Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
An interesting comparison between the 1979 Ixtoc oil disaster and the BP disaster. Note that indeed Transocean and Sedco merged in 1999.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=127_1274931222
The person at the top of this mess in the US gov (the director of mineral resources) got invited to resign (and did). Im sure that a few of the others are going to follow her example.
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Why didn't they call Aquaman? This is probably the only time where his superpower would actually be useful.
Developers: We can use your help.
My understanding was that there was a chance it might make things worse. If the mud didn't actually slow the leak, but was pushed out as fast as it was applied, there was the fear it might further damage the already broken valve. So, rather than a partially open valve somewhat checking the flow of oil, you'd have a fully open pipe.
Deciding who to blame is pretty pointless, the aim is (should be) to prevent it happening again. Replacing the CEO probably isn't going to make the guys specifically responsible for the kill-plug (or whatever they call it) be more careful next time.
You can argue that a new CEO won't want the same fate, so will enforce higher safety standards, but CEOs are judged by the money made for the shareholders, not by their safety record. If a CEO gets replaced over safety for political reasons, but made a crap-ton of money as CEO, you can bet they're not going to end up in a soup kitchen..
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
A lot of the numbers I have seen sort of add together to the total cleanup cost and other liabilities to at least be in the range of $10 billion. They can pay that off in 6 months.
(I'm assuming several billion dollars of cleanup costs, and then also several billion for fisherman, and another several billion for the tourist industry)
They could probably afford to pay $50 billion (but I don't really see how the liabilities will get that high).
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
This is BP's Rules, Not Ours
Well there you go.. BP runs the American government..
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I'm just eternally grateful for these BP heroes that have worked so many sleepless nights since this began in order to wrestle this thing under control. No one has ever had to deal with something like this before and by using their ingenuity and ability to adapt and innovate, they were able to accomplish a herculean feat. Yes, I'm being facetious.
I'm sure a lot of BP personnel (and yes, a lot of non-BP personnel) have indeed worked many sleepless nights since this began in order to wrestle this thing under control. And you are right that no one has ever had to deal with something like this before and by using their ingenuity and ability to adapt and innovate, they were able to accomplish a herculean feat.
So despite everything I think all these people have more than earned a massive THANK YOU and WELL DONE. I even think that they deserve to be called heroes. (Especially because the people that did all this probably had nothing to do with causing the disaster in the first place.)