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White House Approves Sonic Cannons For Atlantic Energy Exploration
An anonymous reader writes: The White House on Friday gave final approval to allow the use of sonic cannons in finding energy deposits underneath the ocean floor on the U.S. Atlantic seaboard. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management says that finding energy resources off the Atlantic seaboard "could generate thousands of jobs, but has also acknowledged that the process will harm sea creatures." Sonic cannons "fire sound waves 100 times louder than a jet engine." Mammals such as whales and dolphins that communicate through sound will most likely be affected, but scientists aren't sure to what extent. They also aren't sure how the cannons will affect fish and other sea creatures or how any physiological effects on them may impact the fishing industries of the U.S. and the other countries who rely on seafood that migrate into and out of the Atlantic Ocean.
Fuck the earth, we do what we want!
Can they give "warning shots" for some time period ahead of time to clear the area? Can they definitively detect whether any large mammals are in the vicinity before giving the big blasts?
:(
Actually, even if they can, this sounds really bad, no pun intended.
want animals to die. No surprise here.
I've heard a geologist speak of doing this in the Mediterranean. I would hope the experience would allow them to do more than speculate about the effects on animals.
This is just disgusting news
I don't care what they're supposed to be used for. They may be civilization's last hope of controlling my children.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
I wonder how loud they are compared with underwater explosions, volcanoes and seaquakes?
Mankind needs energy. The sea creatures will...adapt.
Providing jobs means absolutely nothing nor does the profit of business. Anything that does harm to the land or oceans should be a felony. People come and go. The land and the oceans must exist for all people in all generations. Our needs are simply not a consideration. The horror of anything in the Arctic or extreme north is even worse as when accidents occur we have no ability to restore or mitigate a disaster.
They know that above all the oil must flow. Without the oil that came from the fracking boom oil would probably be at $150/barrel or higher. Without flowing oil the economy suffers (many past recessions were precipitated by high oil prices), the common man starts to get irritated at higher food prices, less disposable income.. for those that had disposable income to start with. The house of cards starts to sway even more.
Cheap oil is the real bread and circus that keeps the masses subdued. Some dead whales and dolphins isn't even a consideration.
When sonar is used, it can create sound pressure levels of 140dB 300 miles from the source . The sound is so excruciating that whales will surface too fast and get the bends, and/or beach themselves, just to escape the sound.
Yup, let's rape our irreplaceable planet some more while torturing innocent, intelligent creatures. After all, they aren't human, and our comfort, convenience, and entertainment are so much more important than their lives.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
These should be classified as Weapons of Mass Destruction, being as the impact to ocean life will likely be substantial, and once the damage is done, it will impact the entire ecosystem of the ocean across the planet.
This doesn't just screw the US of A...it screws us all.
It's a pretty safe bet that they don't. Even if it harms the fishing industry, they don't have more lobbyists than the energy companies.
1) Fish Deafness Specialist
2) Hearing Aid Designer for Dolphins
3) Bass Boosting Headphone Maker for Bass
4) ASL Teachers for Octopi
5) Jellyfish Mending Seamstress
6) Aquatic PTSD Therapist
7) Exploding Whale Cleanup Crew
A low flying jet engine is said to be 140 dB, maximum intensity of a whale is said to be 180 dB. This cannon out gives (hopefully) targeted 160 dB sounds. If they don't target and fire the cannon like idiots, all should go well.
typical greedy,fat,stupid,short-term,yankee morons,showing once again the wonderful thinking that allows the rest of the world to shit on america and americans because they deserve no better treatment. i bet i can guess very accurately exactly what the use of "sonic cannons" will be,the same as we can "guess" exactly what would have happened if a yankee moron had managed to "accidently" release live smallpox into a population. i dont know what tbe precise term would be,but the rest of us need an americademic event that wipes them off the face of the planet to a person,the rest of the world would be in such a far,far safer/better position without one live yankee on the planet. hitch hikers guide to galaxy got it wrong with the A - B -C class of ark's,D would have been needed for the yankee portion of the population. when everything is dead and gone,then the idiot yanks will possibly think that their "way" may not have been the best to live by. fingers crossed,the next f... up at somewhere like cdc atlanta is discoveted too late to save america,but gives the rest of time to lock them all in america and we can watch them die and tear each other to bits. they would not be missed,short or long term and planet earth might just keep us alive for a few more generations if the rest of work hard at correcting everything the yanks have been so keen at telling us they are doing and seem so proud of. but then if your only going to see what you wish to,everything looks briliant,no matter that you ate to die in five minutes time
This will create a Sharknado, won't it?
