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At least that much oil is fouling the ocean floor and fragile wetlands
all along the coast line. This is such a disaster, it is hard to fathom how
bad this really is and if we can ever recover completely.
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/gulf-mexico...ry?id=10567030
BP is positioning the big dome at the moment...and they did manage to shut off one leak.
Local fishers are being paid $1500 a day to cram their boats with the oil-retaining floats and to put them out at sea.
Prayers going out...
Do you remember Saddam and his 'retreat' during the Gulf War?Quote:
Originally Posted by lizbud
He blew up oil rigs/set them on fire.
They estimated that it would take years to put them out.
The US oil/fire teams put them out in months.
First they have to seal the leak.
Then, we have to worry about the coast line.
-----------
Here's a tidbit about how stupid we are.
The European offshore rigs HAVE TO HAVE A SECOND shut-off valve system as a back up to the main emergency shut off valves.
So, all the AHs that want to regulate OSD can't even think that far ahead?
Everyone is to blame for this one.
FN morons.
I am sorry, I mean no disrespect?Quote:
Originally Posted by Catty1
Isn't that like trusting the placement of a diagphram?:confused::(:eek::rolleyes:;)
This is so sad for the wildlife, the damage man does to this planet is beyond belief.:(
Hey RICHARD - they gotta try...with the remote thingies lighting the way.
If it DOES work...wonderful. It's definitely worth a shot...
Oh no,Quote:
Originally Posted by Catty1
I understand, but I was shocked to hear that the EU has stricter rules for OSD.
I would have thought all the Greenies would have demanded that for any OSD here in the states.
It makes me really question the 'depth' - pun intended - that the owners and protestors put into the process of allowing the drilling to go on!:eek:
When I hear stories like this one I always cheer for the little company that has some bizarre technology that will come to the rescue.
That is what we are as humans.
We stop, think, tinker, then solve.:D
I suppose this would be a bad thread to quote James Watt?:p
This situation is frightening and not getting much better. My heart aches for the environmental impact and the danger to the wildlife. Last night on our local news there was a story saying that 21 years later, Alaska is still feeling the effects of the Exon-Valdez. On the film clips one can still see the oil in the sand and the risk to the animals. The "experts" are saying it could be months before all of this is contained.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Catty1
BP didn't pay them out of the goodness of their hearts. They asked the
fishermen to sign legal waivers that, in effect, released the company of any
blame for the business losses the fishermen had.
They fishermen quickly wised up to this trick, and BP released them from
the waivers.
http://www.wdsu.com/news/23450572/detail.html
The wild bird sanctuary where I volunteer is gearing up for the worst eventuality. If so, they will be busy beyond belief. It is a nightmare scenario and I just keep praying that it doesn't get as bad as it could possibly get.
We are right on the Gulf of Mexico and will get a huge influx of seabirds. This is also the middle of baby bird season so they are already overwhelmed.
:mad::mad: :(:(
I heard on the afternoon news that hair salons are collecting hair clippings to be used in helping to clean up the spilled oil. It made sense when I thought about it - I wash my hair to make it less oily. Here's a link.
http://matteroftrust.org/
Lady's Human
There are others that would rank right there with him, Including RR & W.Quote:
I suppose this would be a bad thread to quote James Watt?
The ripple effect of this mess will touch us all! Goods transported through the Gulf of Mexico, I think have already stopped. I doubt anything is coming in or out of the Mississippi River. The big oil refineries we have here will be cut off..no way to get the stuff in or out. You would not believe how much stuff is transported up and down that Mississippi River, headed to the gulf. A lot of what we push is coal that goes down the river to be shipped overseas... Prices are going to sky rocket, jobs are going to be lost.
If this leaking the oil into the gulf isn't stopped, we ALL are going to suffer. This new thing they are trying HAS to work or the impact of this in the gulf is going to throw things into a tail spin that will eventually effect us all in our every day life.
My great nephew just posted a beautiful video on facebook he made of Pensacola beach and I just got sick watching it, thinking of what could happen to those beautiful beaches because of this. :(
Before the Big Spill
Oil companies have a history of ill-timed fights against safety improvements.
By Paul Sabin
Posted Friday, May 7, 2010, at 5:25 PM ET
The site of the recent Gulf oil spill In the last half-century, three major oil spills have significantly marked American politics—the 1969 Santa Barbara, Calif., spill, the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, and now the 2010 spill in the Gulf.
They have a striking thing in common: Each occurred after the oil industry successfully resisted demands for safety improvements that would have greatly reduced the damage the spills caused. These technological fixes either were already standard or would later become so—and mandatory. By fighting them off in the short-term, the oil companies cost themselves huge amounts of money and the rest of us an environmental debacle.
