Gulf Bacteria Quickly Digested Spilled Methane

masterwit writes "From an AAAS news release: 'Bacteria made quick work of the methane released by the Deepwater Horizon blowout, digesting most of the gas within the four months after its release, according to a new study published online at ScienceExpress.' This study, however, did not deal with other chemicals (oil) from the disaster's fallout. A glimpse of good news from the disaster's aftermath." Reader iamrmani points out a related article suggesting that things may be looking up for BP after the Presidential Commission said blame for the disaster should be shared with service contractors and government regulators.

Comments

Shared?

[Nemyst]

Yes, quite possibly. The regulators and contractors should be jailed for criminal negligence. That doesn't mean BP shouldn't be sued into oblivion, though. Let them be a lesson for all others and all that.

Too bad it doesn't even have a snowball's chance in hell of happening. Despite being called Beyond now, I'm sure the British government would file them in the "too big to fail" category.

Re:Shared?

[black3d]

The British government? This is a majority American-owned company. It was founded, and is still currently headquartered in Britain, but has been a mostly American company since it merged with Amoco (and really, was majority US owned by investors before that). The British government is far less affected by the success or failure of this company than the American government - so no, it's unlikely Obama or his successor will let it go under any time soon. As the fourth largest company in the world, it has revenues that make companies like General Motors look like they're trading in junk bonds.

Also, what's called "Beyond"? BP isn't. It's called BP. "Beyond Petroleum" is a marketing slogan - a tagline, if you will, indicating they're investing in more than just gasoline. Up until the Deepwater Horizon debacle, BP was considered one of the greenest petroleum companies, and had been making the most scientific advances in cleaner fuels and alternative fuels. It's received many acknowledgements and awards for this; Although of course all that work has now been nullified by the Deepwater incident, and pundits will undoubtedly view any future advances BP makes in ecological technologies as "trying to make up for Deepwater", despite their history in working to that goal.

Re:Shared?

[sumdumass]

Capitalism works, except that's not really what we are dealing with when it comes to oil. We have placed the regulations so high that it's virtually impossible for anyone to enter in meaningful way. There are 5 major oil companies that touch about every gallon of oil in the US before it's used, shipped off, refined or whatever else. Of those 5, no more then 4 operate in any one state at a time.

There might be some independent operators out there who pump small quantities of oil or transport it to the refineries, but that's about it. They all got purchased by the larger companies or went under.

I'm not even sure why we would need to dissolve any company anyways. As long as they are made to pay the costs of the cleanup, the costs of lost business or reputation to areas effected, and fines associated with their failures, all should be fine. I mean dissolving the company is not going to make those who were harmed, hole again. It's not going to make sure the gulf is cleaned up. In fact, it's going to explicitly slam the costs of the cleanup into the tax payers lap when we find out 20 years from now that something really got screwed up and they aren't making any revenue to cover their costs.

Dissolving the company is probably the last thing we would want to do right now or in the next couple of decades.

Re:Shared?

[thegarbz]

Dissolve into what? Break it up and sell it? Who would buy a company that requires such an incredible capital investment for small gains? Oil isn't a money making machine until you are THE oil company. The Deep Water Horizon is just one ship and it was worth $560million. It by itself also didn't drill the single well, multiple ships were needed for that. So already there's $billions of equipment needed just to put a hole in the ground and get oil out. If it was a license to print money everyone would be doing it. If you dissolve the company you'd be hard pressed finding a buyer. The economy won't simply gobble up what is left.

BP have an asset base worth more than many countries. They have product stored in oil tanks simply waiting for refining and shipping worth more than many countries. You want to dissolve the company? Go ahead and try. Some companies REALLY are too big to fail. E.g. The gulf of mexico has cost BP some $56bn so far. Yet 4th quarter revenue was .... $74bn. That $20bn escrow fund they set up? Paid for simply by not paying dividends to shareholders and selling two small assets.

Re:Shared?

[thegarbz]

BP was never called "Beyond Petroleum". That was simply their marketing slogan. BP was British Petroleum until they bought Amoco after which they became simply "BP". Also BP is as much an US company as it is a UK company. The stock holdings are equal, though a far larger number of key rich investors come from American, and the UK has a larger number of institutional investors.

Re:Shared?

[interkin3tic]

and pundits will undoubtedly view any future advances BP makes in ecological technologies as "trying to make up for Deepwater", despite their history in working to that goal.

I consider myself open minded, but I have a hard time thinking of a petroleum company as legitimately green. I'd be willing to believe they were the most serious about greenwashing... oh, and hey, that wiki article happens to mention BP spent 200 million on an -advertising- campaign to bill themselves as greener, winning a "Greenwash Academy Award" in the process.

I'd say it's actually naive to say that pundits will write any future "advances" from BP off as trying to make up for deepwater. I certainly hope they do. After all, they have a f***ing lot to make up for. I'd admire BP slightly if they came out and explicitly said "We're trying to make up for the damage we've done."

Re:Shared?

[interkin3tic]

... to clarify, by "that wiki article" I meant this wiki article on greenwashing.

Re:Shared?

[DeathElk]

The examples you provide in your last paragraph are proof that BP should be investing far far more in the clean up effort.

Re:Shared?

[Cyberax]

"Capitalism works, except that's not really what we are dealing with when it comes to oil. We have placed the regulations so high that it's virtually impossible for anyone to enter in meaningful way. There are 5 major oil companies that touch about every gallon of oil in the US before it's used, shipped off, refined or whatever else. Of those 5, no more then 4 operate in any one state at a time."

