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Newly Discovered Bacteria Could Aid Oil Cleanup
suraj.sun passes along news from Oregon State University, where researchers have discovered a new strain of bacteria that may be able to aid cleanup efforts in the Gulf of Mexico. The bacteria "can produce non-toxic, comparatively inexpensive 'rhamnolipids,' and effectively help degrade polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs — environmental pollutants that are one of the most harmful aspects of oil spills. Because of its unique characteristics, this new bacterial strain could be of considerable value in the long-term cleanup of the massive Gulf Coast oil spill, scientists say." In related news, Kevin Costner's centrifugal separator technology has gotten approval for deployment; now it is only waiting on funding from BP.
The bacteria idea sounds great, but will probably result in a new and deadly plague that will give rise to oil gobbling mutants! As for the other idea, I don't see how Kevin Costner can claim to have developed an oil separator that has been in use by US Navy ships since before the early eighties. We had them on my ship when I was in back in 1983. They were used to separate water and dirt from lube oil.
I heard that Cane Toads soak up oil at 10 times the rate.
I really, really hope this article will soon be tagged "whatcouldpossiblygowrong"
Doesn't sound like a very good idea to release huge amounts of a newly developed, untested, unverified bacteria into our oceans...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_species
Summary: "Awaiting funding from BP". Article headline: "'has green light, but no green'". First paragraph: "is awaiting money from BP".
However further down, "Ocean Therapy officials acknowledged that full implementation of the systems may depend on how quickly BP pays for the 32 it committed to Wednesday."
Maybe giving 3-4 days to pay would be OK?
Can a government be held to account for not paying for something it orders within 3-4 days?
That there isn't a huge evolutionary change to go from oil eating to flesh eating...
Given he quantity of oil that has been released and the volume of the gulf, the only way this could possibly work was if the bacteria in question was able to spread throughout the gulf after being released. Unfortunately, if that is the case then that's really not something you want to introduce to an ecosystem that isn't used to it. The oil is bad, but we know from experience that introducing new organism to already vulnerable ecosystems is generally a bad idea.
I get WHY Kevin Costner is getting so much press with his oil separation machine; it's not like he has to work hard to get a camera in front of his face. But it's not like the separation process is what is causing an environmental disaster; it's all that oil out in the ocean. If Kevin Costner was selling a machine that can suck up cubic miles of water, that would be newsworthy
Nice. New bacteria. I don't have time to go look it up, but somebody else might... I'm under the impression that the whole process of breaking down hydrocarbons eventually leads to a drastic increase in ammonia and related compounds, and severe oxygen depletion. Even (especially?) biological processes. Somebody once posted a nice short progression of the basic chemistry involved in a similar topic here on /. not too long ago.
Ain't nothin' free. Break it down? It has to break down into something...
There are thousands of bacteria on the face of the planet that can break down oil and I bet many of them are in the Gulf itself, right now, which has been seeping oil for what, 100's of millions of years? The problem is not if there are bacteria that can metabolize oil; we already know 100's of ones that do, the question is, will it be more effective than the 1000's already out there?
This is just a press release for a grant writing fishing expedition for BP money. Everyone is doing it right now in academia, trust me.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
The price of gasoline is not affected because this spill has no affect whatsoever on the refineries in Texas. They are still collecting oil from Saudi tankers and still pumping out gasoline, diesel, kerosene, and so on.
Also, and this is just personal opinion, I think people that believe in conspiracy theories (9/11 was a planned demolition, etc) are whackjobs. Why believe in outlandish complicated scenarios when the simplest answer is staring you right in the face? Supply-and-demand. That's why prices fluctuate
.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
The gulf is blooming with natural oil eating bacteria that already know how to live among the communities and predators there. Indeed there are so many of them eating the oil right now they say it's removing all the oxygen from the water making a deadzone.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
True, it's supply and demand. We demand it, and OPEC decides how much we should pay and supplies that much. The oil industry is rife with collusion between players with basically no competition at all. So it's supply and demand but not true free market forces. OPEC controls oil like DeBeers controls diamonds.
