the middle of the gulf at 15 knots.
The "top kill" effort was started as soon as the problem was understood - it just takes time to do stuff like this.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.