Come on. Suppose that you remove ALL regulations. What would happen next? Of course, nothing. Because oil mining is EXPENSIVE and there's just not a lot of it in the USA.

Re:Shared?

[kevinNCSU]

why again dont we dissolve company's that screw up this badly, wouldn't the hole in the market help the economy as alot of people try to fill it, or does capitalism not work?

Capitalism in fact does "not work" (help the economy) by definition when you practice the exact opposite of capitalism as you suggest (forcefully dissolving a company by government mandate). But then that's kind of like putting your laundry in your oven and complaining that it doesn't work right at all, it just burns things!

Re:Shared?

[dkleinsc]

Capitalism works

Well, sorta works. If you mean that a free market always produces economically optimal results, you're dead wrong - there are many well-known reasons why it won't, most of them related to externalities.

Re:Shared?

[Lifyre]

It works but any time you throw a rock into a pond you get ripples. Big enough rock gets you a tsunami...

Re:Shared?

[digit1001]

BP is not a majority US owned company. In fact, large numbers of UK pensions have been invested in the company. Whether it's too big to fail or not is another issue... http://www.bp.com/extendedsectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9010453&contentId=7019612

Re:Shared?

[sumdumass]

Well, that's only true after the regulations made it that expensive. You are looking at a chicken and egg issue here.

And no, I didn't say removing all the regulation would change anything. I said that was the reality we are in. I purposed nothing as a solution to it and don't really care to. We are not really dealing with capitalism when it comes to oil.

Re:Shared?

[sumdumass]

Man, I wish people would put the Externalities into perspective. They bring this up as if it's some magic bullet against what they don't like. The problem is that you can define anything as an externality and completely miss the benefit of it at the same time.

When there is a real externality, all that happens is the population trades dangers for cheaper products. And it's generally a small portion of the population to boot. Externalities are not a bad thing. It's just a club some people want to use on ideas they don't agree with because of whatever brainwashing they received to grab that ideal. This can be seen as people want to classify Co2 as an externality without any proof of any negative consequences from those actions.

Re:Shared?

[dkleinsc]

A most basic example: Let's say we're neighbors in a fairly rural area. Because it's a rural area, we both get our water from wells.

Now I make a deal with a waste management company to put a landfill on my property, in an area that is right next to your property. I profit nicely from the deal, and have made the decision that I'd rather have the landfill (along with the smell, need for bottled drinking water, etc) and the money than not.

However, you had no part of that transaction, and made no decision about it. You too have to deal with the drawbacks of living next to a landfill, but unlike me, you didn't get any money for that, and didn't have the power to refuse the transaction. Since there's a cost you paid for the decision of me and the waste management company, we're effectively stealing from you.

Externalities definitely aren't just a figment of liberal economist's imagination. There's disagreement over how common they are and how much of a difference it makes, but there's no question they exist.

Re:Shared?

[h4rr4r]

What you mean is it is only expensive because you can't pollute my drinking water to do it.

Just so you are aware capitalism requires regulation, go read a book.

Re:Shared?

[sumdumass]

That's nice and all except it's fallacious.

You see, land fills are already regulated by the EPA and state authority pannels that have to at minimum comply with federal EPA regulation standards. A hydrological study would need to be done well before the landfill went into place to avoid ground water contamination in wells and the sorts. Furthermore, the landfill is not in any way shape or form exempt from any damages it might cause with respect to the degradation of your property or it's usability. Again, the EPA and most notably, zoning regulation sets limits for smell and other stuff. And any property use claims are settled before the landfil goes into operation.

There is a landfill near some property I farm. It expanded and ended up purchasing all the land in a 5 mile radius from the landfill's boundaries. It then had to go through a court process to determine the amounts it was liable to the people who didn't want to sell to it. People closer got 125% or the market value plus kept the land, people further away got 50% of market value and kept their land. This is all part of the approval process.

Another situation, I have a hog farm that's been in existence for 70+ years. It's a small operation generally focused on FFA and Four H students, giving them an opportunity they might not otherwise have to gain experience with farming and animals, but there are still come smells created by it. A neighbor sold some of his land for commercial development and somewhere down the line, it got rezoned for residential development. We didn't think anything of this and didn't contest it. So people built high dollar houses downwind of a hog farming operation, probably completely ignorant of the fact it was there (swindled by their Real estate Agent), and all the sudden, it's an externalized costs that equipment and procedures costing millions of dollars more then the any imaginable profit could be made from raising the hogs is the demand to keep them happy.

And it's not like we aren't already practicing industrially normal processes in dealing with this. They claim the smell degrades the value of their property. Well it's impossible to do so because the smell was there before and when they purchased it and it's all within perfectly acceptable EPA limits. Yet they are claiming externalizations and want to shut the operation down in order to improve their property values. You tell me that isn't a conspiracy?

Re:Shared?

[sumdumass]

Dude, calm the fuck down and pay attention to what you are reading. Stop assigning values which have not been expressed because of your own biases.

First, I never said a damn thing about polluting drinking water nor did I ever say that Capitalism didn't require regulation. Where in the hell did you even imagine that from what I said.

Second, acknowledging that over regulation has created a problem where competition cannot enter the market is not in any way shape or form a claim that regulation is bad or that it should be gotten rid of. It's nothing except an acknowledgment of the realities we are seeing. I mean fuck, we are talking about a deep water oil spill because regulation has prevented proven resources from being extracted in shallower waters so they started looking in deeper waters. How you equate the complexities added on to drilling for oil by locking safer and more accessible resources out of the game to wanting to pollute your drinking water is beyond me.

go read a book.

Why don't you read what you are replying to before showing the world how much of a fucking idiot you are instead.

Re:Shared?

[dkleinsc]

You see, land fills are already regulated by the EPA and state authority panels that have to at minimum comply with federal EPA regulation standards.

Those regulations exist because in the absence of those regulations, the exact problems I described happen.

Re:Shared?

[h4rr4r]

Over regulation?

To me the BP incident shows a lack of regulation. The fact that they had no working safety equipment and took months to close the well says that already.

Re:Shared?

[VolciMaster]

As the fourth largest company in the world, it has revenues that make companies like General Motors look like they're trading in junk bonds.

GM is owned (more-or-less) by the US gov't (and therefore, the citizens). So they ARE trading in junk bonds...

Re:Shared?

[sumdumass]

Let me fix this for you.

To me the BP incident shows a lack of regulation "enforcement". The fact that they had no working safety equipment and took months to close the well says that already.

Existing regulation and industry standards should have prevented the BP incident and/or reduced it's over all impact if the regulations and standards were followed.

In order for any regulation to be effective in any way, it needs to be enforced. Stacking more regulation on top of regulation when none of it is enforced or followed is nothing more then a feel good empty gesture,

Re:Shared?

[sumdumass]

Lol.. Then it's not an externalization right now is it?

The problem I have with externalized theory spouted isn't the real and adverse effects that are regulated. The regulation stops the externalizing when it's dangerous or degrades the value of someone's property for the most part. It's the all the sudden something that's in existence and the norm becoming something bad, then the claim that X product could compete if Y industry had to pay for what they externalize. This is nothing more then a shell game to transfer wealth or market share.

In my situation with the hog farm, it's people who purchased land cheap claiming they didn't know why and now want to take my property rights away in order to increase the value of their land. And if the land would have remained commercial like it was intended in the first place as a condition of sale, there wouldn't have been any problem at all.

Re:Shared?

[thegarbz]

... They have a continued operation arm dedicated to the long term restoration of the Gulf. They have pumped more than 20 times the amount of money into this spill than was spent on the Valdez, and this spill has had a small fraction of the equivalent ecological footprint due to the location of the spill (in waters teeming with bacteria) and the type of oil (very light sweet crude with a high gas proportion).

The spill response was unprecedented in any way, as was the long term support strategy. I think it's time that YOU gave them a little credit for what they are currently trying to do.

Re:Shared?

[jafac]

BP used to operate under "APOC". If you want to know about the sordid history of this company, look up "Operation Ajax". This was the company largely behind the one event that history can consider to be the most primal cause of the Iranian revolution, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Iran-Iraq war, the first Gulf War, most likely 9/11, and our current ongoing involvements in Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan.

If the United States Government had mainly just minded its own business, in 1953, and operated in the best interests of its citizens, instead of foreign-owned oil companies, many of these horrible events (and associated tragic costs and consequences) may likely not have come to pass.

BP has much to "make up for" and Deepwater doesn't even really scratch the surface.

Re:Shared?

[Cyberax]

That's stupid.

First, there are countries without any regulation at all (Nigeria), and yet costs of oil mining is almost the same there.

Second, oil business is actually quite competitive. You only see big corporations, but up close these corporations are not monolithic. They lease equipment and subcontract a lot of work and there are tons of small companies owning several oil rigs.

Third, there's just not enough oil left. There's just not enough capital (mining platforms, engineers, oil fields) to mine significantly more oil. So your 'free market' unregulated companies will still have to drill deep into the ocean floor, oil won't just magically appear back in Texas in unlimited quantities.

Sure, it got the gas.

[intellitech]

But how about that oil?

Re:Sure, it got the gas.

[Mashiki]

Different bacteria, but it does eat oil as well breaking it down into other hydrocarbons which are eaten by other bacteria and all that. It's one of those funky things that have been going on there since the giant chunk of rock slammed into us and caused the last mass-extinction.

Re:Sure, it got the gas.

[icebike]

Several news reports indicated that much if not most of the oil was digested by bacteria.

Some doubt this but nobody has been able to map plumes big enough to account for anywhere near the amount oil that was claimed to have been released. Not even close.

The oil was broken up into fine mist in the gulf which exposed the maximum amount of surface of each oil droplet, allowing for a rapid bloom of oil eating bacteria. In this region, (unlike some other spill zones) these bacteria are always around because there are always natural oil seeps in the gulf.

So how marine life is affected over the long term is yet to be determined. There may well be disperse clouds of oil affecting deep marine life which won't show up for several years.

Re:Sure, it got the gas.

[masterwit]

Last sentence of first article:

The study did not explore what effect microbes may have had on the oil from the spill.

But you do have a point. But it also may be speculated that methane in it's raw form is much easier to "digest" for the bacteria or than say oil. (But really I am not that quite informed here just what I have heard.)

Re:Sure, it got the gas.

[rtb61]

Reality "most of the methane released" LIE, most of the methane released that was deposited on the sea floor in close proximity to the blow out. So misleading science right of the get go, simple logic, the rig blew up because of a blow out ie, a large volume of methane gas escaped from the well head, rose to the surface caught fire and exploded.

