Michael Bay on the oil spill

[Martin B]

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/worst_case_scenario.png

--
Martin B

[Steven J. Weller]

On Jun 15, 1:50 pm, Martin B <***@mweb.co.za> wrote:

> http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/worst_case_scenario.png

Pretty much nails it.

--
Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary

Steven

[Skipper]

In article <hv8qep$8f6$***@reader1.panix.com>, Steven J. Weller
<***@lafn.org> wrote:

> On Jun 15, 1:50 pm, Martin B <***@mweb.co.za> wrote:
>
> > http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/worst_case_scenario.png
>
> Pretty much nails it.
>
> --
> Life Continues, Despite
> Evidence to the Contrary
>
> Steven
>

I'm enjoying how the MSM is turning on the Turd In Chief.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/06/15/msnbc_trashes_obamas_a
ddress_compared_to_carter_i_dont_sense_executive_command.html

[Betterduck]

On Jun 15, 10:57 pm, Skipper <***@yahoo.not> wrote:

> I'm enjoying how the MSM is turning on the Turd In Chief.

Just remember that I'm the one that will ultimately be the most
affected by the oil spill out of everyone anyone knows or see on the
news. Other than the families of the guys that got blown up on the
rig. Who else has made multiple Pelican videos? Caught more or bigger
fish? Nobody.

Those long-liners arent fisherman. They are scumbags. Buoy fisherman
are scumbags. Losers that put out 5 miles of line with a million hooks
on it arent fisherman like me and JC, they are scumbag crack heads.

Me, I fish for sport. I hardly kill and keep anything table worthy.
The next time you see one of these Gulf Coast guys on TV claiming to
be a fisherman - think just how bad my photo albums would crush that
guy infront of his son. Not only are my fish bigger, but my gear is
also way nicer too. Say to yourself, "Duck is a way better fisherman
than these guys" Its true, I get loads of letters everyday from
children all over the world that basically say -

Dear Duck

I saw your fishing videos and I wish you were my dad. I'm embarrassed
of my fathers fishing tackle and of the fish that we catch. Please
adopt me
and my brother.
...

And now these Waterboys and BP and Obama are just gonna let this thing
hit my Paradise? Sport Fishing Capital Of the World? They better raid
Joe DiMaggios Childrens Hospital and snatch the donated hair off of
the little cancer kids to soak this shit up! Vanity Fair: Bald Obamas
Cover. All of them. I want hair, right now! Shave Washington and
Hollywood. Fuck, it could be a meme to get celebrity crotch hair,
Shave the Liver, Save the River. Something like that.

Get those Carnival barkers that were on Huckaby to start dusting their
Snake powders over here. I would put BP and TransOcean in charge of a
new Lab in Switzerland where they clone Pelicans, Crabs, Turtles, and
Shrimp. Get busy boys.

Oh yeah, stop trying to save the oil. Godzilla the whole thing.
Nuclear sub that bitch or suck it up and call Cameron. I think we all
agree him and Bob Ballard could shut that thing off for a 2 or 3
hundred million. Shut it off! Divert the oil slick to Sandles Beach
Resort, and lets get ready for Happy Bait in September, this is gonna
be one of the best fishing seasons we have ever had.

BD

[studio]

As yet, no one can explain to me why my methods of fixing the pipe
won't work. The fact is, it would work, and is done all the time on
land.

Watch Hell Fighters, or documentaries on how they fix the pipes on
land. It's no different under water except for the people there.
That's why having the right bot for the right job is so important.
Some kid in a garage in Japan could probably whip up the right bot and
call it Gigantor.

If the pipe is bare, cut groves 50% into the pipe into it to accept a
screw-on collar, which can be cemented on, and in turn can accept a
flange and a shut-off valve.
The pipe is more than able to accept the grove cuts as it's probably
rated far more than double the strength necessary to contain the oil
pressure.

If the pipe is already flanged, they simply need to remove the flange
and attach a shut-off valve.

I don't understand what is so difficult about fixing a pipe.
The ocean pressures, and the exiting pressurized oil is NOT a factor
in fixing the pipe.
As a matter of fact, some deep land wells exhibit MORE pressure on
exiting into 15lbs. of land pressure than in the ocean where the oil
is
exiting into the 7,000lbs of ocean pressure.

All the talk of shooting tires and golf balls into it, putting cement
into it, add dispersant, drop mountains of rocks on it, crimp it, drop
an atom bomb on it....
is all stupid talk for stupid people.

That pipe could have been fixed in 3 days.
Fix the pipe and stop the BS.

It makes me wonder if Obama called up BP when it happened and told
them not to fix it?

[Steven J. Weller]

On Jun 16, 1:20 pm, studio <***@hotmail.com> wrote:

> As yet, no one can explain to me why my methods of fixing the pipe
> won't work. The fact is, it would work, and is done all the time on
> land.

Because it's a mile underwater.

The pressure's immense, it's impossible to get a human being down
there, they have to do it all with remotely operated subs that aren't
really equipped for this kind of thing, and there's a fairly intense
jet of oil coming out of the hole that they can't shut off. It's a
little like trying to seal off a fire hose running full blast, without
being able to see it clearly, touch it directly, or even so much as
move around it in real time.

The Gulf of Mexico is pretty much lost, at this point. We're up to 14
Exxon Valdese's as of yesterday and there's no real end in sight.
Millions upon millions of gallons of crude oil and the bulk of it
isn't anywhere near the coast yet. The stuff that's been chemically
dispersed? That's not going away; it's just sinking to the bottom
where it will remain, for decades, destroying the shrimp, oysters, and
other aquatic populations. The wetlands? Gone. Tough enough to
clean up the beach in Alaska, where it was mostly just sand and gravel
- that took years, and it never really has gotten back to normal. The
costal marshes are going to be dead in a matter of a year or two, and
they're not coming back. Once everything dies off, it'll be at least
possible to start cleaning things up, with the hope that many, many
years down the road, they might be rebuilt from scratch. We're likely
to see entire species go extinct over this.

> Watch Hell Fighters, or documentaries on how they fix the pipes on
> land. It's no different under water except for the people there.
> That's why having the right bot for the right job is so important.
> Some kid in a garage in Japan could probably whip up the right bot and
> call it Gigantor.

So far, a lot of people are trying but no one's had any success. BP
(like all of the other oil companies) has been claiming, for years,
that they were prepared for exactly this kind of thing. Turns out
they weren't, because they never really tried to be. I was flat-out
amazed to hear that the Big Expert that BP named in their contingency
plan has been dead for five or more years, but I was shocked to hear
that he'd actually BEEN dead for four years before they actually
published the plan. Even worse? Every other oil company that has a
contigency plan for this kind of thing, names the same dead scientist
as their go-to guy.

> It makes me wonder if Obama called up BP when it happened and told
> them not to fix it?

Yeah, because this is EXACTLY what he needed, as a public relations
move. He's freakin' BASKING in all of this.

What's so silly as to be beyond annoying is that with pretty much
every qualified person on the planet working on how to shut off the
oil, there are still armchair quarterbacks out there insisting it's
actually very simple, and that they could do it in a heartbeat - even
without any training - so it must all be some kind of conspiracy.
That somehow, someone's benefiting from all of this, so they're
letting it continue to spew millions of gallons of oil each day. I'll
bet the moon landing was all fake, too, right?

--
Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary

Steven

[Betterduck]

On Jun 16, 7:03 pm, "Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:

> What's so silly as to be beyond annoying is that with pretty much
> every qualified person on the planet working on how to shut off the
> oil, there are still armchair quarterbacks out there insisting it's
> actually very simple, and that they could do it in a heartbeat - even
> without any training - so it must all be some kind of conspiracy.
> That somehow, someone's benefiting from all of this, so they're
> letting it continue to spew millions of gallons of oil each day.  I'll
> bet the moon landing was all fake, too, right?


Dont underestimate Redneck Ingenuity. They invented the Swamp Buggy,
The Air Boat, The Bigfoot Truck, everything. It may not happen for a
few hundred years, but I'm sure the Ole Boys are figurn out how to get
that oil. Leave the well open, just start recapturing the oil that
shits worth alot of money, and now the govt is involved you can
probably get paid for it twice, once for capturing it, and then re-
selling it back to BP. Look at me, I'm armchair QBing over here.
Dammit! And I wanted to be a snob about the whole thing. You know,
like people that always say Mexican food isnt really Mexican food.

Like the Moon Landing there is a slight chance that there isnt even a
gushing well miles underwater. Its just an excuse that these losers
will use to cover up the fact that they cant catch fish like me and my
boys. Its possible. And then I will have to hear them whine for the
next 4 decades about how they could have been kicking my ass catching
lunkers in peoples faces if it weren't for Obama.

I was watching one of them on the News today, he was talking about
being a fisherman. And I was yelling at my TV.

"Crawling Liar! You cant fish! You couldnt even get bait before the
Oil thing. So go grab your store bought earthworms and your Costco
fishing combo and go home and tell your wife that you want to show her
something real big. Light some candles, put on the Dr. John 8 Track
and show her one of my fishing videos."


Whatya think? Too over the top for Fridays party?

BD

[Steven J. Weller]

On Jun 16, 7:53 pm, Betterduck <***@gmail.com> wrote:

> I was watching one of them on the News today, he was talking about
> being a fisherman. And I was yelling at my TV.
>
> "Crawling Liar! You cant fish! You couldnt even get bait before the
> Oil thing. So go grab your store bought earthworms and your Costco
> fishing combo and go home and tell your wife that you want to show her
> something real big. Light some candles, put on the Dr. John 8 Track
> and show her one of my fishing videos."
>
> Whatya think? Too over the top for Fridays party?

Maybe a <<wee>> bit too soon. But then again I'm pretty conservative
where this kind of thing's concerned; you might be able to make it
fly.

--
Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary

Steven

[Martin B]

Betterduck wrote:

> Oil thing. So go grab your store bought earthworms and your Costco
> fishing combo and go home and tell your wife that you want to show her
> something real big. Light some candles, put on the Dr. John 8 Track
> and show her one of my fishing videos."
>
> Whatya think? Too over the top for Fridays party?

FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FISHING VIDEO.

Might work. Could you get Jennifer Aniston attached?

--
Martin B

[MC]

In article <hvgf76$id9$***@reader1.panix.com>,
Martin B <***@mweb.co.za> wrote:

> FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FISHING VIDEO.
>
> Might work. Could you get Jennifer Aniston attached?

Hooked might be more accurate than atached...

--

"If you can, tell me something happy."
- Marybones

[Alan Brooks]

"Martin B" <***@mweb.co.za> wrote:

> Betterduck wrote:
>
>> Oil thing. So go grab your store bought earthworms and your Costco
>> fishing combo and go home and tell your wife that you want to show her
>> something real big. Light some candles, put on the Dr. John 8 Track
>> and show her one of my fishing videos."
>>
>> Whatya think? Too over the top for Fridays party?
>
> FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FISHING VIDEO.
>
> Might work. Could you get Jennifer Aniston attached?

The oil spill makes me think... Lesbian Cat Fight Oil Wrestling?

Alan Brooks
---------------------------
A Schmuck with an Underwood

-- It's that
week again.

MWSM FAQ: http://www.panix.com/~mwsm/faq.html
Filtering Trolls: http://www.panix.com/~mwsm/trolls.html

[MC]

In article <hvghh7$e07$***@reader1.panix.com>,
Alan Brooks <***@panix.com> wrote:

> "Martin B" <***@mweb.co.za> wrote:
>
> > Betterduck wrote:
> >
> >> Oil thing. So go grab your store bought earthworms and your Costco
> >> fishing combo and go home and tell your wife that you want to show her
> >> something real big. Light some candles, put on the Dr. John 8 Track
> >> and show her one of my fishing videos."
> >>
> >> Whatya think? Too over the top for Fridays party?
> >
> > FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FISHING VIDEO.
> >
> > Might work. Could you get Jennifer Aniston attached?
>
> The oil spill makes me think... Lesbian Cat Fight Oil Wrestling?

I don't need an oil spill to think that.

--

"If you can, tell me something happy."
- Marybones

[studio]

On Jun 16, 7:03 pm, "Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:
> On Jun 16, 1:20 pm, studio <***@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > As yet, no one can explain to me why my methods of fixing the pipe
> > won't work. The fact is, it would work, and is done all the time on
> > land.
>
> Because it's a mile underwater.

Not a valid excuse.

> The pressure's immense, it's impossible to get a human being down
> there, they have to do it all with remotely operated subs that aren't
> really equipped for this kind of thing,...

Then what pray-tell are the subs equipped for???
They need a sub(s) to what exactly what I outlined and stop the BS.

> and there's a fairly intense
> jet of oil coming out of the hole that they can't shut off.  

Not nearly as intense as when it comes out on land from a deep well.

> > Watch Hell Fighters, or documentaries on how they fix the pipes on
> > land. It's no different under water except for the people there.
> > That's why having the right bot for the right job is so important.
> > Some kid in a garage in Japan could probably whip up the right bot and
> > call it Gigantor.
>
> So far, a lot of people are trying but no one's had any success.  

That's because they're not trying what actually works.
All the insane ideas or cutting off a riser pipe isn't going to shut
the oil off.

> What's so silly as to be beyond annoying is that with pretty much
> every qualified person on the planet working on how to shut off the
> oil, there are still armchair quarterbacks out there insisting it's
> actually very simple, and that they could do it in a heartbeat - even
> without any training - so it must all be some kind of conspiracy.

