The pressures and other difficulties under the water made this a logistic nightmare--it was unprecedented. Worse, it was a one-shot game--they screwed it up, this thing gushed until the pressure eased.
The media's butchered this coverage too. Knowledgeable people (like those over at The Oil Drum) thought this was all about right.
I'm not an expert on the matter, but I believe they've been planning the top kill since they realized that it was leaking. Thing is, getting all the equipment together to do something of this magnitude usually takes a few months, the fact that the got it all together in one month is pretty frakking impressive.
Engineers/Geologists on the Status of Top Kill
on
Gulf Oil Leak Plugged?
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· Score: 5, Informative
Pretty good stuff over at The Oil Drum on this...they just said they have two unconfirmed reports that cementing will start within hours on their twitter feed- http://twitter.com/theoildrum
The easy oil has been had, folks. It came out of the ground Beverly Hillbillies style. So, now we have to increasingly go deeper in the ocean or inject water into extant wells--and that gets expensive. Even the energy return on investment of oil has been declining (cite: http://netenergy.theoildrum.com/node/5600 ), and the energy return for alternatives is slowly improving, but is still 10 times less than that of light sweet crude--and because this is a liquid fuels/transportation problem, that means that economic growth can be curtailed unless we become more efficient AND use less.
(This is why I pay attention to the folks at The Oil Drum ( http://theoildrum.com/ ) and Energy Bulletin ( http://energybulletin.net/ ), they're well-intentioned academics/educators who are trying to get the world to live more smartly and sustainably...and the faster we do that, the better off we are going to be.)
peak oil is indeed real...and we need to learn a lot more about it to understand its ramifications.
Check out The Oil Drum: http://theoildrum.com/ if you're curious.
As a Pennsylvania farmer put it to me in February: "It looks like we're going to burn up the last remaining six inches of Midwest topsoil in our gas-tanks."
I *heart* Jim Kunstler. Here's a link to his piece on ethanol, etc..
Just an fyi, we're not one-sided, we're not partisan (I would point you to our press release: http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/4/26/121441/8 91), and we encourage empirical/scientific study of these phenomena.
In other words, we're not your daddy's peak oil site. Read the site at least a bit (and know what you're talking about) before you spout off like that, eh?
not to be terribly redundant...but it *is* all of them together. Have you ever seen a society, especially one based on capitalism, try to go backwards? We need as many options as we can find and as much innovation as we can sponsor...right now.
That discussion over on that blog is pretty darned good.
I, too, if I had any mod points would up the crap out of this idea.
Slashdot Mirror
The pressures and other difficulties under the water made this a logistic nightmare--it was unprecedented. Worse, it was a one-shot game--they screwed it up, this thing gushed until the pressure eased. The media's butchered this coverage too. Knowledgeable people (like those over at The Oil Drum) thought this was all about right. I'm not an expert on the matter, but I believe they've been planning the top kill since they realized that it was leaking. Thing is, getting all the equipment together to do something of this magnitude usually takes a few months, the fact that the got it all together in one month is pretty frakking impressive.
latest "live" thread with great insights in the comments: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6515
Relevant links to top kill procedure (scroll to comments in each, they're very good.)
Deepwater Oil Spill - Permissions and Concerns about Top Kill http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6513
Deep Water Spill - Waiting for Top Kill (more updated tech) http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6509
The Gulf Deepwater Oil Spill - the Top Kill Attempt (the technical aspect of what just happened) http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6505
The Gulf Deepwater Oil Spill, barriers, flow rates, and top kill http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6501
Hope you find this informative...
(This is why I pay attention to the folks at The Oil Drum ( http://theoildrum.com/ ) and Energy Bulletin ( http://energybulletin.net/ ), they're well-intentioned academics/educators who are trying to get the world to live more smartly and sustainably...and the faster we do that, the better off we are going to be.)
peak oil is indeed real...and we need to learn a lot more about it to understand its ramifications. Check out The Oil Drum: http://theoildrum.com/ if you're curious.
As a Pennsylvania farmer put it to me in February: "It looks like we're going to burn up the last remaining six inches of Midwest topsoil in our gas-tanks." I *heart* Jim Kunstler. Here's a link to his piece on ethanol, etc..
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/9/8/11274/836 38
we'll never get as much oil out of that as you've heard, my friend.
In other words, we're not your daddy's peak oil site. Read the site at least a bit (and know what you're talking about) before you spout off like that, eh?
not to be terribly redundant...but it *is* all of them together. Have you ever seen a society, especially one based on capitalism, try to go backwards? We need as many options as we can find and as much innovation as we can sponsor...right now. That discussion over on that blog is pretty darned good. I, too, if I had any mod points would up the crap out of this idea.