4 ms·

Oil May Be Leaking at Rate of 25,000 Barrels a Day in Gulf

20 points by cwan 17y ago

morphir 17y ago
I actually don't have words for how sad this is..
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
adriand 17y ago
Palin, October 2, 2008, vice-presidential debate: "The chant is 'drill, baby, drill.' And that's what we hear all across this country in our rallies because people are so hungry for those domestic sources of energy to be tapped into."
- RevRal 17y ago
  Palin 2010: [Now that the oil is about to line your shores], I'll pray for you. http://twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA/status/13132651183 http://twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA/status/13132651183
  - DrSprout 17y ago
    >All industry efforts must b employed I'm honestly not sure whether she's just talking about cleanup or about further drilling.
- spamizbad 17y ago
  What's depressing about this isn't the populist outrage about our lack of drilling: it's the fact that Americans are so ignorant of their own energy consumption they believe we can somehow drill out way out of high gas prices (which are already very low compared to other places).
  - roboneal 17y ago
    Our "gas prices" are essentially the same as anywhere else. It's our "gas taxes" which are lower.
- pinko 17y ago
  Actual comment from a fan on Palin's Facebook page: Beth Hartman: From what I hear the earth takes care of it's own natural substances and oil is from the earth. The chemicals to clean up are more harmful. Ecology takes care of itself. An example, a forest fire. In fact, it recreates better.
  - tptacek 17y ago
    Why are you reading the commenters on Sarah Palin's Facebook page? Don't you know that's bad for you?
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    It's scary that voting is a right that comes by just having a certain age.
    - TNO 17y ago
      We all know that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.
  - thwarted 17y ago
    I think this is a misrepresentation of the actual results. Human efforts to clean up underminded the natural bacteria and fungi that consume oil. But it's still a huge, massive mess. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill What I find interesting about this is this bit: Despite the extensive cleanup attempts, a study conducted by NOAA determined that as of early 2007 more than 26 thousand U.S. gallons (22,000 imp gal; 98,000 L) of oil remain in the sandy soil of the contaminated shoreline, declining at a rate of less than 4% per year. That it's even measurable as percentage per year seems like it's getting better, by both human and natural means, at a rate faster than if left to its own devices (with my lay understanding, we'd be talking geologic or evolutionary timescales here, right?). Huge messes take a lot of effort and time to clean up.
  - TNO 17y ago
    So a commenter is ignorant, therefore the owner of the page the comment is on is also ignorant. Nice logic there bud.
- TNO 17y ago
  What does Palin have anything to do with it? She's not in charge of policy.
angstrom 17y ago
I don't profess to understand the challenges of developing an oil well 5000 ft beneath sea level, but does anyone know why there isn't a valve installed that could be shut off by a submersible? What I do know is BP initially said it was roughly 1000 barrels/day when they knew it was probably more. So the rate is now at 25 times the original estimate. That's either incompetence or PR disaster control at it's worst.
- briancooley 17y ago
  There is. It's a 450 ton device called a blowout preventer It didn't activate and they have been trying to do it manually for several days. I work in the oil and gas industry and live along the gulf coast. It's a heart wrenching situation.
  - vaksel 17y ago
    wasn't there supposed to be a secondary device, that cost $500,000 that they decided not to install saying it was "too expensive"
    - briancooley 17y ago
      I don't know anything about their design decisions and shouldn't comment on them. However, my understanding is that a secondary device is not mandated in the US. If that's true, I expect it will change before more deepwater drilling is permitted.
      - vaksel 17y ago
        yeah it's not mandatory...still, since they made something like 36 billion in 1 quarter...and since the cost a single spill would cost way more than $500,000...you'd think at $500K it'd be a cost effective decision to install it
        briancooley 17y ago
        Please don't put me in the position of defending BP. I have no affiliation with them, and I don't know all the details. However, your argument here either is ignoring elements of the decision-making process or isn't logical, and your number ($36BB) is off by nearly an order of magnitude. edit: In the interest of not sounding mysterious, I'll add that you have to consider the likelihood of an event and then the likelihood of all the safety systems failing to determine whether another layer of protection has any value. Of course, now that a blowout has occurred, and the safety system has failed, it is human nature to look back and play Monday morning quarterback. The question that is bugging me is why the safety system failed. Every refinery and chemical plant in the US relies on safety systems to prevent catastrophic incidents, and it is a huge concern when they are activated, let alone fail. We review safety systems and test them regularly.
nfnaaron 17y ago
I would gladly give up most to all space exploration for as long as it takes for equivalent resources to move us from oil to something else.
mikeyur 17y ago
"Every asshole who ever chanted 'Drill baby drill' should have to report to the Gulf coast today for cleanup duty" -Bill Maher http://twitter.com/billmaher/status/13089003490 http://twitter.com/billmaher/status/13089003490
- anamax 17y ago
  Of course Maher, and the upvoters, only consume and encourage things that are always completely safe. WRT the upvoters, none of you ever wanted to go into space or thought that the space program was a good idea. Right? Snark isn't a basis for good policy.
  - DrSprout 17y ago
    Completely false dichotomy. Deep sea drilling, while an important part of world production, is not essential, and certainly in no way necessary for spaceflight. Furthermore, spaceflight's biggest disasters are roughly on the scale of plane crashes. This looks like it's going to impact most of the gulf coast, with significant losses to food industries.
    - anamax 17y ago
      > Deep sea drilling, while an important part of world production, is not essential, and certainly in no way necessary for spaceflight. I never said that it was. The relevance is that spaceflight has had disasters. And, thanks for bringing up plane crashes. Spaceflight has killed less than 100 people. Plane flight kills that many every month or so, with incidents as much as 300 people. > This looks like it's going to impact most of the gulf coast, with significant losses to food industries. You mean like the Exxon Valdez, which actually didn't despite all the predictions? Talk about crying wolf....
- TNO 17y ago
  and I could say that every asshole who voted for Obama care should be the ones to pay for it. Both claims are stupid IMO.
MikeCapone 17y ago
For those who haven't been following this story, here's a timeline overview with some pics, and the contact info of a few orgs where you can volunteer if you want to help with the cleanup: http://planetgreen.discovery.com/tech-transport/gulfofmexico-oilspill-whatwhenwhere-whatyoucando.html http://planetgreen.discovery.com/tech-transport/gulfofmexico...