So far, right now, the only people who are truly upset about this are the "environmentalist whack jobs."
Beg your pardon. How many millions of people live on the Gulf coastline? Which are they - whack jobs or not upset?
Yeah, thinking that that oil conglomerates fix prices is a super nutty conspiracy thinking. I mean, it's not like giant companies like ADM have ever been involved in price fixing with their group of international competitors. Now, I may not be totally up on the matter, because I'm a geek and stick to tech news rather than business news, but I've never heard of price-fixing happening in real life and not just in conspiracy nutters ramblings. The whole concept is just crazy. You are a wise man.
We hear about a new backteria that's going to fix whatever is in the headline, and is then never heard from again. Like all those new energy things from a few years ago.
>>>OPEC decides how much we should pay and supplies that much
OPEC only generates 30% of the world's supply. So no OPEC doesn't "decide" the price, because they are just one piece of the market. If they charge too much, we have other cheaper options like Russia, Canada, and so on. It's equivalent to if Microsoft turned stupid & started charging $100 for Internet Explorer - people would simply jump ship to a cheaper browser.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
You might end up with this: http://www.amazon.com/Ill-Wind-Kevin-J-Anderson/dp/0312857608
This was a TEST well, not a producing well. It was in the process of being CAPPED OFF so they could move the rig and drill more test wells. It has no bearing on oil used for gasoline or anything else.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
HOW is the price of oil REALLY controlled?
Simple answer: it's not.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
The REAL reason Kevin Costner waited this long to release this isn't government testing. His arch nemesis, The Deacon (Dennis Hopper), just died, removing the last hurdle by getting the smokers out of the way.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
it seems useful to view BP as Prince Phillip and Shell as Prince Bernhard (deceased goodwin vioation). I wonder how one might speak of an ex-member of goodwin violation.
Talk to an insider and the Brits pretty well run the whole oil business.
If you think east india company policies, a little price fixing is not what you worry about.
Try this. 1970's oil shock. the arabs stopped pumping oil? Published stats do not show a decrease in production. anacortes refinery had tankers backed up into the sound that could not be unloaded. So, price fixing but the real deal was the arabs get a lot of money from everyone and they ship it to the western banks in London and NYC and it props up a dying financal system.
Apparently that oil well had not previously produced oil for sale,
Oil prices are set based on speculative futures. In other words, normally people would say, opps - that means less oil coming to market down the road so the price needs to jump - and it does. Odd that it didn't do what it has always done in this case.
People need to understand that there exists a few products which are absolutely NOT part of free market economies and are not directly driven by supply and demand. Both diamonds and oil are such products. Their prices and supplies are artificially manipulated at every corner. While oil, unlike diamonds, truly are a scarce resource, they are both so heavily manipulated before and after they enter the market, their prices do not reflect reality of market demands - not in the least. If it were any other goods, talk of conspiracy, price fixing, price gouging and lots of serious investigations would be par for the course.
And no, this isn't crazy talk. I encourage you to do some modest investigation for yourself. You'll find lots and lots and lots and lots of completely legitimate sources stating all this.
Did you know if too much gas is produced and/or accidentally scheduled for delivery to the US, its dumped on non-US markets; traditionally south America? We certainly wouldn't want the price of gas to fall. Did you know refinery plants have been shut down but no new refineries have been created? Did you know one of the most cost effective refineries was one of the ones shut down? In fact, it was purchased for the explicit purpose of shutting it down? Following its shutdown, the price of fuel steadily went up stating they were at production limits and no one wants them to create a refinery in their back yard?
The amount of fraud, conspiracy, and market manipulation is so criminal, it makes criminals in awe of how complex and complete the oil industry fucks everyone - without prosecution.
In short, EVERYTHING you learned in economics 101 does NOT apply to oil/diamonds. Period.
