Massive Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill

[Broomstick]

Ah... but what replaces the oil?

Our civilization is as dependent on petroleum as it is on food and water - indeed, without petrol-derived fuel there are many, many people who would, in fact, have no food or water. Humanity has cut a very nasty bargain with petroleum. How do we get out of it?

Big Oil has the power it does because we are so dependent on oil and its products to make our current world go 'round. How do we get off the merry-go-round without killing ourselves, or at least a few million or so of us? Yes, it's that serious - how do you think we move food and water and fuel into the big cities of the world? Where do you think the fertilizer to grow food comes from? Where do you think the power for water purification and sewage treatment comes from? The vast majority of that power comes from either oil or coal. We don't have an alternative that could take up the slack tomorrow, or even next week or next year.

[Temujin]

That's true, but it is going to run out relatively soon, at least the easy/inexpensive to reach and refine stuff. We need to start transitioning off of it in as many ways that we can as soon as we can. Hell, we should have started doing that back in the 1970s; we'd be pretty far along now.

I read The World After Oil back in the 1980s. While some of its political prediction have rung hollow, the fact that we need to develop alternatives for oil certainly hasn't. A lot of viable solutions to ease our burden have been left undeveloped or under-developed, partially due to Big Oil's influence. And every day we stall now makes the transition that much harder later.

As for the Robber Barons oil companies, we have the same problem with them that we have with Wall Street. We need to break their power once and for all and make them work for us. I know, far easier said than done. But we won't make any real headway until we do; and perhaps this crisis is just what we need to start.

[Broomstick]

While I would like to think we could come up with a substitute for oil - likely multiple substitutes, to fill the various roles of petroleum products from power to chemical feedstock - there is, in fact, no guarantee that we will be able to do so or that we will be able to do so in time to avert a major catastrophe. You are correct that we should have started seeking viable alternatives in the 1970's, and indeed many voices said exactly that back then, but after Reagan was voted into the presidency America went back to complacency. The very confidence exhibited by people, the belief that there ARE viable and attainable alternatives, diminishes the urgency to the point that nothing is truly done. The confidence is that at some point in the future we'll take care of all that, and we'll do it in plenty of time. Such arrogance, Such hubris.

I've seen a lot of last-minute saves in my time, but you only have to fail to catch the ball once to be out of the game. Don't be overconfident that the oil problem is fixable - either the spill in the Gulf or the long term outlook.

[Temujin]

I'm certainly not overconfident. I've already written off much of the Gulf as a new dead sea, the only question is how dead and how many other areas share its fate.

As for the long term outlook, I'm of the opinion that humanity as a species is rapidly approaching a make or break point. Between the effects of climate change, destruction of the environment and resource depletion, including everything from oil to fresh water and everything in between, I'm convinced we're going to see massive disruption on a global scale resulting in the death of billions.

The only real hope is that some beacon of advanced civilization survives, because if we collapse below a level of industrialization, we may not have enough readily available resources to go through another industrial revolution. If the more advanced nations can develop enough alternatives beforehand, civilization may be able to come through intact.

As for last minute saves, they generally exist more in the realm of fiction. I'm certainly not a believer in them. Even if we had a set of 100% viable solutions dropped into our laps by some advanced alien civilization, it would still require a massive effort on our part to starting immediately to head off most of the problems we're facing, and even then it would be a very rough ride.

[FSTargetDrone]

If people, the average person in say, Louisiana, knew the full truth, really knew it both intellectually and on a deep-down visceral level what do you think would happen if, say, a BP exec walked down the street in, say New Orleans or some other Gulf town? Ugly, very ugly... and virtually no one would shed a tear.

Funny you mention the people of Louisiana and oil:

May 22, 2010
Despite Leak, Louisiana Is Still Devoted to Oil
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON

MORGAN CITY, La. — In some parts of the country, the sight of oil drifting toward the Louisiana coast, oozing into the fragile marshlands and bringing large parts of the state’s economy to a halt, has prompted calls to stop offshore drilling indefinitely, if not altogether.

Here, in the middle of things, those calls are few. Here, in fact, the unfolding disaster is not even prompting a reconsideration of the 75th annual Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival.

“All systems are go,” said Lee Delaune, the festival’s director, sitting in his cluttered office in a historic house known as Cypress Manor. “We will honor the two industries as we always do,” Mr. Delaune said. “More so probably in grand style, because it’s our diamond jubilee.”

Louisiana is an oil state, through and through. A gushing leak off of its coast has not, apparently, changed that.

Though local and state politicians are railing against BP and what they consider lax industry regulation and enforcement, it is nearly impossible to find any of them calling for offshore drilling to cease, or even slow down. Louisiana’s senators — Mary L. Landrieu, a Democrat, and David Vitter, a Republican — have both scrambled to be the most prominent voice to argue that the country should not retreat from offshore drilling just because of the spill. Many of their constituents seem to agree.

