The Media and Energy

Pretty much agree - although I do think it ridiculous that our federal government is so happy to blow money left and right on weapons, wars, farm subsidies, roads etc etc and cannot spend more money on alternative energy.

Let's become a global leader in this stuff and then sell the technology all over the world.

 

My favorite is when they have discussion panels on whether BP is "doing enough."

Look, this is a tragic accident and it will be a black mark on all parties involved for a long time. But don't you think BP wants to cap this as much as we want them to? Set aside the ecological aspects, this is a PR disaster for them that hurts their image everyday. On top of that, they are losing a ton of money with the lost oil. They are losing a ton of money on ways to try to stop it. The more oil that gets out the more it costs them to clean up.

The idea that they aren't doing everything they can to stop this is silly.

 

A little? Try a lot. This is exactly what people warned against, and it's happening in the worst way imaginable. This is a really big deal, and I'm glad the media is exposing the fact that these guys had no real plans for this eventuality.

Which is the exact problem. No company should be given a free pass to poison the environment without answering to the people (i.e. - the govt.). The exact point I'm getting from the media is what you said: we ARE at the mercy of BP and the Oil Industry, and we shouldn't be. They should answer to us, not us to them.

No, because once the well is capped, the oil industry will try to sweep this whole issue under the rug. Not to mention, the average American has the attention span of a gnat, and the memory to match. The time for the discussion is NOW.

I agree that it is easier said than done. But we haven't done much, so it's time to stop "saying" and start "doing".

Well, not EVERYONE...

But it will always be "way out in the future" unless we work on it NOW.

Disagree. Big Oil has spent so much money discouraging innovation in renewable energy, and it has been such a low priority four our govt, we haven't devoted the time, resources, research and MONEY to do enough about it.

I get what you're saying overall though: work the PROBLEM, instead of trying to assign blame. But I think we can, and MUST, do both. Because we have been dependent on oil for far too long, and the time has long passed for us to begin shifting in earnest to renewable energy.

 

I'm sorry, but when something this catastrophic happens, you can't expect people to just "look forward", especially since the spill continues, efforts to stop it have failed, no end is really in sight and we don't have a clue what the extent of the damage will be.

This is a perfect opportunity to legitimately vent about how disgracefully unprepared this country was to deal with the situation. It's hard to blow it out of proportion. We can only hope the venting and anger will help overcome the industry's lobbying and resistance to the regulatory push that is coming.

For lack of better words, the grieving process is still ongoing, as it should be. It will be a while before we, as a nation, put this in the rear-view mirror. Part of the healing process will be holding BP and Transocean accountable. The negotiated settlement will take a very long time.

I agree that anyone who thinks BP isn't doing everything possible to cap the spill is unreasonable.

 

This.

And this.

I grumble about our dependence on oil and lack of renewable energy as much as the next guy, but to think that BP isn't trying everything they can to stop this is laughable. This is a public relations nightmare for them, not to mention the spilling of untold number of gallons of oil into the ocean, which hurts their bottom line. Plus, as the spill increases, their financial responsibility in the cleanup process increases as well. They want this over as much as anyone.

 

I think the problem with BP is that they look and sound like the Keystone Kops when they try to fix anything - and their CEO is a terrible PR man who has a tendency to whine and play the victim.

From drastically downplaying the extent of the spill, towards overly optimistic predictions on their ability to fix it - they've worn out their credibility from day 1...and that's aside from all the other stuff that has come to light about possible neglignece and lax safety on the rig. Other than that, they are doing a "heckuva' job, brownie".

 

As someone who has worked for BP and done extensive research papers on most of the other major IOCs and NOCs, I can tell you right now that is simply wrong.

According to the last report I read by ACORE in 2009, the majors spent 10% of the ~$50 billion market in alternative energy. Although this sum is paltry in relation to their conventional capital investments, it still shows they tried (Chevron is #1 for geothermal energy) and many of these programs are similar in scope to other R&D programs such as refining. The truth is there is very little profitability in alternative energies and these companies are pure businesses. Their core investments deals with oil exploration (little to be done, very little easy oil left that is not under control of NOCs) and stock buybacks/dividend payments.

When energy forecasts in 2030 and 2050 by the DoE and IOCs say hydrocarbons will still deliver about 3/4 global energy supplies, the companies simply cannot afford to invest in a sector which will be only a fraction of conventional supplies in decades to come. In this terrible economy, these corporations have an added responsibility and sensitivity to their investors' demands. The oil majors are huge companies whose scale simply cannot change huge investments to alternative energies fast enough. That sort of dynamism will be left to the VCs and other investors.

