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Agreed. 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
by mkramlich 17y ago
Agreed. 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 17y 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.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- pyre 17y 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)
- Anechoic 17y agoMillions of years of seismic activity, sediment deposition, and high pressures.
- pyre 17y ago... forms pipelines under rocks?
- Anechoic 17y agoSorry, since you quoted my line about the topography, I thought that's what you were asking about. The pipeline is formed by drilling long holes (using bentonite slurry to keep the hole from collapsing on itself), building a long pipeline use threaded or welded segments, and slipping the pipe down the whole. It's like well digging, but on a much larger scale.
- mkramlich 17y agoYou're asking about how did they manage to build the platform, lay the pipes, drill, put everything into place, etc., right? That's a good question. It seems like they spent a lot of time and money figuring how to get the oil flowing. The question is, did they also spend enough time/money addressing how to prevent and react to failure scenarios?
- camccann 17y agoIt's a well known principle that, given a brief problem description, the less a software engineer knows about the problem domain, the easier they will judge the solution to be.
- mkramlich 17y agofunny! :) however, being a software engineer doesn't preclude one from being right or having useful insight within any other realm of human activity.
- nostrademons 17y agoIt's a general rule about most people. Almost all problems look simple from 5000 feet up; it's only when you try and work out the details and get it actually working that the difficulty becomes obvious.
- mkramlich 17y agoYep but it's another general rule that many problems look insurmountable when there has been insufficient analysis, brainstorming, experimentation, testing, and time/energy/money spent on trying to solve that problem. I for one have gotten the impression from this BP incident, and from everything I've read, that that is what happened in this case. There was even an interview with a so-called expert who helped work on the Exxon Valdez cleanup who said he's been shocked at how little has changed since then in terms of advancement in technology, process, etc.
- mkramlich 17y agoAgree it's easier said than done. But there's a class of problems I find real hard to believe cannot be solved/addressed when one has had decades and billions to work on it, ahead of time, and when the same species has been able to design computers, spaceships, skyscrapers, etc.
- tedunangst 17y agoThe species has built a lot of computers that didn't work, spaceships that blew up, and skyscrapers that have fallen down.