20 points by cwan 17y ago

morphir 17y ago

I actually don't have words for how sad this is..

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

adriand 17y ago

Palin, October 2, 2008, vice-presidential debate: "The chant is 'drill, baby, drill.' And that's what we hear all across this country in our rallies because people are so hungry for those domestic sources of energy to be tapped into."

RevRal 17y ago
Palin 2010: [Now that the oil is about to line your shores], I'll pray for you. http://twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA/status/13132651183 http://twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA/status/13132651183
- DrSprout 17y ago
  >All industry efforts must b employed I'm honestly not sure whether she's just talking about cleanup or about further drilling.
spamizbad 17y ago
What's depressing about this isn't the populist outrage about our lack of drilling: it's the fact that Americans are so ignorant of their own energy consumption they believe we can somehow drill out way out of high gas prices (which are already very low compared to other places).
- roboneal 17y ago
  Our "gas prices" are essentially the same as anywhere else. It's our "gas taxes" which are lower.
pinko 17y ago
Actual comment from a fan on Palin's Facebook page: Beth Hartman: From what I hear the earth takes care of it's own natural substances and oil is from the earth. The chemicals to clean up are more harmful. Ecology takes care of itself. An example, a forest fire. In fact, it recreates better.
- tptacek 17y ago
  Why are you reading the commenters on Sarah Palin's Facebook page? Don't you know that's bad for you?
- jacquesm 17y ago
  It's scary that voting is a right that comes by just having a certain age.
  - TNO 17y ago
    We all know that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.
- thwarted 17y ago
  I think this is a misrepresentation of the actual results. Human efforts to clean up underminded the natural bacteria and fungi that consume oil. But it's still a huge, massive mess. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill What I find interesting about this is this bit: Despite the extensive cleanup attempts, a study conducted by NOAA determined that as of early 2007 more than 26 thousand U.S. gallons (22,000 imp gal; 98,000 L) of oil remain in the sandy soil of the contaminated shoreline, declining at a rate of less than 4% per year. That it's even measurable as percentage per year seems like it's getting better, by both human and natural means, at a rate faster than if left to its own devices (with my lay understanding, we'd be talking geologic or evolutionary timescales here, right?). Huge messes take a lot of effort and time to clean up.
- TNO 17y ago
  So a commenter is ignorant, therefore the owner of the page the comment is on is also ignorant. Nice logic there bud.
TNO 17y ago
What does Palin have anything to do with it? She's not in charge of policy.

angstrom 17y ago

I don't profess to understand the challenges of developing an oil well 5000 ft beneath sea level, but does anyone know why there isn't a valve installed that could be shut off by a submersible? What I do know is BP initially said it was roughly 1000 barrels/day when they knew it was probably more. So the rate is now at 25 times the original estimate. That's either incompetence or PR disaster control at it's worst.

briancooley 17y ago
There is. It's a 450 ton device called a blowout preventer It didn't activate and they have been trying to do it manually for several days. I work in the oil and gas industry and live along the gulf coast. It's a heart wrenching situation.
- vaksel 17y ago
  wasn't there supposed to be a secondary device, that cost $500,000 that they decided not to install saying it was "too expensive"
  - briancooley 17y ago
    I don't know anything about their design decisions and shouldn't comment on them. However, my understanding is that a secondary device is not mandated in the US. If that's true, I expect it will change before more deepwater drilling is permitted.
    - vaksel 17y ago
      yeah it's not mandatory...still, since they made something like 36 billion in 1 quarter...and since the cost a single spill would cost way more than $500,000...you'd think at $500K it'd be a cost effective decision to install it
      - briancooley 17y ago
        Please don't put me in the position of defending BP. I have no affiliation with them, and I don't know all the details. However, your argument here either is ignoring elements of the decision-making process or isn't logical, and your number ($36BB) is off by nearly an order of magnitude. edit: In the interest of not sounding mysterious, I'll add that you have to consider the likelihood of an event and then the likelihood of all the safety systems failing to determine whether another layer of protection has any value. Of course, now that a blowout has occurred, and the safety system has failed, it is human nature to look back and play Monday morning quarterback. The question that is bugging me is why the safety system failed. Every refinery and chemical plant in the US relies on safety systems to prevent catastrophic incidents, and it is a huge concern when they are activated, let alone fail. We review safety systems and test them regularly.

nfnaaron 17y ago

I would gladly give up most to all space exploration for as long as it takes for equivalent resources to move us from oil to something else.

mikeyur 17y ago

"Every asshole who ever chanted 'Drill baby drill' should have to report to the Gulf coast today for cleanup duty" -Bill Maher http://twitter.com/billmaher/status/13089003490 http://twitter.com/billmaher/status/13089003490

anamax 17y ago
Of course Maher, and the upvoters, only consume and encourage things that are always completely safe. WRT the upvoters, none of you ever wanted to go into space or thought that the space program was a good idea. Right? Snark isn't a basis for good policy.
- DrSprout 17y ago
  Completely false dichotomy. Deep sea drilling, while an important part of world production, is not essential, and certainly in no way necessary for spaceflight. Furthermore, spaceflight's biggest disasters are roughly on the scale of plane crashes. This looks like it's going to impact most of the gulf coast, with significant losses to food industries.
  - anamax 17y ago
    > Deep sea drilling, while an important part of world production, is not essential, and certainly in no way necessary for spaceflight. I never said that it was. The relevance is that spaceflight has had disasters. And, thanks for bringing up plane crashes. Spaceflight has killed less than 100 people. Plane flight kills that many every month or so, with incidents as much as 300 people. > This looks like it's going to impact most of the gulf coast, with significant losses to food industries. You mean like the Exxon Valdez, which actually didn't despite all the predictions? Talk about crying wolf....
TNO 17y ago
and I could say that every asshole who voted for Obama care should be the ones to pay for it. Both claims are stupid IMO.

MikeCapone 17y ago

For those who haven't been following this story, here's a timeline overview with some pics, and the contact info of a few orgs where you can volunteer if you want to help with the cleanup: http://planetgreen.discovery.com/tech-transport/gulfofmexico-oilspill-whatwhenwhere-whatyoucando.html http://planetgreen.discovery.com/tech-transport/gulfofmexico...