Hmmm I wonder if the separator can extract heavy water at the same time. That might help offset the cost of use. I'm trying to find the price of a gallon of heavy water, but all I keep finding is some type of Vodka....
If it was just discovered, it will take at the very least 10 years for it to be deployable, likely significantly longer. That this is published now is just profiteering from the disaster.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
What do they feed them on while breeding them up in the lab in sufficient quantities to be useful? Snake oil?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Yes, the number of refineries has decreased over time:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=8_NA_8O0_NUS_C&f=A
But the overall refining capacity has increased (or if that goes too far for you, it is at least fair to say that it has stayed the same for 30 years):
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=8_NA_8DO_NUS_4&f=A
This well was going to produce at something like 0.1% of U.S. consumption, that is enough to impact prices some, but it isn't enough to send futures into a shitstorm, it is certainly less of an issue than increasing Chinese consumption.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
If ADM was guilty of price-fixing, then they would be sued by the US DOJ as happened to the Record Companies when they price-fixed CDs during the 90s
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
>>>Both diamonds and oil are such products.
Only because governments hand-out monopolies (deBeers, Comcast), or governments form cartels (OPEC). The free market would work if these damn governments would simply step out of the way.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Who said they had to be exclusive?
They are obviously both, upset whack jobs, the most dangerous kind of people.
Who knows what kind of crazy things they could do! They might oh, ban a color or something! C-UUU-RAAAZY.
I've no clue what you're talking about.
But since you mentioned "princes" let's discuss the american version of a prince - President Obama. Why is it that NOAA and the DOE had plans to coral an oil slick and then burn-off that oil, but these plans were blocked from being being executed? Who's responsible? Obama? Cass Sunnstein? The head of NOAA or the head of DOE?
To me this looks like a repeat of the same Katrina-like behavior where the U.S. agencies sat by and did not act. Why is our union government paralyzed when faced with an emergency?
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I don't know of any person in the world that has put his/her money so consistently where their mouth is. Costner has spent most of his fortune in developing various environmentally friendly technologies, such as super-fast flywheel energy storage. Honestly, I thought such a altruistic business proposal could never succeed in the world we live in. Maybe I wasn't 100% right.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
If they charge too much without making a couple of phone calls, that's true.
but you forget that there are a limited number of serious oil players in the world. they all have a finite resource they are interested in maximizing the value of.
what possible advantage would it be for them to pump it out as fast as possible at the lowest possible margin when they could simply slow it down a bit and multiply their margin many times over? especially when all it takes is informal agreement not to drop the price too much and EVERYONE involved can be super rich beyond anyone's wildest dreams until the oil runs out? you seriously think they are interested in making it run out faster, for less money?
free markets never live long, because after a certain amount of consolidation occurs, syndicates form whether officially or not and pricing is more or less controlled by a few players from that point on.
"Debeers is now allowed to operate in the U.S. because they are a price fixing monopolist." Nope. Although DeBeers is a monopolist as you say, it is now allowed to operate in the US not because of their monopolist status, but because they settled the various lawsuits pending against them in the US, some of them quite longstanding. See Wikipedia article on DeBeers. As a result, it is now possible for DeBeers' employees to come to the US without fear of arrest. Prior to the settlement, if you were a scientist employed by DeBeers and wanted to attend a conference in the US, you couldn't.
If you've ever driven through the south eastern US, say along HWY 85 from Georgia to Alabama you can see fields of kudzu that are engulfing whole areas. This stuff grows inches per day and covers trees, cars, telephone poles etc..
Instead of whining about getting his life back, BP's CEO will start saying things like "we're just going to take it one day at a time. I'm going to try to help the cleanup effort any way I can, and God willing, things will work out."
Uhh.. They did. There was even a movie about the whole thing starring Matt Damon.
AccountKiller
http://www.house.gov/jec/publications/110/rr110-2.pdf
Russia and Canadian oil costs much more than OPEC oil and is harder to retrieve. OPEC dominates with cheap oil and by restricting their output inflates the price. OPEC could flood the market with cheap basically eliminating Russia, Canada and most other players but by restricting supply they make more money now and will continue to for the foreseeable future.
