More than plausible, sadly. When I said this could have the economic impact of an atomic bombing, I wasn't kidding. The Gulf Coast produces a huge proportion of the seafood consumed in the US and around the world, and an appropriate percentage of the local economy is tied to this. Likewise tourism, which will not simply suffer but cease to exist if the beaches are covered in oil and the fishing sucks. The Gulf is looking at tens of billions of dollars in lost revenue, work, etc. At this point, almost anything is better than doing nothing at all: If you don't fight the bear, it's going to eat you. If you -do- fight the bear, it might still eat you...but you also might live. That's where the Gulf is right now; deciding whether to fight the bear.

I'm willing to believe it's plausible—desperate, but plausible.

How fucked up is it that the least bad option is a nuclear weapon? What's the old addage? "Piss-poor planning makes for piss-poor performance"? Or something like that.

Proper prior planning prevents piss-poor performance.

We're lookin' at you guys, BP, Transocean...

Are they still dumping the oil-dispersant chemicals?

This is scary nasty.

Dispersant 'may make Deepwater Horizon oil spill more toxic' | Environment | The Guardian

Thanks, Dunedan. *Click*Select*Save As*

Given the Congressional hearings today and the lack of progress it makes me wonder why BP is still in charge. At some point the US government should say enough is enough and take control of the matter. If a house is burning you don't let the homeowner make the decisions. Poor planning blame, poor performance blame, etc. is not important at this time, it isn't going to help. If we think BP is best equipped to handle this and they can't or do more harm than good, at what point is it more a commentary on us rather than BP?

Why don't they just jetison the warp core? It's got as good'a chance as any?

---------- Post added at 12:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:33 PM ----------

The trouble is, we've got a patient lying on the ER bed bleeding to death and the doctors are standing over him arguing over who didn't read the chart. Stop the fucking bleeding, I don't care who does it.

Right. BP is responsible for the problem. BP has not been able to fix it. BP still doesn't know if their latest plan will work. The oil dispersant may be causing more problems. And we keep looking at BP??? I know accidents happen and I will defend those charged wrongly with bad motivations when it may not be true, but ability to get a job done is something different. We should bring in a team that can get the job done. Why hasn't that been done?

well, ace, the problem may well be that outside a comic book there is no team that can just swoop in and deal with this.
that is the problem, yes?
well that and drilling a mile down without planning for contingencies because it's cost effective not to and besides the regulatory system allows tons of latitude for encouraging happy petroleum corporation shareholders and not so much in the way of forcing corporations like bp to have a viable plan which would include developing and testing the required technologies BEFORE the drill baby drill got underway---it's totally irresponsible. but so long as nothing Really Bad happened its a kind of routinized irresponsibility of the sort that goes on every day yes? but now something Really Bad has happened and this underlying fabric of irresponsibility is evident.

but there we are.
it'd be nice if there were super heroes who could just Deal With This.
anyone got the number of the mayor of Gotham City? i hear he's connected...

No. There are people who specialize in certain activity and there are those who have experiences that may not be found within BP. Also, there may be people within BP who have the experience and expertise who may not have the clout needed to direct activities. I look at where behavioral incentives are, and to select a group or firm with a sole incentive of stopping the leak fast regardless of cost is our best option at this point in my view. Comic books aside, there are people who can respond under great pressure and get the job done when others can not.

We see this issue in different ways, that is clear. All I suggest is that government and our regulators let BP do what they did. If BP acted irresponsibly so did our government, and there we have the false sense of security offered by "regulation" and a glaring weakness in the system.

Bad things happen everyday, true. Every contingency can not be planned for and we respond to the best of our ability. We live in a world of risk, this is a known. I don't get your point.

I believe in heroes, it is sad if you don't

I'm sorry, Ace, but exactly who within the Federal government do you expect to have the expertise to deal with this situation? And I've heard of exactly *zero* private contractors saying that they have the ability to respond better. Maybe I've missed that, so please let me know who's saying that they're better able to find a solution.

roachboy's point is that there's no one else, private sector or public, that's stepped forward with viable solutions. If they haven't, their voices haven't made it my ears. Apparently they have to yours. If they haven't, well, then you're talking about comic book heroes.

