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Giant Plumes of Oil Forming Under the Gulf, decreasing oxygen levels by 30%
- melling 16y agoAs much as I am upset at BP, I think the American consumer needs to pay too. We need to tax gas to incentivize people to buy more efficient vehicles and fund alternate energy. Yes, windmills are expensive.
- cryptnoob 16y agoWe need to tax PC's to incentive people to buy macs. Yes, macs are expensive.
- cageface 16y agoAgreed. Banning drilling in U.S. waters will likely only move it to even less regulated areas of the world. We need a focused, determined effort to wean ourselves from petrochemical fuels.
- Retric 16y agoI don't think there are a lot of areas in the world that can be drilled with current technology that have yet to be exploited.
- cageface 16y agoI'm certainly not an expert but from what I understand there are active ocean wells all over the world: http://www.offshore-mag.com/index/regional-reports.html http://www.offshore-mag.com/index/regional-reports.html
- mkramlich 16y agoAgreed. And I like the jokes going around about alternative energy, the ones like, "You heard about the huge wind farm disaster? Yeah apparently it's caused a gentle breeze." and "You heard about the big disaster at the solar panel farm? Yeah apparently it's caused an annoying glare." Etc.
- Qz 16y agoWind farms actually lead to a lot of bird deaths, similar to the way skyscrapers do. It's no giant underwater oil spill, but alternative energy is not all roses and sunshine.
- ja30278 16y agoHow about: "You hear the one about the people who thought they could maintain a first world standard of living while replacing cheap means of energy production with happy thoughts and butterfly power"?
- hussong 16y agoFalse dilemma, most of the first world actually has a great standard of living without ubiquitous gas guzzlers, AC, tumble-dryers and whatnot. Some even argue that energy efficiency can be improved by a factor of five: http://ernst.weizsaecker.de/?p=889&language=en http://ernst.weizsaecker.de/?p=889&language=en
- kiba 16y agoBefore you tax oil, maybe you should list out the possible unintended consequences of taxing oils and funding alternative energy? Your proposal sound great on the surface but I am afraid that there might be a little sinister unforeseen consequences bubbling beneath. We shouldn't stop at the obvious benefit, but also explore the not-so-obvious consequences. http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basEss1.html http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basEss1.html
- melling 16y agoGas was already expensive a few years ago. The consequences were GM was screwed because they sold big cars. People will buy more fuel efficient cars as gas gets more expensive. That is already proven. We could also fund mass transit with the gas tax. We don't need a large tax. Start of with 25 cents and let's take it from there.
- tzs 16y agoYeah, sinister unforeseen consequences like the free market choosing the most effective and efficient energy sources. Oil has a lot of externalities that shift many of the the costs of using it as a fuel to others. A free market cannot work correctly under those circumstances. Tax it enough to make up for those shifted costs, and you won't need to specifically fund alternative energy, as the free market will do that for us.
- kiba 16y agoHow about I do this for you: It raise the cost of fertilizer, plastics, lubricants, paints and other items essential to the modern economy. It is also not necessary true that we will found a suitable or superior alternatives for each and every use of oils.(Which is a lot by the way) P.S. I realized that the OP was talking about a limited tax on gas. But even so, people can just switch to disel and disel engines?
- j_baker 16y agoI don't understand what makes fixing the leak so difficult. Could someone explain it to me? I genuinely want to know this.
- mkramlich 16y agoAgreed. I do find it hard to believe that an industry which has been drilling oil in the ocean for decades and has been making billions of dollars in profits is somehow unable to figure out a reliable way of preventing this from happening, or least reliably preventing it from spreading once it does. Ultimately, it's oil leaking into water -- to an engineer's mind, it doesn't seem like rocket science to prevent it from happening and/or dampening it's effects by 90% or more. A thumbnail solution I can imagine involves, oh, I dunno, say a barrier of some kind, either already in place or that can be rapidly put into place in the first few days after the spill starts. In what universe of competent people (with decades and billions under their belt) could it go several weeks in the state it's been? Smells like gross incompetence and/or greed combined with disdain for their fellow citizens.
- Anechoic 16y agoA thumbnail solution I can imagine involves, oh, I dunno, say a barrier of some kind, either already in place There was one, namely the blowout preventer. It failed or that can be rapidly put into place in the first few days after the spill starts. That's much easier said than done when you're talking about oil coming out at high pressure, and uneven topography all at a depth of 1 mile under the ocean.
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- pyre 16y ago> uneven topography all at a depth of 1 mile under the ocean. How was this stuff built up in the first place? (honest question)
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- mkramlich 16y agointeresting how the whole Repub Party message of "free market is good, regulation is bad" sounds in the context of this giant oil spill disaster. hopefully this classic example of Tragedy of the Commons wakes some more people up.
- kiba 16y agoI heard the BP gave a lot of money to Obama. Maybe it have something to do with Obama wants to stop drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. I mean, this is like the first oil spill in the gulf of Mexico? Beside, isn't a whole lot of stuff got tested by Underwriter laboratory and lot of regulations and standard were simply copied from Underwriter Laboratory guidelines? This company been around for more than 200 years. Maybe private regulations have some merit. (coupled with consumer lawsuits to hold private regulatory agencies accountable) P.S. I think one of the argument has been proposed against government regulations is that when the regulators failed, they get more money so they can do their "job" better. Another argument is that people trust government too much, so it should be left to private institutions because private institutions are trusted less thus get more scrutiny.
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- camccann 16y agoActually, mkramlich specifically said the Republican party's message, which I think most people would agree in regards to. What the Republican party actually does in office, never mind what other parties do, is another matter, and not necessarily related in any meaningful way to aforementioned "message".
- kiba 16y agoI guess spreading rumors about politicians isn't exactly socially approved around here, neither do deflecting the questions. But on the other hand, I still think the whole issue is that fisheries are not exactly owned by fishermen, thus the whole lack of lawsuit threats against oilmen for polluting their properties. This mean we have a tragedy of the common in the ocean. (Overfishing issues could properly get resolved too, but how do you own schools of fish?) Regardless, BP will have to pay a big cleanup bill when this is all over. It's a disincentive in itself. Also, isn't there's a danger of regulators being brought off? Fishermen don't have much of incentive to ruin their livelhood by accepting bride from oilmen. So maybe they'll be able to agree on inspectors agreed upon by oilmen and fishermen. It won't eliminate the whole issue of bridling probably, must probably raise the price of corruption higher?
- joubert 16y agoGlad I don't own BP stock
- mkramlich 16y agoUnfortunately, we all own stock in the US. (speaking for HN readers who are US citizens)
- philwelch 16y agoYou don't have to be a US citizen to have a vested interest in the US economy. America is an elephant. When an elephant collapses and dies, the whole jungle feels the impact and smells the rotting stench.
- joubert 16y agoBP should pay for the damage caused by the spill, including the cleanup efforts, no?
- mkramlich 16y agoAgreed. But even if their total bill comes out to say $10 billion, it can come out of their profits earned from only the last 1-3 quarters. Since those profits already came from us, arguably, we the consumers of BP's product have prepayed for the cost of this disaster. In one sense, BP is not going to pay anything. Plus, due to the nature of the incident, it is unlikely that the true "total cost" is going to be charged to BP. How do you come up with a dollar figure for the total short and long term impact to the environment and economy? Very hard to measure, at best you can only estimate.
- mkramlich 16y agoI want to start or join an effort to come up with solutions and processes to help ensure this kind of spill never happens again. Or at least, is never again allowed to get this bad. Perfection may be impossible, but I'm confident we collectively have the brainpower, creativity, money and engineering/science knowledge to make a dramatic improvement. Does anyone know of any existing projects, grassroots or otherwise? I did some Googling but no luck so far. Ideally we'd take the best ideas from a variety of sources, draw on smart folks from various fields, and the ultimate deliverable is a recommendation of a set of tested processes and gadgets and a plan for fighting this. Ideally any money required is drawn from the oil industry, directly or indirectly, but if instead it comes from non-profit organizations or philanthropists, so be it.