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
How much noise does a jet engine produce under water? How much noise do 100 Jet engines make under water?
Why not compare it to the damage caused by military Sonar?
Can I get the weight of the 'Sonic Cannon' in Calves?
... short. If they just blast away continuously for days that might be an issue. But if they do it for an hour or so every day that probably won't matter.
Think of it like the noisy neighbor... if they have a loud phone conversation or violent sex or blast party music for a couple hours every day... it probably won't be a literal threat to your health. It might be annoying but you're not going to get ill or die or something.
But if someone does it to you every day all day for days on end... then yeah... you might have a physiological reaction.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
this is just stoopid...we've already done so much damage to this planet. we need to reduce the human population by at least half. and stop all those ignorant savages from breeding for one generation, maybe two...
i mean why have 6,8,or 10 children? when you can only feed 2 or 3(without assistance)?
If 180 dB is 1 lb, the 235 dB is 0.155 kiloton not 31 megaton. I bet engineers could do something like that for a specific pulse of short duration.
Considering that the Keystone XL was blocked for allegedly "environmental concerns" and now this....
Just because they don't have exact figures, doesn't mean they don't know the outcome. They've already seen the effects our underwater noise making with naval craft and underwater military technology has had. But hey, as long as they can say "we don't know exactly100% for sure" it's A-OK, because the US needs jobs. And so the self-proclaimed "most transparent", "pro middle-class", "pro environment", "anti-lobbyist" President in History® gives BP, Shell and Exxon the OK to drive aquatic mammals into killing themselves and to suffer social separation because that's EXACTLY what they already know happens when we bombard the ocean with sonic disturbances. They just don' t know HOW MUCH WORSE it will be. just that it will be worse.
So, in Brussels there is a office to subsidize food production and another to destroy the food surplus according to Minister Hacker. Now we will have oil spills to destroy all the effort put into restoring the Chesapeake Bay. It used to be funny on TV, but in real life it just looks stupid.
- Jobs in danger
- Jobs created
- Freedom
- Security
Look who is talking and who is supporting (bribing) them.
Applies to all politicians in the US where the supreme court is smoking what? - pot, no cannot be, they would be more sensible.
...from the earth before it's all over, as long as it has the potential of making a profit.
If the Keystone XL pipeline isn't approved by this president, just wait a few years for energy prices to get higher and fossil fuels to be more scarce. It'll eventually happen.
Whales:...what's that sonny?
I SAID I'M SORRY!!!!!!!
Poor bastards can't hear a damn thing ever since we started with our sonic blasters.
basically I understand they want to be able to waste money to drill for new sources of energy.
but this is at the expense of replacing oil and natural sources of energy, with free energy, sun energy, and fusion/nuclear energy.
and also if we truly need to image the undersea earth, then they should use subs that don't blast through the entire ocean instead hover near ocean floor level, and perhaps switch over to earth penetrating tomography instead using radio frequencies.
fucking stupid White House probably didn't know that we should push for other options instead. protecting ocean and fish life from further human harm.
Well, thanks to this I just joined Greenpeace.
You cannot just do this shit to those lesser than you, animals... they are our lifeline, nothing is more important.
We waste so much... just go green and forget about this fossil sfule bullshit which won't last more than another 50 years.
That's your kids lifetime.
Go green now.
Um, that's a bit of a puzzle, the whale breathes in air at atmospheric pressure, therefore to a first order approximation the air in its body can't be at much more than that after compression and then surfacing.
I'm not saying its impossible, but I can't see what pressure is driving the nitrogen deep into joints etc, it should all be in equilibrium.
the whole point with bends and SCUBA is that you are breathing high pressure air, and so high pressure nitrogen diffuses into the parts of the body with lower partial pressures of nitrogen, then when you surface the high pressure nitrogen wants to diffuse out again, but can't easily. If the whole lot starts in equilibrium then it all compresses together. This loosely is why duck diving into quite significant depths is safe without a decompression stage.
Who needs a food chain when we have a few thousand more jobs. Maybe the extra money that gets pumped into the economy can stimulate the bugs for food idea promoted by the UN. Yum fire up the roaches on the now cheaper to run gas grill!
Humans are nature's equivalent neighborhood asshole. We have no problem blasting music at midnight and having way to many people park on the street but as soon as little Billy's ball enda up in our backyard we call for a town meeting.
...
8) Coral Relocation Consultants
9) Cochlear Implant Maker for Conchs
10) Ear Surgeons for Sturgeon
11) Disability Lawyers for Sharks
12) Mime School Professor for Deaf and Dumb Clownfish
13) Burst Blowfish Re-Inflation Technician
14) Electric Eel Defibrillation Nurse
I'll be hear all week, folks!
Our food supply is based on oil. We don't rotate crops anymore. We couldn't possibly make enough food if we did. Instead we generate nitrogen as a by-product of oil and pump it back into the soil.
If the oil stops flowing some Americans might have to tighten their belts, but people around the world that depend on our surplus food would just starve...
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"but scientists aren't sure to what extent. They also aren't sure how the cannons will affect fish and other sea creatures or how any physiological effects on them may impact the fishing industries of the U.S. and the other countries who rely on seafood that migrate into and out of the Atlantic Ocean."
NEWSPEAK IS TRUTH...
NEWSPEAK IS TRUTH...
NEWSPEAK IS TRUTH...
We all got that clear, big brother...
Here is my one-page summery.
http://sep.stanford.edu/sep/prof/whales.html
I've worked a lifetime on such stuff and was elected a member of the US Academy of engineering. Enjoy!
Seriously thousands of jobs is damning with faint phrase to anyone with a sense of proportion. That is like saying it is okay for me to set your house on fire because it will create twenty jobs.
Of course the consequences of what amounts to fishing with dynamite are well-known, and have been for centuries.
It will be "oh, we first need to try this out on millions of square miles before coming to a conclusion, and it would be a pity to build all that equipment and stop after the first few days just because of billions of dead fish with ruptured swimming bladders on the sea ground which more likely than not died of some as-to-yet unknown natural cause, and besides, we don't have cameras to look as far down as that would be prohibitively expensive and uncalled for. Think of all the jobs!"
This is complete utter BS. The oil industry does not need to destructively find new oil reserves. Remember Deepwater Horizon? That well was being capped by BP because they didn't want it to go into full production, that might have driven the price of oil down.
Respect to the journalist who thought up the phrase "Sonic Cannon"! What a furore! In truth, the oil exploration industry has been using this technology for decades all over the world, just not in (some) parts of offshore USA. Ask a Texan about a "seismic air-gun", rather than the newly-coined "Sonic Cannon".
When you can kill off the coasts to get a few more scraps to move everyone along until the US finds more oil owning brown people it can 'liberate'.
"Sonic cannon"? Nice bit of hyperbole. Everyone else just calls them airguns.
That ~ 250 dB @ 1m is a bit misleading. It won't be that loud at 1m because airgun arrays are not point sources. Additionally, there shouldn't be anything that close as it's standard practice to start at a lower amplitude and ramp up slowly. The amplitude falls off with distance quite quickly.
This technology has been in widespread use for decades.
Fuck the whales. Fuck the dolphins. Fuck the whole damn ocean.
I'd rather save a nickel on a gallon of gas. Turn the sea creatures into sushi.
Looks like they've been doing this for a while - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tykrmnYVPB8
Build nuclear plants, solar- or wind power instead.
izmirin tÃf ¼ Türkiyenin en Iyi eskort BAYANLARA ± met sitededir arkadaÃ...Ylar tÃf ¼ m misafirlerimiz davetlidir ettik
http://www.smyrnaeskort.com
Figure out what level of energy use, as a whole, is acceptable by your calculations. Then figure out how much that means you get to use. Make sure to include all forms of energy usage, such as heating and energy used in building and delivering goods. Adjust your energy use to meet that level, and see how that goes. Then we can talk. Otherwise, kindly STFU.
The reason I say this is not because I'm against trying to reduce energy consumption, I think conservation is always a good idea when practical, but because I'm sick and tired of hypocritical online eco-whiners. They'll bitch about how "people" should do something yet are unwilling to do it themselves. Somehow they see it as ok to bitch that others should be willing to make sacrifices but don't make any themselves.
So put up or shut up. Don't whine that "people" need to change their energy use, but then continue to live an energy intensive first world lifestyle. You are people too. If you cannot or will not adjust your usage, why would you assume anyone else would be willing?
We'll be able to derive our cars, but all slowly starve to death........ normal human short sightedness.
Wanted: Marine Life Impersonators. Must have own costume and be able to thrive in salt water conditions. Overtime available.
Everything and its opposite is true. Get used to it.
I don't like the "energy" euphemism, they're not searching for some tidy glowing yellow stuff like something from an RTS game. Let's call it what it is. OIL. Wildlife-gooping, coast-ruining, fossil-carbon-filled, toxic oil that needs to have more energy dumped into it to be refined into something we can use.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
So long, and thanks for the all fish!
Sig?
Let me know how you managed to fit the sun or a fusion reactor into your gas tank.
Tesla managed it somehow.
The Dolphins are going to put an end to this big experiment called earth.
WHY don't they know the impact?
When I was in this man's Navy (US) out on the Big Pond, we used practice depth charges all the time, and that was way back when Moby Dick was a minnow.
We killed 30,000 shrimp one time and, I'm sorry ... they deserved it for doing performance art where their echo pattern looked like a submarine. They weren't "a" submarine, but they were submarine.
Anyway, if we can construct punny remarks that amuse the author, I'm certain we could test this idea with small underwater sonic booms and do a surface body count charted against Db to see if we can eliminate, " [Scientists] ...aren't sure how the cannons will affect fish and other sea creatures or how any physiological effects on them may impact the fishing industries of the U.S."
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Is this just early viral marketing for a new Aquaman movie?
Since our favorite president says it's safe, I'm sure he won't mind us testing it out underneath the fully occupied White House floor.
Now you claim there are 5 Tesla cars per million people. At one point there were 5 cars period per million people. Just as a practical ICE vehicle took time to refine, so will a practical EV, as you recognized. But peak oil, like other peak resources, doesn't mean a resource will just up and disappear suddenly. As easy petroleum is depleted, its price will rise gradually over the decade or two needed to ramp up EV production, giving the market some time to make a transition. And there's always biodiesel to smooth the gap.
There's no need to panic about this my wealthy tech entrepreneurs; government studies have shown that lobsters aren't bothered by the sonic cannons.
Speaking of which, time to warm up the butter.
http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/Library/327770.pdf
The Keystone XL pipeline will be used for exporting more out of the Gulf of Mexico to other counties.
How is making it harder for other countries to obtain Canadian oil going to lead to scarcities in the US?
I never understood the GOP's over reaction to this one.
Ramp up the explosions, to warn the animals that something BIG is comming. Start with 100 DB and ramp it up over a few days to drive them out of the area. If one starts with the Big Bang it will totally disrupt the ears and phisilogy of the animals.
We are all on notice with this latest scourge of earth's oceans. Humans will not outlive these creatures for long that they take no effort to protect using these sonic cannons. What sheepdip that they don't know what effect this will have on mammals. We have all seen countless pods of whales beaching themselves because of sonic disturbances in the oceans by a plethora of ships and submarines playing their war games. It is as clear as the noses on everyones' faces, this earth is doomed because of the inept caliber of humans in positions to do great things are rather taking up arms against humanity and everything that is precious on earth for profit and the almighty yuan.
This wreckless mentality is rampant everywhere. They just cut down a line of beautiful trees in town for the erection of another walgteens one block up from another pharmacy/ overpriced convenient store. People still flocking to micky ds maybe not realizing that bunch is switching dollars for yuan based economy. Build your underground bunkers. Drive your driverless cars. You are going to need them. Most of us won't be here to give a hoot about you and the 21st Century Roman Empire you've conquered a second time..
as always, when it comes to oil, the US just goes in guns blazing without actually thinking about the consequences.. Why not first study what might actually be the consequences of using thos sound cannons....
Jet engines are surprisingly quiet under water.
Completely silent in fact.
- that it'll affect the noise-sensitive mammals (and maybe fish). .. because Big Oil wants to find more!
- that these endangered and most interesting creatures are important.
- that they don't care
America! F*ck yeah! I guess this is my chance to go down to the Carolina coast and find me a nice Orca skeleton. There should be lots lying around pretty soon. All encased in tons of rotting flesh and blubber, of course, but no worries: I'll just leave that mess for the edification and amusement of the tourists.