So did amphibious bacteria consume the methane the rose from the sea floor and escape to the atmosphere, logically the majority of the methane released (as the rig would never have exploded if that were no true}, no. So misleading science created to generate an illusion of the environment cleaning the oil blow out rather than the truth of the environment being damaged for decades to come by the oil blow out.

So marketing science or better know as junk science paid for by corporation as a misleading exercise in marketing.

Re:Sure, it got the gas.

[Anonymous Coward]

Haters gotta hate. Ever occur to you that the weeks it took to seal it might have leaked magnitudes more than the relatively tiny amount involved in the explosion? Who to believe, a scientist or wild speculation from a random slashdotter?

Re:Sure, it got the gas.

[daem0n1x]

I, for one, welcome our new microscopic, fart-eating overlords.

Re:Sure, it got the gas.

[icebike]

Well true, the populations do crash.

But perhaps the natural oil seeps that are known to occur in the gulf (even before the first oil well was ever drilled) are enough to keep them alive.

Sadly, such was not the case in Prince William Sound, where there no such natural growths and the water was too cold.

There are often news stories about seeding these populations at other spill sites.

"Our" Fault?

[black6host]

"after the Presidential Commission said blame for the disaster should be shared with service contractors and government regulators."

I say "our" because the government represents us all, or should anyways, that's a subject for a different debate. I'm sorry, we don't share in their profits, we should not be responsible for their mistakes. In my opinion, regulation is desired in cases such as this, but not to share blame, only as an additional protective measure. Yes, we may have failed at that (don't get me going on the bullshit that went on previously with the regulators and oil industry, nor the complete lack of review of the plan should a disaster happen, haven't seen any sea lions lately down here in the Gulf area) but the responsibility for safety rests squarely on those that are conducting the drilling and reaping the profits. Well, at least they would have if they had not screwed up so royally.

Re:"Our" Fault?

[tnk1]

Well, I agree with you there that the ultimate responsibility is those who stand to profit.

On the other hand, regulators do get paid to do this work. It is not really "our" fault they failed to do their job, it's the fault of the regulatory bureaucracy that we have hired to do it. Trust me, the regulators aren't starving civil servants who do it just because they are looking out for our interests. They get decent pay and very good benefits. The only part of it that is "ours" is the dime they they are getting their benefits on.

Again, not looking to deflect blame here, but if our regulators are asleep at the wheel, or worse, getting too chummy with their subjects, they need to be given a serious reprimand.

For now, we need oil and we have to have both corporations and regulators who will make sure it is obtained in the least hazardous way possible. There is surely more than enough blame to go around on this particular issue.

Re:"Our" Fault?

[afidel]

Well, the MMS was f'd up beyond all belief and one simple rule that the Canadians require would have made the response take weeks instead of months, require the relief well be drilled in parallel with the main bore. That simple regulation would have meant a small portable rig would have been all that was needed to finish off the kill shot. If you think that ANY company will take safety more seriously than the cost of f'ing up then I have news for you, that's not how capitalism works which is why we need strong regulations despite what crazy folks want.

Re:"Our" Fault?

[clarkkent09]

Safety laws covering any particular industry typically get written by that industry itself, or rather by the large players with the biggest pull in Washington. Who else has the knowledge necessary to write that regulation, random civil servants, or the Congressmen? If you were going to have experts on every detail of every industry that the government regulates in Washington you would need couple of more Washingtons to house them all. There are no two opposing sides here, there is only one side. That's why BP will get away with hardly any punishment, and will even get most of the compensation fund that it already paid back with interest. Competition and tort laws are what make companies behave, not the government.

Re:"Our" Fault?

[DRJlaw]

I'm sorry, we don't share in their profits, we should not be responsible for their mistakes.

Ignoring the lease fees on the area that were paid to the U.S. government, the Minerals Management Service royalties that were to be paid to the U.S. government for oil produced from that area, the income taxes derived from the revenue generated from that area... oh, and the fines to be collected by the U.S. government in addition to cleanup costs and the damage fund.

[R]egulation is desired in cases such as this, but not to share blame, only as an additional protective measure.

Compliance with government regulations is evidence that you have not been acting negligently. Not conclusively so, but still relevant to the overall determination. It could also be evidence that risks were not foreseeable by reasonable people in that field. Again, not conclusively so, since governmental regulation can lag progress in a field. I raise this primarily with regard to my next point, since I think that you could easily argue that oil production is an inherently dangerous activity (unlike ordinary cases where someone complies with government regulations, like compliance with governmental automobile design safety standards), which would negate these mitigating factors under a common law approach to tort liability.

[R]esponsibility for safety rests squarely on those that are conducting the drilling and reaping the profits.

No, to the extent that you're suggesting that it rests only on those that are conducting the drilling. Governmental authorities bear a responsibility for safety in any activity that they actively regulate or police. Failures to ensure safety are theirs as well, and they must be held accountable for those failures. Your very explicit association of blame only with financial responsibility is where you fail.

Re:"Our" Fault?

[AfroTrance]

but the responsibility for safety rests squarely on those that are conducting the drilling and reaping the profits..

The government profits from companies exploiting resources in your country. Or at least it should be, I don't know US tax laws. But in pretty much every country, if you mine metals or drill for gas/oil, you pay the government money for the right to do so. (Separate from corporate tax, payroll tax, tariffs, goods and services tax, etc.)

