Post-Valdez, a nice little law capping liability was passed. Anyone wanna guess who lobbied hard for it? Anyone? Bueler?
For me this is the most disturbing thing about this disaster that BP didn't seem to think something like this was possible. Going off of the interview with the CEO he made it seem like something this was so unprecedented that there were no contingencies. I was neutral in regard to increasing off shore oil drilling and believed that we had the technology and safeguards to do it safely but this incident has changed my opinion.
And no one could have predicted that somebody might hijack a plane and fly it into a building. This excuse from everyone from W and Condi to Greenspan to BP to Wall Street is really getting old.
I don't work in or follow the oil industry that much but given that a similar accident happened in 1979 it seems like the oil industry should've had developed contingencies. From an outsider point of view it seems like something like this was in the realm of possibility. Pardon me for the tangent but something like this is making me very skeptical about expanding nuclear power. I've always been skeptical but had been swayed by the arguments that new technology was reducing the problems with waste and making nukes very safe. I presume BP had given the same reassurances regarding offshore drilling and Massey regarding deep coal mining yet in the last month we have seen three disasters.
How are they planning to drop that huge 40 foot dome structure on the leak if the rig is blocking the way? Is it possible Paul Noel doesn't have all the facts and is talking out of his ass? Why would they even waste this time with this structure to try to contain the leak and pump the oil up to a container ship if the rig were blocking access to the leak?
like i said i know very little about this subject, but i my dad works in the oil industry and is a mechanical engineer, he told me last night that they believe the casing between the pipes is leaking the oil, so the shut off valves do nothing because the oil is not coming out of the pipes its coming out from AROUND the pipes, so now they are going to try and put a bubble around it to capture as much oil as they can, while simultaneously drilling a relief well to lower the pressure on the reserve.
I think BP is going to have the lion's share of blame...but halliburton had just finished cementing the well 20 hours before it blew. Very interesting. From the la times:
How? You won't "break the fossil fuel industry's back" until the WORLD stops using oil. Not just you, not just hippies, not just America...but the WORLD. You think China is going to stop their economy because of an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? You think people will stop flying planes and using plastics? This is a horrible accident that will have a major impact. It'll get cleaned up, new laws will come into place, some places might even ban offshore drilling, but to think that this will destroy the industry is reaching pretty far.
Well my oh my it will certainly be interesting to see what becomes of these developments. BP can do no wrong in the Middle East no more! Tsk Tsk.