“They’re angry, they’re frustrated, they’re feeling helpless, but they still understand that it is part of the culture and the fabric of the economy,” said Representative Charlie Melancon, whose district encompasses all of the areas where oil has come ashore. “It is what it is.”

In a state that is particularly sensitive to the health of its coastal wetlands, which serve as a barrier against hurricanes, such an attitude might seem odd — even self-defeating. But as the legendary Gov. Huey P. Long believed with great conviction, a state willing to let others exploit its resources is also a state with considerable leverage.

But while Long’s taxes on oil paid for schoolbooks, the terms of the trade-off in the coming years may become more directly equivalent: the costly restoration of Louisiana’s coastal wetlands, which for decades have been slashed by oil pipelines and canals and are now threatened by crude itself, may be financed in large part by offshore drilling.

In the months after Hurricane Katrina, Ms. Landrieu helped push through a federal bill that allowed for greatly expanded deepwater drilling in the gulf but required that 37.5 percent of federal revenues generated be divided among the coastal states.

According to a formula based on factors including proximity to wells and miles of coastline, Louisiana is the biggest beneficiary of that revenue. And under a state constitutional amendment, it is required to spend the money exclusively on hurricane protection measures and coastal restoration.

Until 2017, the revenue sharing applies only to new wells, so for now Louisiana is drawing only a small fraction of the royalties it eventually will. (Ms. Landrieu has said that she wants it to apply immediately to existing wells.)

But Garret Graves, the chairman of the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, said that these potential royalties were not a factor in the state’s approach to its natural resources. While officials have pushed for revenue sharing, he said, the oil industry will continue to play a big role here with or without such payments. “Our state has carried the torch for the country in terms of the oil and gas for years,” Mr. Graves said. “It’s part of the culture.”

In this he echoed a common refrain: as long as the country maintains its insatiable appetite for oil, Louisiana will be willing to bear many of the risks. The awareness of those risks does not seem to change the state’s vigorously pro-industry outlook, though it does reinforce a belief that Louisianans should be compensated for the downsides.

Cathy Norman, manager of the roughly 40,000 acres of coastal wetlands in the Edward Wisner Donation land trust, knows the risks as well as anyone.

The land trust she manages includes much of Port Fourchon, the largest onshore support harbor for the deepwater industry in the gulf, but also pristine beaches and mangrove marshlands where, to her horror, she has seen tar balls, sheen and even emulsified crude. Ms. Norman’s late husband, Shea Penland, a geologist who died in 2008, was one of the country’s most forceful advocates for preservation of the Louisiana’s coastal wetlands.

“We are a working coastline,” Ms. Norman said. “Part of the reason that we are so prolific is because of the delta and because of the geology and geography of the area. It all fits in. It is what we are.”

Since 1901, when a man named Jules Clement noticed some curious bubbles on his rice farm, this has been an oil state. Nearly 90 percent of the country’s offshore rigs and platforms are located on the outer continental shelf off Louisiana, according to the state’s office of economic development. The revenue stream from them and from onshore facilities filters throughout the economy, from supply boat companies to rig workers themselves.

It also seeps into politics, of course, with oil and gas interests routinely showing up as top campaign donors to both parties.

Skeptics are now emboldened by the ugly display of the industry’s risks.

“Somehow some folks have sold our community and citizens the myth that if you don’t cooperate, we’re just going to go away and you’re not going to have a good economy here,” Marylee Orr, director of the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, a nonprofit group.

Despite its pro-industry policies, Ms. Orr said, Louisiana has continued to be one of the poorest states in the country, raising serious questions as to whether the downsides are worth it.

“Welcoming all this industry has not made us a wealthy state,” she said.

And yet, while the state’s recreational and commercial fishing is now severely at risk, even fishing guides, though angry about the spill, have not soured on offshore drilling. The waters around the rigs and platforms provide them with some of the richest fishing grounds, they say, and the high salaries in the oil industry provide the extra disposable income that fuels their business.

“We just want them to clean it up, that’s all,” said Michael Ballay, manager of the Cypress Cove Marina, as he sat in the Harbour Bar and Grill in Venice and surveyed the slips full of luxury fishing boats. “A lot of our customers that own yachts made their money from the oil field business.”

And so at the end of summer, the 75th annual Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival will take place as scheduled, with the golf tournament sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute, the blessing of the boats by the parish priest and the coronation of the Shrimp and Petroleum king and queen.

In fact, Mr. Delaune said, curious outsiders have been calling to ask about this odd mix of oilmen and shrimpers. He thinks attendance this year could set a record.

James C. McKinley Jr. contributed reporting from Venice, La.

Of course, we are all complicit in this, to one degree or another. Any one of us who drives a car, or uses plastics, or, well, all of us. We all drive the drills. I don't know how we can get away from it. Perhaps we can mitigate it, but we can't have the lifestyle we have without oil. But that goes without saying.

We feed the beast that may kill us. Louisiana, in this case, is just feeding it a bit more.

[Sea Skimmer]

About all we can hope now is that the area gets barraged with hurricanes this coming season. That wont clean up the oil exactly, but it would help wash it some of it back into the ocean, and thin out what is left so its not instant death for any fish or bird that touches.

[Commander 598]

If people, the average person in say, Louisiana, knew the full truth, really knew it both intellectually and on a deep-down visceral level what do you think would happen if, say, a BP exec walked down the street in, say New Orleans or some other Gulf town? Ugly, very ugly... and virtually no one would shed a tear.

Funny you mention the people of Louisiana and oil:

May 22, 2010
Despite Leak, Louisiana Is Still Devoted to Oil
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON

MORGAN CITY, La. — In some parts of the country, the sight of oil drifting toward the Louisiana coast, oozing into the fragile marshlands and bringing large parts of the state’s economy to a halt, has prompted calls to stop offshore drilling indefinitely, if not altogether.

Here, in the middle of things, those calls are few. Here, in fact, the unfolding disaster is not even prompting a reconsideration of the 75th annual Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival.

“All systems are go,” said Lee Delaune, the festival’s director, sitting in his cluttered office in a historic house known as Cypress Manor. “We will honor the two industries as we always do,” Mr. Delaune said. “More so probably in grand style, because it’s our diamond jubilee.”

Louisiana is an oil state, through and through. A gushing leak off of its coast has not, apparently, changed that.

Though local and state politicians are railing against BP and what they consider lax industry regulation and enforcement, it is nearly impossible to find any of them calling for offshore drilling to cease, or even slow down. Louisiana’s senators — Mary L. Landrieu, a Democrat, and David Vitter, a Republican — have both scrambled to be the most prominent voice to argue that the country should not retreat from offshore drilling just because of the spill. Many of their constituents seem to agree.

“They’re angry, they’re frustrated, they’re feeling helpless, but they still understand that it is part of the culture and the fabric of the economy,” said Representative Charlie Melancon, whose district encompasses all of the areas where oil has come ashore. “It is what it is.”

In a state that is particularly sensitive to the health of its coastal wetlands, which serve as a barrier against hurricanes, such an attitude might seem odd — even self-defeating. But as the legendary Gov. Huey P. Long believed with great conviction, a state willing to let others exploit its resources is also a state with considerable leverage.

But while Long’s taxes on oil paid for schoolbooks, the terms of the trade-off in the coming years may become more directly equivalent: the costly restoration of Louisiana’s coastal wetlands, which for decades have been slashed by oil pipelines and canals and are now threatened by crude itself, may be financed in large part by offshore drilling.

In the months after Hurricane Katrina, Ms. Landrieu helped push through a federal bill that allowed for greatly expanded deepwater drilling in the gulf but required that 37.5 percent of federal revenues generated be divided among the coastal states.

According to a formula based on factors including proximity to wells and miles of coastline, Louisiana is the biggest beneficiary of that revenue. And under a state constitutional amendment, it is required to spend the money exclusively on hurricane protection measures and coastal restoration.

Until 2017, the revenue sharing applies only to new wells, so for now Louisiana is drawing only a small fraction of the royalties it eventually will. (Ms. Landrieu has said that she wants it to apply immediately to existing wells.)

But Garret Graves, the chairman of the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, said that these potential royalties were not a factor in the state’s approach to its natural resources. While officials have pushed for revenue sharing, he said, the oil industry will continue to play a big role here with or without such payments. “Our state has carried the torch for the country in terms of the oil and gas for years,” Mr. Graves said. “It’s part of the culture.”

In this he echoed a common refrain: as long as the country maintains its insatiable appetite for oil, Louisiana will be willing to bear many of the risks. The awareness of those risks does not seem to change the state’s vigorously pro-industry outlook, though it does reinforce a belief that Louisianans should be compensated for the downsides.

Cathy Norman, manager of the roughly 40,000 acres of coastal wetlands in the Edward Wisner Donation land trust, knows the risks as well as anyone.

The land trust she manages includes much of Port Fourchon, the largest onshore support harbor for the deepwater industry in the gulf, but also pristine beaches and mangrove marshlands where, to her horror, she has seen tar balls, sheen and even emulsified crude. Ms. Norman’s late husband, Shea Penland, a geologist who died in 2008, was one of the country’s most forceful advocates for preservation of the Louisiana’s coastal wetlands.

“We are a working coastline,” Ms. Norman said. “Part of the reason that we are so prolific is because of the delta and because of the geology and geography of the area. It all fits in. It is what we are.”

Since 1901, when a man named Jules Clement noticed some curious bubbles on his rice farm, this has been an oil state. Nearly 90 percent of the country’s offshore rigs and platforms are located on the outer continental shelf off Louisiana, according to the state’s office of economic development. The revenue stream from them and from onshore facilities filters throughout the economy, from supply boat companies to rig workers themselves.

It also seeps into politics, of course, with oil and gas interests routinely showing up as top campaign donors to both parties.

Skeptics are now emboldened by the ugly display of the industry’s risks.

“Somehow some folks have sold our community and citizens the myth that if you don’t cooperate, we’re just going to go away and you’re not going to have a good economy here,” Marylee Orr, director of the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, a nonprofit group.

Despite its pro-industry policies, Ms. Orr said, Louisiana has continued to be one of the poorest states in the country, raising serious questions as to whether the downsides are worth it.

“Welcoming all this industry has not made us a wealthy state,” she said.

And yet, while the state’s recreational and commercial fishing is now severely at risk, even fishing guides, though angry about the spill, have not soured on offshore drilling. The waters around the rigs and platforms provide them with some of the richest fishing grounds, they say, and the high salaries in the oil industry provide the extra disposable income that fuels their business.

“We just want them to clean it up, that’s all,” said Michael Ballay, manager of the Cypress Cove Marina, as he sat in the Harbour Bar and Grill in Venice and surveyed the slips full of luxury fishing boats. “A lot of our customers that own yachts made their money from the oil field business.”

And so at the end of summer, the 75th annual Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival will take place as scheduled, with the golf tournament sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute, the blessing of the boats by the parish priest and the coronation of the Shrimp and Petroleum king and queen.

In fact, Mr. Delaune said, curious outsiders have been calling to ask about this odd mix of oilmen and shrimpers. He thinks attendance this year could set a record.

James C. McKinley Jr. contributed reporting from Venice, La.

Of course, we are all complicit in this, to one degree or another. Any one of us who drives a car, or uses plastics, or, well, all of us. We all drive the drills. I don't know how we can get away from it. Perhaps we can mitigate it, but we can't have the lifestyle we have without oil. But that goes without saying.

We feed the beast that may kill us. Louisiana, in this case, is just feeding it a bit more.

Of course we're still devoted to oil/gas, what the fuck else do we have to make money with?

[Admiral Valdemar]

About all we can hope now is that the area gets barraged with hurricanes this coming season. That wont clean up the oil exactly, but it would help wash it some of it back into the ocean, and thin out what is left so its not instant death for any fish or bird that touches.

Hurricanes... may not be the best idea. There are already dangerous levels of gases being wafted over the coast affecting coastal towns, making them smell like someone lit a BBQ every ten metres. If the hurricane season gets going, and I hear it may be 2005 level active, then a lot of that activity will spread fallout from the oil on the surface to the mainland and exacerbate the problem.

We also don't really know what's happening with those submarine plumes. Are they going to stay there, or will they eventually surface or just kill off ecosystems below the waves? Nothing like this has happened on anything like this scale.

[Sea Skimmer]

Hurricanes... may not be the best idea. There are already dangerous levels of gases being wafted over the coast affecting coastal towns, making them smell like someone lit a BBQ every ten metres. If the hurricane season gets going, and I hear it may be 2005 level active, then a lot of that activity will spread fallout from the oil on the surface to the mainland and exacerbate the problem.

I am not sure what you mean. Are you trying to say gas being blown onshore by hurricane force winds, which is highly unlikely to reach nearly as dangerous concentration vs. gas moved by normal wind speeds, is worse then marshes being left dead for decades?

We also don't really know what's happening with those submarine plumes. Are they going to stay there, or will they eventually surface or just kill off ecosystems below the waves? Nothing like this has happened on anything like this scale.

We know huge freshwater bubbles can persist in the ocean for years, and they may last decades. So that underwater oil may not be going to the bottom or the surface for a very long time. So that would be another reason to want hurricanes to churn up the ocean. They might have a chance of disrupting the oil bubbles, and the sooner that happens the better. Oil that reaches the surface we can at least try to clean up. Oil that lands on the bottom will be buried by all the silt that pours out of the Mississippi river. At least in the area around the leak, that's not going to help sites hundreds of miles away.

[Patrick Degan]

And Jefferson Parish finally says "fuck BP":

People on Grand Isle are finding renewed optimism now that Jefferson Parish leaders commandeered about 40-boats-- working around the island-- under BP's control.

Goodbye to a section of land. Marsh in the Gulf, right near the Sand Dollar Marina in Grand Isle is poisoned by oil.

"All that's going to die and the water is going to eat it up some more and we're going to lose more and more to oiled wetlands," said Grand Isle Firefighter Joel Bradberry who took ABC 26 News out on the water.