Off the coast of Santa Barbara in the late 1960s, the Union Oil Company operated just beyond state waters, where the federal government makes the rules. Those federal rules were more lax about safety than California's. In particular, the oil companies successfully avoided state requirements to use extra protective casing to strengthen the well and prevent accidents. After the well blew out in 1969, approximately 100,000 barrels of oil spilled into the ocean, polluting the beaches and near shore waters.
Take two: In the late 1970s, the Carter Administration and environmental advocates called for double-hull oil tankers that would protect against spills by providing a second hull to absorb impacts and safeguard a ship's oil. The oil industry insisted that single-hull tankers were safe and headed off the double-hull mandate. After the single-hull Exxon Valdez tanker crashed in Prince William Sound and spilled 270,000 barrels of oil, a Coast Guard study suggested that a double-hull probably would have reduced the oil spilled by 60 percent. Congress passed legislation in 1990 requiring double-hulls in Prince William Sound by 2015, and more than 100 countries have pledged to ban the single-hull tankers by the same year. The Exxon single-hulls continue to chug along, though.
In the Gulf of Mexico, BP and its drilling contractor, Transocean Ltd., chose not to install a $500,000 remote-control shut-off switch that might have contained the recent spill from BP's well. Norway has required these switches since 1993. The U.S. Minerals Management Service considered a similar requirement several years ago, but the oil industry killed off the proposal. And so, but for $500,000, we probably have billions of dollars in liability and cleanup expenses in the Gulf, plus a long-term threat to the livelihoods and ecology of the region that we can't yet quantify.
Cutting corners to keep down costs is an age-old business strategy, from coal mines to sweatshops and the dumping of hazardous wastes. The history of these oil spills makes clear, however, that when it leads to a disaster, cost cutting becomes a bad corporate bet.
The Santa Barbara spill kicked off the environmental decade of the 1970s, spurring an otherwise indifferent Richard Nixon to champion the National Environmental Policy Act and creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. Any developer in the past 40 years who has struggled to complete an arduous environmental impact statement can partly credit Union Oil's resistance to additional well casing for NEPA's tough rules. The California spill also prompted a decades-long moratorium on new oil drilling off the coast of California.
The Valdez spill invigorated institutional investors and environmental activists to press companies to adopt the Ceres Principles, a new code of corporate environmental conduct. The accident also brought the passage of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which barred the Exxon Valdez ship and others involved in oil spills from operating in Prince William Sound.
So if you take a longer environmental view, has the industry's balking over safety improvements actually been a boon? It's not pretty, but birds dying coated in oil and fishermen lamenting their losses can change the political calculus. This recent spill is yielding a similar backlash against Big Oil. The spill has significantly undercut President Obama's proposed expansion of offshore drilling. Politicians from Florida to Virginia are lining up to oppose coastal oil development.
The problem is that offshore drilling is key to the White House's proposed grand bargain on energy and climate. On Friday, Lindsey Graham called for delaying the climate bill, in part because of the renewed opposition to drilling. If the already-tenuous deal unravels, then the Gulf oil spill will not just be an environmental disaster. It will also be a political one.
I heard on the news tonight that they're going to try again to put the top part of the containment dome over the well, but it's still leaking a couple of hundred thousand gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico every day.
It is strange to think that we are watching such a major disaster in
the making and nobody seems to know how to stop the destruction.
What will you tell your children when they ask one day why this happened?
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/14/gul....html?hpt=Sbin
It's so disheartening how little coverage this is getting in the network news, and it is still happening, a disaster in progress!
Well, I think it is pretty clear they know HOW it happened. Sadly, so far, the containment efforts have failed.
BP has about 5,000 such wells around the world. 1 failure out of 5,000 is a pretty good ratio.
As for telling my daughter about this, should she ask some day... "Honey, 'doo doo occurs'. Through out history, man has strived to make their lives better. Cheap and abundant energy is reason number one we live the lifestyle we do. Sadly, sometimes things like this happen. That's life. When bad things happen, learn from it, fix it if possible and keep going."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Puckstop31
There is risk involved in drilling the deepest well in the world, in one
of the most sensitive enviromental areas in this country. They were
allowed to gamble on everything turning out ok. It didn't and now we
get to see the companies involved scramble around for a fix for this.
A plan B wasn't in place before they drilled and, if some politicans hadn't
been in bed with big oil, we could have demanded they have a recovery
option in place.
p.s. " Honey, S*** happens" What kind of thing is that for an adult to tell a kid? Pitiful.
