Gulf Coast oil spill could eclipse Exxon Valdez

Getting onto an oil rig is not the easiest venture. Explosions of oil wells are not uncommon.
BP is ready to pay.
Halliburton anyone?

The oil spilled in 1969 is still in the sands of Santa Barbara, CA. Hotels hand you a special cleaner and little nylon socks to wear so you can walk on the beach. This oil will be in the sand long after we no longer use oil.

Drill, baby drill.

Two points:

1. If this oil platform explosion/oil leak was in fact eco-terrorism, how does that make you feel about the environmental concerns of eco-terrorists?

2. After any energy catastrophe (mine disaster last week and this week's platform collapse) it is natural to be humble and pound your chest and say we should get our energy somewhere else. Fact is coal and oil fuel our nation. Even hybrid vehicles use half petroleum and half coal for electricity! With the exception of nuclear power, there is no real solution on the horizon - lots of pipe dreams and possibilities, but coal and oil remain our energy solutions, for now. While off-shore drilling gets a bad rap when such oil releases threaten the environment, do you want to turn to getting oil from the Mideast and all that entails? Off-shore drilling is a solution, whether it be short or long term. No other solution presents itself on the horizon.


Such accidents happen occasionally and they should be avoided. In terms of the amount of oil we drill and import, its release into the environment is a byproduct of its use. I don't see anyone giving up petroleum-fueled vehicles in large measure because of the risk of oil release! We'll clean up this accident in the Gulf just like the accident in Alaska (Valdez) several years ago. And we will clean it up with petroleum-fueled boats and vehicles. It is the price we pay for modern transportation.

The only "Eco terrorist's" are the fossil fuel industry aka ExxonMobil, BP and their dumb as shit Denialist's.

It's always great to see calm, rational, well-reasoned rhetoric from the left.

Thank you kindly. I'm truly delighted and thrilled that you appreciate it. I look forward to the lying, filthy and down right evil right wing disgusting assholes as being as reasoned too- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6MOz...layer_embedded

And still more calm, rational, well-reasoned rhetoric from the left.

The Left - Showin' Us How It's Done (tm)

The "fossil fuel industry" you demonize makes modern transportation possible, employ millions of Americans, and provides the fuel that makes modern civilization possible.

So unless you ride a horse, heat your home with wood, and operate your Apple computer with a windmill, you owe the "fossil fuel industry" a great debt!


Thank you. My thoughts exactly...

No I don't. If it wasn't for the the extensive efforts of the oil companies we'd already have electric cars, windmills, solar panels, fuel efficient everything and a whole load of other stuff. The fossil fuel industry has dramitacally slowed progress despite all the warnings.

Uh huh. You probably need to put down the Green Peace white papers and broaden your information intake.

Ever hear of the law of supply and demand? Hybrid vehicles have been in the showrooms for several years and no oil company is standing in the way of your eco-solar panel on your home. And nobody is preventing you from building your own windmill. Don't try to blame oil companies from fueling what Americans want. Matter of fact Democrat Ted Kennedy is more to blame than oil companies for delaying wind energy; the just passed wind farm off Long Island was long opposed by the Kennedy family. And guess which Democrat in New Mexico is opposing wind farm windmills? And don't forget the long-haired progressives who protested nuclear power for decades and made this country fall behind in that energy efficient area...

The fact is Americans prefer combustion engines over electric engines; large cars are favored over small cars. All things being equal a Ford F-150 sold better than a Serbian Yugo... and that dynamic is still in play.

Don't blame oil companies for slowing progress; the progress is dictated by supply and demand. You are free to drive what you want...

You're joking right?

Nope. But, admittedly, it might be something other than Green Peace from which you have derived your views as expressed here. In any case, it's clear you do not have a very broad and well developed understanding of both the physics and the economics that govern the situation you're blithely commenting on.

Ever hear of killing the electric car? Ever hear of stupid American's determined to use a Ford Expedition/ suburban to take their kids to school in the suburbs because they think that global warming is just some bullshit hoax and it would never effect them anyway?

Nuclear power is a fucked up energy source. We would be much better off developing cleaner and safer alternatives. FUCK NUCLEAR POWER. Nearly a million Russians have died as a result of Chernoble. The money it takes to develop nuclear power would be much, much, much better spent on solar etc.

Are you really trying to claim that the Democrats are less pro clean energy than the repubs? Who are you talking about in New Mexico? Bill Richardson? Please provide a link.

Ok sweetie

Interesting. Are you referring to the conspiracy theories that have been bandied about for decades but still unproven?



So you don't like the individual choices some folks are making. Got it.

Sure snookums.

Who killed the electric car video is not a conspiracy theory- http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...11374523233913

No I don't like the individual choices some people are making at all. A year in "Green Rehab" for Denialist's and pollution lovers where they can learn about the environmental impacts and grow organic veggies and make things out of hemp would do America a lot of good.

Yeah, I've seen that propaganda film espousing this conspiracy theory.



Maybe this should even be forced too!!! Now we're getting somewhere!

Dp. Pd.

Next!...

"Reuters is reporting that another offshore drilling rig has overturned in the gulf coast, this time in inland waters close to Morgan City, LA. Reuters writes that the Coast Guard has responded to an "accident" at a "mobile inland drilling unit."
~ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/0..._n_559221.html

I was trying to find some data on the oil platforms and rigs in the Gulf. This article is a couple years old and the numbers are probably higher now, but it provided a couple of interesting data points:



And this:



Interesting article overall.

Since global warming is in fact "some bullshit hoax" your post has special meaning... but that's fodder for another thread! And yes Ford Expeditions should be a choice, inasmuch as a Serbian Yugo or a Toyota Corolla are choices. Small cars and large cars all have a place in the world.


I would be curious to read your reference for those "million Russians" or was that straight hyperbole? And in terms of nuclear power, see France, who is almost 80% reliant on it. Moreover, this nation has had lots of luck with the few nuclear energy plants we have established - we need to build many more. You do realize that most of the leading energy scientists are advocating nuclear power as the safest alternative in hand?

The US is the leading producer of nuclear power, not France. France has a higher ratio of it's power coming from nuclear but has only about 60 nuclear power stations to Americas 104.

As to the "hyperbole" of a million deaths from Chernobyl-

"NEW YORK - Nearly one million people around the world died from exposure to radiation released by the 1986 nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl reactor, finds a new book from the New York Academy of Sciences published today on the 24th anniversary of the meltdown at the Soviet facility.
The book, "Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment," was compiled by authors Alexey Yablokov of the Center for Russian Environmental Policy in Moscow, and Vassily Nesterenko and Alexey Nesterenko of the Institute of Radiation Safety, in Minsk, Belarus.

The authors examined more than 5,000 published articles and studies, most written in Slavic languages and never before available in English.

The authors said, "For the past 23 years, it has been clear that there is a danger greater than nuclear weapons concealed within nuclear power. Emissions from this one reactor exceeded a hundred-fold the radioactive contamination of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
Nations outside the former Soviet Union received high doses of radioactive fallout, most notably Norway, Sweden, Finland, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Austria, Romania, Greece, and parts of the United Kingdom and Germany.

About 550 million Europeans, and 150 to 230 million others in the Northern Hemisphere received notable contamination. Fallout reached the United States and Canada nine days after the disasterThe book explores effects of Chernobyl fallout that arrived above the United States nine days after the disaster. Fallout entered the U.S. environment and food chain through rainfall. Levels of iodine-131 in milk, for example, were seven to 28 times above normal in May and June 1986. The authors found that the highest U.S. radiation levels were recorded in the Pacific Northwest.

Americans also consumed contaminated food imported from nations affected by the disaster. Four years later, 25 percent of imported food was found to be still contaminated.

Little research on Chernobyl health effects in the United States has been conducted, the authors found, but one study by the Radiation and Public Health Project found that in the early 1990s, a few years after the meltdown, thyroid cancer in Connecticut children had nearly doubled."
~ http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/04/26

"The New York Academy of Sciences says not enough attention has been paid to Eastern European research studies on the effects of Chernobyl at a time when corporations in several nations, including the United States, are attempting to build more nuclear reactors and to extend the years of operation of aging reactors.