Bradberry says this latest surfacing of oil that reached Bassa Bassa Bay, could've been prevented 24 hours ago if BP had a better handle on the cleanup. That's why he's relieved Jefferson Parish Homeland Security Director Deano Bonano stepped up to the plate to commandeer boats involved in clean up.

"BP has had resources on the ground and boats tied up doing nothing, and under a state of emergency I finally decided it's time for Jefferson Parish to take over," Bonano said.

Boats were busy laying out boom on Sunday. People in Grand Isle tell ABC 26, until Bonano took control, this was not happening.

"Good thing what he did, at least we'll get some oil picked up over here instead of boats just riding around," said Sand Dollar Marina Owner Butch Gaspar.

"Within an hour, Jefferson Parish Emergency Management had 'em organized and we had 'em on site cleaning up oil," Bonano said.

But it is still a little late for some marine life and marsh.

Bonano says technically BP is maintaining control of the cleanup but is now under the direction of Jefferson Parish.

[Temujin]

Good for them. This shit with BP telling volunteers to go fuck off because their own contractors are going to take care of the clean up is just so they can cover up as much of their fuck up as possible. Well, sorry assholes, its too fucking late and your fuck up is too damn big.

[Sky Captain]

If this source is to be believed then on Sunday there happened major increase in oil output and another leak opened directly from seabed.

If they don't plug the gusher soon then this is going to be among largest man made environmental disasters.

[Broomstick]

My contractor boss was approached last week by BP to do some work for them in regards to spill clean up (mainly, building structures to house men and machines that are hurricane proof for storage, maintenance, living, etc.). He's worked for BP in the past in our area, which is probably why they contacted him, as he has a record with them of being a reliable contractor.

It is a symptom of something amiss that, although BP was offering better wages than here a number of people have expressed reluctance to take up the offer, despite the dire economy we have. As it happens, we are not going down there for several reasons: the scope of proposed work changes daily, if not hourly; the locals are growing increasingly hostile and Not Happy; not all of the commandeered equipment has, apparently, belonged to BP some is apparently stuff owned by independent contractors who are Not Happy to have their stuff taken; a lot of the contractors that are down there are turning around and going back home. It looks like a train wreck from here, and the boss does not want to go into a volatile situation that puts his people and equipment in danger. As this is a man who has built structures in some unsavory parts of Gary and Chicago, to the point of going to work with a .45 on his hip for personal defense that he has actually needed to use the words 'too hot to handle" coming from him is quite a statement. Apparently, BP is refusing to hire Louisiana locals (having gotten pissy that their ploy to force the people harmed by this to sign legal documents preventing said people from obtaining redress against BP for all this in exchange for enough work to prevent destitution and starvation was nixed by Obama & Company) and thus approaching contractors from thousands of of kilometers away to do this work. So you have a population of people whose livelihoods have been destroyed, who have no means of employment or likely prospects, living in a country with an obscene excuse of a social safety net, seeing non-locals brought in to do the only work available, which the locals are shut out of. Yeah, explosive. Really, if all that's happened is stuff getting commandeered that's pretty mild compared to some outcomes. Fuck no, I'm not gong down there. I'd rather starve in Indiana than face mob violence in Louisiana.

Anyhow, I've gotten some interesting rumors from the grapevine. These are coming from BP employees, but are not official in any way nor can I confirm or deny any of the following. It is being offered as food for thought and should be taken as speculation until proven otherwise.

- BP knows damn well the mud/junk shot isn't going to work. So why are they doing it? Good question. Well, they have to do something to avert riots. Personally - this is strictly MY opinion - I think it's a delaying tactic to give the big powerhouses time to consolidate their assets, protect their own asses, and jump ship to avoid taking the heat for this mess.

- There is more than enough oil involved to kill the entire Gulf of Mexico. In fact, in a couple of months it may well hit the Gulf Stream, eventually sending oil to the UK and Western Europe if this thing isn't brought under control. If that happens, not only will the Gulf of Mexico be dead water, it will pretty much bring an end to the Atlantic fishing trade, at least north of the equator.

- Internal company rumor is that there is sufficient oil in the reservoir to keep "erupting" like this for the next 200 years. I sincerely hope that is a gross exaggeration, because if it's true we lose the Atlantic ocean as well as the Gulf.

- Supposedly, two guys in BP Legal have had heart attacks over the weekend. Again, internal company rumor is that this is the end for BP, the company won't exist after this epic fiasco. No company has the means to cover liability on the scale we're looking at here.

- the oil companies are, in fact, reducing the price of gasoline for fear of public ire. This one is likely true - gas prices have dropped $0.30 at the pump in the last week alone. This is even more significant as they normally RISE the last week of May in the US in anticipation of more driving on the upcoming holiday weekend.

Yep, this is starting to look like a petro-Chernobyl. I'm currently working 10-12 hour days (guess I'm not starving in Indiana after all. This month.) so I haven't time to try to substantiate or refute any of the above, but feel free to do so on your own.