Re:"Our" Fault?

[mmortal03]

If you count "our" share of their profits in the form of federal tax revenue, you'd think "we'd" be able to put it to good use and effectively regulate them... right?

Re:"Our" Fault?

[thegarbz]

Actually companies weigh this all on a risk basis. This is fundamental to every operational institution and the risk is always monetized. You can bet your bottom dollar if someone predicted that the well would blowout that millions would have been spent on a relief well being drilled as well. However the key failing is that the risk that was initially estimated was not updated based on operating conditions thanks to low level management.

You think the message that the well had fractured during drilling was fed back up to the CEO? I think it would have been filed somewhere in a log and the risk graphs not updated. You think the fact that the correct centralisers couldn't be sourced was fed back up to the CEO who does these risk calculations? In reality it was signed off by some engineer not even anywhere near as high as the plant manager.

No company in their right mind would knowingly accept the risk of the well. The problem is this occurred during normal operation. Before the well fractured the risk was low. When it fractured it was slightly higher, when maintenance was not performed on the BOP it was higher again. The risk continued to climb due to failure of maintenance of the Horizon's equipment, then again when Halliburton used a cement that even they thought wouldn't hold the well. THEN AGAIN when they pumped the drilling mud out.

None of these individual decisions would have caused a blow-out, and thus none get passed onto higher up. If you OSHA fining your plant daily, that gets reported to the top. If you have a major single safety breach that gets reported to the top. The top then make the financial and risk decisions based on this information. But if you have a long train of small things go wrong then it wouldn't ever appear on any risk graph. You can run the safest plant in the world, however at midnight an emergency shutdown valve could be playing up resulting in one entrepreneurial operator putting a cable tie around the reset switch on the valve. The defeated ESD system could then fail to act in an incident and kill everyone on site. The papers and the masses would still ultimately crucify the company for it's safety practices despite the best intentions of the CEO.

Re:"Our" Fault?

[afidel]

BP has a corporate culture of not paying enough attention to detail or properly maintaining equipment, its squeeze every penny out this quarter (like so many short sighted businesses). Texas city wasn't some freak accident and neither was deep water horizon, they are endemic to the BP corporate culture and things weren't going to change until something expensive enough got their attention.

Re:"Our" Fault?

[pinkushun]

As consumers, we create a demand.
As a government, there is a need to fulfill that demand.
As humans, we should be aware of what risks and impact our demands have on our world.
Looks like a mutated "Project Triangle" in action.
i.e. if there are degrees of culpability, we who use oil and fuel, are not 100% guilt free

Re:"Our" Fault?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, will you stop with the "one simple rule that the Canadians require"? This myth started during the BP disaster and has persisted, but it's completely false. Canadian jurisdictions do not require "relief wells to be drilled in parallel with the main bore". In fact, I don't know of any jurisdiction in the world that requires that.

Two blowouts have occurred in the offshore areas of Canada in the vicinity of Sable Island, offshore Nova Scotia. They happened back in the 1980s. One of them required a relief well to be drilled to bring it fully under control but had no significant release into the environment (it was mainly a sub-surface blowout), the other did not (was handled on board the initial rig). Both involved natural gas wells, and therefore had minimal environmental impact. Sable Island is a very fragile, protected area. The effect from the one with the release was hardly noticeable there because of favorable winds, and the very light oil/condensate associated with the blowout quickly broke down naturally (it was ~1500 barrels). The nature of the oil and/or gas and the amount makes a big difference in terms of environmental impact. Anyway, no parallel relief wells were required to be drilled then, no parallel relief wells are required now.

What is being considered in Canada is a regulation along those lines only in the Canadian Arctic because in that location the seasonal sea ice dictates that if a blowout occurred, it might be a full season before equipment could be moved into the area to drill a relief well (i.e. another rig). And it's only one idea under consideration for dealing with the special conditions in the Arctic Ocean. Other options exist and are also being considered.

Drilling a parallel relief well wouldn't be a panacea anyway. There are risks drilling any well, and the relief well could experience a blowout too.

Re:"Our" Fault?

[khallow]

It is the only sane position to take, that gov't should NEVER EVER be in any insurance business.

Keep in mind that it is commonly accepted that government should be the insurer of last resort. If government isn't playing that role, then who is? And what makes them not a government?

Re:"Our" Fault?

[thrich81]

I see your point in a legal and idealized way. However at least from a 'moral' (I know that is totally unenforceable) and perhaps a practical point of view, when the industry has "captured" their regulators (and given the scandals at the Mineral Management Service I can safely say that the oil industry had captured their regulators) then the industry again assumes full responsibility for their actions and screw-ups. Hiding behind regulations which the industry mostly wrote and then probably skirted when the regulators weren't looking doesn't cut it when the disaster occurs. As citizens we have an issue with the regulators who were our representatives on site, but under-resourced, incompetent and/or corrupt regulators and even inadequate regulations themselves do not absolve the industry one bit from their actions. They can't cry, "You didn't make us do it right!" Look at the law which legally limited liability to $75 million as an example that the industry controlled the regulations.

Re:"Our" Fault?

[khallow]

Obviously gov't made a point of instilling this into the heads of the crowd, that gov't is the lender of last resort.

