Official Simtroplis Gulf Oil Spill Thread

[Easy Bakes 253]

11 missing 7 hurt.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100421/ap_on_bi_ge/us_louisiana_oil_rig_explosion

  Edited April 4, 2011 by Easy Bakes  

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Fascinating.  Condolences to the casualties.

When this thing is over, how big will the oil spill be?

[Duke87 1,070]

Probably none, seeing as the rig wasn't pumping oil up at the moment.

[Larks2242 251]

That has to be one of the most dangerous jobs out there.

[hym 358]

Deepwater Horizon has sunk and is expected to leak up to 336,000 barrels of oil per day.  The Coast Guard has begun containment procedures, and BP has dispatched 32 cleanup vessels, plus 4 aircraft to spray the oil spill in case it reaches the shore before the cleanup ships are able to reclaim the oil from the water.  Initial indications are that a pressure buildup in the well disrupted the pressure balance and destroyed the oil rig.

[Easy Bakes 253]

messy

[Fresh Prince of Wmbg 44]

Its just gonna be one of those oil spill years.....

[Easy Bakes 253]

Oil Slick May Be Burned to Help Stop U.S. Rig Spill

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/04/100427-energy-gulf-oil-rig-spill-burn-fire/

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Burning the spilled oil will most surely pollute the atmosphere.  I hope someone has a handle on the trade off.

The engineers in charge of this rig would be better off if they had been killed in the explosion.  I suspect vindictive consequences are in store for them.  These days we are always looking to assign blame rather than move on and fix the problem.

[Easy Bakes 253]

Originally posted by: N_O_Body

Burning the spilled oil will most surely pollute the atmosphere.  I hope someone has a handle on the trade off.

The engineers in charge of this rig would be better off if they had been killed in the explosion.  I suspect vindictive consequences are in store for them.  These days we are always looking to assign blame rather than move on and fix the problem.

quote>

Burning it off has to be a better solution then letting it wash ashore and destroy many miles of coastland habitats.

Just ask the people in Prince William Sound about The Exxon Valdez, which as of 2008 payment for damages is still in  the court system.

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: N_O_Body

Burning the spilled oil will most surely pollute the atmosphere.quote>

So would burning it in cars, planes, etc. if it wasn't spilled.

[fukuda 351]

Originally posted by: N_O_Body

The engineers in charge of this rig would be better off if they had been killed in the explosion.  I suspect vindictive consequences are in store for them.  These days we are always looking to assign blame rather than move on and fix the problem.quote>

It's not necessarily the engineer's fault.. Most accidents happen because companies decide to (mis)use the rigs. For instance, oil rigs and gas rigs are not interchangeable even if most companies will reuse an oil rig as a new gas rig or a gas rig as a new oil rig. The problem here is that rigs designed for gas extraction are well shielded against explosions but relatively weak proteceted against fires, and rigs designed for oil extraction are well protected against fire but their walls are usually weaker against explosions (and they don't have the diaphragms and water-sealing capacities of gas rigs).

Also, most companies just refuse to get their rigs up-to-date technology or safety-wise...

[Larks2242 251]

Originally posted by: Duke87

Originally posted by: N_O_Body

Burning the spilled oil will most surely pollute the atmosphere.quote>

So would burning it in cars, planes, etc. if it wasn't spilled.

quote>

So would a natural volcano explosion.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Originally posted by: N_O_Body

Fascinating.  Condolences to the casualties.

When this thing is over, how big will the oil spill be?

quote>

I don't usually quote myself, but this time I want to say I told you so.  Louisiana is on the verge of or has declared an emergency.  BP's shares are falling like a rock, and Obama is taking a major interest.

If the Louisiana bayous get polluted by this, there is serious loss of wildlife resource and loss of livliehood for fishermen.  How much more can New Orleans endure?