There is risk invovled in most innovative things Liz. Should humanity stop trying to innovate just beause there is risk involved?Quote:
Originally Posted by lizbud
Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Or, 'a ship is safe in harbor, but that is not what ships are for.'
Its my understanding there was a "plan B" in place. Sadly, it failed as well.Quote:
A plan B wasn't in place before they drilled and, if some politicans hadn't been in bed with big oil, we could have demanded they have a
recovery
option in place.
And who, pray tell, are these politicians you speak of?
In classic Lizbud fashion, you fail to use an entire quote in context. Shocker.Quote:
p.s. " Honey, S*** happens" What kind of thing is that for an adult to tell a kid? Pitiful.
Tell me... Is it wrong to teach a child the way the world really is? Also, recall your original question here included 'one day'. I would not explain it, that way, to my 2 year old. When she is 10 perhaps? Yes.
(ETA - Do you actually think I would use the exact words, "S*** Happens"? If you do... Wow, what did I ever do to you to make you think that? Disagree with you? No wonder you are so easily duped. LOL)
I am not going to shelter my child(ren) from the realities of the world. I will not rob her of future opportunites because I refused to teach her the truth. And the TRUTH is, bad things happen.
It all depends on your point of view.
I look at this mess and I'm grateful it was just one platform, in deep water.
It gives engineers time to react and deal with things, and the next time something like this happens, we won't have the same issues as the engineers will use this as a learning experience.
OR........
We could stick our collective heads in the sand, go back to a subsistence farming level of tech, and never, ever drill for any oil ever again because we might have an accident.
Three Mile Island wasn't a disaster, it was a proof of concept, but the media turned it into a moratorium on nuclear power in the US. This CANNOT happen again.
Exactly. Its why I said when bad things happen and they will, learn from it, fix it if you can and move forward. In Army speak... FIDO. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Lady's Human
"Don't let a good crisis go to waste." No? ;) Classic 'progressive' BS. Back in the day, Woody Wilson's time... War was the catalyst they used to move their agenda forward. Now, it has to be a 'moral equivilant' of war.Quote:
OR........
We could stick our collective heads in the sand, go back to a subsistence farming level of tech, and never, ever drill for any oil ever again because we might have an accident.
Three Mile Island wasn't a disaster, it was a proof of concept, but the media turned it into a moratorium on nuclear power in the US. This CANNOT happen again.
FWIW, I live 15 miles from TMI. I have zero worry. My dad works in the nuclear power industry. There really is no safer and more efficient form of power. Too bad the media and the 'progressives' gave it such a bad rap.
I look at it like the post war fires in Iraq.
Everyone projected the wells would burn for years?
Then they sent in all the Houston based oil/fire fighters and put them out in months?
It's all a matter of tossing ideas at the problem.
We are, after all, the United States of Leading Edge Technology.;)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Puckstop31
Did you know they have different requirements for oil drilling in other countries than the US does? No.., Didn't think so. Ever think that's why this has not happened elsewhere? No, didn't think so. You realy ought to read more on the topic.
(CNN) -- Oil industry experts said there is no sure-fire way to stop the massive amount of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.
If there were, BP wouldn't still be grasping for a solution.
"That's because pollution cleanup technology is primitive," said Robert Bea, a University of California-Berkeley professor who directs the university's Center for Catastrophic Risk Management. He worked for decades as a risk assessor to oil companies, including BP in the 1990s.
The science of cleaning up oil spills has remained largely the same since the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, said Bea, who worked on that 11-million-gallon spill in Prince William Sound that blackened 1,500 miles of Alaska's coastline.
"It boggles my mind what in the hell they're doing, because the industry has been around for years, and this kind of thing had to be anticipated," Bea said. "But that's just the way it is. It's sad."
Since an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig April 20, BP has tried various techniques to stop the leak 5,000 feet underwater. The spill is sending 210,000 gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico each day, BP has said.
Video emerged Wednesday showing a giant leak on the floor of the Gulf shooting a huge plume of oil and gas into the water.
Shortly after the leak was discovered, BP tried using remote-controlled submarine devices to stop it. That didn't work.
Interactive: Responding to an oil spill In the past week, two other techniques were tried. The first was a huge containment dome that would have captured the oil so it could be siphoned off to a waiting tanker. But ice crystals formed when escaping gas mixed with water, thwarting that effort. Then, BP announced it was employing a similar, but smaller device called a "Top Hat." The 5-foot structure weighing nearly 2 tons reached the Gulf's floor on Wednesday, and crews are trying to position it over the leak. If that doesn't work, BP says it has yet another plan -- sending a "junk shot" -- loads of shredded rubber tires and golf balls, to clog the leak at the source.
