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Another Gulf Oil Rig Explodes

A few readers have noted that another gulf oil rig has exploded. This one is off the coast of Lousiana. So far all the workers are accounted for, but they are in immersion suits waiting for rescue.

13 of 423 comments (clear)

  1. Maybe by moogied · · Score: 5, Insightful

    JUST MAYBE, we should look into this stuff.. I know, it happens off of the land so "civilians" are safe, but I am about 99% sure when big metal buildings *EXPLODE*, something is wrong. Once in a year? Extremely bad. Twice in a year? Something is broken.

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    1. Re:Maybe by dkleinsc · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Maybe, just maybe, safety standards for places like mines and oil rigs go down when the people appointed to head the inspection agencies for mines and oil rigs were former executives for mine and oil companies. And even if a new guy gets in charge, it can take a long time before their changes take any effect.

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    2. Re:Maybe by RobVB · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There's a difference between malfunctioning alarms and very sensitive alarms. If there's a tiny little problem that could turn into something (even remotely) potentially catastrophic, it needs to be fixed. If people ignore it, that's because of a bad safety policy or being dangerously understaffed. Both of these are easily fixed if capable people are in charge, and both of these are inexcusable in this kind of environment.

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    3. Re:Maybe by suomynonAyletamitlU · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Hell, there are so many sensors and so strict procedures in place that alarms go off like mad if there is even a tiny leak somewhere...

      ...And you don't think that could be part of the problem? Whenever alarms sound for tiny little problems, people grow deaf to them.

      Only if they're not required to fix every one of them.

      If the system is that sensitive, they're probably supposed to be, or they may actually be, fixing something every time an alarm goes off.

      You know, in order to prevent explosions.

      Just sayin'.

    4. Re:Maybe by nacturation · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Hell, there are so many sensors and so strict procedures in place that alarms go off like mad if there is even a tiny leak somewhere...

      ...And you don't think that could be part of the problem? Whenever alarms sound for tiny little problems, people grow deaf to them.

      Only if those tiny little alarms happen quite a lot, and when no action is taken as a result. If you get a tiny little alarm once a week which is responded to promptly, professionally, and in such a manner that the alarm is silenced because the problem was properly fixed according to the strict procedures... I can't see how that would be an issue.

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    5. Re:Maybe by ultranova · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, it's dangerous work.

      No, it's not. The only way to get oil to explode is to vaporize it, mix it with air in the exact right concentration, and then set it on fire - and forget the movies, a cigarette is not going to do it; your car needs a spark of 20,000+ volts for reliable inginiton, and it's using a near-optimal concentration of fuel vapor, and that's easily-burning gasoline vapor, not crude oil.

      Something is very wrong here.

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  2. Drilling Moratorium by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh yeah, that 6-month moratorium on deepwater drilling seems like an overreaction now...

  3. Re:Bah. by Abstrackt · · Score: 4, Insightful

    slashdot = stagnated

    Yeah, it's kinda funny how a news aggregator doesn't seem to post news before any other sites, isn't it?

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  4. Oil industry accidents are now 'newsworthy' by JohnnyKnoxville · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Remember after the massive earthquake in Haiti, the news started reporting earthquakes about once a week? Accidents and casualties are nothing new to the oil industry.

  5. Re:Fuck The Ecomaniacs by Nadaka · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Clean coal? I hate to tell you this... No, actually, I love to tell you this. Clean coal is a lie.

    You would get more energy out of coal if you were to filter the radioactive particles from it and use that in a nuclear reactor than if you had burned the coal normally.

    All that ash and coke, full of mercury, heavy metals and other toxic stuff has to go somewhere, It either goes in the air for us all to breath or it gets stored and eventually makes its way into our soil and water supply.

    CO2 sequestration can not work, you are talking about pumping billions of tons of gas underground into pockets in the rock. This has been shown to cause minor earthquakes, those earthquakes will eventually result in a blowout event, a blowout event will kill everyone in the area as the CO2 suffocates everyone, similar events happen all the time in Africa with natural CO2 sources.

    Nuclear? sure, but we need to reprocess waste instead of storing it, preferably inside the reactor.
    Solar? sure.
    Wind? Ok, but it is unreliable so you can't rely on it for than a relatively small amount of the grid power.
    Clean Coal? make me laugh.

  6. Re:Fuck The Ecomaniacs by Loki_1929 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's really not that much of a spin. The GP's point is completely correct. If self-described environmentalists (actually just anti-nuclear activists) hadn't scared the American public away from a nuclear-based energy policy with scientifically bankrupt scare tactics, the United States would rely far, far less on fossil fuels today (probably almost exclusively for cars by now) and the chances of oil rigs exploding would be lessened by the fact that there would be far less oil rigs in the first place.

    Not only that, but extracting oil from deep-water drill sites would probably not yet (if ever) be cost-effective for the prices wrought by demand and so the major Gulf spill of 2010 quite possibly would never have happened either.

    So while they're not directly to blame, it's not a huge stretch to draw a line between the lies and ignorant actions of past anti-nuclear activists and the environmental disasters happening all the time in our fossil fuel draining little world.

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    -- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
  7. no it's just people cutting corners to save cash by Joe+The+Dragon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    no it's just people cutting corners to save cash sometimes it's cheaper to pay on then death of a working then to pay the cash to make it safer it's time for some big time fines for doing that.

  8. Re:Bah. by couchslug · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Meh. Industrial accidents kil, maim, and injure thousands of people every year.

    There need be no conspiracy. Shit happens, sucks to be the victim, but that doesn't make it anything special.

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