5 ms·

It is deemed to be repeated, as long as most people are too indifferent to push this kind of unjustified environmental damage to the headlines

gruez 5y ago
But oil spills have been trending down over the past few decades, even as oil shipments have increased: https://ourworldindata.org/oil-spills https://ourworldindata.org/oil-spills. You're right it won't go to zero, in the same sense that airplane crashes won't ever go to zero. however that's because it's really hard to prevent all airplane crashes/oil spills, not because people are "too indifferent".
- burkaman 5y ago
  This spill was from an oil rig, not a tanker. Do rig and pipeline spills follow the same trend? Haven't found data on rigs yet, but pipeline spills do not. Pipeline incidents have been roughly constant over time: https://portal.phmsa.dot.gov/analytics/saw.dll?Portalpages&PortalPath=%2Fshared%2FPDM%20Public%20Website%2F_portal%2FSC%20Incident%20Trend&Page=All%20Reported https://portal.phmsa.dot.gov/analytics/saw.dll?Portalpages&P... Edit: Also, the data you referenced comes from an organization that's run by oil companies and tanker operators (https://www.itopf.org/about-us/the-board/ https://www.itopf.org/about-us/the-board/). I doubt they'd just fabricate data, but they are incentivized to massage the definition of what counts as an "oil spill from a tanker". If I were relying on this data I'd probably want to find an independent source. Edit 2: NOAA data of all spills does not show a downward trend: https://incidentnews.noaa.gov/raw/index https://incidentnews.noaa.gov/raw/index
  - gruez 5y ago
    >Pipeline incidents have been roughly constant over time: https://portal.phmsa.dot.gov/analytics/saw.dll?Portalpages&P https://portal.phmsa.dot.gov/analytics/saw.dll?Portalpages&P... I couldn't get the link to work. If it's flat, but the amount of oil being transported is up, isn't that still a decline? >Edit 2: NOAA data of all spills does not show a downward trend: https://incidentnews.noaa.gov/raw/index https://incidentnews.noaa.gov/raw/index I fed the chart into excel and generated a graph: https://i.imgur.com/QKu2Yly.png https://i.imgur.com/QKu2Yly.png looks like even though incidents (orange line) is up, the amount spilled (blue) is down.
    - burkaman 5y ago
      Sorry about the pipeline link, it's ALL REPORTED INCIDENT 20 YEAR TREND on this page: https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/data-and-statistics/pipeline/pipeline-incident-20-year-trends https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/data-and-statistics/pipeline/pipel.... I don't know if amount transported by pipeline is going up. I appreciate your optimism. The downward trend in amount spilled is nice to see, but that value is unknown for nearly half the entries, so I wouldn't read too much into it. I'm not saying it's impossible that things are getting better, I even think it's likely, but it's certainly not at the same level as airplane safety, where everything that can be done is being done and crashes are incredibly rare. It is trivial to find examples of the oil industry failing to do the bare minimum (here's one recent report, the first thing I found: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-293 https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-293). I'm very comfortable stepping on a plane, but I would not be comfortable living next to a pipeline or making a living fishing next to an oil rig, and I think the statistics back up my feelings.
      - strogonoff 5y ago