Meanwhile, a Coast Guard effort to mitigate effects of the slick by using what a spokesman called a "historically proven technique" of burning the oil and sending the resulting smoke and soot out to sea proved less effective than was hoped. BP has been using using a chemical dispersant, Corexit, to try to break up the oil. The substance was synthesized by Exxon and has been the industry's go-to dispersant for years, Bea said.
It dilutes oil the way soap breaks up dirt on the body. However Corexit, whose makeup isn't disclosed by its manufacturer because of trade secrets, could be extremely toxic in large quantities, Bea said.
"We [in the oil industry] would always say, 'If you touch it, smell it, breathe it, eat it, you better see a doctor quick," he said. "That's a quick tip to me that my friends, the bluefin tuna, are going to be just as sensitive. The victims of this disaster will be aquatic life."
Corexit 9500 includes petroleum distillates, propylene glycol and a proprietary organic sulfonic salt and can cause eye or skin irritation with prolonged contact, according to its material data safety sheet. The document warns that "repeated or prolonged exposure may irritate the respiratory tract."
Read about dispersant chemical Corexit 9500
Ed Overton, a Louisiana State University environmental sciences professor, agrees with Bea that pollution cleanup technology is woefully behind the times.
"I don't think there is a very good system set up to evaluate those dispersants," said Overton, who heads NOAA's chemical hazard assessment team analyzing the toxicity of the oil in the Gulf.
"Testing has for years been not as sophisticated" within the oil industry as he and other environmental scientists would like, Overton said. A wave pool in Leonardo, New Jersey, is used to test the effectiveness of dispersants. The pool is 203 meters long by 20 meters wide by 3.4 meters deep, and is filled with 2.6 million gallons of saltwater.
"They can spray oil on the dispersants and measure how much gets into the water," Overton said. "But at best, that's still a fairly crude way to test the effectiveness of these chemicals because it's done under one set of wave conditions."
Steve Newman, the president and CEO of Transocean, the world's largest offshore drilling contractor and owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig, answered questions about the industry's cleanup technologies Wednesday during a House hearing on the spill.
Rep. Lois Capps pointed to a document provided by Transocean stating that floating booms used to clean up oil spills only contain about 15 percent of the oil, a rate that has not improved since a Union Oil spill in 1969 off Santa Barbara, California -- in Capps' Congressional district -- released about 200,000 gallons of crude over a 10-day period.
Capps asked oil executives why the technologies haven't improved if "the technologies have been perfected to get down there and [to get oil]. ...Why was there not equivalent technology developed to clean up after a spill, whether a small spill or a huge spill, at the very same time, using some of the profits that have been generated in each of the companies that you represent?"Lamar McKay, the president and chairman of BP America, answered: "I would just comment we're working very closely with all the government agencies, EPA, Coast Guard.
"[The] Coast Guard deals with spills all over our coastal areas, all over the country. We're using the best available technology at scale. This is the largest effort that's ever been put together, so we believe we are using the best technology."
Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Illinois, said, "But you never had any until it happened."
McKay answered: "Well, we've been drilling with the Coast Guard for years, since the..."
Schakowsky interrupted: "Did you develop technologies for dealing with this?"
McKay: "Not individual technologies for this, no."
Schakowsky: "I rest my case."
Quote:
Originally Posted by lizbud
Hmmmmm....
http://www.oilrigdisasters.co.uk/
And by the way, YES to your questions. Didn't your mommy teach you to not ASSuME? :)
Liz... Accidents happen. Thats all I am trying to say. But, if you still feel the need to project your inadequacies at me, feel free to carry on. You asked a question, I answered it.
1) What, praytell, are the good professor's experiences in oil platform technology and engineering? A professor of risk management is, in reality, a professor of statistics with a fancy title.
2) in many, many articles about this disaster, it is repeated time and time again that the blowoff valves have a lousy success rate.
3) Who holds extremely large amounts of oil company stock, yet is theoretically a grade a environmentalist? Enough stock in oil companies to have a say at a board meeting? Follow the money..........and it's not all Republicans. Does the name Al Gore ring a bell?
Quote:
Originally Posted by kokopup
Thanks for the video. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.:(
Couple of stupid questions...
Could they burn the oil off the surface of the water, or would the smoke be toxic?
Could they use anything to physically scoop it up out of the water? How can it be kept (if at all) from reaching the shore?
They have been doing some controlled burns when weather permits. The smoke is bad, but not as harmful as the oil reaching estuaries.