It sure does make me wonder about it, because it isn't as complicated
as they say it is.

> That somehow, someone's benefiting from all of this, so they're
> letting it continue to spew millions of gallons of oil each day.  

And you're of the opinion that "no one will benefit".

> I'll bet the moon landing was all fake, too, right?

Never said it was. And besides, they made it home and didn't leave the
moon a polluted cesspool.

As I said before, no one can explain to me why my methods won't work,
the only thing they can explain is that it's a mile away and humans
can't go there. Well duh. The pipe was put there by people a mile away
all the same.

[Steven J. Weller]

On Jun 17, 8:31 pm, studio <***@hotmail.com> wrote:

> On Jun 16, 7:03 pm, "Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:
>
> > On Jun 16, 1:20 pm, studio <***@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > As yet, no one can explain to me why my methods of fixing the pipe
> > > won't work. The fact is, it would work, and is done all the time on
> > > land.
>
> > Because it's a mile underwater.
>
> Not a valid excuse.

Says who? What's your expertise in this matter, that makes you a
better judge of the situation than the hundreds of experts in the
field who seem to disagree with you? Are you an oceanographer? Do
you design and build these kinds of submersibles? Do a lot of
wildcatting a mile beneath the ocean? Opinions are like assholes;
everybody's got one. What makes yours so much better than the trained
experts' - who don't all work for BP or the US Gov't - and why aren't
you out there solving the problem, if it's so good and strong and
valid?

> > The pressure's immense, it's impossible to get a human being down
> > there, they have to do it all with remotely operated subs that aren't
> > really equipped for this kind of thing,...
>
> Then what pray-tell are the subs equipped for???

Exploration, routine maintenence, and probably most importantly, for
show. BP, like all of the others, is in the business to make money.
It's expensive to actually have safety measures in place, but it's a
lot cheaper to have a couple of multi-million dollar subs, with
mounted video cameras and impressive-looking claw arm thingies on the
front and so on. If anyone - like, say, a regulatory agency - asks
what you're going to do in case of a catastrophic failure, you just
trot out the subs. Better still, you trot out the video of the subs
in action, from some episode of NatGeo or Nova or whatever. "See?
We're picking up a wild shrimp by the tail and then releasing it
unharmed from a hundred fathoms down. If there's ever any kind of
emergency, we've got that by the ass, too." Conveniently forgetting
to mention that the video took elevendy-seven takes, most of which
involved missing the shrimp entirely or squishing it to death.

> They need a sub(s) to what exactly what I outlined and stop the BS.

Trouble is, no one's got one that can do that.

> It sure does make me wonder about it, because it isn't as complicated
> as they say it is.

Then why aren't you down at BP headquarters, with your degree in
oceanography and your other degree in Marine Engineering and your
long, impressive resume' of oil well control and containment, offering
to solve the problem, shut off the well, and reap the millions in
reward for your service?

> And you're of the opinion that "no one will benefit".

BP just put aside $20 BILLION in an escrow account, to pay for the
damages, but the truth is they're going to spend a lot more than that
before they eventually declare bankruptcy. Obama's going to lose the
next election because he concentrated too much on looking
"presidential" and didn't shake his fist enough at the beginning. All
of the commercial and sport fishing in the entire Gulf of Mexico is
over, for a lifetime or more. The tourist industry there is largely
over, to the extent that it includes beaches and wetlands. Who out
there has the power to prevent your alleged simple solution, who would
also benefit from this catastrophe? Is there some cabal out there,
that was just waiting for an environmental disaster of this magnitude
so they could secretly prevent it from being solved, or are you
suggesting that the whole thing was set up and BP was just the victim,
what with their shoddy safety record and all?

> As I said before, no one can explain to me why my methods won't work,
> the only thing they can explain is that it's a mile away and humans
> can't go there. Well duh.

Then why are you wasting time here? Go, save the world!

> The pipe was put there by people a mile away
> all the same.

And all it took was a couple of YEARS, drilling slowly, in relatively
calm seas, and WITHOUT a high-pressure plume of oil in the way.
You're right - piece o' cake. Same guys should have have it dealt
within a couple of hours, tops.

--
Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary

Steven

[Betterduck]

On Jun 18, 12:21 am, "Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:

> BP just put aside $20 BILLION in an escrow account, to pay for the
> damages, but the truth is they're going to spend a lot more than that
> before they eventually declare bankruptcy.  Obama's going to lose the
> next election because he concentrated too much on looking
> "presidential" and didn't shake his fist enough at the beginning.  All
> of the commercial and sport fishing in the entire Gulf of Mexico is
> over, for a lifetime or more.

I cant really blame Studio, the news media has no way of explaining
this in context. The political people are still talking about it like
its a fuck up or a scandal. I think the Gulf is toast also. But thats
just my gut. I predicted the Iguanas would survive the cold fronts,
and they didnt. There are no Iguanas around, anywhere.

Its so large in scope that it is really hard for us to get our heads
around it. Its like Afghanistan. Its easy to say why dont we just go
in there and get em. When the scope is so big and nasty that its hard
not minimize it in how we visualize it because for most of us its only
our imagination that we have to reference.

The washington nerds are worse at it than me. At least I have some
experience with the ocean and pelagic fish and bait migrations and
currents and all that. And thats how you know Sarah Palin is a fraud.
She's not outdoorsy. If she was a legit outdoorsy she would get it,
and take charge, and lead. She could demand TV time and explain that
this thing is bad, and we really need to do something to minimize the
damage instead of yapping about fine print Rig laws.

PALIN
Everybody on both sides of the political landscape
needs to zip it up and listen. Our Country just had
a Miscarriage. Lets not make it an Abortion. And we
can still save this Baby! We need help from the rest of
the Non American World. We need The Jews and the
Arabs and the Chinese and the French to help us out
here. We need Nascar Moms with oil spill cleanup skills
to report for duty...


BD

...

The Cable News doofuses dont get it.

[Alan Brooks]

"studio" <***@hotmail.com> wrote:

> On Jun 16, 7:03 pm, "Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:

>> What's so silly as to be beyond annoying is that with pretty much
>> every qualified person on the planet working on how to shut off the
>> oil, there are still armchair quarterbacks out there insisting it's
>> actually very simple, and that they could do it in a heartbeat - even
>> without any training - so it must all be some kind of conspiracy.
>
> It sure does make me wonder about it, because it isn't as complicated
> as they say it is.

Just curious: what sort of credentials do you have to make that claim?

Alan Brooks
---------------------------
A Schmuck with an Underwood

-- ThD.

MWSM FAQ: http://www.panix.com/~mwsm/faq.html
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[studio]

On Jun 18, 9:34 am, Alan Brooks <***@panix.com> wrote:
> "studio" <***@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > On Jun 16, 7:03 pm, "Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:
> >> What's so silly as to be beyond annoying is that with pretty much
> >> every qualified person on the planet working on how to shut off the
> >> oil, there are still armchair quarterbacks out there insisting it's
> >> actually very simple, and that they could do it in a heartbeat - even
> >> without any training - so it must all be some kind of conspiracy.
>
> > It sure does make me wonder about it, because it isn't as complicated
> > as they say it is.
>
> Just curious: what sort of credentials do you have to make that claim?

What kind of credentials do I need to make that claim?

All you have to do is go on YouTube and see how they fix them on land
and use some common sense. They put out 100's of oil well fires AND
fixed all the pipes in Kuwait. You need robots that can make the same
moves that any of the people would around the pipe.
It's complete non-sense that they can't fix the pipe.
You'll see that in Hellfighters just as in real life, the most
forbidding of oil leaks are those that are on fire or emitting
poisonous gases, neither of which is the case here.
BP already spent $2 billion and will spend lots more billion$ instead
of constructing the right bot for the job for $100 million that could
be rented-out and used in any deep water well accident by any oil
company that might need it. But we all know the highly-paid bean
counters at the oil companies tell the CEO's that "such an accident
will never happen again; so we don't need to pay to make such robots".

[Alan Brooks]

"studio" <***@hotmail.com> wrote:

> On Jun 18, 9:34 am, Alan Brooks <***@panix.com> wrote:
>> "studio" <***@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Jun 16, 7:03 pm, "Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:
>>>> What's so silly as to be beyond annoying is that with pretty much
>>>> every qualified person on the planet working on how to shut off the
>>>> oil, there are still armchair quarterbacks out there insisting it's
>>>> actually very simple, and that they could do it in a heartbeat - even
>>>> without any training - so it must all be some kind of conspiracy.
>>
>>> It sure does make me wonder about it, because it isn't as complicated
>>> as they say it is.
>>
>> Just curious: what sort of credentials do you have to make that claim?
>
> What kind of credentials do I need to make that claim?
>
> All you have to do is go on YouTube and see how they fix them on land
> and use some common sense. They put out 100's of oil well fires AND
> fixed all the pipes in Kuwait. You need robots that can make the same
> moves that any of the people would around the pipe.
> It's complete non-sense that they can't fix the pipe.
> You'll see that in Hellfighters just as in real life, the most
> forbidding of oil leaks are those that are on fire or emitting
> poisonous gases, neither of which is the case here.
> BP already spent $2 billion and will spend lots more billion$ instead
> of constructing the right bot for the job for $100 million that could
> be rented-out and used in any deep water well accident by any oil
> company that might need it. But we all know the highly-paid bean
> counters at the oil companies tell the CEO's that "such an accident
> will never happen again; so we don't need to pay to make such robots".

It's clear BP decided a long time ago to take the short profit and eat the
cost of any future disaster. Well, the disaster is here and they are
unprepared to deal with it. And yet, not financially unprepared. Decades
of record profits have left them with very deep pockets, so if a solution
existed out there, anywhere, they could and would buy it or rent it. They
don't have it themselves because they spent the last 3 decades lining
executive and shareholder pockets at the expense of the very sort of backup
strategy and equipment they now need.

But they can't buy or rent a solution, because the solution isn't out there.

Stating that they just need the right "bot" to fix the leak, is like saying
that I just need the right rocketship to colonize Mars. A sentence can be
syntactically correct and make a "truth" statement while still being
nonsensical (my rocketship will be 300 cubits by 50 cubits by 30 cubits, and
it will make the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs). It's like saying I could
re-orient my house to face a different direction if only I had a 200 foot
pipe wrench and 6 Abrams tanks to pull on the handle.

While I believe the executives of BP are reckless greedheads, and I'm
willing to believe they might be evil incarnate, I don't believe they're
stupid. If there was a mere $100,000,000 solution to this problem, they'd
do it right now. But there isn't one. If there was a $1,000,000,000
solution to this problem, they'd do it right now. But there isn't one. My
personal belief is that they are declaring they have no solution because
they know the only possible solution lies with the US Navy, and some sort of
massive, targeted explosion. By surrendering they're essentially handing
the problem to the US government and asking them to send them a bill when
it's all over.

Alan Brooks
---------------------------
A Schmuck with an Underwood

-- If the only
tool you have
is nothing,
you'll see
every problem
as somebody
else's.

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[Steven J. Weller]

On Jun 23, 7:36 am, Alan Brooks <***@panix.com> wrote:

> My
> personal belief is that they are declaring they have no solution because
> they know the only possible solution lies with the US Navy, and some sort of
> massive, targeted explosion. By surrendering they're essentially handing
> the problem to the US government and asking them to send them a bill when
> it's all over.

What scares me is that you might be right. A massive, targeted
explosion is far more likely to make things worse than it is to make
them better, but if nothing else is working it might end up being
tried. Right now - just this moment, as I'm typing this - comes the
news that one of the subs bumped into the warm water hose, and they've
had to take the cap off the well. The one that was allowing them to
siphon off a fraction of the oil spewing into the water. So, we're
back to where we started, and the second well being drilled will be
finished sometime toward the end of August at the earliest.

> -- If the only
> tool you have
> is nothing,
> you'll see
> every problem
> as somebody
> else's.

I'm stealing that, just so you know.

--
Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary

Steven

[Alan Brooks]

"Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:

> On Jun 23, 7:36 am, Alan Brooks <***@panix.com> wrote:
>
>> My
>> personal belief is that they are declaring they have no solution because
>> they know the only possible solution lies with the US Navy, and some sort of
>> massive, targeted explosion. By surrendering they're essentially handing
>> the problem to the US government and asking them to send them a bill when
>> it's all over.
>
> What scares me is that you might be right. A massive, targeted
> explosion is far more likely to make things worse than it is to make
> them better, but if nothing else is working it might end up being
> tried. Right now - just this moment, as I'm typing this - comes the
> news that one of the subs bumped into the warm water hose, and they've
> had to take the cap off the well. The one that was allowing them to
> siphon off a fraction of the oil spewing into the water. So, we're
> back to where we started, and the second well being drilled will be
> finished sometime toward the end of August at the earliest.

We're fucked.

I hate to speak out against Obama here, but we need to see some leadership
on this issue. We need the Coast Guard in charge of clean-up, the Navy in
charge of fixing the problem and BP in charge of paying for all of it.

And I kid you not: if it means nationalizing BP's wells to pay for this,
then we take away their wells the same way we'd take away the guns of anyone
who didn't use them responsibly.


>> -- If the only
>> tool you have
>> is nothing,
>> you'll see
>> every problem
>> as somebody
>> else's.
>
> I'm stealing that, just so you know.