I said insurer of last resort, not lender. There's been considerable deliberate conflating of the two, but they are different issues. We can think of genuine disasters or attacks that threaten the entire US, rather than merely the fools who put their money into bad investments.

Re:"Our" Fault?

[couchslug]

"Actually companies weigh this all on a risk basis."

That doesn't mean that pressures don't influence their objectivity, since the primary objective for individuals in those companies is to make a buck and avoid jail.

They bear aggressive, adversarial watching.

Re:"Our" Fault?

[thegarbz]

For every example there is of course a counter example. During construction and commissioning of the new Reliance facility in India there was an average death of 1 person a week. Exxonmobil spill dwarfed the Gulf of Mexico last year in the Niger Delta but no one cared. Shell, Union Oil, they've all had major incidents that have killed many workers.

It's not so much a case of BP's corporate culture, but a case of the entire Oil and Gas industry. If you want a true unbiased example look at a book called "What Went Wrong" by Trevor Kletz. You will see every major oil and gas company is represented over and over again. The reality is BP is only being crucified as the flavour of the month.

Re:"Our" Fault?

[thegarbz]

Pressure and reward weighs in on the risk graph. I'm not giving them an excuse, I'm just pointing out basic economics.

Re:"Our" Fault?

[ZFox]

Drilling a parallel relief well wouldn't be a panacea anyway. There are risks drilling any well, and the relief well could experience a blowout too.

Just enact more regulation that requires an extra relief well be drilled for the original extra relief well. Don't worry about the dangers of that new well because this solution scales quite nicely to fix that, too.

No more paid reports!

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel that we should start rejecting all of these reports. These are always paid and never scientifically based.

There are an incredible amount of schools and student programs who we need to really educate how to do these tests. Let's have the top 10 universities along the gulf all do their own independent studies. Make them all take their own samples, use their own methods. Then we might have at least a somewhat impartial study.

Re:No more paid reports!

[dkleinsc]

But ... but ... how else can those with lots of cash but no scientific leg to stand on cover up their mistakes?

"...most of the gas..."

[TheDarkener]

It's nice to know that ScienceExpress is 'express' enough to not bother including any real data along with their story.

Yeah, I read most of the article...of course, if I were the typical slashbot, most=whatever the slashdot summary included (along with the sassy editorial at the end, making it ever so painfully obvious the submitter wants to steer the reader's opinion of the article..I mean, Fox News anchors are better at doing that, and they're horrible!)

Re:"...most of the gas..."

[masterwit]

If you look on the right side there is a link to the abstract but unfortunately it is behind a pay wall. For the most part these ScienceExpress articles will not publish data and frankly I find this fine since the full paper was not provided. Had they provided the full paper so we as readers could engage...well either way we all hate pay walls. (try debating facts when you don't have all the facts, we know how well those go...lol)

Is BP a good investment?

[Lord Byron II]

Before the spill, BP was trading at $60+/share. Today, they're at $45/share. I can't help but think that since they have already paid out most of the money that will have to and since they have settled most of the claims, and since the well is good and dead, that the stock price has to recover to it's previous levels. If you buy today at $45 and it recovers only to $60 in a year, then that's still a 33% return on investment, which is absolutely terrific, especially in a down economy. Any thoughts?

Re:Is BP a good investment?

[iknowcss]

My stacks of money do not make a good pillow :(

Re:Is BP a good investment?

[afidel]

No, because the previous stock price was a reflection of expected future value based significantly on the fact that BP was the biggest deep water driller in the world. Such drilling almost anywhere in the developed world now carries a significantly higher cost because of increased regulation and higher insurance costs (externalities are now actually incorporated in those costs) the stock is unlikely to recover to previous levels. The non-national oil companies are being sqeezed by the socialization of most of the major fields so increased costs in the available fields in the developed world is a significant change.

Re:Is BP a good investment?

[Strange Ranger]

"[BP is] a good buy but only if you don't feel bad investing in an evil industry whose 1 oil rig out of 10,000 has leaked thereby covering hundreds of innocent pelicans with oil! Hope you can sleep at night.

I'm not so sure?

Which company do you think will have the safest oil drilling practices and possibly a larger interest in alternative energies over the next 5 or 10 years?

Re:Is BP a good investment?

[beaker8000]

The 33% return you note is only capital gains (which is certainly a nice return). But I think the real sweetness is that prior to the spill BP paid an $0.84 quarterly dividend (BP was forced to stop paying it). If they reinstate the dividend at the same $0.84, BP's yield will be ($0.84*4)/$46.03 = 7.3%.

I think BP will reinstate its $0.84 dividend sometime in 2011. So if you buy now you can earn 7.3% per year (excluding capital gains) for the rest of your life. Not too bad in a world where the 30-year bond yields 4.5%.

Also keep in mind dividends are now taxed lower than interest. So on an after-tax basis (say at the 28% bracket) the difference is:

BP dividend: 7.3%*(1-0.15) = 6.21%
Treasury yield: 4.5%*(1-.28) = 3.24%

a little less than double the return.

Of course, if BP repeats itself......

Re:Is BP a good investment?

[Senes]

I'd have to say the answer is no. If you've been following the news; BP is shown to have a history of mistakes and negligence that is much worse than what seems to be the norm for the industry. Given their past, it would stand to reason that they're at above-average risk of another big disaster at any time.

Is investing your money a good idea? Sure. Is BP stock a wise choice? It's more of a gamble really.

Re:Is BP a good investment?

