I think the larger point is that if you create a culture in which you are predetermined to believe that the government is evil and can do no right, you create a self-fulfilling prophecy, in this case allowing a regulatory agency to be captured wholesale by the intended target of regulation.
I can't really comment on his conclusions, but this statement: is completely untrue, and it really effects my belief in his conclusions. His analysis gives velocity, and at an equal velocity, you will get 5-times as much flow from a 20" pipe as from a 9".
Exactly. I also find it very strange that NOAA, the Coast Guard, the EPA, and BP would give an estimate, then BP would voluntarily show the camera footage to the media that would incriminate all of those organizations, or at least show that it is incorrect. It doesn't really add up. Its like saying you didn't shoot a guy, but then giving CNN the footage of you shooting a guy. It also doesn't take into account that his estimate would be about the full total flow rate for this exploratory well if it was wide open, yet the BOP, while not working correctly or completely IS preventing MOST of the flow out of the well.
Mother ****er. I grew up on the Gulf Coast. Beach house vacations with family at Galvestion, Padre Island. Learning to surf in the brown, crappy waves at Surf Side. These are some of my richest memories. I moved away from Texas a long time ago and I may never see the Gulf again, but this whole thing is just breaking my heart. A resident of Franklin County, Mississippi and one of the youngest workers on the rig, Roshto, 22, is survived by his son and his wife, Natalie, who has filed a lawsuit against BP, Transocean and Halliburton. An inspiration to his friends, he wrote two dates -- his wedding day and his son's birthday -- inside of his hard hat, referring to these dates when he was having a bad day.
I'm starting to think the efforts to put the smaller pipe in the leaking pipe are not going to work. I believe they have been trying this for a number of hours now without success. It seems like the last several updates are they are trying it. There doesn't seem to be any updates about how it is going...just that they are attempting to do it. Is this seriously the best coverage on the situation we can get? It's like the updates are a day behind or something. This is bs. Did anyone see Kevin Costner on CNN helping to promote a company that has hardware that can separate oil and water based off the principle of centrifugal force? It takes in the oil/water and spits out 97% clean water from one tube and oil in the other tube. They said they are trying to get it to 100% to where you could actually drink the water. Costner has a business venture with this company and they are looking to use this technology for this spill. It seems like it could really help...especially with top skimming. Not sure how effective it would be deep. It would be cool if they could combine it with a Roomba and vacuum the oil off the bottom. It looks like the biggest machine they have is presently limited to 200 gallons a minute. Next step...an open water test.
Not to tread into ToyCen territory, but... Why would anyone believe the estimate of the leak perpetrated by the oil industry? Is it their sterling reputation for the good of humanity they have exhibited in the past?
The tube insertion thing apparently "hit a snag" and they had to reconfigure over night. They restarted over night and we should find out if it worked some time today/evening.
Well, for one, the estimate comes from NOAA, the Coast Guard, and the EPA, which BP simply agrees with. As for the good of humanity, that's a long discussoin on the merits of environmental impact vs. being able to power things that is probably beyond the scope of the oil industry in and of itself.
Apparently most of the oil is not surfacing and still in deepwater. I guess basso's idea of obama negligently not deploying submersible oil tankers with paper towels is still on the table. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/us/16oil.html?partner=rss&emc=rss Also an bit int here about BP blocking further deployments of instruments to measure the flow.
wyl E coyote's idea doesn't work? unfortunately it was just another stupid attempt to criticize obama.
The top executives of BP and the major shareholders should be thrown in jail. We really have to end this power the corporations have of being immune to prosecution. We need to recognize that corporations are groups of individuals, and that these individuals break the law, and that these individuals should be subject to the same laws the rest of us are.
Those underwater plumes probably aren't a big deal long term. The 20 mile plumes off the coast of California for the last 200,000 years haven't created any big mess.
Unless you're a fish, in which case it probably really blows. I would also imagine, that, say for the first 1000 years, the ecosystem off the coast of california was quite disrupted. I guess that's the short term though? Look, I defer to your technical knowledge, but I'm going to venture a guess that the worst oil spill of all time by many orders of magnitude may in fact be a big deal, by the standards of oil spills, and by a geologic time frame that is measured in human lifetimes, rather than hundreds of millennia.
Why should major shareholders be thrown in jail? I'm sorry but all this BP hate is getting ridiculous. Yes, this is a horrible disaster that will affect the Gulf Coast for decades but people are acting like BP intentionally decided to sink its rig and cause what could be one of the largest spills in history. It was an unprecedented accident and no one wants to clean this mess up faster than BP. We should be focusing more on stopping the leak and trying to clean up the spill than trying to burn BP executives at the stake.
Why? They should be responsible for the costs to clean it up, but unless they did something very negligent in this happening I don't see how you can arrest them.
Except that this is not the worst oil spill of all time. Its not even the worst that the Gulf of Mexico has had. This one, while big, isn't even half way to Exxon Valdez yet. The IXTOC 1 spill in 1979, about 138 million gallons into the Gulf of Mexico (about 3.3 million barrels). Nobody even remembers it. This spill will cost several Billion for BP, and has already cost 25 Billion for he shareholders. People I know that work for BP are just sick about it and working very hard to fix the situation. They will then get kicked around by the politicians and media for months/years after this, no matter what level of response. I'm not sure throwing a bunch of guys in jail would also help the situation.
I guess Tea Partiers here would like the gov't to not get involved and continue to stay out of regulating business. Intriguingly, they had their wish and apparently helped lead to this disaster: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill_inspections Get used to this - this is what the Tea Party fools want our lives to be like.
i think we should redo BP's logo. absolutely mandatory. No more green flower, but like a poop-colored blossom. And then throw some of them in jail wearing T-shirts with that brown, sphincter looking logo and see how that works out. Yikes.
No one has a fix on how much oil is shooting out of the well. But some of the best estimates suggest it's the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spill every four to seven days. Scientists are now reporting vast plumes of oil up to ten miles long under the surface. The spill has cost BP about $500 million so far. But consider, in just the first three months this year, BP made profits of $6 billion. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010...90197_page6.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody
