This would be funny if it wasn't so sad...
The price of retail gasoline is the ONLY thing that shapes lawmakers energy and climate discussions. Just wait till $5 gasoline shows up - then tell me how long before "drill, baby, drill" is back in favor.
We are a nation of Sybil's, Schitzoiding our way threw the dark with "Real House Wives of Orange County" and "Millionaire Match-Maker" playing in the back ground promising still more something for nothing to a generation that makes the "Me Generation" look positively selfless.
Look, it is what it is, and that's all that it is... but the idea that we are having an intelligent debate about ANYTHING other than here in the Blogsphere is just a circle-jerking-cluster-f**k.
At least the Blogsphere has decapitated Political Correctness.
So we go that going for us...
10 comments:
I'd guess a lot of oil companies will first see how much it all costs BP before they decide to bid for any more deep water drilling licenses!
You really can't blame people for being grasshoppers these days instead of ants. Other than a bunch of academics (that's us) "theorizing" that all the cheap oil ever to be found has been found, there is no emergency that the average person can see. We have lots of oil in storage (at least 300+ million barrels since 1935 in the U.S.) and even more sitting in a few dozen oil tankers off the coasts of the UK and Singapore.
All the U.S. gas stations are open. Planes are still flying (you can buy a ticket anywhere). Natural gas is overflowing the underground storage chambers. We have lots of everything available: empty real estate of all kinds, food, stores, Proctor and Gamble products, etc. etc. etc.
Maybe the nutters is us. :) If I saw the world thru the simple eyes of an American, maybe I'd go to the gym today, go out for a drink, go watch "Dancing With The Stars" and then go get a Jimmie Johns sandwich.
I mean, really. Please point to even ONE indicator that life as we know it is coming unglued (go check out Savinar's site -- he gets more crazy by the day!)
The sun is out in Chicago, my heat and air conditioning is off, I'm going out for $9.99 ribs tonight, and the gas stations I checked this morning were all ready for business.
Who are the lunatics here? :)
Bur,
It is the media's job to keep us informed. They haven't committed an act of journalism in years.
Regards,
Coal Guy
From a post to UrbanSurvival.com that I got via the Charles Hugh Smith/Of Two Minds website regarding the Gulf oil distater (April/May 2010) ...
"(The media is) totally missing the boat on how big and bad of a disaster this is.
First fact, the original estimate was about 5,000 gallons of oil a day spilling into the ocean. Now they're saying 200,000 gallons a day. That's over a million gallons of crude oil a week!
I'm an engineer with 25 years of experience. I've worked on some big projects with big machines. Maybe that's why this mess is so clear to me.
First, the BP platform was drilling for what they call deep oil. They go out where the ocean is about 5,000 feet deep and drill another 30,000 feet into the crust of the earth. This it right on the edge of what human technology can do. Well, this time they hit a pocket of oil at such high pressure that it burst all of their safety valves all the way up to the drilling rig and then caused the rig to explode and sink. Take a moment to grasp the import of that. The pressure behind this oil is so high that it destroyed the maximum effort of human science to contain it.
When the rig sank it flipped over and landed on top of the drill hole some 5,000 feet under the ocean.
Now they've got a hole in the ocean floor, 5,000 feet down with a wrecked oil drilling rig sitting on top of is spewing 200,000 barrels of oil a day into the ocean. Take a moment and consider that, will you!
First they have to get the oil rig off the hole to get at it in order to try to cap it. Do you know the level of effort it will take to move that wrecked oil rig, sitting under 5,000 feet of water?
We're so used to our politicians creating false crises to forward their criminal agendas that we aren't recognizing that we're staring straight into possibly the greatest (environmental) disaster mankind will ever see."
"It is the media's job to keep us informed. They haven't committed an act of journalism in years."
Now THAT'S funny! I am going to use that early, and often.
Bur:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXh4xf49hYk
"But this ship can't sink!"
BTW, what does FOS stand for?
Full Of Sh*t
:)
I figured you'd have something to say about: GulfofMexicoDeepWaterDrillingOilLeakingAllOverThePlace, westexas.
Bur-
Everybody in the USSR thought that things were great in 1989. Sun was shining over the Kremlin. The Warsaw Pact was strong.
A year later the USSR was kerplunkt and unable to even bring home Soviet troops from Latvia.
Regards, Marshall
From Monday's WSJ:
Safety Device Questioned in '04
"In 2004, a study commissioned by the MMS raised significant questions about the ability of rams to cut through the stronger pipes used in deep-water drilling. Those thicker pipes—as well as the shear rams—must withstand the enormous pressures found at 5,000 feet below sea level. The study noted there was no agreement on how to determine if the sheer rams would work properly in deep-water conditions.
Only three of 14 newly build rigs had blowout preventers that were able to squeeze off and cut the pipe at the water pressure likely to be experienced at the equipment's maximum water depth, the study noted.
"This grim snapshot illustrates the lack of preparedness in the industry to shear and seal a well with the last line of defense against a blowout," the study said."
My comments:
As the MMS noted, the shear rams in the BOP are "the last line of defense against a blowout." We are not sure why yet, but the BOP on the Transocean rig did not work.
This is the final method of keeping the well from blowing out, and as the 2004 MMS study indicated, many shear rams on deepwater rigs are probably not robust enough to handle the high strength drill pipe being used in these deepwater wells. Apparently no action was taken by the MMS in response to this report.
I see no reason why the MMS could not implement--tomorrow morning--the "Brazil Rule," which reportedly requires the drilling company to demonstrate that they can seal the well with the shear rams, by actually cutting through a length of drill pipe at depth, prior to spudding the well. I guess we could call it the "Missouri Rule," i.e., "Show Me."
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