Now We have an oil well spewing oil in the Golf

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marcopolo
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Re: Now We have an oil well spewing oil in the Golf

Yes, the government are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

From my perspective:
1) The administration needs to let the experts take charge but the chosen experts should not be "in the pocket of BP". This is not their "Katrina".
2) No amount of posturing or spin is going to put the toothpaste back in the tube. The spill has happened - let's separate the dealing with the spill (economic and environmental) from the need to lessen the chances of repeat (technological and legislative).
3) Let's get the best and brightest working on the clean up and let's get the best ideas on the table and debated on their merits - not on opinions and grandstand-ers...

John you are quite right in most of your analysis, except in one respect. Only the 5 sisters, have the expert knowledge and personel suffciently experienced to deal with a situation like this. BP has employed all the avaible experts!

Anyone not 'in the pocket of BP' (Or the oil industry) lacks the experience and knowledge to be of much use. In fact if you asked for a show of hands of those with experience of a blow-out of this nature, you would have no takers!

One fact must be recognised. No one, has a better motivation to resolve the problems, than BP. No one else has the resourses and cooperation of all 5 sisters, than BP. Spin or no Spin, everyone, including the US Coast Guard is doing their best. The administration is powerless. Obama and his subordiates can only get in the way. The President's real task should be to contruct US oil policy to prevent marginal exploration or accept this sort of disaster.

The public is raised on a diet of movies where the hero is some unqualified complete ousider with a good idea! Very romantic, but rubbish. The situation is more like a plumber trying to work, while various "know it all' idlers, stand round,proffering useless advice and pontificating how it should be done, interfering generally and angering the plumber to the point nothing useful is achieved!

We can't control any of this. But we can choose to use less oil (and in fact to use any resource efficiently).

Absolutely correct.

marcopolo

strawhistle
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Re: Now We have an oil well spewing oil in the Golf

WELL I just learned from abc news that the inner pipe at the well head is 7" round . . SO now I need to find the PSI. at the the bottom of a column of water 5280ft. high ? and the pressure BP had to apply to the heavy mud to temporarily hold back the oil ! than I can calculate the volume or rate at with oil is leaving a large cavity under the earths crust!. This is far from over, and EVERYONE IS afraid!!!
somewhere in my youth, I was thought fear feeds evil, go quietly, and I am only hear to witness !! sorry LaTeR

thank GOD I wake up above ground !!!!

ArcticFox2
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Re: Now We have an oil well spewing oil in the Golf

somewhere in my youth, I was thought fear feeds evil, go quietly, and I am only hear to witness !! sorry LaTeR

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” -Yoda

marcopolo
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Re: Now We have an oil well spewing oil in the Golf
somewhere in my youth, I was thought fear feeds evil, go quietly, and I am only hear to witness !! sorry LaTeR

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” -Yoda

John Lennon is adulated by many as very deep thnking, wise individual, as is evidenced by famous maixim, " "Give peace a chance"!!

Hmmm... but then he also said, "I am the egg-man, I am a walrus.." so maybe he was just stoned!

marcopolo

marcopolo
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Re: Now We have an oil well spewing oil in the Golf

As for hints and rumors, you are the one who initially flat out stated that BP had broken no laws. Maybe you should listen to your own advice and wait for an investigation to complete before making such absurd statements. (And yes, the DOJ is beginning an investigation) BP isn't paying you to lie on their behalf (at least I hope they aren't), so you can stop building a closing argument for the jury that isn't present yet.

After several attempts to obtain any possible act that BP could have breached, President Obama, has announced that he is ordering several department to examine the various laws governing oil production, to discover if any charges could be laid against BP.

This is looking increasingly dubious since the DoJ initially said that it was very doubtful that this could be achieved, and would be far more productive to wait and see what the civilian litigation would reveal.

Poor old Obama, I wonder what his professed hero, Honest Abe, would have made of his buck passing! Like Abe, Obama is a lawyer. But unlike Abe he is dishonestly evading his responsibilities by creating a fall guy, BP.

Problem is, BP if destroyed, will be unable to pay for the massive clean up.

I came across this interesting analysis;

The Buck Stops Over There! Whom should we blame for the oil spill in the Gulf? Take your pick.
By Christopher Beam

There will be plenty of time to assign blame for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. But it never hurts to get a head start.
In his first speech after the spill, President Obama dumped responsibility on BP. And in the public mind, BP is still the main culprit, with 76 percent of Americans disapproving of the way the company is handling the spill. But as more information trickles out about what went wrong and how disaster might have been averted, the arguments over who to blame are becoming fully formed. Here's a look at where fingers have been pointing, and why:

BP: As the lease-holder of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, BP bears ultimate legal responsibility for the cleanup. It will also have to pay damages. But how much responsibility does it bear for the explosion itself? The argument for the buck stopping at BP's feet is that the company was in charge, so it should have demanded the strongest safety standards possible. For example, BP could have demanded an acoustic switch that shuts off the well when the rig is damaged—a safety measure that's required in Norway and Brazil. Aggravating this narrative is BP's history of preventable disasters, including an explosion at a Texas refinery in 2005 and a leaky pipeline in Alaska in 2006. The Obama administration has also criticised BP for failing to act quickly or efficiently enough to clean up the spill and has demanded that it use a more environmentally friendly chemical dispersant.