        This makes for an interesting thought experiment: purposefully combining oil rigs and pipelines with populated areas, so that in case something goes wrong humans get hit first. I imagine then we'd hold oil infrastructure maintenance to a higher standard than the appalling “monthly surface checks”. Of course, it's idealistic and humans would never behave this way.
        gruez 5y ago
        Aren't there already pipelines to crowded areas? I mean, that's where they're typically consumed right? Also, it's not like pipelines that are in the middle of nowhere could be replaced with pipelines in urban areas. The whole point of pipelines is to cross between where it's produced and where it's consumed. Even if you built a bunch of pipelines in populated areas for no reason in the hopes that it will gather more awareness, I suspect that what will happen isn't some sort effort to improve pipelines nationwide, only the ones in populated areas.
- belorn 5y ago
  Airplane crashes will continue as long as people use air travel, which is unlikely to ever change. The best we can do to prevent airplane crashes would be to build in enough security in airplanes so that enough amount of systems has to fail before a crash can occur, including eliminating human failure and cascading failures. Oil spills will also continue as long we extract oil from the bottom of the ocean (and to a degree land). In contrast to airplanes however, we should have a future where we stop extracting it from the earth. In order prevent climate change we need to stop today, and every day we continue to pump it up we are stepping further into catastrophe. We can have a future were electric planes flies in the sky. We can't have a future were we continue pumping up more oil. The oil need to stay where it is.
- anoplus 5y ago
  I think my comment was a mistake. I didn't think it through, and just posted it out of emotion. Thanks
  - cbogie 5y ago
    how so?
cptskippy 5y ago
Southern California has considerable oil and natural gas seepage off shore. Many of the oil rigs aren't drilling but simply harvesting the seeps. They passively collect 100-150 barrels a day from the Coal Oil Point Seep Field. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Oil_Point_seep_field https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Oil_Point_seep_field The oil in question was not from a seep however. It came from the processing platform Elly that supports two other drilling rigs in the Beta field.
- joshuahaglund 5y ago
  Just because it happens in nature doesn't mean it's OK for us to make it happen in more places. If you've ever been to the beach around that oil seep you'd know it sucks to get the tar on you or your surfboard. We don't need more.
  - cptskippy 5y ago
    I wasn't suggesting that it is in anyway acceptable to spill oil, and I think it is interesting that in the same region the spill occurred there have always been naturally occurring seeps that release far more oil into the environment. And it's also interesting that these companies have been passively capturing the oil from the seeps, which potentially reduces the amount of tar washing up on the shores.
  - cbogie 5y ago
    i’ve been getting tarballs on everything and everywhere in santa barbara my entire life. there are several capped oil rigs offshore in the channel. it seems like even without a spill, these things are dangerous to ecologies over the long term. the petroleum industry has negative externalities at every end and throughout it’s operations.
    - cptskippy 5y ago
      Santa Barbara has a lot of seeps, that's the source of the tar balls. It has absolutely nothing to do with off shore drilling. http://seeps.geol.ucsb.edu/ http://seeps.geol.ucsb.edu/