[ShadowDragon8685]

My contractor boss was approached last week by BP to do some work for them in regards to spill clean up (mainly, building structures to house men and machines that are hurricane proof for storage, maintenance, living, etc.). He's worked for BP in the past in our area, which is probably why they contacted him, as he has a record with them of being a reliable contractor.

It is a symptom of something amiss that, although BP was offering better wages than here a number of people have expressed reluctance to take up the offer, despite the dire economy we have. As it happens, we are not going down there for several reasons: the scope of proposed work changes daily, if not hourly; the locals are growing increasingly hostile and Not Happy; not all of the commandeered equipment has, apparently, belonged to BP some is apparently stuff owned by independent contractors who are Not Happy to have their stuff taken; a lot of the contractors that are down there are turning around and going back home. It looks like a train wreck from here, and the boss does not want to go into a volatile situation that puts his people and equipment in danger. As this is a man who has built structures in some unsavory parts of Gary and Chicago, to the point of going to work with a .45 on his hip for personal defense that he has actually needed to use the words 'too hot to handle" coming from him is quite a statement. Apparently, BP is refusing to hire Louisiana locals (having gotten pissy that their ploy to force the people harmed by this to sign legal documents preventing said people from obtaining redress against BP for all this in exchange for enough work to prevent destitution and starvation was nixed by Obama & Company) and thus approaching contractors from thousands of of kilometers away to do this work. So you have a population of people whose livelihoods have been destroyed, who have no means of employment or likely prospects, living in a country with an obscene excuse of a social safety net, seeing non-locals brought in to do the only work available, which the locals are shut out of. Yeah, explosive. Really, if all that's happened is stuff getting commandeered that's pretty mild compared to some outcomes. Fuck no, I'm not gong down there. I'd rather starve in Indiana than face mob violence in Louisiana.

Wow. Your boss is hardcore, and if he's telling BP to go take a flying fuck onto a spiked dildo, that should be saying something. In fact it is:

I wonder how long it's going to be until real violence erupts: locals try to commandeer something owned privately, the owner fights back, and a brawl escaltes into a lynching... Can they lay that one on BP as well?

- BP knows damn well the mud/junk shot isn't going to work. So why are they doing it? Good question. Well, they have to do something to avert riots. Personally - this is strictly MY opinion - I think it's a delaying tactic to give the big powerhouses time to consolidate their assets, protect their own asses, and jump ship to avoid taking the heat for this mess.

I saw that on the news this morning. FOX, of course (I was in a diner, it was what they had on before I asked for the remote control and changed it to L&O:SVU,) so the propagandists there were gushing and glowing about how it was going to solve everything.

The way it seems to me is that capping this motherhumper is like trying to plug a faucet with your finger. It just doesn't work. The pressure coming from behind is immense; mind-bogglingly powerful. Isn't 10,000 Psi enough to basically rip a heavily-built civilian car in half?

Dumping mud into the pipe's just going to result in a blast of mud, then gas and oil.

- Internal company rumor is that there is sufficient oil in the reservoir to keep "erupting" like this for the next 200 years. I sincerely hope that is a gross exaggeration, because if it's true we lose the Atlantic ocean as well as the Gulf.

That would be a disaster of, well, biblical proportions..... Oh, crikey; oil fucks with water density and shit, especially if it's floating low. Could that be enough to shut down the seawater conveyance like they predict the greenland ice melting could do?

- Supposedly, two guys in BP Legal have had heart attacks over the weekend. Again, internal company rumor is that this is the end for BP, the company won't exist after this epic fiasco. No company has the means to cover liability on the scale we're looking at here.

I truely, deeply hope so. Not, you know, that paperwork peons are dieing of heart attacks, that's just sad; for once in a great, great time the lawyers didn't cause this. But that this is the end for BP.

- the oil companies are, in fact, reducing the price of gasoline for fear of public ire. This one is likely true - gas prices have dropped $0.30 at the pump in the last week alone. This is even more significant as they normally RISE the last week of May in the US in anticipation of more driving on the upcoming holiday weekend.

I've noticed it too. Jersey's one saving grace is having like, the cheapest gas in the nation, but even here the price is starting to sag... The question is, will it work, or will people see through the ruse?

Yep, this is starting to look like a petro-Chernobyl. I'm currently working 10-12 hour days (guess I'm not starving in Indiana after all. This month.) so I haven't time to try to substantiate or refute any of the above, but feel free to do so on your own.

I dearly hope so. That it's the petro-Chernobyl, that is; that this is the public relations catastrofuck we need to make people turn on oil the way they turned on nuclear power. (Also hope you're getting all the hours you can handle. I could use some hours myself.)

[Big Orange]

I had a feeling that British Petrolium is now finished as a global presence, too bad that the blameless regular BP employees, the Atlantic ecosystem, in addition to the American and British people have to suffer because BP couldn't be arsed to do things properly itself, relying on an unreliable patchwork of contractors from outside and arrogantly freezing out local workers to cut corners.

But for BP as a company, given its track record in Iran (and also Iraq) from the 1920s to 1950s, it's good bye to bad rubbish:

[Simon_Jester]

- Internal company rumor is that there is sufficient oil in the reservoir to keep "erupting" like this for the next 200 years. I sincerely hope that is a gross exaggeration, because if it's true we lose the Atlantic ocean as well as the Gulf.

That would be a disaster of, well, biblical proportions..... Oh, crikey; oil fucks with water density and shit, especially if it's floating low. Could that be enough to shut down the seawater conveyance like they predict the greenland ice melting could do?

Hmm. Let me get my slide rule.

25000 barrels a day, 42 gallons a barrel, 365 days a year, 200 years...
1.05 million gallons a day for 73000 days... call it 76.5 billion gallons... 367 billion liters...

That's 367 cubic kilometers of oil, a cube roughly four and a half miles on a side. Even so, compare this to the millions of cubic kilometers of water in the North Atlantic alone.*

So I... wouldn't think so. Even if we assume that the oil reserve is that huge, it's tiny compared to the overall volume of the ocean. It's a problem because oil is toxic at very low concentrations, not because there's enough oil to substantially alter the average density of water throughout the Atlantic.

...I think. I could definitely be wrong about this.

*The ocean floor is on average well over a kilometer below the surface, and the North Atlantic stretches several thousand kilometers from north to south, and from east to west.

[J]

Various sources from BP and others put the amount of oil in the reservoir at around 100 million barrels. Estimates for the leak range anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 barrels per day, so we're looking at 3-30 years or so of gushing oil if they can't plug the hole.

Oh, and Simon, you need a new slide rule. There's 1000 litres per cubic metre and a billion cubic metres per cubic kilometre so you're off by a factor of 1000. 367 cubic kilometres is about 3/4 the size of Lake Erie and if there were that much oil in the Gulf the US would be the world's largest oil exporter.

[cosmicalstorm]

Fuck this, it is like watching a plane crash in slow-motion.

[FSTargetDrone]

- the oil companies are, in fact, reducing the price of gasoline for fear of public ire. This one is likely true - gas prices have dropped $0.30 at the pump in the last week alone. This is even more significant as they normally RISE the last week of May in the US in anticipation of more driving on the upcoming holiday weekend.

The price of gasoline around these parts (outside Philadelphia) has been dropping faster than I can recall ever seeing before. I see the prices daily on my rounds. Just a day or so ago it had dropped 2 cents within a span of 8 hours. It's $2.80/gallon, as of this morning, at my local Wawa.

Okay, so the junk/mud shot may not work. Who was it around here talking about The Nuclear Option... In all seriousness, how feasible is detonating a device at those depths? Can anyone here speak to what some of the details/issues of such a course of action involve?

[Samuel]

- Internal company rumor is that there is sufficient oil in the reservoir to keep "erupting" like this for the next 200 years. I sincerely hope that is a gross exaggeration, because if it's true we lose the Atlantic ocean as well as the Gulf.

It is possible that it has enough to go for the long haul, but the amount leaking will drop over time- we won't have a continuous stream like we do now. The question is how long before the pressure drops enough so that we can seal it.

[ShadowDragon8685]

The price of gasoline around these parts (outside Philadelphia) has been dropping faster than I can recall ever seeing before. I see the prices daily on my rounds. Just a day or so ago it had dropped 2 cents within a span of 8 hours. It's $2.80/gallon, as of this morning, at my local Wawa.

You might want to consider crossing into Jersey and driving out of Camden, into the sticks, for gas. Near where I am (which is admittedly far from Philly,) we were at 2.69 + 9/10ths two days ago, and it's been dropping steadily for the last week or so.

Okay, so the junk/mud shot may not work.

Imagine trying to plug a garden hose with enough mud that it won't produce water when you turn the tap on. It's pretty damn hard; try it with the hose already on.

Who was it around here talking about The Nuclear Option... In all seriousness, how feasible is detonating a device at those depths? Can anyone here speak to what some of the details/issues of such a course of action involve?

Who's the guy whose soloution to everything is the nuclear option? Norks? Nukes. Arabs? Nukes. Muuuslims? Nukes. Global warming? Nukes. World hunger? Nukes - it's Shep, of course.

As for detonating the nuke at those depths, the only real hurdle is making sure water pressure doesn't crush the bomb early, that can be solved easily enough by building a pressure-vessel ROV around it and moving the ROV into position. Once you set it off, of course, that mother's going kaboom; water pressure will have nothing on the power of a good nuke going off.