There are boom to try to keep it from reaching the coast, but the spill is so huge that everyone is going to have to be hyper vigilant. I think there may be some efforts to siphon or scoop up some of it from the surface as well. Most important, too, is stopping the flow!
I also heard on radio today about oil-eating bacteria being present in the slick below the water.
A friend of mine works in such a place in Calgary - yes, there are bacteria that will transform oil into harmless stuff. Let's hope it spreads fast!
bacteria story: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencein...ulf-beach.html
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/0...leak-tube.html
Tube diverts some leaking oil
Last Updated: Sunday, May 16, 2010 | 10:32 PM ET
CBC News
Engineers began to siphon oil leaking from a damaged well deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico to a vessel on the surface Sunday, but the company in charge of the operation said it's too early to know how much of the fuel is being recovered.
Oil leaking from a damaged undersea well could be seen earlier this month blending into a light sheen as it moved through the currents in the Gulf of Mexico. BP Plc said its engineers began to siphon the oil leaking from the well to a vessel on the surface Sunday.Oil leaking from a damaged undersea well could be seen earlier this month blending into a light sheen as it moved through the currents in the Gulf of Mexico. BP Plc said its engineers began to siphon the oil leaking from the well to a vessel on the surface Sunday. (Dave Martin/Associated Press)BP Plc said its Riser Insertion Tube Tool, or RITT, remained attached for about four hours after it was installed Saturday before it became dislodged. Workers then secured it in place again Sunday morning.
Kent Wells, BP's senior vice-president for exploration and production, told reporters the amount of fuel being drawn was gradually increasing, but it would take several days to measure.
He said the nitrogen, oil and gas being collected cannot be accurately measured until it is separated.
The tube was threaded inside a riser pipe where oil has been gushing for the past 24 days. Massive amounts began leaking two days after the rig Deepwater Horizon sank following an explosion and fire that killed 11 on April 20.
BP said engineers will spend the next seven to 10 days preparing to plug the leak. They want to pump in debris, or "junk shot," to clog the well's blowout preventer, before adding mud and cement.
Previous attempts to stop the leak by using a 90-tonne steel and concrete container failed after an ice-like slushy mixture clogged the opening in its roof.
However, BP said its smaller version of the box, dubbed the "top hat," is "ready to go if needed on the sea floor" to stop the leak, which has spilled millions of litres of oil into the Gulf, threatening sea life, commercial fishing and the coastal tourist industry from Louisiana to Florida.
The permanent solution of completing a relief well is still months away.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/0...#ixzz0o9utzahb
Did anyone happen to see CBS 60 Minutes last night? They interviewed
one of the survivors of the oil rig explosion. It sounded like the experience
was like hell on earth.If you get a chance to see the interview, please do.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/...n6490197.shtml
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL,
Two stupid presidents, with coastal land about to be affected by an oil slick, are talking about immigration reform and how 'racist' the AZ law is.
Hey Barack,
Apologize for oil leak and it's affect on the Gulf areas, then we can talk about immigration.
Morons.
What poppycock. "Doo doo happens."
At least 99% of accidents are preventable. Accidents happen because people make mistakes. They get complacent and take shortcuts or fail to pay attention. Or they get greedy and use shoddy materials to save a few bucks. There are many reasons people make mistake, but as any halfway competent businessperson will tell you ..."doo doo" isn't one of them.
The other one percent is caused by earthquakes, tornados and the like.
Anyone, including BP...(which by the way stand for British Petroleum :rolleyes:) who takes refuse in "doo doo happens" is someone who is willing to accept mediocrity but not responsibility. Beware.
HEY! Welcome back!Quote:
Originally Posted by Edwina's Secretary
Clearly you are taking the "doo doo occurs" comment WAY out of context. Good to see some things never change. LOL
The question was posed as to how we explain this to our children.... You know, how to explain something like this to a younger child. (Feel free to make baseless assumptions here too....)
While we are at it with the assumptions... Thanks for the (OK, I already knew it) insight into your worldview. Mankind CAN be perfected, we just need to regulate the 'stupid' people. Right?
LOLOLOL :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Puckstop31
I heard on the news yesterday that the head of BP described the effect of the oil spillage on the Louisiana environment as "minimal". From other stories I've heard and seen on the news, it sounds like it has already gotten worse than "minimal". And not only for the environment, but also for tourism and fishing as a commercial industry.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cassiesmom
BP lies. They have lied from the beginning of this spill. They under reported the amount of the oil gushing out of the well, when they knew better.
It seems like they are more concerned with recovering oil for resale, then
stopping the oil from gushing into the gulf waters.