Um, history says that gov't HAS to step in for there to be even the appearance of competition, as least in the US. Heard of a small company known as Standard Oil?
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Author Kevin J. Anderson, Ill Wind http://www.curledup.com/illwind.htm Great read on bacteria that eats oil and oil related products.
Lemme guess. They've got a patent pending on it.
I have to wonder how the price of gasoline hasn't gone up significantly since the news of this story initially broke.
I have to wonder why you think the price of oil would suddenly shoot up. The spill hasn't affected supply, since the leaking well never produced any oil for market. It's certainly made BPs stock price plummet, but honestly, why should this disaster make oil prices rise, and why do we need some big conspiracy to account for the lack of that?
So far, right now, the only people who are truly upset about this are the "environmentalist whack jobs."
WTF? I know several people that are FAR from "environmental wack jobs" that quite upset about this. This isn't just a couple seagulls killed off, there's a whole economy reliant on seafood near the spill. Maybe the people you talk to are just blow-hard idiots?
AccountKiller
The price of gasoline is not affected because this spill has no affect whatsoever on the refineries in Texas. They are still collecting oil from Saudi tankers and still pumping out gasoline, diesel, kerosene, and so on.
Also, and this is just personal opinion, I think people that believe in conspiracy theories (9/11 was a planned demolition, etc) are whackjobs. Why believe in outlandish complicated scenarios when the simplest answer is staring you right in the face? Supply-and-demand. That's why prices fluctuate .
okay, simple huh? 9/11, it's simpler to believe that it was done by our government since the resources and knowledge to pull something like that would be a lot harder for disgruntled foriegners to do it.
yes, I know this is off topic, but really, simple solutions are not always the correct solutions. Just saying...
Be seeing you...
Whack jobs. I mean seriously, who lives there post katrina?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Do you promise that? Will you personally take all the blame if something does go wrong? Will you accept all responsibility for any damages that this new bacteria may or may not cause?
I can promise you this : As soon as there is a new form of life that proliferates madly, nature usually finds something to eat it.
This is my sig.
Perhaps, in the spirit of applying naturally-evolved-oil-eating-bacteria, naturally produced in oceans exposed to oil, to the problem of oil spills; we could apply naturally-evolved-angry-former-fishermen, naturally produced on coasts exposed to oil, to the problem of oil spillers...
I'd say that it passed, and is now busy accruing extra credit...
OTEC is another green technology, which happens to suck up vast amounts of water:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversion
So why not use this to collect up the contaminated water, during future spills?
Then you can apply your centrifugation.
I do and I'm not a whack job. Been living here right on the water in Navarre all my life (46years). I have gone through more hurricanes than I can remember and will go through many more. I have 4 acres and lost 150+ trees from one storm alone. You would be amazed how well nature recovers and I have lots of new trees. The man-made stuff is insured so that's easily replaced.
This spill is not a natural problem and will seriously impact the ecological balance of the gulf. I'm right on the intercoastal waterway that runs between P-Cola Bay and Choctawhatchee Bay. It's a major spawning area for redfish, grouper, trout and many other species. Not only will people making a living on these fish suffer but so will the wildlife that feed on them such as pelicans, hawks, herons and other fish. This is a fight to save an ecological balance nature created but man is disrupting.
Also note the use of dispersant is even worse than the oil itself. Yes allowing the oil to reach the surface will kill hundreds of mammals but when the oil stays suspended it also kills the most basic life forms that are the start of the food chain, planktons and larvae . Their argument that these lowest forms can bounce back faster is backwards thinking. It still disrupts the food chain and the mammals will still die, but from starvation instead.
Surface oil will also turn into a tar ball. Tar balls become inert fairly quick (5-10 years) and studies have found creatures inhabiting old tar balls from previous spills
It seems quite useful to think the post-fdr era is "current events". And current history, post 1400's. I wonder how I should look on someone whose opinions are offered based on a few years of sound bites. Oh well. I am sure the domestic unions are the direct cause of the bailouts of the speculators, including the foreign speculators.