Transocean Ltd.: While BP leased the rig, Transocean owned and operated it—and was therefore responsible for the equipment functioning properly. If the explosion was caused by a failed blowout preventer—a valve that seals off the wellhead—then Transocean would have to answer for it. BP executives also point to Transocean's Emergency Response Manual, which says that Transocean is responsible for activities on the rig—and therefore accidents—and that BP was only there to "assist."

Halliburton: Halliburton's job was to cement the base of the well. So to the extent that a poor cement job contributed to the spill, blame Halliburton. Shoddy cementing is common on oil rigs, but Halliburton executives told the Senate recently that they were simply following BP's instructions. Indeed, it appears that BP may have skimped on testing the strength of the cement before ordering Halliburton to apply it.

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Minerals Management Service: The federal agency in charge of regulating the oil and gas industry has been almost a parody of incompetence. It let industry officials fill out their own inspection sheets and then traced it over in pen, according to an inspector general's report. Inspectors accepted gifts, like tickets to sports events and pricey dinners, from oil companies. They watched porn on their work computers. (Perhaps they were simply researching the "junk shot.") In at least one case, an investigator may have conducted an inspection while tripping on meth. Not to mention the exemption from environmental impact analysis given to the Deepwater Horizon drilling operation in 2009. (When MMS did assess it in 2007, it estimated that any oil spill wouldn't exceed 1,500 barrels total. The current leak is at least 5,000 barrels a day.) The Obama administration has slammed MMS for its ethical lapses and announced plans to dissolve the agency and replace it with two separate entities—one for regulation and one for revenues.

George W. Bush: The Bush administration is to MMS as BP is to Transocean: It was in charge when oil industry regulation was relaxed, so the blame may fall to them. Environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. argues that Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney staffed MMS with industry-friendly cronies who created the "culture of ethical failure" cited by an inspector general report.

Barack Obama: Few blame the Obama administration for the spill itself. But many believe it could have done a better job responding. Scientists say the administration has failed to collect solid data on the spill's scope and damage. Other critics have called for the government to step in and fix everything. But as Coast Guard chief Thad Allen said: "To push BP out of the way, it would raise the question, to replace them with what?" Politically, the administration's decision to expand offshore drilling—without much talk of its dangers—sets it up for some share of the blame.

Congress: If members of Congress really wanted to prevent spills, they could have written legislation that required more safeguards (for example, the acoustic switch). They could have demanded better oversight by regulatory agencies. And of course they could have de-emphasized offshore drilling, which has boomed in the last decade. Congress also created the $75 million liability cap that's now causing headaches as part of a compromise after the Exxon Valdez spill. The might have considered the repercussions then instead of now.

Circular firing squads tend to be self-canceling, as casual observers lose track of who accused whom of what. But the oil spill is unlikely to follow that path. Too much attention is being paid and the stakes are too high. More likely, this blame-a-thon will resemble the one that followed the financial crisis. The causes of the crash were complex and numerous. But Congress eventually settled on two: the banks and the regulators. Hence the Goldman Sachs auto-da-fé and the regulatory reform bill that will revamp the rules of Wall Street.

Who will take the flak? As legal guardian of the spill—and with liability claims already totaling in the tens of millions—BP is already in the dog house. Unfortunately for Obama, Bush, Transocean and the rest, there's room for more.

In an effort to be fair to Mike B, this whole saga is not one of BP's better days! They own the oil, and the rig was, even if legal, far from the cutting edge standards and practises BP extolled during the tenure of Lord Browne. But as the above article makes clear, no one emerges form this sorry saga with much credit. But, I feel that President Obama's increasingly desperate desire to blame others, will disillusion many former supporters.

marcopolo

strawhistle
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Re: Now We have an oil well spewing oil in the Golf