gruez 5y ago

But oil spills have been trending down over the past few decades, even as oil shipments have increased: https://ourworldindata.org/oil-spills https://ourworldindata.org/oil-spills. You're right it won't go to zero, in the same sense that airplane crashes won't ever go to zero. however that's because it's really hard to prevent all airplane crashes/oil spills, not because people are "too indifferent".

burkaman 5y ago
This spill was from an oil rig, not a tanker. Do rig and pipeline spills follow the same trend? Haven't found data on rigs yet, but pipeline spills do not. Pipeline incidents have been roughly constant over time: https://portal.phmsa.dot.gov/analytics/saw.dll?Portalpages&PortalPath=%2Fshared%2FPDM%20Public%20Website%2F_portal%2FSC%20Incident%20Trend&Page=All%20Reported https://portal.phmsa.dot.gov/analytics/saw.dll?Portalpages&P... Edit: Also, the data you referenced comes from an organization that's run by oil companies and tanker operators (https://www.itopf.org/about-us/the-board/ https://www.itopf.org/about-us/the-board/). I doubt they'd just fabricate data, but they are incentivized to massage the definition of what counts as an "oil spill from a tanker". If I were relying on this data I'd probably want to find an independent source. Edit 2: NOAA data of all spills does not show a downward trend: https://incidentnews.noaa.gov/raw/index https://incidentnews.noaa.gov/raw/index
- gruez 5y ago
  >Pipeline incidents have been roughly constant over time: https://portal.phmsa.dot.gov/analytics/saw.dll?Portalpages&P https://portal.phmsa.dot.gov/analytics/saw.dll?Portalpages&P... I couldn't get the link to work. If it's flat, but the amount of oil being transported is up, isn't that still a decline? >Edit 2: NOAA data of all spills does not show a downward trend: https://incidentnews.noaa.gov/raw/index https://incidentnews.noaa.gov/raw/index I fed the chart into excel and generated a graph: https://i.imgur.com/QKu2Yly.png https://i.imgur.com/QKu2Yly.png looks like even though incidents (orange line) is up, the amount spilled (blue) is down.
  - burkaman 5y ago
    Sorry about the pipeline link, it's ALL REPORTED INCIDENT 20 YEAR TREND on this page: https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/data-and-statistics/pipeline/pipeline-incident-20-year-trends https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/data-and-statistics/pipeline/pipel.... I don't know if amount transported by pipeline is going up. I appreciate your optimism. The downward trend in amount spilled is nice to see, but that value is unknown for nearly half the entries, so I wouldn't read too much into it. I'm not saying it's impossible that things are getting better, I even think it's likely, but it's certainly not at the same level as airplane safety, where everything that can be done is being done and crashes are incredibly rare. It is trivial to find examples of the oil industry failing to do the bare minimum (here's one recent report, the first thing I found: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-293 https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-293). I'm very comfortable stepping on a plane, but I would not be comfortable living next to a pipeline or making a living fishing next to an oil rig, and I think the statistics back up my feelings.
    - strogonoff 5y ago
      This makes for an interesting thought experiment: purposefully combining oil rigs and pipelines with populated areas, so that in case something goes wrong humans get hit first. I imagine then we'd hold oil infrastructure maintenance to a higher standard than the appalling “monthly surface checks”. Of course, it's idealistic and humans would never behave this way.
      - gruez 5y ago
        Aren't there already pipelines to crowded areas? I mean, that's where they're typically consumed right? Also, it's not like pipelines that are in the middle of nowhere could be replaced with pipelines in urban areas. The whole point of pipelines is to cross between where it's produced and where it's consumed. Even if you built a bunch of pipelines in populated areas for no reason in the hopes that it will gather more awareness, I suspect that what will happen isn't some sort effort to improve pipelines nationwide, only the ones in populated areas.
belorn 5y ago
Airplane crashes will continue as long as people use air travel, which is unlikely to ever change. The best we can do to prevent airplane crashes would be to build in enough security in airplanes so that enough amount of systems has to fail before a crash can occur, including eliminating human failure and cascading failures. Oil spills will also continue as long we extract oil from the bottom of the ocean (and to a degree land). In contrast to airplanes however, we should have a future where we stop extracting it from the earth. In order prevent climate change we need to stop today, and every day we continue to pump it up we are stepping further into catastrophe. We can have a future were electric planes flies in the sky. We can't have a future were we continue pumping up more oil. The oil need to stay where it is.
anoplus 5y ago
I think my comment was a mistake. I didn't think it through, and just posted it out of emotion. Thanks
- cbogie 5y ago
  how so?

cptskippy 5y ago

Southern California has considerable oil and natural gas seepage off shore. Many of the oil rigs aren't drilling but simply harvesting the seeps. They passively collect 100-150 barrels a day from the Coal Oil Point Seep Field. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Oil_Point_seep_field https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Oil_Point_seep_field The oil in question was not from a seep however. It came from the processing platform Elly that supports two other drilling rigs in the Beta field.

joshuahaglund 5y ago
Just because it happens in nature doesn't mean it's OK for us to make it happen in more places. If you've ever been to the beach around that oil seep you'd know it sucks to get the tar on you or your surfboard. We don't need more.
- cptskippy 5y ago
  I wasn't suggesting that it is in anyway acceptable to spill oil, and I think it is interesting that in the same region the spill occurred there have always been naturally occurring seeps that release far more oil into the environment. And it's also interesting that these companies have been passively capturing the oil from the seeps, which potentially reduces the amount of tar washing up on the shores.
- cbogie 5y ago
  i’ve been getting tarballs on everything and everywhere in santa barbara my entire life. there are several capped oil rigs offshore in the channel. it seems like even without a spill, these things are dangerous to ecologies over the long term. the petroleum industry has negative externalities at every end and throughout it’s operations.
  - cptskippy 5y ago
    Santa Barbara has a lot of seeps, that's the source of the tar balls. It has absolutely nothing to do with off shore drilling. http://seeps.geol.ucsb.edu/ http://seeps.geol.ucsb.edu/