But on cleanup. To get permission to drill this well BP had to show a capacity to immeadiately deal with 300k barrels of spill a day. So their plan was not real great but it was workable if you spent a lot of money. Never been an attempt to implement the plan and no Obama pressure to do so. But the Brits are telling Obama not to hurt BP.
I dunno ... posts AC, gets defensive over obviously humorous post, sounds a little whacky to me.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Actually, Econ 101 does apply. Specifically the section on cartels applies. The free market sections don't, of course.
Not a sentence!
30% is a lot and there are no other options to fill that 30% void - sure you can ask more from others but they will ask more for it (supply & demand you see) and probably won't be able to fill demand until their prices are on par with those of OPEC. If OPEC decides to charge more, the price of oil will go up. Maybe not 1:1 but definitely noticeable.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
So far, right now, the only people who are truly upset about this are the "environmentalist whack jobs"
Allow me to be the first to let you know you are an idiot. Everyone is upset about this. You really think commercial fishermen are environmentalist whack jobs? The "environment," btw, isn't just a pretty picture, you retard. It's life. And more importantly to humans that aren't environmental whack jobs, it's money, and livelihood. But, gosh... why isn't gas going up?? Who gives a fuck you moron! Interesting? You're an off topic troll bigot if I ever saw one.
As people have already pointed out, introducing a single bacteria in the mass quantity that it would take to actually facilitate improvement would probably end up changing the the entire makeup of the gulf. It could have far reaching effects that we couldn't even predict. To a degree, the sad reality of this situation is that with our limited technology, we are going to have to roll up our sleeves and do this by hand as there is no quick fix. BP is using dispersant chemicals only to avoid pictures of sea animals dying of suffocation, but truth be told this area of the gulf is already decimated. I say this all with a heavy heart because it is in my own backyard. Oh and two interesting points. I highly recommend people read Zodiac, by Neal Stephenson, which covers a good deal about this kind of tactic without adequately predicting the outcome in a fictional but well researched context. Also, make note that these oil consuming bugs have been around for quite some time. The first stable version came around in the 70's. In practice, I've understood them to not really be that effective.
Actually the Oil producers are being hurt by the worldwide recession reducing demand, so they are taking a profit hit to keep cash-flow up as much as they can.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Yeah Standard Oil wasn't a monopoly. That's a popular myth but by the time the government stepped-in with trust busting, Standard Oil's competitors had already taken a big chunk of the market. Same with Kmart which used to be the dominant store of the 1970s and 80s..... it too lost its way to new competitors. Another example: Internet Explorer. Once had over 90% of the web share, and now it's fallen to around 60% due to new competition arising.
Monopolies are a self-correcting situation that don't need government to break them up.
A monopoly can only be sustained long term if, like deBeers or comcast, the government gives them an exclusive license.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
There's nothing complicated about learning to fly a jumbo jet and then fly it into a building (times three). That was Osama Bin Laden's plan, and a lot simpler explanation then to believe thousands of demolition engineers wired the buildings with TNT, rented some planes, flew them into buildings, set off the explosives, and nobody saw them do it..... or none of them felt guilty about what they did, and talked.
Only a complete nutter would believe the latter explanation to be true
.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Still have no clue what you're trying to say. Your thoughts jump randomly without coherence. In paragraph 2 how did you jump from BP's drilling plan to the US Government's cleanup plan, to Obama's pressure, and then British citizens opinions. Huh?
My question was rather simple: The US Government had a plan to deal with oil spills (corral the oil and then set fire to it). Why did the USG not implement the plan immediately? You didn't answer it.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
ah well. I do not see where I talked about a "US government cleanup plan" I did talk about some paperwork BP had to file with the feds to demonstrate they could cleanup this sort of thing. So I guess this is a BP plan.