WELL! I'm not the only one that see's a prophetic connection to this spill "("In Revelations it says the water will turn to blood," said P.J. Hahn, director of coastal zone management for Louisiana's Plaquemines Parish. "That's what it looks like out here — like the Gulf is bleeding. This is going to choke the life out of everything." the cap was collecting 42,000 gallons a day — less than one-tenth of the amount leaking from the well,)" ( that is more than 420,000 gal. each day out of a 7" hole with the pressure of 5000ft of Gulf water pressing against it ! ). Later in the day, BP said in a tweet that since it was installed Thursday night, it had collected about 76,000 gallons ! ! ! What say you now Mr. Polo

thank GOD I wake up above ground !!!!

marcopolo
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Re: Now We have an oil well spewing oil in the Golf

WELL! I'm not the only one that see's a prophetic connection to this spill "("In Revelations it says the water will turn to blood," said P.J. Hahn, director of coastal zone management for Louisiana's Plaquemines Parish. "That's what it looks like out here — like the Gulf is bleeding. This is going to choke the life out of everything." the cap was collecting 42,000 gallons a day — less than one-tenth of the amount leaking from the well,)" ( that is more than 420,000 gal. each day out of a 7" hole with the pressure of 5000ft of Gulf water pressing against it ! ). Later in the day, BP said in a tweet that since it was installed Thursday night, it had collected about 76,000 gallons ! ! ! What say you now Mr. Polo

I'm not sure what the point of your post is exactly. What is the meaning of the reference to Revelations?

BP,is not alone in trying to stop the oil spill. The world best experts are employed. The cap seems to be helping, reducing the flow by approximately a third and hopefully over the next two weeks by up to 80-90%.

The accusation that BP somehow doesn't want to stop the flow is absurd. Apart from the enormous clean up costs, BP is in business to recover oil, not lose it!

An oil spill is caused by a technical failure of equipment. This is always going to be a risk with oil exploration. Even more so with Marginal fields in sensitive areas. Just like air travel, their are risks, equipment failure, overwhelming environmental conditions, human error etc.

BP, owns the oil, but it has 3 other partners, Transocean, Halliburton and Anadarko Petroleum. These companies are responsible for the condition of the rig and its operation. BP has one other partner, the USA Government who approved the drilling of oil in a marginal, high risk, sensitive area.

The risk of this sort of environment occurring is the price, WE must ALL accept, for oil supplies derived from marginal high risk oil exploitation. Don't want the risk, Don't use the oil, Don't issue the licences! Very simple!

I just despise the hypocritical politicians and grandstander's, abusing BP, and shrieking impotent abuse.

The USA, and the rest of the world is either going to have to accept about deepwater, (or any marginal) drilling, is there are no 'back-up' plans! This sort of exploration and exploitation is very High risk.

Earlier in this thread, I was asked what I thought would develop over the next few months. Sadly my reply has proved prophetic.

Regrettably, the US President, and his more rabid supporters, have accepted no responsibility for the bigger picture, instead, they have shamefully indulged in an orgy of hypocritical blame shifting.

What the President, US citizens, the entire world, should be asking, is what is an acceptable environmental price for exploiting increasingly marginal oil reserves? This would be far more helpful than abusing BP.

Did President Obama drive to those photo opportunities in an EV? NO!He used BP's (or one of the 5 sisters)OIL!

When all those stupid "seize BP" demonstrators travelled to their narcissistic march, did they drive EV's? NO! They used BP's oil. (Especially the woman who in her anger to abuse BP, used a loud-hailer made from a BP product.)

When Reich travelled to address his mob of anti-BP demonstrators, did he drive an EV? NO !(Porche SUV!)

When Douglas Brinkley arrived Rice University to to deliver his stentorian condemnation of BP, what fuel did put in his Range Rover SUV ?

What fuel do the Honourable Senators, scurying to jump on the 'blame BP bandwagon' use? EV? NO! BP's oil!

Perhaps Reich was at his most honest when he stated to CNN," Draconian measures are justified by the President against BP, since damage to Florida's beaches is as good a political incentive for Obama as any. The Florida economy depends on tourism. Florida is a key political state."

Cynical? yes! Political? Sure? Useful? Only to Obama!

Maybe Obama was at his most honest when he told Larry King he was, "furious" with the spill and placed the blame squarely on BP: "BP caused this spill. We don't yet know exactly what happened. But whether it's a combination of human error, them cutting corners on safety, or a whole other variety of variables. They're responsible!"

Later he admitted, that the comment, "People recognise the name BP but not Transocean, Halliburton, Anadarko. When the policymakers are looking for a scapegoat, BP is the most convenient one. Is it fair? No, it's not. But it's reality.", was possibly correct, but the American people need to focus the anger somewhere".

Anywhere!, but at you Mr President?

Why not just tell the truth ? Marginal Oil drilling is an unacceptably high environmental risk, and don't issue the licences? Instead concentrate on alternate fuels.

But he can't do that.......Because that would make us ALL, as oil users, responsible for the gulf oil spill.

marcopolo

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