Under Fair Use you can only use about 30% of it, and only in articles that
aggrandize me. At least that's how *I* interpret Fair Use.

Alan Brooks
---------------------------
A Schmuck with an Underwood

-- Legal
Smeagal.

MWSM FAQ: http://www.panix.com/~mwsm/faq.html
Filtering Trolls: http://www.panix.com/~mwsm/trolls.html

[Steven J. Weller]

On Jun 23, 11:44 am, Alan Brooks <***@panix.com> wrote:

> "Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:
>
> > On Jun 23, 7:36 am, Alan Brooks <***@panix.com> wrote:
>
> >> My
> >> personal belief is that they are declaring they have no solution because
> >> they know the only possible solution lies with the US Navy, and some sort of
> >> massive, targeted explosion. By surrendering they're essentially handing
> >> the problem to the US government and asking them to send them a bill when
> >> it's all over.
>
> > What scares me is that you might be right. A massive, targeted
> > explosion is far more likely to make things worse than it is to make
> > them better, but if nothing else is working it might end up being
> > tried. Right now - just this moment, as I'm typing this - comes the
> > news that one of the subs bumped into the warm water hose, and they've
> > had to take the cap off the well. The one that was allowing them to
> > siphon off a fraction of the oil spewing into the water. So, we're
> > back to where we started, and the second well being drilled will be
> > finished sometime toward the end of August at the earliest.
>
> We're fucked.

No kidding.

> I hate to speak out against Obama here, but we need to see some leadership
> on this issue. We need the Coast Guard in charge of clean-up, the Navy in
> charge of fixing the problem and BP in charge of paying for all of it.

Just like BP doesn't have a fix for this - at any price - neither does
the Navy or the Coast Guard. There's only two things that can be
done, here - stop the well that's spewing, and clean the oil out of
the water. It's not a failing of leadership, it's a failing of
technology. We don't have a way to get down there and seal off the
pipe, and we don't have a way to get the oil out of the water. Booms,
dispersants, the Kevin Costner Magic Centrifuge, nylon stockings full
of hair clippings, all of it - it's all on a much smaller scale.
Great if you're cleaning up a tanker's worth of spilled oil, but we're
talking millions of gallons a DAY, day after day and week after week
and eventually month after month. And so far nothing's out there
that's really going to do anything about the sub-surface plumes, and
once the chemically dispersed oil sinks to the ocean floor, it's there
for generations. Forever, basically. The Gulf of Mexico is pretty
much a write-off, at this point, and there's nothing that Obama or BP
really ever could have done about that, after the fact at least.

This is, in essence, the China Syndrome that all of the crazy tree-
huggers were screaming about back in the 70s, when the whole idea of
off-shore drilling and deep-water platforms were being protested. One
well, one catastrophic failure, and we are, indeed, fucked. And now
the Governor of Louisiana is campaigning to lift Obama's 6-month ban
on new drilling in the area, because his state needs the money.
THAT'S how much we're learning from this mistake.

Okay, I suppose there's an argument to be made that the damage is
already done so why not just keep making money, but this is the nature
of pretty much any and all human endeavors. If there's a way for
something to go wrong, it will - eventually. Wells will explode,
cores will melt down, buried toxic waste will make its way to the
surface, or into the water supply, and so on. We don't have the
attention span for decades of absolute vigilance, and there's always
going to be someone who's willing to bet that nothing's actually going
to go wrong if you just cut a couple of corners and skim the extra
money off the top.

> And I kid you not: if it means nationalizing BP's wells to pay for this,
> then we take away their wells the same way we'd take away the guns of anyone
> who didn't use them responsibly.

We're already doing that, to a certain extent. Twenty billion dollars
in an escrow account of some sort, against the eventual cost of the
clean-up. A lot of people are quietly getting their money out of BP
before the company has to declare bankruptcy (which is why the stock
is plunging) and when it does finally go ashcan, the remainder of the
expense will be shouldered by the US Gov't. It's going to cost a lot
more than $20B before it's all said and done but it's better than
having nothing to work with. Fox News made a bit of noise about how
the US has no right to "extort" this money from BP, of course.

--
Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary

Steven

[nmstevens]

On Jun 23, 3:27 pm, "Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:
> On Jun 23, 11:44 am, Alan Brooks <***@panix.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > "Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:
>
> > > On Jun 23, 7:36 am, Alan Brooks <***@panix.com> wrote:
>
> > >> My
> > >> personal belief is that they are declaring they have no solution because
> > >> they know the only possible solution lies with the US Navy, and some sort of
> > >> massive, targeted explosion.  By surrendering they're essentially handing
> > >> the problem to the US government and asking them to send them a bill when
> > >> it's all over.
>
> > > What scares me is that you might be right.  A massive, targeted
> > > explosion is far more likely to make things worse than it is to make
> > > them better, but if nothing else is working it might end up being
> > > tried.  Right now - just this moment, as I'm typing this - comes the
> > > news that one of the subs bumped into the warm water hose, and they've
> > > had to take the cap off the well.  The one that was allowing them to
> > > siphon off a fraction of the oil spewing into the water.  So, we're
> > > back to where we started, and the second well being drilled will be
> > > finished sometime toward the end of August at the earliest.
>
> > We're fucked.
>
> No kidding.
>
> > I hate to speak out against Obama here, but we need to see some leadership
> > on this issue.  We need the Coast Guard in charge of clean-up, the Navy in
> > charge of fixing the problem and BP in charge of paying for all of it.
>
> Just like BP doesn't have a fix for this - at any price - neither does
> the Navy or the Coast Guard.  There's only two things that can be
> done, here - stop the well that's spewing, and clean the oil out of
> the water.  It's not a failing of leadership, it's a failing of
> technology.  We don't have a way to get down there and seal off the
> pipe, and we don't have a way to get the oil out of the water.  Booms,
> dispersants, the Kevin Costner Magic Centrifuge, nylon stockings full
> of hair clippings, all of it - it's all on a much smaller scale.
> Great if you're cleaning up a tanker's worth of spilled oil, but we're
> talking millions of gallons a DAY, day after day and week after week
> and eventually month after month.  And so far nothing's out there
> that's really going to do anything about the sub-surface plumes, and
> once the chemically dispersed oil sinks to the ocean floor, it's there
> for generations.  Forever, basically.  The Gulf of Mexico is pretty
> much a write-off, at this point, and there's nothing that Obama or BP
> really ever could have done about that, after the fact at least.
>
> This is, in essence, the China Syndrome that all of the crazy tree-
> huggers were screaming about back in the 70s, when the whole idea of
> off-shore drilling and deep-water platforms were being protested.  One
> well, one catastrophic failure, and we are, indeed, fucked.  And now
> the Governor of Louisiana is campaigning to lift Obama's 6-month ban
> on new drilling in the area, because his state needs the money.
> THAT'S how much we're learning from this mistake.
>
> Okay, I suppose there's an argument to be made that the damage is
> already done so why not just keep making money, but this is the nature
> of pretty much any and all human endeavors.  If there's a way for
> something to go wrong, it will - eventually.  Wells will explode,
> cores will melt down, buried toxic waste will make its way to the
> surface, or into the water supply, and so on.  We don't have the
> attention span for decades of absolute vigilance, and there's always
> going to be someone who's willing to bet that nothing's actually going
> to go wrong if you just cut a couple of corners and skim the extra
> money off the top.
>
> > And I kid you not: if it means nationalizing BP's wells to pay for this,
> > then we take away their wells the same way we'd take away the guns of anyone
> > who didn't use them responsibly.
>
> We're already doing that, to a certain extent.  Twenty billion dollars
> in an escrow account of some sort, against the eventual cost of the
> clean-up.  A lot of people are quietly getting their money out of BP
> before the company has to declare bankruptcy (which is why the stock
> is plunging) and when it does finally go ashcan, the remainder of the
> expense will be shouldered by the US Gov't.  It's going to cost a lot
> more than $20B before it's all said and done but it's better than
> having nothing to work with.  Fox News made a bit of noise about how
> the US has no right to "extort" this money from BP, of course.
>
> --
> Life Continues, Despite
> Evidence to the Contrary
>
> Steven

The fact is, the technology for dealing with oil spills hasn't made
any significant progress in generations.

All of the vacuums and dispersal agents and all the rest will
ultimately gather up a very small percentage of the spill -- just as
they always have.

As for the rest of the oil? Well, the volatile stuff in the oil will
mostly evaporate. Some will combine chemically with sea water in one
way or another. And then when all of the volatiles evaporate out, all
of the stuff that is not very volatile -- that is, all of the tars --
what hasn't been washed ashore (which is the vast majority) will
ultimately sink down to the bottom.

And there it will stay -- thousands and thousands of tons of the
stuff, essentially out of reach of any possibility of cleaning it up
-- until it gets buried by sediment.

And there's never been any means even dreamed of for dealing with that
stuff. People who are charged with cleaning it up know that this is
essentially the "natural history" of spilled oil -- they clean up a
token amount so as to look as if they're doing something, inevitably,
depending on winds and currents, a certain percentage washes ashore,
causing greater or lesser amounts of environmental havoc, most of it
ultimately evaporates, the rest sinks.

And basically, the only way to stop them is to drill relief wells.

That's it. It's not like this is the first time this has happened.
It's happened a number of times. Sometimes these fail-safe cut-off
valves don't cut off. A number of times you get blow-outs *around* the
pipes, so even if the cut-off valves are working perfectly, there's
nothing you can do about it.

And they do all the stuff with injecting and capping and cementing.
But in the end, with these underwater wells, the only way to stop the
oil from blasting uncontrollably out of one hole is to drill one or
two other holes and take the oil out in a controlled way in another
direction.

And until they do -- the oil just keeps on blasting uncontrollably out
of the hole.

So why it is that every time it happens -- and it keeps on happening
-- everybody seems shocked -- just shocked that there's uncontrolled
oil gushing going on in here.

NMS

[Steven J. Weller]

On Jun 23, 2:34 pm, nmstevens <***@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Jun 23, 3:27 pm, "Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Jun 23, 11:44 am, Alan Brooks <***@panix.com> wrote:
>
> > > "Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:
>
> > > > On Jun 23, 7:36 am, Alan Brooks <***@panix.com> wrote:
>
> > > >> My
> > > >> personal belief is that they are declaring they have no solution because
> > > >> they know the only possible solution lies with the US Navy, and some sort of
> > > >> massive, targeted explosion. By surrendering they're essentially handing
> > > >> the problem to the US government and asking them to send them a bill when
> > > >> it's all over.
>
> > > > What scares me is that you might be right. A massive, targeted
> > > > explosion is far more likely to make things worse than it is to make
> > > > them better, but if nothing else is working it might end up being
> > > > tried. Right now - just this moment, as I'm typing this - comes the
> > > > news that one of the subs bumped into the warm water hose, and they've
> > > > had to take the cap off the well. The one that was allowing them to
> > > > siphon off a fraction of the oil spewing into the water. So, we're
> > > > back to where we started, and the second well being drilled will be
> > > > finished sometime toward the end of August at the earliest.
>
> > > We're fucked.
>
> > No kidding.
>
> > > I hate to speak out against Obama here, but we need to see some leadership
> > > on this issue. We need the Coast Guard in charge of clean-up, the Navy in
> > > charge of fixing the problem and BP in charge of paying for all of it.
>
> > Just like BP doesn't have a fix for this - at any price - neither does
> > the Navy or the Coast Guard. There's only two things that can be
> > done, here - stop the well that's spewing, and clean the oil out of
> > the water. It's not a failing of leadership, it's a failing of
> > technology. We don't have a way to get down there and seal off the
> > pipe, and we don't have a way to get the oil out of the water. Booms,
> > dispersants, the Kevin Costner Magic Centrifuge, nylon stockings full
> > of hair clippings, all of it - it's all on a much smaller scale.
> > Great if you're cleaning up a tanker's worth of spilled oil, but we're
> > talking millions of gallons a DAY, day after day and week after week
> > and eventually month after month. And so far nothing's out there
> > that's really going to do anything about the sub-surface plumes, and
> > once the chemically dispersed oil sinks to the ocean floor, it's there
> > for generations. Forever, basically. The Gulf of Mexico is pretty
> > much a write-off, at this point, and there's nothing that Obama or BP
> > really ever could have done about that, after the fact at least.
>
> > This is, in essence, the China Syndrome that all of the crazy tree-
> > huggers were screaming about back in the 70s, when the whole idea of
> > off-shore drilling and deep-water platforms were being protested. One
> > well, one catastrophic failure, and we are, indeed, fucked. And now
> > the Governor of Louisiana is campaigning to lift Obama's 6-month ban
> > on new drilling in the area, because his state needs the money.
> > THAT'S how much we're learning from this mistake.
>
> > Okay, I suppose there's an argument to be made that the damage is
> > already done so why not just keep making money, but this is the nature
> > of pretty much any and all human endeavors. If there's a way for
> > something to go wrong, it will - eventually. Wells will explode,
> > cores will melt down, buried toxic waste will make its way to the
> > surface, or into the water supply, and so on. We don't have the
> > attention span for decades of absolute vigilance, and there's always
> > going to be someone who's willing to bet that nothing's actually going
> > to go wrong if you just cut a couple of corners and skim the extra
> > money off the top.
>
> > > And I kid you not: if it means nationalizing BP's wells to pay for this,
> > > then we take away their wells the same way we'd take away the guns of anyone
> > > who didn't use them responsibly.
>
> > We're already doing that, to a certain extent. Twenty billion dollars
> > in an escrow account of some sort, against the eventual cost of the
> > clean-up. A lot of people are quietly getting their money out of BP
> > before the company has to declare bankruptcy (which is why the stock
> > is plunging) and when it does finally go ashcan, the remainder of the
> > expense will be shouldered by the US Gov't. It's going to cost a lot
> > more than $20B before it's all said and done but it's better than
> > having nothing to work with. Fox News made a bit of noise about how
> > the US has no right to "extort" this money from BP, of course.
>
> > --
> > Life Continues, Despite
> > Evidence to the Contrary
>
> > Steven
>
> The fact is, the technology for dealing with oil spills hasn't made
> any significant progress in generations.
>
> All of the vacuums and dispersal agents and all the rest will
> ultimately gather up a very small percentage of the spill -- just as
> they always have.
>
> As for the rest of the oil? Well, the volatile stuff in the oil will
> mostly evaporate. Some will combine chemically with sea water in one
> way or another. And then when all of the volatiles evaporate out, all
> of the stuff that is not very volatile -- that is, all of the tars --
> what hasn't been washed ashore (which is the vast majority) will
> ultimately sink down to the bottom.
>
> And there it will stay -- thousands and thousands of tons of the
> stuff, essentially out of reach of any possibility of cleaning it up
> -- until it gets buried by sediment.
>
> And there's never been any means even dreamed of for dealing with that
> stuff. People who are charged with cleaning it up know that this is
> essentially the "natural history" of spilled oil -- they clean up a
> token amount so as to look as if they're doing something, inevitably,
> depending on winds and currents, a certain percentage washes ashore,
> causing greater or lesser amounts of environmental havoc, most of it
> ultimately evaporates, the rest sinks.
>
> And basically, the only way to stop them is to drill relief wells.
>
> That's it. It's not like this is the first time this has happened.
> It's happened a number of times. Sometimes these fail-safe cut-off
> valves don't cut off. A number of times you get blow-outs *around* the
> pipes, so even if the cut-off valves are working perfectly, there's
> nothing you can do about it.
>
> And they do all the stuff with injecting and capping and cementing.
> But in the end, with these underwater wells, the only way to stop the
> oil from blasting uncontrollably out of one hole is to drill one or
> two other holes and take the oil out in a controlled way in another
> direction.
>
> And until they do -- the oil just keeps on blasting uncontrollably out
> of the hole.
>
> So why it is that every time it happens -- and it keeps on happening
> -- everybody seems shocked -- just shocked that there's uncontrolled
> oil gushing going on in here.

This might seem silly, but... maybe a reasonable precuation would be
to drill the relief wells first, before there's a problem? You've got
whatever your "A" well, is, on paper at least, and you figure out
where the relief well(s) would go, should there be a need. Then you
drill that well/those wells and more-or-less cap them off and leave
them. Should the need arise, you just open up the relief well and
you're a) back in business pumping oil, and b) there's comparitively
little spillage into the open ocean. Seems like it'd be a lot cheaper
than what BP(et al)'s going through just now.

--
Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary

Steven

[Martin B]

Steven J. Weller wrote:

> This might seem silly, but... maybe a reasonable precuation would be
> to drill the relief wells first, before there's a problem? You've got
> whatever your "A" well, is, on paper at least, and you figure out
> where the relief well(s) would go, should there be a need. Then you
> drill that well/those wells and more-or-less cap them off and leave
> them. Should the need arise, you just open up the relief well and
> you're a) back in business pumping oil, and b) there's comparitively
> little spillage into the open ocean. Seems like it'd be a lot cheaper
> than what BP(et al)'s going through just now.

Every well you drill has a risk attached.

What's to say the relief well won't cause problems?

Anyway, there are something like 30,000 wells that have been drilled in
the GOM. There have been two catastrophic blowouts -- Ixtoc off Mexico
in 1975(?) and the current one.

That's actually not such a bad safety record.

--
Martin B

[Betterduck]

On Jun 23, 7:22 pm, Martin B <***@mweb.co.za> wrote:

> That's actually not such a bad safety record.

Unless you are keeping records for destroying an entire ocean. I'm not
saying that is gonna happen. I don't know. Nobody knows. So actually,
it is a bad record. Listen, I heard some guy say "you don't stop Nasa
because the Space Shuttle blew up" Good point, but the Space Shuttle
didnt ruin an entire body of coastline and kill a trillion fish, and
shit all over a few thousand miles of pristine coastline.

Can you see the slick from Space? Safety Record meet Disaster Record.


BD

"maybe its not that bad and I'm
a complete kook, wouldnt be the
first time"

[Steven J. Weller]

On Jun 23, 4:22 pm, Martin B <***@mweb.co.za> wrote:

> Anyway, there are something like 30,000 wells that have been drilled in
> the GOM. There have been two catastrophic blowouts -- Ixtoc off Mexico
> in 1975(?) and the current one.
>
> That's actually not such a bad safety record.

That's a little like saying that the CDC has thousands of pandemic
organisms on file, in storage, whatever, and only ONE of them ever
made it out into the biosphere and then killed off half the Eastern
Seaboard. Not such a bad safety record, eh?

London in the Industrial Revolution had a GREAT safety record, too -
look at all of the diseases that WEREN'T cholera, that never decimated
the population!

--
Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary

Steven

[Martin B]

Steven J. Weller wrote:
> Martin B wrote:
>
>> Anyway, there are something like 30,000 wells that have been drilled in
>> the GOM. There have been two catastrophic blowouts -- Ixtoc off Mexico
>> in 1975(?) and the current one.
>>
>> That's actually not such a bad safety record.
>
> That's a little like saying that the CDC has thousands of pandemic
> organisms on file, in storage, whatever, and only ONE of them ever
> made it out into the biosphere and then killed off half the Eastern
> Seaboard. Not such a bad safety record, eh?

I think a fairer comparison would be with the airline industry, where
failure is usually catastrophic, but we keep flying because the accident
rate has been brought down to an acceptable level.

--
Martin B

[Martin B]

Betterduck wrote:
> Martin B wrote:

>> That's actually not such a bad safety record.

> Unless you are keeping records for destroying an entire ocean. I'm not
> saying that is gonna happen. I don't know. Nobody knows. So actually,
> it is a bad record. Listen, I heard some guy say "you don't stop Nasa
> because the Space Shuttle blew up" Good point, but the Space Shuttle
> didnt ruin an entire body of coastline and kill a trillion fish, and
> shit all over a few thousand miles of pristine coastline.

I have a blow-up globe on my desk, and I can see the northern arc of the
GOM forms a very tiny part of the whole ocean. The oil field contains
about 50 million barrels. About a million barrels has already leaked
out. Even if all of it leaks out, it won't make any difference to 99% of
the ocean.

Just tough the 1% is in your back yard.

The Nigerians have the rough equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spilling in
the Niger delta every YEAR, through sabotage, incompetence,
indifference, etc. (See Hercule's NYT link.) Who in the U.S. cares? Just
sell me the oil, dammit, I don't want to know your problems.

Going back to the Ixtoc blow out in the 1970s. It was even bigger than
Macondo, but it's forgotten today. Because the ocean mostly recovered
after a couple of years.

Regarding the safety record, people seem to think that tougher new
regulations are the answer. Certainly some standards should be
tightened, but the current ones are not bad. They've been drilling this
deep in the GOM for 30 years so it's well-proven technology. The problem
is the regulations are not well enforced because the MMS is in bed with
the oil companies, and new regulations are not going to change that.

"I know that MMS agreed to let BP use this form of testing. I don't know
how well it predicted failures. I do know that it's better than years of
cheating that took place before in shallow water, inland water and on
land when (they got around to testing). I have talked to Company reps on
land rigs that called a third party to test the BOP's, they showed up
with the pressure charts already completed with out any testing and
wanted to get his field ticket signed. That was the way things were and
still are in many places." -- wildbourgman

BP are the cowboys of the oil patch, given their safety record. But
every corner they've cut, some other company also cuts on a routine
basis. Just not all of them together. And it took a whole series of
things to go wrong before the well blew out.

And I don't know who is more responsible: the person who wrote this
fiction or the official that accepted it--

"In its permit application, BP claimed that its contractors had a
skimming capability of 400,000 bpd, or approximately 10 times the volume
of the DWH spill. But these contractors actually delivered--in early
May, before the stormy weather of mid to late May--only around 1,000
bpd, That's right, 1/400th of the claimed capacity." -- Gobbet

(Both quotes from http://www.theoildrum.com)

The losses to wildlife and tourism are the most immediate consequences,
but many people are saying Obama's drilling ban is an over-reaction and
will cause tremendous long-term financial damage. The deep water
drilling rigs are not sitting idle for six months until they can drill
again -- they are being hired away to drill in Brazil, Africa and
elsewhere. Along with them go the jobs of the drill hands and the
contracts of the service companies. It will take years for the drilling
business in the GOM to recover.

--
Martin B

[Steven J. Weller]

On Jun 24, 10:21 am, Martin B <***@mweb.co.za> wrote:

> Steven J. Weller wrote:
>
> > Martin B wrote:
>
> >> Anyway, there are something like 30,000 wells that have been drilled in
> >> the GOM. There have been two catastrophic blowouts -- Ixtoc off Mexico
> >> in 1975(?) and the current one.
>
> >> That's actually not such a bad safety record.
>
> > That's a little like saying that the CDC has thousands of pandemic
> > organisms on file, in storage, whatever, and only ONE of them ever
> > made it out into the biosphere and then killed off half the Eastern
> > Seaboard. Not such a bad safety record, eh?
>
> I think a fairer comparison would be with the airline industry, where
> failure is usually catastrophic, but we keep flying because the accident
> rate has been brought down to an acceptable level.

Failure is rarely catastrophic in the airline industry; we just hear a
lot more about it when it is. But when there's a catastrophic failure
in the airline industry, a couple hundred people are smeared across
the side of a mountain or burn to death in a field somewhere, and
that's pretty much the end of it. More people probably die in car
crashes on the way to the airport each year than die in catastrophic
airline failures.

What I haven't noticed, so far at least, is the catastrophic airline
failure where Exxon Valdese-sized airliners keep crashing, day after
day and week after week, each one full to capacity, because no one can
figure out how to keep them from taking off in the first place, let
alone how to stop them from dropping out of the sky once they're
airborn.

Maybe that's actually happeneing, but I haven't had the TV on yet
today, so I haven't heard about it.

--
Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary

Steven

[Martin B]

Steven J. Weller wrote:

> What I haven't noticed, so far at least, is the catastrophic airline
> failure where Exxon Valdese-sized airliners keep crashing, day after
> day and week after week, each one full to capacity, because no one can
> figure out how to keep them from taking off in the first place, let
> alone how to stop them from dropping out of the sky once they're
> airborn.

The Exxon Valdez-sized oil containers are crashing about once a decade
on American territory.

Is this bad enough to stop everything and man the panic stations?

Personally I don't think so, but then I don't have brown crud ruining my
favourite beach.

--
Martin B

[Steven J. Weller]

On Jun 24, 12:50 pm, Martin B <***@mweb.co.za> wrote:

> Steven J. Weller wrote:
>
> > What I haven't noticed, so far at least, is the catastrophic airline
> > failure where Exxon Valdese-sized airliners keep crashing, day after
> > day and week after week, each one full to capacity, because no one can
> > figure out how to keep them from taking off in the first place, let
> > alone how to stop them from dropping out of the sky once they're
> > airborn.
>
> The Exxon Valdez-sized oil containers are crashing about once a decade
> on American territory.
>
> Is this bad enough to stop everything and man the panic stations?

No. It's a problem, no question about it, but it's not really up to
"panic station" proportions.

Now ask me about 18 Exxon Valdez-sized oil containers crashing, in the
course of a few weeks, with no end in sight as they keep piling up on
the same smallish chunk of real estate.

--
Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary

Steven

[nmstevens]

On Jun 23, 7:22 pm, Martin B <***@mweb.co.za> wrote:
>   Steven J. Weller wrote:
>
> > This might seem silly, but... maybe a reasonable precuation would be
> > to drill the relief wells first, before there's a problem?  You've got
> > whatever your "A" well, is, on paper at least, and you figure out
> > where the relief well(s) would go, should there be a need.  Then you
> > drill that well/those wells and more-or-less cap them off and leave
> > them.  Should the need arise, you just open up the relief well and
> > you're a) back in business pumping oil, and b) there's comparitively
> > little spillage into the open ocean.  Seems like it'd be a lot cheaper
> > than what BP(et al)'s going through just now.
>
> Every well you drill has a risk attached.
>
> What's to say the relief well won't cause problems?
>
> Anyway, there are something like 30,000 wells that have been drilled in
> the GOM. There have been two catastrophic blowouts -- Ixtoc off Mexico
> in 1975(?) and the current one.
>
> That's actually not such a bad safety record.
>
> --
> Martin B

I'm afraid that sounds an awful lot like the exchange from Dr.
Strangelove, when the President is criticizing the general about the
fact that one of their SAC commanders has gone insane and order his
Wing to attack the Soviets. Didn't he say that their Human Reliability
Program would guarantee that something like this would NEVER happen?

"Well,sir, I don't think you should condemn an entire program just
because of a single slip-up."

NMS

[Martin B]

nmstevens wrote:
>> Martin B wrote:

>> Anyway, there are something like 30,000 wells that have been drilled in
>> > the GOM. There have been two catastrophic blowouts -- Ixtoc off Mexico
>> > in 1975(?) and the current one.
>> >
>> > That's actually not such a bad safety record.

> I'm afraid that sounds an awful lot like the exchange from Dr.
> Strangelove, when the President is criticizing the general about the
> fact that one of their SAC commanders has gone insane and order his
> Wing to attack the Soviets. Didn't he say that their Human Reliability
> Program would guarantee that something like this would NEVER happen?
>
> "Well,sir, I don't think you should condemn an entire program just
> because of a single slip-up."

What are the risks of another blowout in the next six months?

Almost zero.

After thirty years without a major accident the drillers got complacent.

We know the blowout was caused mainly by operator carelessness. If
they'd stuck to well-established drilling practice there would have been
no problem.

Well, they're not complacent now.

You can bet every driller on the Gulf is re-educating his workers and
sharpening up his procedures and controls. He is going to make damn sure
*his* well doesn't blow out.

So the 6-month moratorium is not going to accomplish much that isn't
already being done. Maybe some tighter specs, more and better-trained
inspectors, un-corrupt officials, that sort of thing, but most of the
improvements will be brought about by the industry itself acting in
self-interest.

But the cost of the moratorium is going to be huge and long-lasting. The
shore-based companies that service the rigs are retrenching staff.
Already, six of the rigs are upping anchor to move off on long-term
contracts elsewhere. When the moratorium lifts they'll be long gone.
Those things cost $300-500k a day to rent. The owners can't afford to
keep them standing idle. Many more will have left by the time the six
months is up. So the moratorium will effectively continue long after the
six months is up.

That region has only two industries -- fishing and offshore oil. BP has
already ruined the fishing. Do you stop the offshore oil industry as well?

To me it's a no-brainer. Keep drilling.

--
Martin B

[nmstevens]

On Jun 25, 6:28 pm, Martin B <***@mweb.co.za> wrote:
>   nmstevens wrote:
>
>  >> Martin B wrote:
>
> >> Anyway, there are something like 30,000 wells that have been drilled in
> >> >  the GOM. There have been two catastrophic blowouts -- Ixtoc off Mexico
> >> >  in 1975(?) and the current one.
>
> >> >  That's actually not such a bad safety record.
> > I'm afraid that sounds an awful lot like the exchange from Dr.
> > Strangelove, when the President is criticizing the general about the
> > fact that one of their SAC commanders has gone insane and order his
> > Wing to attack the Soviets. Didn't he say that their Human Reliability
> > Program would guarantee that something like this would NEVER happen?
>
> > "Well,sir, I don't think you should condemn an entire program just
> > because of a single slip-up."
>
> What are the risks of another blowout in the next six months?
>
> Almost zero.
>
> After thirty years without a major accident the drillers got complacent.
>
> We know the blowout was caused mainly by operator carelessness. If
> they'd stuck to well-established drilling practice there would have been
> no problem.
>
> Well, they're not complacent now.
>
> You can bet every driller on the Gulf is re-educating his workers and
> sharpening up his procedures and controls. He is going to make damn sure
> *his* well doesn't blow out.
>
> So the 6-month moratorium is not going to accomplish much that isn't
> already being done. Maybe some tighter specs, more and better-trained
> inspectors, un-corrupt officials, that sort of thing, but most of the
> improvements will be brought about by the industry itself acting in
> self-interest.
>
> But the cost of the moratorium is going to be huge and long-lasting. The
> shore-based companies that service the rigs are retrenching staff.
> Already, six of the rigs are upping anchor to move off on long-term
> contracts elsewhere. When the moratorium lifts they'll be long gone.
> Those things cost $300-500k a day to rent. The owners can't afford to
> keep them standing idle. Many more will have left by the time the six
> months is up. So the moratorium will effectively continue long after the
> six months is up.
>
> That region has only two industries -- fishing and offshore oil. BP has
> already ruined the fishing. Do you stop the offshore oil industry as well?
>
> To me it's a no-brainer. Keep drilling.
>
> --
> Martin B

I'll tell you what I think -- and that is that people have a really
bad handle on evaluating risk against benefit.

Suppose I were to tell you that I could provide the country with a new
transportation system. It would allow us to move people and goods
around the country with unprecedented speed, economy and reliability.

Unfortunately, it would have certain downsides. The system would cause
a certain amount of pollution as a side effect. In fact, a lot of
pollution. And that pollution, when you translate it into negative
health effects nationwide, would probably result in thousands of lives
lost annually.

In addition, the transportation system itself, even though we could,
through the application of various government regulations, probably
mitigate some of the risk, because it involves moving many millions of
people and millions of tons of goods really, really fast, will also
involve accidents that will likely result in accidents that will
cause, say -- twenty or thirty *thousand* deaths and many thousand
more injuries, serious and minor every year -- oh, and will also kill
hundreds of thousands of animals every year.

Now -- risk evaluators -- should we institute this high-tech
transportation system?

Well, I'm sure most everybody realizes that we already have. We call
the system "Cars and Trucks." We drive them on roads and highways. And
every years thousands of people die are injured directly as a result
of the use of this system. Thousands of animals, wild and domestic,
are killed as a result of our using this system. And many thousands of
people have their health negatively effected as a result of the
pollution caused by the use of this system.

Can we do better with it? Sure. Has regulation of one sort or another
improved it? Sure. Could we do better than we have? Sure.

But there's little doubt that the best we could do with a
transportation system consisting of cars and trucks controlled by
private drivers would still result in thousands of deaths a year.

And we simply accept it without so much as blinking an eye.

In exactly the same way that we accept a certain number of plane
crashes a year, a certain number of hospital deaths due to infection,
a certain number of deaths due to allergic reactions to otherwise
useful medicines.

The size of the damage involved with some of the others may be
debated, but the scale of the human carnage that we routinely accept
as the price to be paid for our "car/truck" transportation system --
far more deaths every year than have died in all the recent wars put
together.

What it really comes down to is that certain kinds of death and
destruction, however vast, have simply been mentally "normalized" in
our society -- so we simply refused to be outraged by them, while
destruction of a much more modest scale sets off all sorts of
"outrage" bells and demands for action.

As for shutting down the wells -- unless there was some specific
smoking gun about this particular failure that all the other wells had
in common -- it doesn't seem to make much more sense than grounding
every jet plane or even every 767 every time a 767 crashes.

On the other hand, if you find out that there's been a systematic
failure in inspecting every jet plane in the air -- that they've all
been flying based on money being slipped into the pockets of
inspectors who then put a check mark on reports that have been filled
out before they even bother looking at the plane --

-- well, you might argue that -- yeah, sure, of course the airlines
don't want their planes to crash -- but on the other hand, why would
they *not* want their fit and inspection-worthy planes to be inspected
such that they're rather be paying off inspectors rather than doing it
-- and if there's evidence of that kind of behavior, it just might be
worth grounding those planes, even if it really inconveniences a lot
of people and even if it really hurts the industry until we twist that
rag tight enough to squeeze out all that graft.

NMS

[Alan Brooks]

"nmstevens" <***@yahoo.com> wrote:

> And they do all the stuff with injecting and capping and cementing.
> But in the end, with these underwater wells, the only way to stop the
> oil from blasting uncontrollably out of one hole is to drill one or
> two other holes and take the oil out in a controlled way in another
> direction.
>
> And until they do -- the oil just keeps on blasting uncontrollably out
> of the hole.
>
> So why it is that every time it happens -- and it keeps on happening
> -- everybody seems shocked -- just shocked that there's uncontrolled
> oil gushing going on in here.

Frankly, I didn't know any of this. This is the first big undersea oil
disaster I've paid attention to -- or maybe more accurately, the first one
that's garnered enough column-inches in the mainstream press that I *could*
pay attention to it. I've never had any idea of what approach might work
with an undersea well disaster, versus what's been tried and deemed
successful or a merely long-shot.

So, yeah, I'm shocked at how unprepared the oil companies are. In fact, I'm
sure the majority of Americans, short of those who have worked on deep-sea
rigs, or people with specialized engineering degrees, have never really
thought much about this stuff.

But as I said before, I expect leadership on this issue. A bit more
reading, and I see that the Obama administration has been working on it.
They've got a plan and a backup plan in place. Good for us. Maybe the
disaster will be moderated, and maybe we can all go back to eating
unpolluted cajun popcorn shrimp in less than 3 or 4 years.

What I want to see is action in the aftermath: If the oil companies are
going to cut corners, then they need to pay into a fund to support
government intervention on these disasters. If all that is needed is a few
highly specialized deep-sea submarines and the demolition and re-drilling
capability, then let the oil companies all bear the relatively minor cost of
supplying the Coast Guard or Navy with the gear and a team and regular
training, so when all their efforts fail, we have a team, a plan and the
gear to deal with it. There should be an attitude now that we've seen how
bad this can be, what can we do to ensure that this last one is the worst
one that can ever occur.


Alan Brooks
---------------------------
A Schmuck with an Underwood

-- Extreme Unction.

MWSM FAQ: http://www.panix.com/~mwsm/faq.html
Filtering Trolls: http://www.panix.com/~mwsm/trolls.html

[Martin B]

nmstevens wrote:

> And they do all the stuff with injecting and capping and cementing.
> But in the end, with these underwater wells, the only way to stop the
> oil from blasting uncontrollably out of one hole is to drill one or
> two other holes and take the oil out in a controlled way in another
> direction.

Actually they pump mud in from the relief well until the mud pressure
stops the flow, then they concrete it so it never flows again.

There are quite strict regulations about sealing wells. The intent is
that fluids cannot migrate from one level of rock to another and
contaminate groundwater, and abandoned wells won't suddenly start
spewing again.

--
Martin B

[Martin B]

YouTube video of Russians nuking a gas well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpPNQoTlacU

World Nuclear Asociation:

In 1966, a nuclear explosive was detonated at Urtabulak gas field in
Southern Uzbekistan in order to extinguish a gas well fire that had been
burning for almost three years and had resisted numerous attempts at
control. The gas fountain, which formed at pressures of almost 300
atmospheres, had resulted in the loss of over 12 million cubic metres of
gas per day through a 200 mm casing – enough to supply a city the size
of St Petersburg. Two 445 mm holes were drilled that aimed to come as
close as possible to the well at a depth of about 1500 metres in the
middle of a 200 metre thick clay zone. One of these came to within about
35 m of the well and was used to emplace the special 30-kiloton charge
which had been developed by the Arzamas weapons laboratory. Immediately
after the explosion the fire went out and the well was sealed.

Christian Science Monitor:

The Russians previously used nukes at least five times to seal off gas
well fires. … Komsomoloskaya Pravda suggested that the United States
might as well take a chance with a nuke, based on the historical 20%
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.

--
Martin B

[studio]

On Jun 23, 6:29 pm, Martin B <***@mweb.co.za> wrote:
> YouTube video of Russians nuking a gas well:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpPNQoTlacU

Yeah that's an extreme measure because they had to move massive
quantities of earth all-at-once to cut it off. I would however say it
took them too long to do it though...come on, 3 years?
But as you can see clearly at about 1:03 in the clip, they are able to
put a valve over top of it to divert the flame, and remember that the
pressures coming out of that well are well in access of what's coming
out of the well in the Gulf. Also remember that fire is not an issue
with the Gulf well.

[Hercule Platini]

"Alan Brooks" <***@panix.com> wrote in message
news:hvtkmb$b90$***@reader1.panix.com...
>
> We're fucked.
>
> I hate to speak out against Obama here, but we need to see some leadership
> on this issue. We need the Coast Guard in charge of clean-up, the Navy in
> charge of fixing the problem and BP in charge of paying for all of it.
>
> And I kid you not: if it means nationalizing BP's wells to pay for this,
> then we take away their wells the same way we'd take away the guns of
> anyone
> who didn't use them responsibly.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/world/africa/17nigeria.html?hp


Just for balance.... :)

[Steven J. Weller]

Alan wrote:

> But as I said before, I expect leadership on this issue. A bit more
> reading, and I see that the Obama administration has been working on it.
> They've got a plan and a backup plan in place. Good for us. Maybe the
> disaster will be moderated, and maybe we can all go back to eating
> unpolluted cajun popcorn shrimp in less than 3 or 4 years.
>
> What I want to see is action in the aftermath: If the oil companies are
> going to cut corners, then they need to pay into a fund to support
> government intervention on these disasters. If all that is needed is a few
> highly specialized deep-sea submarines and the demolition and re-drilling
> capability, then let the oil companies all bear the relatively minor cost of
> supplying the Coast Guard or Navy with the gear and a team and regular
> training, so when all their efforts fail, we have a team, a plan and the
> gear to deal with it. There should be an attitude now that we've seen how
> bad this can be, what can we do to ensure that this last one is the worst
> one that can ever occur.

I can only imagine that BP (et al) would LOVE, just about now, to have
been paying a few bucks per year into some kind of fund for this sort
of contingency - it would absolve them entirely of the responsibility
for the current disaster. That slimy British git would have been on
the telly in a heartbeat, telling us all that he's sorry for the spill
and all, but hey, that's why BP have paid elevendy-seven millions of
dollars to the US, funding our submarine research and supplying the
Navy and Coast Guard with gear and training. Best case scenario for
anybody in BP's situation is to abdicate completely, but that only
works if you've got someone you can abdicate to, that the public will
buy as a reasonable alternative.

Of course, whatever money there might have been, in this hypothetical
fund, would be long gone. We need that money to pay for Social
Security or the wars or some-damn-thing or other. But that's hardly
the oil industry's fault, right? If they paid their premiums, don't
they have the right to expect their insurance company - US - to make
good on the policy?

There's a company here in CA that's actually making viable bio-diesel
out of green algae. They've just unveiled, and according to the thing
on the news (which is a puff piece, sure) it's clean, green,
renewable, biodegradable, all of the good buzzwords. You can run any
gas-powered car on the stuff, right now, with lower carbon emissions
even, and plow the waste into the ground as fertilizer. The only
drawback? They're still making it in the lab, as opposed to making it
in bulk in some kind of industrial facility, so it's very, very
expensive.

Well, how about a billion dollars? Would, say, a billion dollars make
the difference between growing it in a lab and pumping it by the
tanker-full? We're going to end up spending many, many times that on
cleaning up this one little spill, with 29,999 other wells - just in
the Gulf of Mexico - waiting to blow. I, for one, would LOVE to see
the folks who've made this little miracle happen get rich beyond the
dreams of avarice, if they could have a working commercial operation
up and running in the next, let's say 2-3 years.

--
Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary

Steven

[Alan Brooks]

"Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:

> Alan wrote:
>
>> But as I said before, I expect leadership on this issue. A bit more
>> reading, and I see that the Obama administration has been working on it.
>> They've got a plan and a backup plan in place. Good for us. Maybe the
>> disaster will be moderated, and maybe we can all go back to eating
>> unpolluted cajun popcorn shrimp in less than 3 or 4 years.
>>
>> What I want to see is action in the aftermath: If the oil companies are
>> going to cut corners, then they need to pay into a fund to support
>> government intervention on these disasters. If all that is needed is a few
>> highly specialized deep-sea submarines and the demolition and re-drilling
>> capability, then let the oil companies all bear the relatively minor cost of
>> supplying the Coast Guard or Navy with the gear and a team and regular
>> training, so when all their efforts fail, we have a team, a plan and the
>> gear to deal with it. There should be an attitude now that we've seen how
>> bad this can be, what can we do to ensure that this last one is the worst
>> one that can ever occur.
>
> I can only imagine that BP (et al) would LOVE, just about now, to have
> been paying a few bucks per year into some kind of fund for this sort
> of contingency - it would absolve them entirely of the responsibility
> for the current disaster. That slimy British git would have been on
> the telly in a heartbeat, telling us all that he's sorry for the spill
> and all, but hey, that's why BP have paid elevendy-seven millions of
> dollars to the US, funding our submarine research and supplying the
> Navy and Coast Guard with gear and training. Best case scenario for
> anybody in BP's situation is to abdicate completely, but that only
> works if you've got someone you can abdicate to, that the public will
> buy as a reasonable alternative.
>
> Of course, whatever money there might have been, in this hypothetical
> fund, would be long gone. We need that money to pay for Social
> Security or the wars or some-damn-thing or other. But that's hardly
> the oil industry's fault, right? If they paid their premiums, don't
> they have the right to expect their insurance company - US - to make
> good on the policy?
>
> There's a company here in CA that's actually making viable bio-diesel
> out of green algae. They've just unveiled, and according to the thing
> on the news (which is a puff piece, sure) it's clean, green,
> renewable, biodegradable, all of the good buzzwords. You can run any
> gas-powered car on the stuff, right now, with lower carbon emissions
> even, and plow the waste into the ground as fertilizer. The only
> drawback? They're still making it in the lab, as opposed to making it
> in bulk in some kind of industrial facility, so it's very, very
> expensive.
>
> Well, how about a billion dollars? Would, say, a billion dollars make
> the difference between growing it in a lab and pumping it by the
> tanker-full? We're going to end up spending many, many times that on
> cleaning up this one little spill, with 29,999 other wells - just in
> the Gulf of Mexico - waiting to blow. I, for one, would LOVE to see
> the folks who've made this little miracle happen get rich beyond the
> dreams of avarice, if they could have a working commercial operation
> up and running in the next, let's say 2-3 years.

Within the next month somebody's going to announce that they can make actual
oil and gasoline out of plain seawater! Oddly, it will only work with
seawater out of the Gulf of Mexico, but still...

Alan Brooks
---------------------------
A Schmuck with an Underwood

-- To put it
crudely.

MWSM FAQ: http://www.panix.com/~mwsm/faq.html
Filtering Trolls: http://www.panix.com/~mwsm/trolls.html

[Martin B]

Steven J. Weller wrote:

> Of course, whatever money there might have been, in this hypothetical
> fund, would be long gone. We need that money to pay for Social
> Security or the wars or some-damn-thing or other. But that's hardly
> the oil industry's fault, right? If they paid their premiums, don't
> they have the right to expect their insurance company - US - to make
> good on the policy?

Actually, the oil industry DOES make payments to the U.S. govt, apart
from the taxes on their profits. They pay royalties on every barrel of
oil they extract from the ground -- around $10 billion/yr.

The MMS is the biggest revenue generator for the govt after the IRS.

--
Martin B

[studio]

What scares me is that you're both just as suicidal as the guys in
charge with the same old tired lines of can't do attitude, solve any
problem with a bomb, and

On Jun 23, 2:11 pm, "Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:
> On Jun 23, 7:36 am, Alan Brooks <***@panix.com> wrote:
>
> > My
> > personal belief is that they are declaring they have no solution because
> > they know the only possible solution lies with the US Navy, and some sort of
> > massive, targeted explosion.  By surrendering they're essentially handing
> > the problem to the US government and asking them to send them a bill when
> > it's all over.
>
> What scares me is that you might be right.  A massive, targeted
> explosion is far more likely to make things worse than it is to make
> them better, but if nothing else is working it might end up being
> tried.  Right now - just this moment, as I'm typing this - comes the
> news that one of the subs bumped into the warm water hose, and they've
> had to take the cap off the well.  The one that was allowing them to
> siphon off a fraction of the oil spewing into the water.  So, we're
> back to where we started, and the second well being drilled will be
> finished sometime toward the end of August at the earliest.

[Martin B]

Alan Brooks wrote:

> the only possible solution lies with the US Navy, and some sort of
> massive, targeted explosion.

The Russians have stopped runaway gas wells by crimping the well pipes
with an underground nuclear explosion, but it requires drilling a second
well within a hundred feet or so of the runaway well to place the nuke
in the right position. You might as well just continue drilling the
extra hundred feet into the first well and pump mud and kill the well.
That's what they're doing.

The reason the Russians nuked the wells was they didn't have the
directional drilling ability we have today.

Then there's the small problem that the U.S. doesn't have a suitable
nuke in its arsenal. You need a narrow nuke like they used to put in
artillery shells, but those have all been decommissioned, the plans have
been lost, and the designers have retired. Oh, and they have to work
under 5000' of water. Torpedoes are good for 1500' or so, I believe.

Not to mention the nuke needs to be in a clayey type of soil or rock,
and the blast might set off landslides on the continental slope that
cause a giant tsunami, or cause an explosive methane release from the
hydrates in the sediment on the GOM bottom. And there's always the
chance the spill might actually worsen, and be radioactive too.

(Not all the Russian blasts were successful. America tried nuking
gas-carrying rock formations to increase gas flow. It did, but the gas
was too radioactive to be used.)

--
Martin B

[studio]

On Jun 23, 10:36 am, Alan Brooks <***@panix.com> wrote:
> But they can't buy or rent a solution, because the solution isn't out there.

That much is apparent. And it's rather pathetic.

> Stating that they just need the right "bot" to fix the leak, is like saying
> that I just need the right rocketship to colonize Mars.  

Wait a second...you're telling me; you don't need the right rocket
ship to get to Mars? Or is my statement just a redundant question in
your mind? That's the same kind of redundant question the oil industry
has refused to answer that got in this mess in the first place.

> It's like saying I could
> re-orient my house to face a different direction if only I had a 200 foot
> pipe wrench and 6 Abrams tanks to pull on the handle.

I understand what your saying, and it's true, you could reorient your
house that way proving it was built to do that. But the difference of
course is that the pipe was built to be repaired and maintained under
any circumstances.
Look at it this way; if an Abrams tank crashed into your house, does
that mean you should put cement over the rest of your house and cover
it up (or blow it up) is the best answer? No, you rebuild.

Now, from what I heard, the pipe may be nearly a mile long, and fell
from top of the drilling platform down to ocean floor...a one mile
fall from the top.
Just where it's leaking, or even how many leaks there might be is not
known. I admit freely there's a lot I don't know about exactly what is
going on...but until someone explains to me in physical terms
precisely why it can't be fixed, I'm going to be blaming someone for
not fixing it because I believe unlike you that the pipe is perfectly
and unquestionably fixable.

[Steven J. Weller]

On Jun 24, 7:36 pm, studio <***@hotmail.com> wrote:

> On Jun 23, 10:36 am, Alan Brooks <***@panix.com> wrote:
>
> > It's like saying I could
> > re-orient my house to face a different direction if only I had a 200 foot
> > pipe wrench and 6 Abrams tanks to pull on the handle.
>
> I understand what your saying, and it's true, you could reorient your
> house that way proving it was built to do that. But the difference of
> course is that the pipe was built to be repaired and maintained under
> any circumstances.

It was? Since when? Where did you find that little factoid, and who
provided it?

> Look at it this way; if an Abrams tank crashed into your house, does
> that mean you should put cement over the rest of your house and cover
> it up (or blow it up) is the best answer? No, you rebuild.

Try looking at it this way - it's not a house and it wasn't hit by a
tank; it's an undersea oil well and it was damaged in an explosion
that snapped off the only 'safety measure' in place, to handle exactly
this kind of problem.

Can they do the equivalent of rebuilding? Sure, absolutely, they're
doing that now. It's called 'drilling a relief well' and it should be
finished, God willing and the creek don't rise, sometime in the middle
of August. Problem solved!

Except, of course, for the millions of gallons of crude oil being
pumped into the gulf of Mexico every day between now and then.

> I admit freely there's a lot I don't know about exactly what is
> going on...but until someone explains to me in physical terms
> precisely why it can't be fixed, I'm going to be blaming someone for
> not fixing it because I believe unlike you that the pipe is perfectly
> and unquestionably fixable.

Seems an odd position to take, to me. Basically, everybody's lying,
and they're all trying to keep losing money hand over fist, as the
environment is destroyed and all of that oil is wasted and BPs stock
plummets - until such time as someone's able to explain why that's not
the case. In language you can understand, or that makes sense to you,
without a degree in oceanography or marine engineering or oil well
design and construction or whatever. If your default position is "I
don't understand it so it must be evil," there's not a lot anyone here
is going to be able to say to convince you otherwise.

--
Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary

Steven

[Betterduck]

On Jun 24, 11:00 pm, "Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:

> Seems an odd position to take, to me.  Basically, everybody's lying,
> and they're all trying to keep losing money hand over fist, as the
> environment is destroyed and all of that oil is wasted and BPs stock
> plummets - until such time as someone's able to explain why that's not
> the case.  In language you can understand, or that makes sense to you,
> without a degree in oceanography or marine engineering or oil well
> design and construction or whatever.  If your default position is "I
> don't understand it so it must be evil," there's not a lot anyone here
> is going to be able to say to convince you otherwise.

It doesnt matter, because nobody respects mother nature until they get
smacked in the nosebone by her. Hurricane Parties still happen, people
are dumb and dont care that they shouldnt be drunk when one of these
things hit.

I went to the beach today. It was perfect. No clouds, Blue Sky,
Crystal clear flat ocean. No tar. Just hot chicks everywhere in
bikinis. I'm the only one staring out there like, "oh shit, its
coming" Maybe its the 10,000 horror films Ive watched. Or growing up
on the Blob, and Godzilla.

If you think you are gonna send some sub down a few miles under the
surface, get ready for the Syfy Channel to be the new Fox News. There
are sea monsters. They exist. They eat Great White Sharks and Killer
Whales. Its one thing to send a pipe down there to drill. You start
putting around in a Sub with a ethnically diverse crew and you are
gonna get snatched by a giant squid or a megladon or something.

Do Not Go Down There. This is not like Bissette in a wet T-shirt and
some Goliath Jewlery.

BD

[studio]

On Jun 24, 11:00 pm, "Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:
> On Jun 24, 7:36 pm, studio <***@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I admit freely there's a lot I don't know about exactly what is
> > going on...but until someone explains to me in physical terms
> > precisely why it can't be fixed, I'm going to be blaming someone for
> > not fixing it because I believe unlike you that the pipe is perfectly
> > and unquestionably fixable.
>
> Seems an odd position to take, to me.  Basically, everybody's lying,
> and they're all trying to keep losing money hand over fist, as the
> environment is destroyed and all of that oil is wasted and BPs stock
> plummets - until such time as someone's able to explain why that's not
> the case.  In language you can understand, or that makes sense to you,
> without a degree in oceanography or marine engineering or oil well
> design and construction or whatever.  If your default position is "I
> don't understand it so it must be evil," there's not a lot anyone here
> is going to be able to say to convince you otherwise.

Everybody isn't lying, they're just not telling you the whole story as
per usual.

The bean-counters will argue that this particular kind of accident
will never happen again, so why bother spending the money building
something we won't ever need.
But the facts are, it will unquestionably happen again, albeit it may
not be specifically that kind of accident.
And they need to be able to fix the pipe under any circumstances or
not be allowed to drill. It's that simple.

[Alan Brooks]

"studio" <***@hotmail.com> wrote:

> On Jun 23, 10:36 am, Alan Brooks <***@panix.com> wrote:
>> But they can't buy or rent a solution, because the solution isn't out there.
>
> That much is apparent. And it's rather pathetic.

Beyond pathetic, it's a crime.


>> Stating that they just need the right "bot" to fix the leak, is like saying
>> that I just need the right rocketship to colonize Mars.  
>
> Wait a second...you're telling me; you don't need the right rocket
> ship to get to Mars? Or is my statement just a redundant question in
> your mind? That's the same kind of redundant question the oil industry
> has refused to answer that got in this mess in the first place.

I'm saying that you're offering a meaningless, though syntactically correct
sentence, as an answer to a serious real-world problem.


>> It's like saying I could
>> re-orient my house to face a different direction if only I had a 200 foot
>> pipe wrench and 6 Abrams tanks to pull on the handle.
>
> I understand what your saying, and it's true, you could reorient your
> house that way proving it was built to do that. But the difference of
> course is that the pipe was built to be repaired and maintained under
> any circumstances.

No, it clearly was not, or they'd have repaired it. BP is now on a
glide-path to bankruptcy, which is not exactly where they want to be. Their
stock price has lost half its value and I'm not sure why it's only half.
Obama arm-twisting them into setting aside 20 billion might turn out to be
the smartest thing he's done here, as it's possible they are going to
disappear off the financial map. If there was a solution to this problem,
they would be applying it. There's no solution short of the long, tedious
cross-drilling, or the less-appetizing big-bomb approach, that actually
exists. There's no "right bot" for the job, so your suggestion that that's
all that's needed, is just empty rhetoric.


> Look at it this way; if an Abrams tank crashed into your house, does
> that mean you should put cement over the rest of your house and cover
> it up (or blow it up) is the best answer? No, you rebuild.
>
> Now, from what I heard, the pipe may be nearly a mile long, and fell
> from top of the drilling platform down to ocean floor...a one mile
> fall from the top.
> Just where it's leaking, or even how many leaks there might be is not
> known. I admit freely there's a lot I don't know about exactly what is
> going on...but until someone explains to me in physical terms
> precisely why it can't be fixed, I'm going to be blaming someone for
> not fixing it because I believe unlike you that the pipe is perfectly
> and unquestionably fixable.

I don't understand how you can believe this is any meaningful way. BP is
now in a struggle for its corporate life. If there was a way to simply fix
the pipe, believe me, they'd be fixing it.

Alan Brooks
---------------------------
A Schmuck with an Underwood

-- Over time,
Murphy's Law
Wins.

MWSM FAQ: http://www.panix.com/~mwsm/faq.html
Filtering Trolls: http://www.panix.com/~mwsm/trolls.html

[Martin B]

Alan Brooks wrote:

> BP is now on a
> glide-path to bankruptcy, which is not exactly where they want to be. Their
> stock price has lost half its value and I'm not sure why it's only half.
> Obama arm-twisting them into setting aside 20 billion might turn out to be
> the smartest thing he's done here, as it's possible they are going to
> disappear off the financial map.

BP must pay the 20 million over four years at 5 million a year, so Obama
has an incentive to keep them going for four years.

Allowing their arm to be twisted may be the smartest thing BP's done in
the last 70 days.

Incidentally, do you really think the West would run the risk of BP
having to sell off their assets when Sinopec and the other Chinese oil
companies are snapping up oil fields all over the world?

--
Martin B

[Steven J. Weller]

On Jun 29, 10:53 am, Martin B <***@mweb.co.za> wrote:
> Alan Brooks wrote:
>
> > BP is now on a
> > glide-path to bankruptcy, which is not exactly where they want to be. Their
> > stock price has lost half its value and I'm not sure why it's only half.
> > Obama arm-twisting them into setting aside 20 billion might turn out to be
> > the smartest thing he's done here, as it's possible they are going to
> > disappear off the financial map.
>
> BP must pay the 20 million over four years at 5 million a year, so Obama
> has an incentive to keep them going for four years.
>
> Allowing their arm to be twisted may be the smartest thing BP's done in
> the last 70 days.
>
> Incidentally, do you really think the West would run the risk of BP
> having to sell off their assets when Sinopec and the other Chinese oil
> companies are snapping up oil fields all over the world?

I don't imagine that anybody's likely to let the Chinese buy up BP's
oil rights in the Gulf of Mexico, or much of any of BPs other
holdings. If/when BP goes belly-up it's going to be, at least in
part, over money owed to the US for the cleanup and that means we're
going to at least make a strong argument that their remaining assets
belong to us.

--
Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary

Steven

[studio]

On Jun 29, 12:50 pm, Alan Brooks <***@panix.com> wrote:
> "studio" <***@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Now, from what I heard, the pipe may be nearly a mile long, and fell
> > from top of the drilling platform down to ocean floor...a one mile
> > fall from the top.
> > Just where it's leaking, or even how many leaks there might be is not
> > known. I admit freely there's a lot I don't know about exactly what is
> > going on...but until someone explains to me in physical terms
> > precisely why it can't be fixed, I'm going to be blaming someone for
> > not fixing it because I believe unlike you that the pipe is perfectly
> > and unquestionably fixable.
>
> I don't understand how you can believe this is any meaningful way.  BP is
> now in a struggle for its corporate life.  If there was a way to simply fix
> the pipe, believe me, they'd be fixing it.

Oh really...just like the financial meltdown...they just couldn't fix
it before it happened.

lol!...yeah BP is going out of business sometime soon! Yeah right!

[Steven J. Weller]

On Jun 30, 6:23 pm, studio <***@hotmail.com> wrote:

> On Jun 29, 12:50 pm, Alan Brooks <***@panix.com> wrote:
>
> > "studio" <***@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Now, from what I heard, the pipe may be nearly a mile long, and fell
> > > from top of the drilling platform down to ocean floor...a one mile
> > > fall from the top.
> > > Just where it's leaking, or even how many leaks there might be is not
> > > known. I admit freely there's a lot I don't know about exactly what is
> > > going on...but until someone explains to me in physical terms
> > > precisely why it can't be fixed, I'm going to be blaming someone for
> > > not fixing it because I believe unlike you that the pipe is perfectly
> > > and unquestionably fixable.
>
> > I don't understand how you can believe this is any meaningful way. BP is
> > now in a struggle for its corporate life. If there was a way to simply fix
> > the pipe, believe me, they'd be fixing it.
>
> Oh really...just like the financial meltdown...they just couldn't fix
> it before it happened.

That absolutely could have been fixed before it happened. It's just
that, like BP and their supposed safety measures, no one was minding
the store and so things reached a point where prevention was no longer
an option. People and institutions and governments the worlds over
are working to fix the the financial collapse, but - again, just like
with the current catastrophe in the Gulf, there's no quick and easy
fix.

> lol!...yeah BP is going out of business sometime soon! Yeah right!

Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, AEG. You're right,
something like that could NEVER happen.

Again.

--
Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary

Steven

[studio]

On Jul 1, 2:54 pm, "Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:
> On Jun 30, 6:23 pm, studio <***@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > lol!...yeah BP is going out of business sometime soon! Yeah right!
>
> Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, AEG.  You're right,
> something like that could NEVER happen.
>
> Again.

Never said the financial crisis wouldn't happen again, as a matter of
fact, the odds are it will.
Just as the odds are that another oil spill of great magnitude will
happen also.
The fact is, the current system counts on it.

Let's all pretend it's 1776 again, that'll solve 21st century
problems.
We landed a man on a moon 250,000 miles away 40 years ago in 3
days...but there's absolutely no way we can fix a pipe 1 mile down in
2010.
Whatever. It's just plain pathetic, and all you can do is support the
pathetic, which is pathetic in itself.
So we've become a nation of pathetics. Hooray for us!

[Steven J. Weller]

On Jul 1, 9:24 pm, studio <***@hotmail.com> wrote:

> On Jul 1, 2:54 pm, "Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:
>
> > On Jun 30, 6:23 pm, studio <***@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > lol!...yeah BP is going out of business sometime soon! Yeah right!
>
> > Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, AEG. You're right,
> > something like that could NEVER happen.
>
> > Again.
>
> Never said the financial crisis wouldn't happen again, as a matter of
> fact, the odds are it will.

Okay, you're pretty obviously a troll, but my time online is reduced
to packets just now - I'm house-sitting and dog-sitting for a friend
while she's out of town, and I don't have internet access there. So
on my daily sojourn home I get to take care of my personal stuff, and
that includes this newsgroup, so what the hell - I'll play.

You've compared the Gulf crisis to the recent financial upheaval,
seeming to claim that both would be easily solved but that the players
don't want them solved, for their own nefarious purposes. Then you
made the bold statement that BP isn't in any financial danger;
certainly not going to declare bankruptcy or anything. My response
wasn't that there'll never be another financial crisis, but that the
players in the current one didn't turn out to be immune from the same
negative consequence you seem to thing BP is. In other words, if
you're saying that a) the current crisis in the gulf is of the same
nature as the current financial crisis, and b) it could all be solved
by a wave of BP's mighty hand - they just don't want it solved, and
therefore c) BP's in no more danger of going out of business than the
folks who engineered the financial crisis, I'm simply reminding you of
the fates of Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and AIG.

> Just as the odds are that another oil spill of great magnitude will
> happen also.
> The fact is, the current system counts on it.

See, that's the part you're just not explaining. Who, exactly, is
benefiting from the current spill? Who's going to come out the back
end of this situation saying, "Thank God we had that devestating oil
spill!" Or to be a little more focused, who is it that will benefit,
who also has the power to stop the US Gov't and BP and all of the
private concerns from just plugging up that pesky leak? If it's BP
itself, how are they benefiting, specifically? If it's the US Gov't
itself, how is it benefiting, specifically? If it's some other, as
yet unnamed player, how are they benefiting, specifically, and how are
they able to wield this incredible amount of power?

> Let's all pretend it's 1776 again, that'll solve 21st century
> problems.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that.

> We landed a man on a moon 250,000 miles away 40 years ago in 3
> days...but there's absolutely no way we can fix a pipe 1 mile down in
> 2010.
> Whatever.

At the end of World War II (you'll remember that was in the mid-1940s)
the US and the Soviet Union split between themselves all of the Nazi
rocket scientists, because missles that could travel so far and so
high that they could actually achieve sustained orbit around the earth
were considered strategically important - so much so that everybody
was willing to look past the whole "war crimes and crimes against
humanity" thing. In 1961, President Kennedy declared that we (meaning
the US) would put a man on the moon and return him safely to earth
within the next decade, and we made it with months to spare in 1969.
The "space race," as it is commonly referred to, started in earnest
around 1958 and continued until the mid-1970s.

Not exactly "3 days" unless you just assume - like your assumption re:
the oil crisis and the 'appropriate sub' - that you can just walk into
a store somewhere and pick up an Apollo Moon Landing Kit, and set it
up according to the instructions on the box.

> It's just plain pathetic, and all you can do is support the
> pathetic, which is pathetic in itself.
> So we've become a nation of pathetics. Hooray for us!

No one's saying that the broken pipe is beyond repair. It's just that
it's going to take a longer time to repair it than anyone was counting
on, because the people charged with having a way in place to fix it -
the equivalent of having an Apollo Moon Landing Kit on the shelf, to
extend the metaphor - simply didn't bother to do so.

You can put out a house fire with just a garden hose; it just takes a
lot longer than it does with a team of firefighters using state-of-the-
art equipment. Trouble is, a house fire - like the gushing undersea
oil well - is an active, ongoing process. The longer it takes to put
it out, the more damage is done in the process.

--
Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary

Steven

[studio]

On Jul 2, 1:52 pm, "Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:
> Okay, you're pretty obviously a troll, but my time online is reduced
> to packets just now -

Trolls look to pick-up things, I'm not looking for to pick-up
anything. Besides my back hurts.

> You've compared the Gulf crisis to the recent financial upheaval,
> seeming to claim that both would be easily solved but that the players
> don't want them solved, for their own nefarious purposes.  Then you
> made the bold statement that BP isn't in any financial danger;
> certainly not going to declare bankruptcy or anything.  My response
> wasn't that there'll never be another financial crisis, but that the
> players in the current one didn't turn out to be immune from the same
> negative consequence you seem to thing BP is.  In other words, if
> you're saying that a) the current crisis in the gulf is of the same
> nature as the current financial crisis, and b) it could all be solved
> by a wave of BP's mighty hand - they just don't want it solved, and
> therefore c) BP's in no more danger of going out of business than the
> folks who engineered the financial crisis, I'm simply reminding you of
> the fates of Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and AIG.

All while forgoing mentioning who benefited from their demise. But
that's alright, I don't expect you to mention anything that might have
negative consequences to your arguments.

> See, that's the part you're just not explaining.  Who, exactly, is
> benefiting from the current spill?  

Obviously other oil companies benefit, but it's even bigger than
that...
BP is a high-risk international drilling company that can't possibly
be bankrupted by the US.
In the end, when all is over, BP will still have made far more in
profits than they will *ever* pay out to those effected.
i.e. the Exxon Valdez case dragged on for over 20 years with Exxon
seeing a cap put on litigation pay-outs.
On the other hand, super-tankers were forced through regulation to
build double hull tankers from then on.