The real problem is that I don't really imagine it will do anything good. If anything, it's likely to exacerbate the situation; fracturing the rock under the sea-bed, blasting free a vast quantity of the rock... It'd probably be as likely to blow the lid off the field, and then one pipe becomes a gargantuan rush of oil to the surface, as to get anywhere to closing the rift.

[FSTargetDrone]

You might want to consider crossing into Jersey and driving out of Camden, into the sticks, for gas. Near where I am (which is admittedly far from Philly,) we were at 2.69 + 9/10ths two days ago, and it's been dropping steadily for the last week or so.

And that's supposed to be a good reason to go anywhere near Camden, much less beyond?

Who's the guy whose soloution to everything is the nuclear option? Norks? Nukes. Arabs? Nukes. Muuuslims? Nukes. Global warming? Nukes. World hunger? Nukes - it's Shep, of course.

I know.

As for detonating the nuke at those depths, the only real hurdle is making sure water pressure doesn't crush the bomb early, that can be solved easily enough by building a pressure-vessel ROV around it and moving the ROV into position. Once you set it off, of course, that mother's going kaboom; water pressure will have nothing on the power of a good nuke going off.

The real problem is that I don't really imagine it will do anything good. If anything, it's likely to exacerbate the situation; fracturing the rock under the sea-bed, blasting free a vast quantity of the rock... It'd probably be as likely to blow the lid off the field, and then one pipe becomes a gargantuan rush of oil to the surface, as to get anywhere to closing the rift.

Yeah, I see. Doesn't sounds so good. I was reading about how some Russian wells were staunched using nuclear devices, but those seem to be wells on land.

[Phantasee]

FS, what exactly were you reading? I didn't know the Russians did anything like that.

[FSTargetDrone]

FS, what exactly were you reading? I didn't know the Russians did anything like that.

From The Christian Science Monitor (and elsewhere):

Why don't we just drop a nuclear bomb on the Gulf oil spill?

The Russians have used nuclear bombs at least five times to try to seal off gas well fires, and it usually worked.

By Jeremy Hsu, LiveScience Senior Writer
posted May 13, 2010 at 5:17 pm EDT

Using a nuclear explosion to try to plug the gushing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico might sound like overkill, but a Russian newspaper has suggested just that based on past Soviet successes. Even so, there are crucial differences between the lessons of the past and the current disaster unfolding.

The Russians previously used nukes at least five times to seal off gas well fires. A targeted nuclear explosion might similarly help seal off the oil well channel that has leaked oil unchecked since the sinking of a BP oil rig on April 22, according to a translation of the account in the daily newspaper Komsomoloskaya Pravda by Julia Ioffe of the news website True/Slant.

Weapons labs in the former Soviet Union developed special nukes for use to help pinch off the gas wells. They believed that the force from a nuclear explosion could squeeze shut any hole within 82 to 164 feet (25 to 50 meters), depending on the explosion's power. That required drilling holes to place the nuclear device close to the target wells.

A first test in the fall of 1966 proved successful in sealing up an underground gas well in southern Uzbekistan, and so the Russians used nukes four more times for capping runaway wells.

"The second 'success' gave Soviet scientists great confidence in the use of this new technique for rapidly and effectively controlling ran away gas and oil wells," according to a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) report on the Soviet Union's peaceful uses of nuclear explosions.

A last attempt took place in 1981, but failed perhaps because of poor positioning, according to a U.S. Department of Energy report.

Komsomoloskaya Pravda suggested that the United States might as well take a chance with a nuke, based on the historical 20-percent failure rate. Still, the Soviet experience with nuking underground gas wells could prove easier in retrospect than trying to seal the Gulf of Mexico’s oil well disaster that's taking place 5,000 feet below the surface.

The Russians were using nukes to extinguish gas well fires in natural gas fields, not sealing oil wells gushing liquid, so there are big differences, and this method has never been tested in such conditions.

Besides the possibility of failure, there are always risks when dealing with radiation, though material from the DOE report suggests these are minimal since the radiation would be far underground.

...

Incidentally, I also found video of something called the "Door to Hell" which is purportedly the result of an intentional ignition of a natural gas site after a drilling incident in Turkmenistan (decades ago) which is still burning today. This has nothing to do with a nuclear device or the thing in the Gulf, but it is interesting.

[Instant Sunrise]

However, when the Russians did it, they drilled down 6 KM and initiated the device underground to stop the leak. Initiating it on the surface of the ground, even underwater, would open lots of very tiny leaks in the seafloor as the seabed fractures even more from the pressure wave.

So to answer your question, there is no point in initiating a nuclear device to stop the leak since it already requires to drill a 6KM hole in the seafloor. If you're already doing that, you might as well just use that to drill a relief well and pour mud in the well. This is what BP is, and has been, doing.

"Top Hat," "Junk Shot" and the rest are just BP's way of looking busy while the relief well is being drilled.