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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?
Sent from your iPad.
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
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.
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.
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!
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.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
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?
They were working on this from the start, as well as the "top hat" that will probably not be needed now. They had at least 3 different methods working in parallel. This one took this long because it was unbelievably complicated and had never been tried at anything even close to this depth. This (the actual stoppage) is an amazing success for the many 100's of skilled engineers that have been working around the clock on it for weeks. (Mostly not BP people BTW)
I have a feeling expanding foam doesn't expand too well at over 2,000 psi.
I'm looking forward to seeing BP get raked over the coals. Bastards. The way they attempted to cover up how bad the spill is is really disgusting. See http://www.newsweek.com/2010/05/26/the-missing-oil-spill-photos.html
latest "live" thread with great insights in the comments: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6515
Relevant links to top kill procedure (scroll to comments in each, they're very good.)
Deepwater Oil Spill - Permissions and Concerns about Top Kill http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6513
Deep Water Spill - Waiting for Top Kill (more updated tech) http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6509
The Gulf Deepwater Oil Spill - the Top Kill Attempt (the technical aspect of what just happened) http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6505
The Gulf Deepwater Oil Spill, barriers, flow rates, and top kill http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6501
Hope you find this informative...
With Apple, a slick shiny black surface is a feature, not a problem.
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.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
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 was told by one of my old girlfriends who works for Schlumberger (she has her own sources) that this isn't a permanent fix. They are doing a top fill because it is faster than waiting for the relief well to do a bottom fill. This top fill is likely a temporary measure, and they are still going to have to drill a relief well to intercept the main well which is going to take time.
We can only pray that once they cap this, it sticks till they can get the relief well fully drilled.
Dude what do you not understand? He lives in the city, he walks everywhere. The food in the grocery store where he shops is CERTIFIED organic, and he walks there using the grass section between the sidewalk and the street and uses a reusable cloth bag to hold the groceries which he washes with rain water collected in the cistern of his building. The farmer that grows that food uses an electric tractor which he plugs directly into a windmill on the property, the same with the truck that brings the food into town. When he has sex he uses snakeskin condoms like the ancient Egyptians. Do you DARE to question his devotion further?!?!
Well, actually he just optimistically carries the snakeskin around in his wallet. This is Slashdot after all.
Holy run-on sentence Batman!
Periods are a renewable resource. Feel free to use them.
"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.