Politically speaking, neither US political party has any interest in
doing the right thing.
For Conservatives the price of oil goes up because the cost of
drilling with high-risk rises.
For Liberals, it's an environmental cause they can use to say how bad
oil can be...providing it gets bad enough.

Who benefits?
Really now, you think no one benefits?
You've obviously never heard of hedge funds, or conveniently omit the
fact you have.

> Who's going to come out the back
> end of this situation saying, "Thank God we had that devestating oil
> spill!"  

Why, no one, because they're much smarter than that, or you.
If I worked for BP or the government, you would believe what I say as
gospel...but I don't, and you don't.

> Or to be a little more focused, who is it that will benefit,
> who also has the power to stop the US Gov't and BP and all of the
> private concerns from just plugging up that pesky leak?  If it's BP
> itself, how are they benefiting, specifically?  If it's the US Gov't
> itself, how is it benefiting, specifically?  If it's some other, as
> yet unnamed player, how are they benefiting, specifically, and how are
> they able to wield this incredible amount of power?

Because they own everything that's how.

> > Let's all pretend it's 1776 again, that'll solve 21st century
> > problems.
>
> I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that.

What I meant was current technology is not being utilized to fix the
pipe.

> > We landed a man on a moon 250,000 miles away 40 years ago in 3
> > days...but there's absolutely no way we can fix a pipe 1 mile down in
> > 2010.
> > Whatever.
>
> At the end of World War II (you'll remember that was in the mid-1940s)
> the US and the Soviet Union split between themselves all of the Nazi
> rocket scientists, because missles that could travel so far and so
> high that they could actually achieve sustained orbit around the earth
> were considered strategically important - so much so that everybody
> was willing to look past the whole "war crimes and crimes against
> humanity" thing.  In 1961, President Kennedy declared that we (meaning
> the US) would put a man on the moon and return him safely to earth
> within the next decade, and we made it with months to spare in 1969.
> The "space race," as it is commonly referred to, started in earnest
> around 1958 and continued until the mid-1970s.
>
> Not exactly "3 days" unless you just assume - like your assumption re:
> the oil crisis and the 'appropriate sub' - that you can just walk into
> a store somewhere and pick up an Apollo Moon Landing Kit, and set it
> up according to the instructions on the box.
>
> > It's just plain pathetic, and all you can do is support the
> > pathetic, which is pathetic in itself.
> > So we've become a nation of pathetics. Hooray for us!
>
> No one's saying that the broken pipe is beyond repair.  It's just that
> it's going to take a longer time to repair it than anyone was counting
> on, because the people charged with having a way in place to fix it -
> the equivalent of having an Apollo Moon Landing Kit on the shelf, to
> extend the metaphor - simply didn't bother to do so.

Well maybe they'll send a spaceship to Mars but conveniently forget
how to bring it back?

> You can put out a house fire with just a garden hose; it just takes a
> lot longer than it does with a team of firefighters using state-of-the-
> art equipment.  Trouble is, a house fire - like the gushing undersea
> oil well - is an active, ongoing process.  The longer it takes to put
> it out, the more damage is done in the process.

It's a pipe, not a rocket or a house fire....as a matter of fact,
there's no fire involved as with many other types of oil well
disasters.
Albeit I will admit, there is a lot about what's going on that I don't
have any information on possibly because of future litigation's, or
maybe not.
i.e. the amount of oil coming from the pipe. It's fluctuated wildly
over time, but rest assured they know exactly how much is coming out.
Again, that is not rocket science. All it takes is a flow meter, and
the flow has not changed any from the time they tapped the well until
now. How many leaks are there? No one outside of a select few are
privy to that information.

I have yet to hear anyone explain why my method of fixing the pipe
wouldn't work.
It's never what they tell you, it's *always* what they don't tell you.
Question authority and don't just take their word for it.
If they're too busy to answer, it's just like someone in authority
pleading the 5th to a formal legal inquiries questions....that's when
you know for sure something isn't right....not with the questions, but
with the lack of answers.

I do wonder how that meeting went with BP and that director of those
deep ocean movies that's supposed to be an expert on ocean robotics?
But I have little doubt they blew him off as just another Hollywood
quack.

There are supposed to be some creative people here that can come up
with creative solutions to problems, it would be nice to read some
sometime.

[Betterduck]

On Jul 2, 10:50 pm, studio <***@hotmail.com> wrote:

> There are supposed to be some creative people here that can come up
> with creative solutions to problems, it would be nice to read some
> sometime.

That cold front we had wiped out the Iguana's. Theyre gone. They were
everywhere. And now 6 months later they are still gone. So it didnt
take much to wipe out the dinosaurs.

Last night I went snook fishing. There were documented football field
size dead pools of snook all over Florida. I didnt know what to
expect. Were they gone too? It didnt take long to find them and they
are still here. I caught a small one, and lost a big one. I was
encouraged about seeing the fish in the old familiar places. There is
a moratorium against harvesting any of these Snook fish. I have been
catching them since before I could ride a bike.

As for who is and who aint creative. I know you aint talking to me. If
and when there is a lifetime achievement award for Creativity on
MWS&M. The Award will be named after me.

This is last nights snook trip on a flip camera.

http://youtu.be/MRF69rqnR-c

Cue My Motherfucking Godzilla music!

BD

[Steven J. Weller]

On Jul 2, 7:50 pm, studio <***@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Albeit I will admit, there is a lot about what's going on that I don't
> have any information on

...about the only meaningful thing you've said on the subject, and
about as much time as I'm willing to waste on this, and you.

--
Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary

Steven

[studio]

On Jul 3, 2:00 pm, "Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:
> On Jul 2, 7:50 pm, studio <***@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Albeit I will admit, there is a lot about what's going on that I don't
> > have any information on
>
> ...about the only meaningful thing you've said on the subject, and
> about as much time as I'm willing to waste on this, and you.

Really?
So you don't believe they can connect another pipe to it and cut off
the flow?
Well that's just what they did.

I had said to a neighbor about 6 weeks ago that was what would happen
at some point, and I, unlike you and most others, was correct.

[Steven J. Weller]

On Jul 15, 5:55 pm, studio <***@hotmail.com> wrote:

> On Jul 3, 2:00 pm, "Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:
>
> > On Jul 2, 7:50 pm, studio <***@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Albeit I will admit, there is a lot about what's going on that I don't
> > > have any information on
>
> > ...about the only meaningful thing you've said on the subject, and
> > about as much time as I'm willing to waste on this, and you.
>
> Really?
> So you don't believe they can connect another pipe to it and cut off
> the flow?

Did I say that? No, what I said - two weeks ago - was:

> No one's saying that the broken pipe is beyond repair. It's just that
> it's going to take a longer time to repair it than anyone was counting
> on, because the people charged with having a way in place to fix it -
> the equivalent of having an Apollo Moon Landing Kit on the shelf, to
> extend the metaphor - simply didn't bother to do so.
>
> You can put out a house fire with just a garden hose; it just takes a
> lot longer than it does with a team of firefighters using state-of-the-
> art equipment. Trouble is, a house fire - like the gushing undersea
> oil well - is an active, ongoing process. The longer it takes to put
> it out, the more damage is done in the process.

And whaddaya know, but the broken pipe that wasn't beyond repair, has,
in fact, been repaired. And it only took 87 days to do it, with
millions of gallons of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico for each
and evey one of those days! Woo Hoo! We're Number One!

> I had said to a neighbor about 6 weeks ago that was what would happen
> at some point, and I, unlike you and most others, was correct.

Right, like when you said, on this very thread:

> I don't understand what is so difficult about fixing a pipe.
> The ocean pressures, and the exiting pressurized oil is NOT a factor
> in fixing the pipe.
(snip)
> That pipe could have been fixed in 3 days.

Yeah, you sure nailed it there!

--
Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary

Steven

[studio]

On Jul 15, 11:10 pm, "Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:
> On Jul 15, 5:55 pm, studio <***@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Right, like when you said, on this very thread:
>
> > I don't understand what is so difficult about fixing a pipe.
> > The ocean pressures, and the exiting pressurized oil is NOT a factor
> > in fixing the pipe.
> (snip)
> > That pipe could have been fixed in 3 days.
>
> Yeah, you sure nailed it there!

I'm also in agreement with someone (not here) that said that
particular oil deposit should be used to pay for the Gulf clean-up
with zero profits going to BP.

[studio]

On Jul 15, 11:24 pm, studio <***@hotmail.com> wrote:
> I'm also in agreement with someone (not here) that said that
> particular oil deposit should be used to pay for the Gulf clean-up
> with zero profits going to BP.

Now Admiral Allen is BS'ing for BP saying they can't pump any oil from
the 2 risers on the well head they put in place.
I believe he should be dismissed as incompetent.

There is absolutely no reason (other than legal concerns) why oil
can't be collected now. As a matter of fact, it would be preferable to
take the pressure off the pipe by collecting it instead of
"monitoring" the build up pressure in hopes that it will blow out
again....but it won't...other excuses will be made, count on it.

Who wants to kill the well?
Answer: BP.
Why?
Because they don't want anyone to know just how much oil flowed out in
hopes they will pay a lesser fine with fudged numbers.
And now it seems that the current admin is in on the BS lines.

Personally I think the government should claim either breech-of-
contract on the lease (I know it's not legally correct, but it's the
government and they can do whatever they want and get away with it),
or claim Imminent Domain and seize the well and let another contractor
run it non-profit.

[Steven J. Weller]

On Jul 19, 7:44 pm, studio <***@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Personally I think the government should claim either breech-of-
> contract on the lease (I know it's not legally correct, but it's the
> government and they can do whatever they want and get away with it),
> or claim Imminent Domain and seize the well and let another contractor
> run it non-profit.

I think the phrase you're looking for is "eminent domain," unless it's
something that going to happen, y'know, right away.

--
Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary

Steven

[Betterduck]

On Jul 15, 11:10 pm, "Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:

> Yeah, you sure nailed it there!


Those gulf coast losers will still use it as an excuse as to why they
dont get lunkers like me and my boys!


WATERBOY
Errrrrrrrrrrrrrr. We we catch alot of little trouts
and reds. Mama say 3 little fishes is just
as proud as one big fish.


DUCK
Hold on, let me get my other Lunker Drobo.


BD

"That aint Oil, its Bait!"
http://youtu.be/glNFt-vjuUE

[studio]

On Jun 16, 7:03 pm, "Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:
> On Jun 16, 1:20 pm, studio <***@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > As yet, no one can explain to me why my methods of fixing the pipe
> > won't work. The fact is, it would work, and is done all the time on
> > land.
>
> Because it's a mile underwater.
>
> The pressure's immense, it's impossible to get a human being down
> there, they have to do it all with remotely operated subs that aren't
> really equipped for this kind of thing, and there's a fairly intense
> jet of oil coming out of the hole that they can't shut off.  

I understand all that...and so do they.

> It's a
> little like trying to seal off a fire hose running full blast, without
> being able to see it clearly, touch it directly, or even so much as
> move around it in real time.

True, and I know it would take some high tech stuff to be able to
that. Still I believe the state of technology as it exists is more
than capable enough to do it.

[Steven J. Weller]

On Jun 24, 7:41 pm, studio <***@hotmail.com> wrote:

> On Jun 16, 7:03 pm, "Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:
>
> > It's a
> > little like trying to seal off a fire hose running full blast, without
> > being able to see it clearly, touch it directly, or even so much as
> > move around it in real time.
>
> True, and I know it would take some high tech stuff to be able to
> that. Still I believe the state of technology as it exists is more
> than capable enough to do it.

No one's saying it's theoretically impossible, or beyond current
technology. It's just that, like a rocketship for colonizing Mars, no
one has a sub (or other bit of technology) capable of doing the job
handy, just now. No one has one under construction, either, or even
so much as has the plans on the drawing board to get one started. No
question that it's possible, no question that there SHOULD be such a
sub, already built and tested and ready to go. But that would have
been expensive, and so BP didn't bother to do it. They were betting -
as have been all of the other oil companies, around the globe - that
it wouldn't actually be necessary, so they took the money they should
have spent on that and instead kept it in the bank.

--
Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary

Steven

[studio]

On Jun 24, 11:11 pm, "Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:
> On Jun 24, 7:41 pm, studio <***@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Jun 16, 7:03 pm, "Steven J. Weller" <***@lafn.org> wrote:
>
> > > It's a
> > > little like trying to seal off a fire hose running full blast, without
> > > being able to see it clearly, touch it directly, or even so much as
> > > move around it in real time.
>
> > True, and I know it would take some high tech stuff to be able to
> > that. Still I believe the state of technology as it exists is more
> > than capable enough to do it.
>
> No one's saying it's theoretically impossible, or beyond current
> technology.  It's just that, like a rocketship for colonizing Mars, no
> one has a sub (or other bit of technology) capable of doing the job
> handy, just now.  No one has one under construction, either, or even
> so much as has the plans on the drawing board to get one started.  No
> question that it's possible, no question that there SHOULD be such a
> sub, already built and tested and ready to go.  But that would have
> been expensive, and so BP didn't bother to do it.  They were betting -
> as have been all of the other oil companies, around the globe - that
> it wouldn't actually be necessary, so they took the money they should
> have spent on that and instead kept it in the bank.

You seem to have finally hit on the right pathetic thinking they have.
Now will other high-risk oil companies follow the same old thinking?
...you bet they will, because they're morons also.