The IOCs' long-run strategy will be then to generate huge cash reserves and then acquire small start-ups with the energy solutions that you (the public) demand.

Never think the big dogs who have billions at stake will simply discourage or ignore a market (alt energy) that we know will grow in the future due to energy demands as well as environmental concerns. They'll sit and watch other smaller puppies honestly and sincerely find better energy solutions and they'll just swoop in with loads of cash when the job is done. 100 years from now, when alt energy might be the majority of global supplies, I won't be surprised to see one of the majors like BP be at the forefront of that crowd. Power and money has a way of perpetuating itself.

 

You know, with all due respect, I could care less about how much they are spending on alternative energy. What I am pissed off about right now is the fact that BP, or any of the others drilling in the Gulf, or anywhere else, know for a fact that they are going to have disasters like this. It is inevitable. They should have been spending whatever it takes to insure that should it become necessary, which was, again, inevitable, that they had the needed technology to quickly cap a well at that depth, or any other depth they choose to operate at. If they cannot be certain that they can handle just this sort of catastrophe, THEN THEY SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO DRILL AT THAT DEPTH.

 

Global energy demand is driven by one factor, how many BTUs of energy/$ can you produce.

The problem for now, and in the near future, is that the two most cost effective means are hydrocarbons and nuclear. Solar and wind simply don't produce enough BTUs of energy. Maybe someday they will, but that technology is a lot farther off than a lot of people would care to admit.

One note, the global energy companies of today will most likely be the global energy companies when the switch IS made to alternatives. The supermajor energy companies, even though the investment is paltry to them, still outstrip all other green company investment by factors of 100. BP itself is investing $8 Billion in alternative energy over the next couple of years. Despite being a paltry sum to BP, it is a huge amount over smaller alternative energy companies can invest.

Whether drilling at the ultra deep water reserves is the best option is up to debate, however, that is where the abundant reserves of hydrocarbons exist for future exploration in North America. If you want to get off foreign oil, deep water is where its going to be...and then, mostly in the Gulf of Mexico.

 

No worries, I was only responding to one of BetterThanI's claims, not the larger issue at hand.

Completely agree with what you said in the cavalier attitude that was done when assessing the risk of environmental damage vs. drilling that deep.

 

Oh, I'm just venting. This situation is really pissing me off. No worries from here, either... except for this disaster and a million other things going on.

 

Deckard: the situation should have you PO'd. One thing I would recommend, however, is to withhold complete judgement until all the facts are out and we see how much of an impact this oil will actually have.

If you use past spills in the Gulf as examples, there are big environmental impacts in the near term, but the Gulf of Mexico is surprisingly strong when it comes to fending off oil.

The Mexico spill in 1979 was much larger than this spill, and scientists were very surprised to find fish and shellfish populations rebounded extremely quick due to the bacteria.

The warm, soupy water of the Gulf of Mexico is the perfect breeding ground for oil eating bacteria (not to mention a ton of the oil simply evaporates). During the Mexico debacle, scientists actually found that the explosion in oil eating bacteria populations actually fed into the big time rebound of the sea life populations. The shrimp and shellfish love to eat those little bacteria, and they shrimp populations were above their pre-spill numbers in Mexico within 2 years...with the rest of the sea life population following shortly.

I don't know if the exact thing will happen here, but the Mexico spill is the closest example we have to look at. It was at least 10 times bigger, lasted for 10 months, had very little clean up effort, and within 3 years or so, everything was OK.

Now, for the short term, this will suck for many people in the Gulf. The government's biggest job will be to make sure that BP, Transocean, and any other parties support those displaced people for the short term. I think it was a big step when BP gave a long term $500 million grant over the weekend to track the long term effects.

 

I wanted to say that I've appreciated your updates and info during this. While I don't agree with everything, you certainly mean well and have been very informative. Having said that, I remember the 1979 spill and was still living in Houston back then. Was it at anything approaching this depth? Also, what was the impact with regard to the "loop current?"

 

Supermac -- I hope you're right about the recovery. Nature is both fragile and resilient.

But that doesn't excuse the fact that BP (and the other Oil Co's) don't seem to have had a contingency plan ready to go for a foreseeable situation such as this. They seem to be making stuff up as they go. It seems incredulous to me that they didn't have a ready solution to "How do we cap a blow out 5000 feet down" before they went drilling at that depth.