[thegarbz]

I'll sleep just fine at night after investing in a company that is building the largest solar power plant in Australia, the company who continually invests lots of money in renewable energies. How about a company which invested $200m in clean fuels orders of magnitude better than required by local regulations?

Oh and I don't like pelicans. Have you ever had one crap on your car? The shit stinks and is hard to get rid of.

Re:Is BP a good investment?

[thegarbz]

Yet since the Texas City incident in 2005 despite repeated fines by OSHA and lackluster safety performance the share prices continued a steady rise. Have faith my man. Short term trends definitely in the upwards direction for these shares.

Re:Is BP a good investment?

[thegarbz]

Though if you think that deep you also need to consider the expected future value of oil as resources tighten and deep water drilling becomes vastly more attractive, as does oil shale mining. The additional rules haven't stopped any of the 13 new wells being drilled. The bulk of all US oil exists in the deep waters in the gulf. Even if the short term government makes it unattractive to drill there in the long term either pressures will reduce the additional costs and regulation, or prices will rise once again making it an attractive undertaking.

On top of that BP's current share prices is barely at asset parity cost so it's really got no where to go but up.

Re:Is BP a good investment?

[phantomfive]

Based on the financials, they've had a drop in revenue, even without the special charges. I'm not sure they'll be able to make it back too easily.

If I were going to consider that more seriously, I would research to make sure that they really do have good prospects for the future (and that the industry has good prospects for the future!) I would start by looking on Google finance, look up BP stock, and look on the right where they have the news stories. Some of them are garbage but sometimes good analysis shows up there. It's a good place to start researching any new stock.

In short, you have what might be a good tip. I found some reasons that there may be problems with it, but really if you want to be sure you're going to have to do deeper research.

Re:Is BP a good investment?

[drainbramage]

Spotted Owl down.
Plus, they taste like chicken.

Shit

[gmuslera]

Maybe the leftovers of that digestion should worry us

Re:Shit

[blueg3]

Carbon dioxide? Probably, but not nearly as much as a bunch of methane.

"did not deal with other chemicals"

[AHuxley]

Almost Soviet in that way.
If its not measured, it does not exist. Feds can keep most of the tame press away. University funding can be shifted.
http://openchannel.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/12/27/5717367-is-dispersant-still-being-sprayed-in-the-gulf
Long term studies and samples then become lost in the mix of "persistent but unsubstantiated reports".

Re:"did not deal with other chemicals"

[pavon]

What are going on about? It was a single study concentrating on a single aspect of the spill. There were tons of other grants given to study the spill.

Hmm

[Psychotria]

I wonder if all those dead birds, fish and stuff that have been turning up ate the bacteria or ate something that ate the bacteria :D

Re:Hmm

[sznupi]

It has begun? ;)

Gulf Bacteria Quickly Digested, Spilled Methane.

[VortexCortex]

Who ate what? "Gulf Bacteria Quickly Digested, Spilled Methane." -- Yum... (poot!)

Anyhow, this isn't really surprising. I hear those Gulf Bacteria will eat anything, Even Flesh!

Well

[kitsunewarlock]

This makes perfect sense. Natural oil leaks occur quite often. But they are usually less concentrated and in lower volumes at any single point in time and space than an artificial oil leak such as at the gulf. But, nevertheless, nature has mechanisms in place that can deal with oil. Many of them don't work in spills of this magnitude, but many others will, over time, do more than we projected. The other problem that the article doesn't mention, however, is the ecosystem unbalance caused by the increase of the particular chemicals that creatures (usually bacteria) devour in that given area. While I'm sure the food-chain will eventually work its magic and all will be well and good again, it is a startling upset to the balance of nature when predators (fish) suddenly die out at the same time prey (the bacteria) begin to flourish.

Re:Well

[sznupi]

And since nature doesn't so much care about mechanisms to "deal with oil" as with simply finding new equilibrium - some scenarios can be more fun than others.

Re:Shared? (More then one crook)

[Required Snark]

So there were multiple parties at fault. So what? If one person robs a bank, is it a lessor crime then if multiple people rob a bank? In some cases more people means extra charges for conspiracy. I think that there is more then enough guilt and responsibility to go around for all the bad behavior.

As for lax government oversight, it's a red herring. (Pun intended.) When there was lax oversight of poultry farmers in the midwest and as a result people got sick from bacteria, the farmers couldn't say "You ignored our bad behavior, so we don't have to pay a fine." They go nailed anyway, it just took longer.

Following up on useless oversight MMS (Mineral Management Services). http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/us/25mms.html

Federal regulators responsible for oversight of drilling in the Gulf of Mexico allowed industry officials several years ago to fill in their own inspection reports in pencil — and then turned them over to the regulators, who traced over them in pen before submitting the reports to the agency, according to an inspector general’s report to be released this week. The report said that investigators "could not discern if any fraudulent alterations were present on these forms."

Note that this is completely separate from the sex and drug scandal at the MMS that came to light in 2008: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/washington/11royalty.html

So how did this oversight failure happen? It was a product of the Bush administration's conscious sabotage of regulation when they were in control. They appointed "pro-business" officials who had a policy of letting business get away with everything up to and including murder. Remember that people died on that oil rig.

So far, all that has happened is that MMS people have quit or been fired. There have been lots of investigations but no one has been charged with anything.