[Cyclone1001 10]

I know that if the winds shift to the North-east, it will be close to where I am in a day or so. I really hope they can contain it, I like living here.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Originally posted by: Cyclone1001

I know that if the winds shift to the North-east, it will be close to where I am in a day or so. I really hope they can contain it, I like living here.quote>

Sadly, man's avarice has now put paid to the gulf coast.  Amazing how fragile things really are, eh?

[hym 358]

And the proof that greed was responsible for this is what exactly?

[Barbarossa 51]

.

  Edited September 8, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[hym 358]

Originally posted by: Barbarossa

I doubt it was specifically greed, but I do suspect negligence. Of course, that negligence could have been to save money, but it is probably more involved than just that.quote>

If the problem with the Deepwater Horizon is anything like has been the case in the BP's plant in Texas City, the problem will be the result of incompetent management.  Dow Chemical, BASF, Dupont, ExxonMobil, and Shell will all tell you that there is something known as "process safety" and if you don't pay attention to it, it's only a matter of time before you wind up killing your employees.  Apparently, the London management of BP never got this memo, and that incompetence has been the cause of every explosion at the Texas City facility.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Obama's response.

Nothwithstanding all of the spin here, the fact that the BP management did not invoke the proper safety procedures is a greedy response to keeping the bottom line looking good.  They bet their company and lost.  I feel mildly sorry for any shareholders who can't afford to have the shares go to zero.  BP is now dead, it just hasn't rolled over yet.

[Duke87 1,070]

Some perspective here:

According to the above article, the well stub is leaking about 800,000 liters per day. That's a bit more than 210,000 US gallons per day.

The Exxon Valdez spilled 10.8 million US gallons. Doing the math, it will take this well 51 days to leak that much. It's plausible that we may get to that point.

On the other hand, Exxon Valdez, while the most infamous, was far from being the largest oil spill ever recorded. That "honor" goes to the Persian Gulf spill in 1991, where 462 million gallons of oil were actually intentionally dumped into the water by the Iraqi military as an attempt to ward off naval assault. The current leak would have to continue for 2186 days (nearly six years) to equal it.

Number two? Was like this one, a rig blowout in the Gulf of Mexico in 1979, totaling 140 million gallons. Current leak would take 661 days to equal it.

[hym 358]

Originally posted by: N_O_Body

Obama's response.

Nothwithstanding all of the spin here, the fact that the BP management did not invoke the proper safety procedures is a greedy response to keeping the bottom line looking good.  They bet their company and lost.  I feel mildly sorry for any shareholders who can't afford to have the shares go to zero.  BP is now dead, it just hasn't rolled over yet.quote>

This is another case of the government not knowing what it's talking about.  Obama is vowing that BP will shoulder the costs of the oil cleanup, apparently blissfully unaware of the fact that the contract between BP and Transocean stipulates that Transocean is the one responsible for shouldering the costs of cleanup in the event of an oil spill.  The only reason BP is agreeing to cover the costs right now is because it doesn't want the PR fiasco that Exxon experienced.

[morriswalters 16]

None of this should come as any surprise.  Complexity comes at a price.  No matter what the endeavor, if it's complex there will be accidents.  You can reduce them but you can't eliminate them.  The toll on the environment of oil drilling is no less  than that of coal mining, it just tends to come all at once, but nobody seriously suggests that we quit mining. 

We love our conveniences, flip the switch the power flows,  Start your car and your motor runs.  This is the price we pay for that lifestyle.  When gas hit 4 dollars a gallon 2 years ago people whined that we didn't drill offshore.  Now a lot of the same people will say , wait a minute, what are we doing.  Nothing has really changed, we have to drill offshore, there is no other choice unless people change magically overnight.  Just like we have to mine coal.  It's in our best interests to do it better and cleaner, and I'd like to say that that we will do that, but we won't.  We also want it cheaper.  

Nobody wants what it takes to fix the problem, higher costs.  Alternative fuels only became profitable when prices rose, the minute they dropped a lot of companies went out of business because they couldn't make money.  This crisis will be behind us ten years from now, we'll learn some lessons, things will start to look better and we will forget.

[Easy Bakes 253]

Originally posted by: hym

Originally posted by: N_O_Body

Obama's response.

Nothwithstanding all of the spin here, the fact that the BP management did not invoke the proper safety procedures is a greedy response to keeping the bottom line looking good.  They bet their company and lost.  I feel mildly sorry for any shareholders who can't afford to have the shares go to zero.  BP is now dead, it just hasn't rolled over yet.quote>

This is another case of the government not knowing what it's talking about.  Obama is vowing that BP will shoulder the costs of the oil cleanup, apparently blissfully unaware of the fact that the contract between BP and Transocean stipulates that Transocean is the one responsible for shouldering the costs of cleanup in the event of an oil spill.  The only reason BP is agreeing to cover the costs right now is because it doesn't want the PR fiasco that Exxon experienced.quote>

Yea but  no one knows who Transocean is, every one knows who BP is. Its BP that will take the PR and Stock hit for this.even if legaly they are not financialy responsible for clean up costs.

He also seems Blissfully unaware that Exxon is still fighting  in the courts over  payments  for The Valdeze incident.

this one could be in the courts for just as long.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Transocean link.  Google got lots of hits on "Transocean".

It would be interesting to trace the ownership and interlocking board associations of this outfit because it sounds like an oil industry front outfit.  Wonder how much of it belongs to Haliburton?

Meanwhile, back at the disaster, it is starting to look like another fiasco of the U.S. government as state after state declares a state of disaster, the latest being Mississippi.

The weather gods are not cooperating either.  Southerly winds are blowing the slick ashore along the northern gulf coast.  Since the coastal wetlands are the nursery for the shrimp and shellfish industries and it is now nesting time for most of the seabirds in that area, we can probably expect elimination of some species and any associated industries.  This thing makes Hurricane Katrina look like a mild breeze.

[Easy Bakes 253]

Originally posted by: N_O_Body

Transocean link.  Google got lots of hits on "Transocean".

It would be interesting to trace the ownership and interlocking board associations of this outfit because it sounds like an oil industry front outfit.  Wonder how much of it belongs to Haliburton?

Meanwhile, back at the disaster, it is starting to look like another fiasco of the U.S. government as state after state declares a state of disaster, the latest being Mississippi.

The weather gods are not cooperating either.  Southerly winds are blowing the slick ashore along the northern gulf coast.  Since the coastal wetlands are the nursery for the shrimp and shellfish industries and it is now nesting time for most of the seabirds in that area, we can probably expect elimination of some species and any associated industries.  This thing makes Hurricane Katrina look like a mild breeze.quote>

BP could , I doubt they will though, come out now and say they will clean up thier mess.

I think that would do wonders for thier public image.

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Originally posted by: Easy Bakes

Originally posted by: N_O_Body

Transocean link.  Google got lots of hits on "Transocean".

It would be interesting to trace the ownership and interlocking board associations of this outfit because it sounds like an oil industry front outfit.  Wonder how much of it belongs to Haliburton?

Meanwhile, back at the disaster, it is starting to look like another fiasco of the U.S. government as state after state declares a state of disaster, the latest being Mississippi.

The weather gods are not cooperating either.  Southerly winds are blowing the slick ashore along the northern gulf coast.  Since the coastal wetlands are the nursery for the shrimp and shellfish industries and it is now nesting time for most of the seabirds in that area, we can probably expect elimination of some species and any associated industries.  This thing makes Hurricane Katrina look like a mild breeze.quote>

BP could , I doubt they will though, come out now and say they will clean up thier mess.

I think that would do wonders for thier public image.

  quote>

I seriously doubt BP can ever find enough money to clean this up.  It is probable that no one can.

[Duke87 1,070]

Considering that the slick is visible from space... yeah, it's not getting cleaned up. The coastline would be the place to focus efforts, that's where the impacted ecosystems are.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

News item this morning.  Halliburton owns all the equipment on the oil rigs.

[Barbarossa 51]

.

  Edited September 8, 2012 by Barbarossa