As far as jumping randomly, incoherently, I guess you should go back to your sound bites.
As far as some coast guard plan not being implemented, probably because Obama has left BP in charge. I suspect we would agree this was yet another bad Obama behavior but asking "why" invites more complexity than I think you tolerate well. But I am sure it is SEUI's fault.
I'm complaining about the idiot that seemed to be stating worries about price fixing were crazy conspiracy nutter things. Concerns about price fixing in the oil market are real.
Is it in the US that you regularly let enormous amounts of food rot because you can't dump it on the market?
Well, it certainly happens in Europe all the time. And the governments run and organise it. The governments. Not the farmers, but the state officials and administrators.
Foodstuffs for which there exists an active futures market, so precisely the same effect applies. And the justifications for restricting supply is identical.
Consolidations in the auto industry? Shutting down of plants? "ZOMG ALL PLANTS SHOULD PRODUCE AT MAXIMUM CAPACITY OR ITS MANIPULATION"
Yes, it is manipulation. The reason why it is done in the oils market is that storage capacity is limited, demand is quite stable, while supply is _not_ always stable, and storage is limited - which means that, if people demand 100,000 barrels of oil a day and you come supply them with 120,000, nobody would buy the remaining 20,000 unless you practically gave it away. I believe at certain times the gas price has been _negative_ for this reason - demand is stable and there is no available storage, so you actually _pay_ whoever can take gas off your hands with a spare rubber balloon to take it away.
This is not somehow "breaking the model", only your internal model, which doesn't describe either how the world works or how it should work. Things done this way works well. If things were not done this way they wouldn't do well. That is all the justification that needs to be given.
Many of them aren't even people, they are Floridians.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Wow. Someone doesn't know how to admit when they're wrong.
Surface oil will also turn into a tar ball. Tar balls become inert ...
What's the big deal here? Just use tar -xvf and be on your way.
it will be ready for use in 10 years?
In short, EVERYTHING you learned in economics 101 does NOT apply to oil/diamonds. Period.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_collusion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coercive_monopoly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collusion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopolistic_competition
What you are describing is collusion and coercive monopoly pricing. You were saying I didnt learn this in econ 101? No I didnt it was Econ 252.
In a market where all the players collude to fix the price will end up acting like a monopoly and simple equilibrium linear algebra to figure out the proper output for everyone with a given price/growth target.
Once the crude oil is separated from the sea water and digested by the bacteria the by product is a solution that looks and tastes like fermented hops and barley. This solution also has the property to make any woman look like Lady GaGa to male humans.
Well...if we are going to fantasize...why not??
The stuff you learn in economics 101 (or for that matter any 101 type course), is never a complete picture of what's going on.
Supply and demand as taught in those kinds of courses is the same as the kinds of physics you get taught where everything is functionally behaving in a vacuum, except for some reason people understand that a ball won't behave exactly the way it does in the formulas when you throw it but they presume that the market will.
So you're saying, we're cool here? I mean is that why BP is just making half-assed quarter-baked efforts at stopping this, because it's nbd?
Cool. So we're cool, right?
All other offers of help from outside of the USA, notably Belgium and other European countries, have been turned down by the Administration because of the Jones Act
Another example: Internet Explorer.
Actually the government had its hand in that correction - at least somewhat.
I completely agree with you. The difference here is, after you learn the world doesn't exist in a vacuum, you still know absolutely nothing about how the economics of oil/diamonds work; at least not based on traditional economics. Excluding products such as those, at least both before and after your "vacuum realization", you had some vague understanding of the economies around you. Which is, after all, entirely the point of why they are taught.
You know, because natural monopolies never form in the absence of government regulation...
Oh man, I thought they were gonna sacrifice Justin Bieber and send him out on a raft to the leak.
The bacteria in question grows on a sort of tuber plant from Central America known as a Tatta. The way it works is you thinly slice the Tattas and deposit them in the area of the oil spill. Then, as a catalyst you set the oil on fire. The Tattas then suck up the oil and fry crispy crunchie golden and can be served with tomato sauce, or soggy peas.