The Obama administration seems to be serious about reinstating meaningful regulation, but now with the Republicans in control of the House that might not happen. Congressman Darrell Issa is asking businesses what government regulations they want eliminated (also known as soliciting bribes) http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/05/business/la-fi-issa-business-20110105. So if you like getting sick from bad food or big environmental disasters then you may be in luck.

Temperature

[rcpitt]

Of course the only major difference (in light of this finding) between the Gulf spill and the Exxon Valdez

was the temperature of the water

Hence forth, all major petroleum spills are limited to warm climates

Take that, Canada - no drilling in the Arctic!!!

Re:Temperature

[flyingkillerrobots]

I second that. Look at the wikipedia page on the Ixtoc I oil spill, under "long term effects." While the article tries to make it sound like the long term effects were utterlty disastrous, there isn't a single effect mentioned there that lasted more than 10 years.

Re:Temperature

[flyingkillerrobots]

Messed up the link

Re:Bacteria is a normal cleanup agent

[DeathElk]

Bargain deals on Astro Turf, cover those factual inconveniences quickly and cleanly. Ring now, 1800-TURF

Re:Bacteria is a normal cleanup agent

[Fantastic Lad]

Bullshit. Are you evil, insane or just ignorant?

Ten years after the spill in 1999, the beaches appeared clean but a 2001 NOAA study of 91 area sites found that more than 50% were still contaminated with Exxon Valdez oil to nearly the same degree as during the initial spill. 2003 studies indicated that 21,000 gallons of this oil still remained in the area and up to 450 miles away. The oil is estimated to be diminishing at a rate of only 4% per year. Clean-up and natural processes have only been able to clean oil out of only the top 3 inches of sediment.

http://greenanswers.com/blog/161681/exxon-valdez-today

And that doesn't take into account the pathological use of the highly toxic Corexit.

-FL

Great. We have a whole lot of bacteria

[smchris]

"[O]xygen drops when bacteria respire methane"

What could go wrong?

Am I the only one who doesn't trust...

[Rooked_One]

a website called scienceexpress?

A week late

[kriston]

You're only a week late with this old news.

Not how capitalism works?

[drainbramage]

Thanks to all these postings I now know that capitalism causes accidents.
I guess the AMAZING safety records of the non-capitalist countries should have been more obvious.
I now know that socialism = green, communism = peace.
Thank you all so very much.
Citation needed? Oh please.

And it traversed the ecosystem...

[nadamucho]

The bacteria were consumed by the plankton, the plankton by fish and crabs, fish and crabs by the birds.. Then the birds fell from the sky and the fish and crabs washed up on shore. Oops.

Be careful!!!

[hesaigo999ca]

I Wonder where this information is really coming from, seems to easy to just gulp this down and sort of think, it's ok, it all dissipated. I prefer just thinking of how tragic this was to all the people mexican or us, who live off the fishing industry, can now not provide for their families...then try to tell me how happy i should feel that some plankton ate up the spill.....supposedly...where is the proof, not like i can go into the gulf myself (all patrolled and off limits to reporters and other ships) to get a sample and test see if ok or not.

In another news

[hackingbear]

the Republicans become the strongest supporters of Darwin's evolution theory.

Re:GOT METHANE ??

[HermMunster]

My first thought at reading this was: is this PR from BP? The company that is responsible for the worst oil spill in the history of the world? I'm sure someone else responsible for a major spill and the deaths of innocent people due to negligence and incompetence would have to pay for the duration of their lives, and their families beyond.

It sure sounds like it. Two highly positive notes over a couple week period then a series of news articles all but absolving them directly of the actions.

I'm sick of a political spin on everything

[noidentity]

Here's an article about something scientific, what bacteria are doing, and oh yeah, it's so-and-so's fault. Oh well, forget discussion of the topic, and let's instead point fingers. More and more topics simply cannot be discussed anymore without getting sidetracked by blame. It's sickening.

Re:GOT METHANE ??

[amplex]

Actually, this wasn't technically the worst oil spill in the history of the world. It was the worst spill in the history of the US, but there have been far greater world spills. Less than 20 years ago, in Kuwait, around 520 million gallons flowed from multiple wellheads. The slick was 4" deep for ~4000 sq. miles. Envirowonk 10 largest oil spills Also, although it would be nice to be able to hold someone directly responsible for these kind of spills and the traumatic reach that devastates our ecosystems, there is no price in the world that will return things to their natural health. No matter what, we will have to suffer the consequences of the paid off regulators, and the greed of the companies that just want to maximize profits. Trillions of dollars won't put our fragile system back together the way it was. Life on earth is forever changed by this type of catastrophe, while we might not see direct changes right away, each act contributes to the overall decay of life on the planet due to this greed.

Re:Shared? (More then one crook)

[RockDoctor]

So how did this oversight failure happen? It was a product of the Bush administration's conscious sabotage of regulation when they were in control. They appointed "pro-business" officials who had a policy of letting business get away with everything up to and including murder.

The term that we've long used for this process (up to and including, as you say, murder) is "regulatory capture". It's something that the Trade Union movement has been complaining about in Britain since well before the Piper Alpha (which was approximately 15.2 Deepwater Horizons in body count). But the sacked MMS officials don't need to worry. There will be plenty of openings for them in the industry on the basis of their strong personal records in safety management in the industry.

I'd write more, but I'm just back onshore form a completely different shallow water HTHP drilling project, and I'm going to the pub instead.