Oil Spill Hearings Kick Off the Blame Game | Mother Jones

kate shepard, who wrote the above, is tweeting from the hearings:

Kate Sheppard (kate_sheppard) on Twitter

here's another annotated feed from the hearings:

Gulf oil spill hearing - live blog | Richard Adams | World news | guardian.co.uk

It is not clear if you have been following the entire exchange on the issue of "regulators" or not, but to me it is clear that "regulators" rely on the expertise from the industry they regulate. In my view "regulators" are generally going to be responsive rather than proactive. Given my view described, at some point and I think we have past the point our government or "regulators" have to take a lead role in responding to an event. At the end of the day BP may or may not exist as we know it today, but the rest of us have to deal with the consequences. Therefore "we" need to take control. If I was in charge of the government, I would take control of this situation and hire a team of people who could solve this problem. I would stop looking at BP and listening to excuses. I would take accountability. You seem to be able to understand Roach's point of view, even if you don't agree, why don't you understand mine? In my view, Roach's point of view is theoretical or academic, mine more roll-up your sleeves and...

http://www.bondiband.com/images/014.JPG

uh right ace. you're a pragmatist in that market-as-metaphysics kinda way. but i don't wanna talk about that again.

this is interesting:
Gulf oil spill hearing - live blog | Richard Adams | World news | guardian.co.uk

for those who aren't keeping track at home, this from this afternoon's senate hearings.
emphasis added.

No, it is not interesting. The hearings are political grand standing. We need people to lead and get the leak stopped.

I have to agree that these Senate hearings feel premature. It's been a long time since I watch a government hearing and thought, "Now we're getting somewhere!"

rb -

So the well was capped with cement. The cement didn't hold and the BOP didn't hold? This is sort of besides the point but, why would they cap a well which is capable of producing so much oil? In your readings, have you found the reason for capping it?

I would agree it wouldn't be particularly interesting if this were the only oil well in the ocean and will be the only oil rig in the ocean.

Does the government even have technology to deal with this type of a problem? There is a reason we explored the moon before we explored the bottom of the ocean....

ace, so you imagine that the entirety of british petroleum, the entirety of halliburton and transocean and all the ships at sea are stalled out, idled, waiting around for the half dozen talking heads who are testifying before the senate to finish?

what on earth are you talking about?

all this manly man roll-up-yer-sleeves-and-get-in-there-and sort this puppy out bluster is kinda funny. i mean, you're posting in a messageboard. if you're so sure that there are Hero Figures out there who haven't been consulted---o i dunno, maybe one of the x-men--then why don't you stop posting stuff go hop in your car and drive to louisiana and start bossing some people around? i'm sure that the folk from bp would be relieved. "o thank christ he's here." they'd say.

but otherwise yours is every bit as theoretical a position as anyone else's==more even because you seem against all reason to be able to persuade yourself that it isn't theoretical.

get a grip there, ace buddy.

as for the hearings themselves, i'm not posting stuff from them for any reason beyond that there's some interesting information that passes through the veil of generalized tedium that they are. and there's something kinda funny about having representatives of all 3 of the private-sector players being hauled up in front of the senate. but it's all obviously theater and were it not for the information and/or posturing (in its particularities, so as information) i wouldn't bother. fyi.

For capping productive wells, I can't speak about underwater oil, but the explosion in the natural gas exploration around here has caused me to learn more than I ever wanted to know. With natural gas they move equipment around to get the most out of it. If the current supply is being met and opening a new well requires new equipment then buying new equipment wastes money. Buying a new rig, then letting an older, functional rig sit once the well it's on runs dry is not as cost effective as waiting till the well runs dry and using the older rig until it falls to pieces. The costs to open a well are more or less fixed (not likely to differ significantly in the near future) and the equipment is slightly different, so they cap wells until the equipment is freed to utilize the well.

Hektore,

That makes sense, except for the fact that the rig was over this well. Does that mean they were preparing to move this rig to another well in the near future? Just trying to wrap my brain around all of this.

There are thousands of wells in the Gulf many of them deep water. Across the globe there are many deep water wells. Also national standards differ. The reason this is not interesting is because these companies can simply say they met or exceeded our US standards, and "we" don't have a legitimate response. We already know BP is responsible, we know what we think happened, we know what we think failed and there is no evidence that standards were not met. This is simply an exercise put on by people with no expertise with CEO's so far removed from what happened that they have nothing of value to say.

What would have been interesting would have been a hearing before the accident discussing the standards, or a hearing on preventing the next disaster.

I haven't seen anything laid out about the particular well/rig in question, so I cannot speak to this specific case. I only know that capped, unused wells are not uncommon.

My guess would be that moving the rig off the well is not likely the initial cause as it's something that happens quite often. As for who's fault it is right now, I'd say both Halliburton and Transocean are responsible as they both had equipment in the well which was supposed to be able to prevent this from happening independently of one another. Knowing what I do from the drilling I've done, I think a big important question right now is: What was the hold-up on taking the BOP out of the hole if the cap was finished?

The above is your absurdity, not mine.

I am willing to bet Obama will be seeking outside help soon from experts outside of BP and our "regulators".

What irony it would be if Russia was the only ones with the capability to do this. 20 years after the Cold War ended, and them trying to get nuclear bombs into Cuba a few hundred miles away, they would actually be able to help us by detonating one. The one thing I would worry about is if there are any other oil rigs nearby.

I think the big problem now is that BP still wants to get this oil and be able to sell it. They want to either put in more oil rigs to take the pressure off, or cap it and fill barges with it. I'm not sure if they would want to try and fuse it shut, since the damage to their image is done, I'm not sure if they care if they get it stopped tomorrow or a week from today.

I just wonder if there are anti-nuclear treaties that would prevent us from using a nuclear bomb in this way. And I would really start to worry about the election campaigns against a President that needs to use a nuclear weapon in US waters. But, having no plan on what to do to stop a major oil spill is a problem as well.

it's a funny kind of working.

We had a contingency plan for Louisiana spill, and it's working, BP chief tells angry senators | Environment | The Guardian


meanwhile...:

Video: Oil has reached Louisiana coast, says marine biologist | Environment | guardian.co.uk

and meanwhile again, this time back in congress, it appears that the results of some of the initial investigations into what happened with the deepwater horizon and why those things happened are starting to come out. this particular sequence of bad things concerns the famous...well read on:


washingtonpost.com


and in other bureaucratic infotainment, it appears that interior thinks that maybe, just maybe, it'd be a good idea to split minerals management into two mineral managements, one that actually does some regulating/control and the other that collects royalties. here the ny times is noticing that perhaps...maybe....JUST MAYBE...the relation between oil corporations and "regulators" has been a Problem. too "cozy" they're saying.

Obama Officials Seek Better Policing of Oil Industry - NYTimes.com

yeah.
go capitalism. go the state that is its administrative extension.
remember the marxist view of the state? it's not wrong...want proof? here it is.

There is a Marxist view of the state? What is it? Connect the Marxist view of the state to this accident and what it has to do with capitalism. Are you a Marxist? Your above comment simply raises a bunch of questions.

yes.

that is is an instrument of class warfare that acts in the interest of the dominant political arrangement.

you can manage it, ace. the dots are right in front of you. a general discussion of the marxian view of the state is not relevant to this thread though. if you're curious, start another.



gonna drop a dime on me with heimat security if i say yes?

suffice it to say that it's kinda hard to *be* a marxist in 2010.

Did Marx prefer anarchy? Seems like he created a paradox for himself. If the "state" can not be used to achieve his stated goals or even be used to prevent corporate abuse as what is alleged against BP, what is the point of Marxism?

ace, given that in the relatively limited frame of a thread about what is still perhaps the largest industrial accident ever at least in terms of petroleum spilled into water and potential for ecological damage, and given that among the things today has brought to the surface of public attention is that the famous blowout preventer had hydraulic system problems and a dead fucking battery reported in the days just prior to the explosion and nothing was done about it...one result of which was that the preventer didn't..um...prevent, it seems to me that there's ample stuff to think about here, stuff that's more interesting in general and in particular than the difficulty you seem to have formulating a logical question about marxism.



it was a passing remark, a comment on the incestuousness of the relation between "Regulator" and corporate interest in this area which is now so obvious that even the ny times, which in general has never seen a status quo it didn't support, has taken note.
if it causes less static for you to overlook it in your struggle to remain on topic, overlook it. you have my blessing.

The inference in your comment was that there was a failure in capitalism that would not have occurred under Marxism. My point of view has been clear - this was an accident and that we can not and should not make rash generalizations from it. Your position is not clear to me, and that is why I ask questions.

no, ace, that was in no way a conclusion that a normal reader would have derived from my remark. but to get that, you'd have to know what marxism is. which you clearly do not.

trust me, you want to move on to other things, ok?

Why are you being so cryptic?

A normal reader has no understanding of what you are presenting - even if you think they get it, how would you know? I simply ask questions and I admit what I don't get. I honestly don't get Marxism and I don't get why you brought it into this thread. I will move on, I have already come to some conclusions on the issue, even without understandable responses to my questions.

I respectfully disagree. If you do a wheelie on your crotch rocket at 100 MPH on a wet road in the middle of the night with no headlights on and no helmet and you wreck - that's not an accident. That's pretty much what we have here.

BP boss Tony Hayward admits job is on the line over Deepwater oil spill | Business | guardian.co.uk

you haven't even caught up with the head of bp, who is obviously preparing to fall on his sword over this.

here's a little clip of one of the leaks that you can look at.
there's alot of problems that watching this triggered in my brain. maybe you'll have them too.

Wasn't there some controversy over BP being reluctant to release this video footage?

I just saw a new, Dawn dish-washing detergent commercial, 'bout two minutes ago.

They were washing birds and other wildlife.

here's a summary of the materials presented to congress yesterday about equipment and other safety problems that were ignored by bp, transocean and halliburton:




Gulf oil spill: firms ignored warning signs before blast, inquiry hears | Environment | The Guardian

if this is the case, the claim that "this was just an accident...and they happen" heads out the window: not because it wasn't an accident. but because problems with the "fail-safe" systems that were supposed to prevent such massive problems were known and nothing done about them. that means it's not just an accident. that means it's negligence AND an accident.

Isn't it relative? For some the above risk as you describe it is very high based on a factor such as experience, for others the risk relative to that factor may be significantly less. Therefore, based on that one factor (experience) a crash may very well be an accident. There are some people who can do wheelies as well as they can walk across the street and their risk of injury may be the same. But if you take a young person unfamiliar with their bike, unfamiliar with the road, unfamiliar with the dynamics of wet traction, unfamiliar with traffic patterns on the road in question and inexperienced in doing wheelies, I would agree with you.

You may not understand the point and my use of hyperbole - but I have not seen anything that points to anyone purposefully taking on unnecessary risk related to the oil spill. The people in question drill for oil, that is what they do.

---------- Post added at 10:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:47 PM ----------

Again, after the fact it is easy to say whatever we want to say about an accident. But at some point isn't "fail-safe" a concept that boils down to a question of semantics. Is it even possible to have a true "fail-safe" system? I don't think it is, therefore all we have is what we think may be a "fail-safe" system, until it fails. In the case of this oil leak the term "fail-safe" was used but there was evidence that the systems could fail. I believe even the regulators knew this, and I think it is common sense. No one really believes we can drill for oil with a zero risk of an oil leak. We, as a society, accept the risk based on our desires for oil and our willingness to give companies like BP the rights to drill for it. Sure there will be a price BP pays, and it is a price they should pay - including punitive damages. This sends a message to everyone else in the market, but just because some now have the illusion, of a true "fail-safe" system does not directly mean there was negligence.