Drill, baby, drill,,oops!

All of the reports on fatalities so far say "11 men"...

 

Shock of shocks.
BP announced today they are now recovering 5000 barrels/day of oil through their pipe put in place last weekend.
Funny thing though, there is still oil escaping into the sea. BP has finally acknowledged that the leak is in fact more than 5000bpd.
At least the new live feeds will help with the information flow.

 

I'm waiting for the full public disclosure on how much BP "donated" to various DNC and RNC campaigns, starting with the POTUS

 

Why wait?

Presidential Donor Lookup Results | OpenSecrets

Presidential Donor Lookup Results | OpenSecrets

You have to manually filter through the 2nd link, since "BP" will match more than just what we're interested in.

BP's Lobbying: Lobbying Spending Database-BP, 2010 | OpenSecrets

Oil & Gas money in general: Presidential Candidates: Selected Industry Totals, 2008 Cycle | OpenSecrets

 

Although I agree with the lion's share & the OP's thread, the 'fairness' of the thread just dawned on me. Coal mining has horrific accidents. Nukes (not many but still) have horrific accidents. Obtaining power comes at a big cost (not even counting wars). On the other hand, you don't see giant wind mills killing a bunch of animals/people/environment ... same with solar. It's just their cost that kills.

 

It's not a fair comparison. With wind and solar, you see all the costs up front. With coal and oil, you don't. To get the true picture, you have to factor in all the costs of each energy source. With the recent spill, the general population is beginning to understand the risks and costs of using oil. The loss of a 2 billion dollar a year fishery in the Gulf is going to be significant, and it could be lost for decades. Losing the East coast fishery, once that oil gets around the corner and into the Gulf Stream, will be even more catastrophic.

We tend not to consider environmental costs, partly because they're so convenient to ignore, and partly because we can't count that high.

 

The 'cheap oil' problem is analogous to 'cheap food'. We've become so conditioned by Big Farm's cheap industrial crap that we forget to account for all the hidden costs (soil, water, environment, and our own health!)

Natural, organically grown food without pesticides/antibiotics etc. are 'more expensive' at the cash register. But in the long run, who's to say which is costlier?

 

Me, and it's the cheap food.

 

Ironically cheap food won't be possible without cheap oil.

For every calorie on the dining table 10 fossil fuel calories are spent. Modern farming essentially converts fossil fuels into food.

 

An interesting concept. That would mean folks would have to ask engineers like me honest questions, and expect honest answers, about how our technology in general is sourced

Naw, never happen

 

Most excellent comment.

Back to the main point. You're right. The gulf is getting all the press, but the gigantic swaths of West Virgina in the same equivalent condition on land or the big pools in Canada from Tar Sand extraction are business as usual.

 

Again money... Remember they didnt even consider it until barrels of oil shot up too $100/barrel. At that point it is more economically feasible to burn lots of cheap gas to extract a little expensive oil.

 

on this site 2 days after the estimate was raised from 1000 barrels a day to 5000 barrels, i predicted the estimate would be increased in a week. well it took 3 weeks, so i guess i was wrong.

and we have to be careful when calculating the cost of this spill. now that the marshes and tall grasses of the coast are starting to become contaminated, we are destroying the breeding grounds for fowl, fish and others. the grasses provided perfect cover for eggs and hatchlings from predators. the impact from this alone will be devastating to population that extends far far from the Gulf area. this will impact many other species that rely on them as part of their food chain.

unlike Alaska, these are not hard rocks and sand where heated pressure sprayers can wash down the oil and break it up. this is tall grasses. cleaning the oil (which is realistically not possible) is basically like a hand ful of sand, gum with a cup of oil or grease, rubbing it briskly into your hair then trying to comb it all out. simply cant be done without a lot of damage to the grasses.

another issue to look at is that even if the oil leaked stopped right now, the ecological damage will continue for several more weeks before it can begin to start its recovery... that is IF it can recover.

the deep oceans, the sandy beaches, most likely will show little signs of damages in a year. the grasses and marshes might be gone for good

 

Vicious cycle. cheap oil = cheap food ... cheap electricity ... transportation etc. The horizon ain't too pretty. So ... eat drink & be merry. Hub boy I'm walking on sunshine now.

You got me thinking about Alaska. I wondered if the Valdez was the last/most recent "WHOOPS" up there:

http://www.sitnews.us/0306news/030606/030606_leak_located.html

Meah - didn't take much of a search to see it's business as usual.

.

 

The problem with pipeline operations in Northern latitudes is the impact of Geomagnetic Induced Current on the pipeline. The currents are strong enough to cause severe galvanic corrosion/erosion, and this was unanticiapted when the original pipeline was constructed

GIC is recognized as a pipeline hazard in the Scandinavian countries. For some reason, nobody wants to talk about it here

Geomagnetically induced current: Facts, Discussion Forum, and Encyclopedia Article

Utilities

http://www.esa-spaceweather.net/spweather/workshops/proceedings_w1/SESSION1/pirjola_power.pdf

etc

 

The irony is that cheap oil made tar sands impossible, in terms of economics. Now that we have the higher crude prices a lot of do-gooders wanted, even tar sands is a money-making operation

 

Of course, I agree

The problem is we have a bunch of Do Gooders, a bunch of politicians/lawyers, and bean counters, telling the public just how great an idea it is to take all that new Mackenzie Delta natural gas, and piss it away at the tar sands

You are aware that a lot of Canadian taxpayer money is put into the North to look for and develop that natural gas?

I'm all for having that natural gas run our industry, generate electricity (Way better for the environment than coal plants, and far cheaper than nuclear), and even run our vehicles. Depending on country, natural gas is a very viable and clean way to run vehicles

As time goes on, the environmental and cost consequences of Tar Sands will only become much larger and more apparent. Currently, there is no immediate environmental or cost recovery, these are all shelved and deferred into the far future

Something like the settling ponds at Tar Sands would be an immediate SuperFund site in the United States. However, Canadian environmental regulations lag far behind the United States

What is called a SuperFund site and subject to CERCLA/SARA at enormous cost in the United States, is covered with a foot of soil here and called "good enough."

I have no problem with extracting natural gas from the Arctic. I do have a problem with it being used to make the most expensive oil on the planet