Why is Obama approving this, shouldnt this be under the jurisdiction of the EPA or something?
Seismic vessels using airgun arrays are being used all over the world, countless studies have been done looking at the impact on marine mammals and I have never seen any convincing evidence that they cause any detrimental effects on wildlife. A few years ago an academic survey shot some seismic data off Cancun in incredibly shallow water (trapping the energy). They deployed a diver (human being!) to put a camera directly in the path of the ship to observe the effect of fish (admittedly not mammals). The diver was totally unaffected despite being in the water only a few miles away from the air guns, the behavior of the fish appeared totally unchanged despite being only feet from the array. Despite all the evidence, virtually all ships carry Marine Mammal Observers (MMO), whose job it is to watch out for any mammals. If any are observed the survey is shut down, it is increasingly common to carry acoustic sensors to also listen for marine wildlife.
All the talk about db above is largely misleading. Airgun arrays are designed to output energy in the 5Hz- 50Hz range. Water has an acoustic wave speed of 1500 m/s so a peak frequency of 10Hz would give you a wavelength of 150m. This is like being in a ship at sea on top of a Tsunami - you wouldn't even notice there was a Tsunami because the length of the wave is so much longer than your ship. Sonar is a different story. I believe there has been some evidence that sonar (tens of thousands of Hertz 1m wavelength) can effect marine mammal wildlife.
Since they don't know what it will do to sea life they should test it. I would suggest a simple test is to setup sonic cannons that point across the government swimming pools, bathtubs and other bodies of water as well as across government offices. Fire the sonic cannons continuously through these spaces and observe the effects on the elected and non-elected officials (will there be a difference?) to determine the effects on life forms both in and out of water. One year of this simple testing will produce good results - there is no harm or it will kill off our government officials. Either way we benefit.
and deploy it in an ecosystem where many creatures exist that hear and depend upon sound for their livelihood. What's the worst that could happen??
What could possibly go "booonnnggggg"?
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
??
By any metric, that is a serious amount of acoustic pressure. It doesn't matter if you rely on sound to find your way around or locate prey, if you encounter that underwater you're getting turned into jelly.
(walk into a pet store and tap on the fish tanks. Go on, I'm giving you permission).
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
I don't know where the article got its information, but their called airguns, not sonic cannons. They are used world-wide for industry and scientific seismic surveys and there have been plenty of studies showing very little impact on marine life. People have looked at the possibility that whale strandings might be caused by damage due to seismic surveying, but given that whale strandings have occurred in areas and at times when there aren't any seismic surveys, it can't be that simple. Airgun sources are in the range of natural sound sources in the ocean. There is some evidence that whales and other marine mammals will move out of the area where a survey is in progress, but it's a pretty weak response. There are almost as many studies showing no change in behaviour at all. There's also evidence of whales that hang around airgun surveys looking for fish stunned in the couple of metres around the airgun pulse. The only strong correlation with any damage to whales from artificial sound sources has been with active sonar used for military purposes, which is much louder stuff. And if you're worried about the demonstrable effect on fish in the immediate (few metres) area around the airgun, you should probably worry more about the effect of overfishing. Any effect from seismic surveys is small and temporary.
What the hell are energy deposits? Have we renamed "fossil fuels" like oil and natural gas to simple "energy"? Because PR professionals don't get to do that!
What we really need is a mechanism to churn that frozen carbon dioxide at the bottom of the ocean! We're going to find a way to kill ourselves off yet. The shame of it is, we just cant stop ourselves.
These are the same airguns that have been used for many decades in ocean waters everywhere in the world. I have watched sea lions playing in the towed array of air guns behind a survey ship as they are operating. Sound levels of these guns are comparable to the noise made by a tanker and are actually lower than the low frequency sonar used by Navies all over the world. Whales and other marine mammals are quite capable of avoiding the noise, and normally do just that. The Navies of the world have been making much more noise without any environmental hysteria for decades.
http://sciencenotes.ucsc.edu/9...
Did anybody see this part?
>> These sonic cannons are already in use in the western Gulf of Mexico, off Alaska and other offshore oil operations around the world.
The damage is already being done, we've just decided to expand the scope to include those waters between the East Coast and Europe.