 

The 1979 spill was on the IXTOC 1 well owned/operated by Pemex, Mexico's state run oil company.

It was in about 300 ft of water and had a major blow out. It took them 10 months to cap it (mainly because they didn't want to spend the money or have the tech to drill relief wells).

It leaked about 60K-80K barrels a day for 10 months. Well over 3 million barrels. This spill, with the low estimates would be about 140K barrels, with high estimates, perhaps 500K barrels. I'm going to go out on a limb to say the current spill is less than a tenth the size of the Pemex spill, but when its all said and done, it may be a fifth of the size.

Pemex didn't launch a massive clean up effort. They didn't burn, collect, or skim tens of thousands of barrels of oil. They didn't lay out boom. They basically didn't do anything.

They did NOT have to deal with the loop current. This spill does. However, a few days ago the NOAA chief came out and detailed what the loop current is doing. Its pulling off a very thin layer of the slick down into the current. We're talking the rainbowy thin stuff here. While it gets pulled into the current, it stretches it out and dramatically increases the surface area of that oil. It then begins to break up and evaporate. Kind of like pulling pizza dough across a room. It gets thinner and thinner and begins to break up. The NOAA guy came out and said that it is actually a good way to cook off the oil, as the thinner and more surface area, the faster it evaportes, especially in warm water and hotter southern sun. His estimate was that it would have little if any impact on Florida.

One big advantage the Mexico spill did have. Sandy beaches. Not a lot of wetlands where it happened. Sandy beaches are easy to clean up. Wetlands, not so much, so that is the major impact from this spill. More than open water fishing, shrimping, or even the clam/oyester beds. That gunk is hard to clean out of wetlands and brush. The good news is, it'll probably get stirred up and evaporate, and those wetlands have lots of bacteria too. The bad news is, it makes bad pictures and kills some birds.

EDIT: One of the impacts that hit home during that spill, if you remember going to South Padre in the 80s, the hotels had stuff to clean the tar off your feet when you came in. That was a result of the Pemex spill. Extra tar balls in South Padre.

EXTRA EDIT: I copied and pasted my last post from the other Deepwater Horizon thread, in case y'all are interested:

So I have a quick update on the various kill options being worked. Listed below are the options that are being worked right now, and the order that they will try them.

1. Top Kill method: this is the heavy mud injection that will probably happen tomorrow that hopefully will kill the well. Estimates have it at 60-70% probability of working.
2. If top kill doesn't work, they will "junk shot" the well to try to clog it up.
3. There is a new well insertion tube being created. Now that they know the pressure and space that they are working with the current tube, they are creating a second tube that will fit better. The current tube has averaged out to about 2,000 barrels a day collected depending on oil/gas mixture for the day. Some days the well puts out 70% methane, some days 30%, so the amount of oil per day is a big variable.
4. There is now a plan to cut the broken riser and insert a sealed top hat with methenol straight on top of the BOP. They can do this because they were actually able to lift the top portion of the BOP to the surface and make some repairs and changes to be able to perhaps to this. The hope is that the suction seal will prevent sea water from getting into the containment unit at the same time injecting methenol to prevent hydrates if it does. This method would hopefully collect 90%.
5. If none of these work, they will try to install a new BOP on top of the old one.
6. The next fail safe that is currently being worked are the two relief wells.

There are apparently about 5 other options being considered. All of the efforts of these options are being worked in parallel, and they will try each new one as needed.

 

One more reply for now. Some of the engineering sites out there are sharing BPs video from undersea on the actual operations. I wish the media would run some of these because its fascinating/amazing some of the engineering and technology work that is going on. There are dozens and dozens of major ships in the area, dozens of ROVs. Its quite impressive. Like an armada out there. I think this is why when they try to grill the Coast Guard commandant, he is actually fairly positive about BP's response.

 

(thanks for the previous reply)

I think this is an excellent post. I've been appalled at the coverage this has gotten from the media. While we heard criticism initially that BP wasn't allowing videos from the actually leak(s), they've now allowed that, but what about everything else that has been going on? I'll see a quick shot of the ship that is processing the oil mix coming to the surface via the inserted tube, and the ever present oil/gas coming from the leak, but not a lot of coverage of the many ships that must be in the area, as well as the ROVs. Perhaps there's some coverage I've missed, but the picture we are getting is obviously far from complete.