What this last paragraph (and similar word you've written) comes down to is that BP holds hostage to its interest a large proportion of our economy. The line of logic is typical: a company employs a ton of people and turns a consistent profit, so it must be a worthy human endeavor. There is little reality reflected in that view, however. Oil production contains many costs that are not accounted for by oil producers, even if the costs of this particular disaster end up fully paid for (which they won't be). Costs from air pollution (even without considering global warming) and political conflict associated with oil production are largely borne by the public at large--often disproportionately by the poor.
While the true costs of changing the world economic model to other energy sources are often downplayed as well. It all comes down to how many BTUs of energy can you get out of that source. All the alternatives to hydrocarbons put a huge amount of dollars/per BTU. Breaking carbon makes energy in the most cost effective way. The worlds highest standards of living use the most energy, it goes hand in hand. Until you convince global economies to not use hydrocarbons by sacrificing their development and new found standards of living, hydrocarbons will remain the most economical source of energy. You will have to convince China, India, Malaysia, etc. to all sacrifice their joining the US and Europe in higher standards of living. Wind and solar on not answers. They provide niche energy and can not, under any circumstance, even with dramatic technological breakthroughs, provide the world's energy demand. Oil is not evil. Companies that produce it have been demonized as evil institutions. They are not. They provide a service that supplies a needed commodity, a commodity that will be needed for the foreseeable future regardless of energy advances. It is dangerous work in many cases as oil gets harder to get. The fact that it employs people is a BONUS. Its not a BAD thing. Its a worthy human endeavor because the energy that the oil produces allows countries to advance themselves, in industry, production, technology. Someday there will be an alternative. Maybe its nuclear. Maybe its simply making using hydrocarbons more effecient. I don't know. I would say that usage of hydrocarbons in this world had added more benefit than you think and allowed the progression of society much more than you give it credit for. Basically every great advancement in human history has come around because of the advancement of energy production, and a huge amount of that was the carbon switch from wood to coal to oil and natural gas. Maybe the next step is nuclear. We'll see. In the meantime I'm not going to demonize a corporation made up of hundreds of thousands of rank and file employees that are doing their best to provide something everyone uses and pay their mortgage.
hey, there's a twitter account where you can submit your ideas on how to fix the spill. good to see Obama exploring every option:
If I hypothetically had a boat and started to go scoop up thousands of gallons of crude that would be legal right? Boil off the water then sell it?
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Too big to fail. Catching up on this thread. Unless we can show direct accountability on the part of BP execs I don't think they should be thrown in jail but I certainly think the company should be held very very liable and pay a hefty penalty. Good point. I think we need to figure out a way to make producers more accountable for these sort of indirect costs.
The real trick is to get them to pay the right people. Give damages directly to the fishing industry and for cleanup. Not just to some government.
Good contribution. I'm glad you have brought your engineering and petroleum expertise to this conversation and informed us about what is happening in the gulf. Your direct assessment of the situation based on factual information from people on th front line of this is great. Also, your alternative solutions to hydrocarbon usage and the companies that produce them is breathtaking.
this is also a government failure, there is an entity in place to make sure these rigs are safe. let's be fair, we said during katrina, and we should say it now.
To be fair, in Katrina, it was the government's levees that failed. It was the government's job (I think they're still fighting about which government.) to maintain the levees, and they failed. In this instance, even if regulators failed at their job (which is what regulators do, generally), it was BP's and Transocean's responsibility to build it safely.
I agree with this. There was certainly failure by Transocean, BP, and perhaps Halliburton. Heck, maybe even Cameron made some mistakes. The who, what, when, where and why have not been determined yet. I look forward to the investigation. The people responsible, whether it was the engineer that made an incorrect call, the manager that put the wrong process in place, or the worker that didn't do his job correctly, need to be fired. The company's that they work for will then have to pay for their mistakes. I think that's how its going to turn out.
What is funny is how the creators of that site are all attorneys, and that they probably are very angry at the lack of environmental impact so far.
Did you guys see this story. Heavy oil has reached the marshes of LA and the Coast Guard under direction from BP turns away CBS cameras. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/18/national/main6496846.shtml
This is bad news. Those marshes are the worst place for the oil to get to. I would bet there are teams of people already in the area cleaning. The exact thing they did in the Chandelier islands. Oil hit shore, about 200 people moved in over night, and the next day it was clean. As for BP contractors telling the Coast Guard to make the people go away, I doubt that they could direct the Coast Guard to do their bidding, but if they did, everyone on those boats should be fired. I am posting a lot in this thread. I'm very emotionally invested as I know several people from various agencies (yes, even BP) but also the Coast Guard and a couple contractors running skimming operations. I would like to state that the people I personally know are working a huge amount of hours to keep this under control, and would never do anything dishonest. They personally care about the area, live in the area, and are working there butts off to protect the area. The non BP people have had nothing but positive things to say about the BP response teams in the area, they have not lacked in support, money, expertise. They find risky oil (like its threatening some coast), call the hotline, and within a couple hours there are Coast Guard and BP rapid response teams in the area cleaning it up. If what this article says is true, and some few contractors and Coast Guard guys are threatening off the press, it would be a huge disappointment to the people I know working in the area. I would also like to personally point out, that I have probably defended BP a little bit much in this thread. The people I personally know (from a few accountants, to some engineers) feel just absolutely sick about this spill and are working very hard to make it right. Nobody I personally know (granted, they are all rank and file employees) feels the least bit arrogant or glib about the situation and are pouring themselves into the operation whenever/wherever they can. The sickest thing to a lot of them is that in the last few years, since the Texas City explosion, they feel like there was a huge effort and investment in safety. Safety training was mandatory for almost every job, from janitor to well engineer to accountant. Safety was the daily mantra, and even in corporate offices they would have "safety moments" often. BP had gone from the back of the line to cutting edge adoption of high level "safety culture" made famous by DuPont. That is the reason regular BP employees, that have committed to this program and culture just feel ill. One example is a buddy of mine in finance. He has absolutely nothing to do with this spill, he's a bean counter. He told me he is having trouble sleeping at night, not because he's afraid for his job or anything, but because he just feels absolutely sick about everything. I just wanted everyone to know where I'm coming from on some of these posts. I will say, even IN BP, that IF this was caused by negligence on the part of some BP employees, even the BP employees want their heads to roll. One good thing is I do have a little inside info from the Coast Guard, BP, and some boat guys. Not too much more than is announced anyways, but a very operational perspective that cuts through the absolutely huge amount of trashy information coming from a million places at once by people that have no info on the situation. I will try to keep people informed on this board the best I can, and I'll try not to let my bias get in the way TOO much.
Stuff like this is hard to plan out. You trying to get oil a mile deep in the ocean. You can make all the calculations you want, but you are dealing with mother nature.
If you notice the post I was responding too had to do with a political defence of BP on your part and not a technical explanation. My commentary was in that spirit.