AND AS I SAID, if price-fixing was happening the government would already be suing Exoon, BP, or whoever else is responsible
.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
He sounds like a knee-jerk Fox News watcher and Rush Limbaugh listener, or owns stock in a company that is forced to comply with environmental regulation. Before the Clean Air act you literally could not drive past a Monsanto plant with your windows rolled down; the air was so toxic it burned your lungs.
Free Martian Whores!
Great Read, keep in mind that diamonds and oil arent the only, break and other wheats are in the circle of bullshit.
Farmers are paid more to not grow all they can.
Awesome, America. Awesome.
This well was going to produce at something like 0.1% of U.S. consumption, that is enough to impact prices some, but it isn't enough to send futures into a shitstorm, it is certainly less of an issue than increasing Chinese consumption.
And yet BP was punished some $85 billion. You seem to falsely believe the price of oil is related to actual events. They usually are not. In fact, just about any excuse, no matter how stupid or irrelevant is typically used to drive prices drastically up. That's entirely the point of my previous post.
Woosh...
Apparently that oil well had not previously produced oil for sale,
Oil prices are set based on speculative futures. In other words, normally people would say, opps - that means less oil coming to market down the road so the price needs to jump - and it does. Odd that it didn't do what it has always done in this case.
It's not clear to me whether you think this oil spill should affect the price of oil because it is slowing down the speed with which it becomes a useable well, or because the worldwide supply of oil is being reduced by this wastage. If it's the latter, it should be pointed out that the amount of oil lost that would ruin the environment is much less than the amount of oil lost that would make a substantial difference in world supply. if it's the former, than we'd have to know A. when this well was going to be ready to produce oil for the market, B. how this spill impacted that planned date, and C. what other oil wells will be coming on line around that time.
It seems like you don't know any of those things, but you're using it as a basis to complain about markets. You're probably right that oil markets are messed up, but maybe you should find another illustration of that since this has so many unknowns.
But your entire post is wrong. Sure, there is plenty of manipulation on the supply side, but there isn't all that much on the demand side (perhaps industry lobbying against high fuel taxes counts there, but that is hardly in keeping with your claim that prices are always manipulated up), so prices can only go so high before people walk away.
As far as BP being punished $85 billion dollars, that is because of concerns about liability, not because they are seeing a big drop in production.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Bullshit. Period.
In a world where Exxon has yet to pay for its cleanup, liability caps, exposure for BP, contrary to media hype, is bullshit.
Yeah, because the Valdez spill was just as visible to the public and directly impacted just as many people. They are exactly the same.
As I said, concerns. The big debate today is whether BP will disburse their usual quarterly dividend.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Shout all you want.
You first said worries of price fixing were along the lines of nutter conspiracy theories. When it was pointed out you were entirely wrong, suddenly you said the government would sue and fix everything. No admission you were totally wrong about what is and is not a valid concern vs crazed conspiracy theory.
Now you spout off that if price fixing was happening the government would already be suing the gas cartel. Here's another nugget you don't get. Proving those cases is hard without an insider willing to be a whistle blower. They can be doing all sorts of price fixing, with no provable case if they are smart and keep things quiet.
You are very much out of touch with reality.
True enough.
I just get frustrated by the number of people who believe they understand everything because they understand supply and demand.
This oil spill won't put a dent in what a big oil company will lose in profits or affect the price of gasoline. The amount of oil lost is a drop in the bucket to the company or none at all, because it wasn't producing oil in the first place. The real impact will be felt by the ecology of the ocean and the creatures that live in it and on its shores nearby. And the economic impact it will have will be personal to those that lose their livelihoods that were earned from having clean ocean beaches for tourists to visit, homes to live in and the fishermen that harvested seafood.
Don't beat up on OPEC too much they were just following the US model. Before OPEC we had the Railroad Commission of Texas that did the same thing but just to the US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_Commission_of_Texas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC