Obama's Oval Office Oration

[Flagg]

Fuck, he's taking the whooping stick to BP, at least rhetorically. Let's hope he follows through.

[Srelex]

I'd expect him to at least pretend to.

[KrauserKrauser]

Because Obama has a great record on following up on his strong rhetoric.

I hear AIG, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase are really hurting now a days. His rhetoric really put them in bad place, am I right?

[Flagg]

Because Obama has a great record on following up on his strong rhetoric.

I hear AIG, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase are really hurting now a days. His rhetoric really put them in bad place, am I right?

This one of those hit and run pieces?

[Admiral Valdemar]

Krauser has a point, though. When you have the world's biggest environmental catastrophe at hand, you need to speak fighting words whether you intend to follow through or not. Obama's track record on dealing with such companies isn't stellar (not that any POTUS really cracked down on big business in recent years). If BP gets the same treatment the banks got for the credit crunch, I can't expect it doing much more than irritating BP a bit. They certainly wouldn't be eaten alive by other oil companies like some suggest.

[Flagg]

Well now there's this from MSNBC:

BP OKs $20 billion escrow fund, sources say
Fund will be led by Kenneth Feinberg, who handled 9/11 compensation

BREAKING NEWS
NBC, msnbc.com and news services
updated 10 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - BP will set up a $20 billion escrow fund to pay claims for damages following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, administration sources said Wednesday.

A day after telling the nation he would make BP "pay for the damage their company has caused," President Barack Obama met with the company's top executives at the White House -- and news of the agreement emerged shortly afterwards.

BP executives, including Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg, CEO Tony Hayward and BP U.S. boss Lamar McKay, attended the meeting with Obama and other top administration officials that was scheduled to last for 20 minutes.

The independent fund will be led by lawyer Kenneth Feinberg, who oversaw payments to families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

In his current role, Feinberg is known as Obama's "pay czar," setting salary limits for companies getting the most aid from a $700 billion government bailout fund.

Obama was to announce the deal in a Rose Garden statement later Wednesday. The speech will be streamed live on msnbc.com.

The officials familiar with the details spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity so as not to trump the president.

The New York Times reported the same details, citing two people familiar with the deliberations.



Officials told NBC News that the rules on how the government goes back to BP for more funding are still being negotiated.

Paying for the damage
The meeting with BP executives came a day after Obama, in a televised address to Americans, accused BP of recklessness and vowed to fight the spill "with everything we've got."

"We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused," Obama declared in his first Oval Office address, a venue often reserved for matters of war. Obama described the massive spill as a "siege" on the shores of America.

Obama did not offer much in the way of new ideas or details in his speech to the nation. Instead, he mainly recapped the government's efforts, insisted once again that BP will be held to account and tried to tap the resilience of a nation in promising that "something better awaits."

Obama said he would tell the chairman of the British-based oil company that it must set aside "whatever resources are required" to compensate the Gulf Coast people whose lives have been upended because of what he called BP's recklessness.

What's more, Obama said this new damages fund, used to pay claims to workers and business owners, won't be run by BP. He said an independent third party will be in charge to ensure people are paid in a fair and timely way.

The cost of such a fund would be enormous. The White House insists it has the legal authority to make it happen.

Negotiation at play
Still, administration officials also acknowledge a negotiation is at play here, and key issues remain unsolved.

Among them: Who will oversee the escrow fund, who will make that decision, how large will the fund be and whether BP will pay the salaries of oil workers idled by a six-month moratorium on new deep-water oil drilling.

BP declined to offer details about what proposals it would bring to the meeting or any reaction to Obama's biting words.

The company said in a statement that it shares Obama's goal of "shutting off the well as quickly as possible, cleaning up the oil and mitigating the impact on the people and environment of the Gulf Coast. We look forward to meeting with President Obama tomorrow for a constructive discussion about how to best achieve these mutual goals."

Obama also has announced that former Mississippi Gov. Ray Mabus will develop a long-term Gulf Coast Restoration Plan — to be funded by BP — in concert with local communities.

Obama's forceful tone about BP's behavior shows how far matters have deteriorated. The White House once had described BP as an essential partner in plugging the crude oil spewing from the broken well beneath nearly a mile of water. Now Obama says BP has threatened to destroy a whole way of life.

"I refuse to let that happen," Obama said in his televised address.

Short on details
Yet even as Obama pledged not to rest until the Gulf Coast region is restored, he didn't detail exactly how he would keep that promise.

Meanwhile, the frantic effort to stop the leak and contain the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history plods on. So does the venting and search for answers on Capitol Hill, with three more congressional hearings set for Wednesday.

The president is straddling a line. He must show he is a leader not a shouter, yet also one who can relate and respond to the intense emotion of this catastrophe. And public confidence is slipping with every day the oily mess keeps pluming away.

Click for related content
NYT: Obama on offensive with spill battle plan
Obama accuses BP of 'recklessness'
Vote: Is Obama doing enough?
Prepared text of Obama's speech

An Associated Press-GfK poll released Tuesday showed 52 percent now disapprove of Obama's handling of the oil spill, up significantly from last month. Most people — 56 percent — think the government's actions in response to the disaster really haven't had any impact on the situation.

Obama's Oval Office address was the most prominent sign yet that the oil spill response has become his agenda; everything else must compete for his time. He managed to use the forum to extensively plug his effort for a massive clean-energy bill.

Already forgotten was that Obama wasn't supposed to be in the White House on Tuesday night but rather in Indonesia as part of his outreach to the Muslim world. He scrapped that trip to deal with this crisis, using his time to tour the Gulf cleanup once again, address the nation and call in BP officials for direct talks.

The damages are huge. A government panel of scientists determined that the well is leaking even more oil than previously thought, as much as 2.52 million gallons a day — or enough to fill the Oval Office where Obama sat more than 22 times. The total spilled so far could be as much as 116 million gallons.

[SirNitram]

At least it's billed as the start of negotiations, meaning it can improve.

Of course, the speech was not some canned BS, but I can see why a number of certain entities want to portray it as such. Calling out 'Corporations police themselves', demanding.. And then acheiving, at least in part.. A 20billion check to be given to those effected, outright stating the case of peak oil, deploying a crapton of National Guardsmen to the Gulf as soon as the Governers release them for it, and finally, taking the moment to use the crisis to advance a clean energy agenda.

Say what you like. It pointed out alot of stuff a POTUS needs to say in front of cameras to the nation.

[Temujin]

Olbermann and company didn't really have a lot of good things to say about it last night. Essentially they felt it was a lot of rehashing of what everyone already knows with a lot of vague comments about what is going to be done.

[Flagg]

Olbermann and company didn't really have a lot of good things to say about it last night. Essentially they felt it was a lot of rehashing of what everyone already knows with a lot of vague comments about what is going to be done.

As much as I like them, they are a bunch of policy wonks who want details of every bit of minutia of every bit of planning and strategy laid out for them to talk about. You're not going to get that type of shit in a fucking Presidential PR speech designed solely to tell the American people that Obama is on top of the situation and has a plan for moving forward. The fact that the next day shit started getting done says everything.

[Temujin]

Agreed! I was a bit surprised at just how much Olbermann was acting like and agreeing with Chris Matthews. It's one of the reasons I'll preferring Maddow (who wasn't hard on Obama) more and more every day.

[Alphawolf55]

Because it's not like Obama has been more talk then action in certain areas. I mean I like the guy, but you can't criticize people for noticing that Obama inthe last year has been more bark then bite.

[Temujin]

While it's true he's been spineless at times and too willing to work with the GOP, a speech like the one he gave is by its nature not suppossed to be full of details. While it certainly could have been lighter on the recent history and a little more specific on what he's planning to do, I really can't expect him to break out the charts and graphs here, which seems to be what some expect.

Frankly, I think Obama didn't make a strong enough resonse early in the disaster, and now he looks like he's a couple steps behind and playing catch up.

[Alphawolf55]

But past Presidents have done shit like that and it's proven effective, for example Reagan's tax address used graphs and proved suprisingly effective in convincing people. Granted, Obama doesn't need to include stuff like that but when it comes to stuff like getting off of oil dependent he needs to act fast or he'll follow every President since Carter who said they'll do something about it but didn't.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Granted, Obama doesn't need to include stuff like that but when it comes to stuff like getting off of oil dependent he needs to act fast or he'll follow every President since Carter who said they'll do something about it but didn't.

Actually, every president since (and including) Nixon. John Stewart had a great piece about it last night, where he played clips of Nixon promising energy independence by 1980, and literally every president since making claims of achieving it "in the next few years."

[Alphawolf55]

Yeah saw that last night, but I say "Up till Carter" because while Stewart made a point about how the other guys failed pretty drastically, Carter did make getting us off foreign oil somewhat a priority and if given another term would've probably done alot more about it.

[Temujin]

I don't think it matters if they use graphs or not, what the public wants to see is decisive action, which of course is difficult when you have a gridlocked Congress. However, the President does have a shit load of power at his disposal, something the Shrub exercised and even expanded upon quite a bit. Some don't like to see a President having or using that much power in general, let alone whether they are a Dem or a Rep. But considering this is an emergency, I think most will be willing to forgive Obama for getting a bit authoritarian if he looks like he's getting something done. As I noted previously, he's been too slow in stepping up and taking charge and I think that's hurting him.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Actually, every president since (and including) Nixon. John Stewart had a great piece about it last night, where he played clips of Nixon promising energy independence by 1980, and literally every president since making claims of achieving it "in the next few years."

Because it's essentially impossible, but sounds very nice, since relying on Arabs isn't what most Americans want. Apparently they like buying consumer goods more, and so they're happy to be held by the short and curlies by OPEC.

[MKSheppard]

Because it's essentially impossible.

Wrong.

Just build sufficient numbers of gigawatt scale ATOMIC powerplants which set to cracking ammonia from the air itself. Ammonia has many of the useful properties of gasoline, in that it remains liquid at a wide variety of temperatures; and is (relatively) non toxic -- though you don't want to huff the fumes anyway -- and existing engines can be modified to run on it really easily.

It's only real drawback is that it has about half or less the energy density of gasoline, requiring either bigger tanks or shorter ranges. But who cares when you can fill up for $0.50 cents a gallon of ammonia?

[Gil Hamilton]

Wrong.

Just build sufficient numbers of gigawatt scale ATOMIC powerplants which set to cracking ammonia from the air itself. Ammonia has many of the useful properties of gasoline, in that it remains liquid at a wide variety of temperatures; and is (relatively) non toxic -- though you don't want to huff the fumes anyway -- and existing engines can be modified to run on it really easily.

It's only real drawback is that it has about half or less the energy density of gasoline, requiring either bigger tanks or shorter ranges. But who cares when you can fill up for $0.50 cents a gallon of ammonia?

One, ammonia isn't easy to combust in air. You need a special engine or a platinum catalyst (usually) to do it. The engines like the ones in the duece and a half, appearantly, can do it, but more car engines cannot. You'll have to retool most cars in the United States, which is an absurdly large undertaking. It also leads to point 2:

Combustion of ammona, when the reaction is totally complete yields nitrogen gas and water. Great. You will never get remotely the complete reaction of ammonia under standard conditions unless you've got a bad ass catalyst helping or brute force it with high oxygen pressures like you do in a bomb calorimeter. In fact, if you combust ammonia in normal conditions, you produce nitrous oxide (amongst other nitrogen oxides) as side reactants. Right from the get go, you need a really good catalytic converter if you want to avoid spewing completely heinous shit into the air. Ammonia based cars are just going to be more polluting than gasoline cars, particularly at the start before engineers get used to building. I don't know if you consider turning cities into nitrous smog hellholes a perk or not, but it's not a good idea if you actually live in those places.

Finally, I know precisely what process you are talking about for getting the ammonia. It's called the Haber-Bosch process, which makes ammonia very easily from nitrogen gas in the air and hydrogen gas. You know where most hydrogen gas comes from from this process? Petroleum products and natural gas! Most of the ammonia producing industry is specifically structured to use natural gas and oil to make the hydrogen from the H-B process. With your hypothetical gigawatt atomic super plants, I suppose you could electrolyze sea water for hydrogen gas, but (A) the ammonia industry will have to be restructured and (B) it isn't remotely as economical.

Frankly, with the effort you are putting into mass producing huge amounts of ammonia involve building huge power plants, restructuring the industry that makes ammonia, and forcing all consumers to upgrade their car engines and catalytic converters, you could devote the same effort to developing the creation of synthetic gasoline. That process will be worked out within the next ten years (about the time the approval for those nculear power plants makes it through the first layer of red tape and ten years before anyone agrees on a site to actually build them), and we can start producing the gasoline directly.

[KrauserKrauser]

Couldn't you go the route of doing the whole gigawatt reactor set up and go for electric cars? Eventually wouldn't you want to overhaul to electric any way for cost savings. At the level you can get electricity down to with a ton of extra power plants, wouldn't you be able to make electric cars more and more affordable?

[Terralthra]

Batteries don't have anywhere near the energy density of hydrocarbons. That means you need to carry a lot more mass of battery to get the same energy content, which means you need more energy to carry the additional battery mass, which needs you need more battery mass...

It's not impossible to get a cheap battery which has equivalent energy density to gasoline, diesel, etc. We just haven't done it yet, and lots of people have been trying.

This is also ignoring batteries which lose their capacity to recharge over time, toxicity of battery chemicals in a crash....

[Gil Hamilton]

Batteries don't have anywhere near the energy density of hydrocarbons. That means you need to carry a lot more mass of battery to get the same energy content, which means you need more energy to carry the additional battery mass, which needs you need more battery mass...

It's not impossible to get a cheap battery which has equivalent energy density to gasoline, diesel, etc. We just haven't done it yet, and lots of people have been trying.

This is also ignoring batteries which lose their capacity to recharge over time, toxicity of battery chemicals in a crash....

*hauls up the ghost of Thomas Edison by seance* "We'll make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn gasoline!"

You are correct. The best way to store energy is to lock it up in covalent bonds. However, the energy density we can achieve in batteries is steadily improving and if you couple them with the cool new photovoltaics we'll certainly have in the next ten years, you can extend their life between charges some by recharging the batteries continually (this will be useful in some places more than others, but somewhat useful anywhere). The key is that if we can make electricity freely enough, then that we can't achieve the same energy density as locking up energy in covalent bonds isn't that much a worry; charging stations and home stations will be plentiful with clean reliable nuclear power picking up the table.

That's the dream.

[Simon_Jester]

Also, and I believe it was Mike who pointed this out:

It's a lot more hazardous to recharge a battery than to refill a gas tank. I can stop at the pump and transfer twelve gallons of gas to my car in a minute or two; that's about 1.6 gigajoules of chemical energy, and it's enough to keep my car running all week given the rate I consume fuel.

But that's over 400 kilowatt-hours of electricity right there. How long would it take me to charge a battery with that much energy? Especially if I can't use high voltage/high amperage electricity because the average person who stops at a fuel station is likely to screw up if asked to do safe high voltage connections? It takes a certain amount of training to handle HV hardware like that.

So recharging car batteries is always going to be a problem in electrics, unless you can afford to leave them plugged in all night.

[Crossroads Inc.]

As much as I am a supporting of electric cars, I can't see them replacing oil powered cars any time soon. As Terralthra touched on they, unless some immense breakthrough happens, they will never have the same ability to store pound for pound the energy as gas or travel as far.

I own an "E-Bike" which can go about 20mph and about 30miles on a single battery charge. But you have to be very careful with the batter. Overcharging can overheat and reduce the life of a battery. Also batteries don't always hold a charge over a long period of time. If you charge a battery and wait a few days, when you goto use it it may only have about 50% of a full charge.

And then of course there is the fact they indeed use a lot of chemicals and toxic chemicals in making batteries.

"IMHO" the best alternative to Gas in terms of getting similar energy is using Fuel Cells and Hydrogen power. Something I am sad to say might never happen because of the negative connotations with Hydrogen, but Fuel Cells tend to require less exotic materials then high-end car batteries.

[Uraniun235]

Yeah saw that last night, but I say "Up till Carter" because while Stewart made a point about how the other guys failed pretty drastically, Carter did make getting us off foreign oil somewhat a priority and if given another term would've probably done alot more about it.

I doubt it, if I remember right Carter had a lot of trouble getting Congress to cooperate with him. He probably would have been ineffective at it even with a second term.

Finally, I know precisely what process you are talking about for getting the ammonia. It's called the Haber-Bosch process, which makes ammonia very easily from nitrogen gas in the air and hydrogen gas. You know where most hydrogen gas comes from from this process? Petroleum products and natural gas! Most of the ammonia producing industry is specifically structured to use natural gas and oil to make the hydrogen from the H-B process. With your hypothetical gigawatt atomic super plants, I suppose you could electrolyze sea water for hydrogen gas, but (A) the ammonia industry will have to be restructured and (B) it isn't remotely as economical.

Frankly, with the effort you are putting into mass producing huge amounts of ammonia involve building huge power plants, restructuring the industry that makes ammonia, and forcing all consumers to upgrade their car engines and catalytic converters, you could devote the same effort to developing the creation of synthetic gasoline. That process will be worked out within the next ten years (about the time the approval for those nculear power plants makes it through the first layer of red tape and ten years before anyone agrees on a site to actually build them), and we can start producing the gasoline directly.

Alternately if you're throwing huge amounts of energy into producing hydrogen, why not just use the hydrogen more directly in a fuel cell system?

Also, what exactly takes so long to process the paperwork for a nuclear plant? Does it actually require people to spend years going over the documentation or is there some other bottleneck? You'd think there would be a push from every nuclear operator to try and restructure the approval process to not take so much time and money.