The academy said in a statement, "Official discussions from the International Atomic Energy Agency and associated United Nations' agencies (e.g. the Chernobyl Forum reports) have largely downplayed or ignored many of the findings reported in the Eastern European scientific literature and consequently have erred by not including these assessments."

I'm not sure anyone reasonably denies that Chernobyl was a terrible disaster. The biggest problem I would have here is holding up the worst event in history as the rule rather than the exception.

As you pointed out in two countries alone, the US and France, there are 164 nuclear power plants operating. The question is how many accidents of the Chernobyl magnitude have occurred in all of these plants for all the years they've been operating?

Now it is true that if something like Chernobyl happens it can be big. Maybe. Maybe not. There were multiple factors from poor design to poor procedures and other mistakes that led to this disaster. But to damn nuclear power in general because of this one incident is to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I think your view is shared by a lot of people, especially now CO2 is playing such a prominent role. I say why take the risk? Wouldn't it be better to utilize wind, solar, thermal and develop other safer ways of producing energy?

*There are already 439 nuclear reactors in the world and the numbers are set to grow much higher.

The answer to that question lies in three primary things:

1. The probability of global warming's potential negative consequences exceeding its potential positive consequences.
2. The opportunity cost of using scarce resources to address the issue.
3. The probabilities that the actions we take would actually make a difference.



And the more there are and the longer they operate without disaster or even accident provides further validation that the benefits outweigh the costs and even the risks. This was part of the point of showing how many oil rigs/platforms are operating compared with how many major disasters (like this latest one) occur. These things are terrible indeed. But they need to be kept in perspective.

1. 100%
2. I don't know what you mean.
3. 100%

Except we've already had Chernobyl and lots of contamination of rivers etc and of course spent fuel storage issues for years to come. There's also the possibility of terrorism. Flying an airliner into a nuclear reactor could cause a meltdown, especially in older plants built in the 50's and 60's that make up the bulk of nuclear reactors.

And what about the fact that the US now has to import most of it's uranium? Uranium is becoming harder and harder to access, which involves more and more mining and all of the pollution that comes with it.

1. Doubtful, but you're welcome to present evidence supporting the 100% certainty of a future event.
2. Opportunity cost
3. Doubtful, but you're welcome to present evidence supporting the 100% certainty of a future event.



Yes, I know.



Yes, this is a possibility. What is the probability?

*Someone could also fly an airliner into a tall building (or two). I don't see us calling for the dismantling of skyscrapers or ceasing the construction of them.

This from Greenpeace-

"An attack could cause the irradiated fuel to catch fire, particularly if the aircraft's fuel is already on fire. The World Information Service on Energy in Paris stated that nuclear storage tanks at Sellafield could spray up to two tonnes of deadly caesium-137 into the atmosphere if struck by a hijacked jumbo jet compared with the 50lb of caesium released during the Chernobyl reactor blast in 1986. A successful attack on Sellafield could lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and leave large areas of Britain uninhabitable for decades.

A study prepared for the USNCI concluded that a terrorist group could make a useable nuclear bomb from stolen plutonium or highly enriched uranium. Hundreds of tons of plutonium are stored and transferred around the world between nuclear installations. Only around 18 pounds of plutonium or 55 pounds of highly enriched uranium are sufficient to make a nuclear bomb."
~ http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/Multime...eport/5387.pdf

If a meltdown were to occur at a nuclear facility the ramifications could be much more severe than crashing an airliner into a building. I wonder too what other methods of attacking nuclear power plants might be in the future too.

Again, what is the probability? Don't you think that since 9/11 security at such facilities has been improved to reduce the probability, probably significantly?

Yes, it can happen. But how likely is it to happen?

If call 130 year old gasoline engine "modern transportation" I am sure you also like cruzifiction for your favorite form of execution and own a TV from 1955.
Your MAC PLUS still truckin'?

Is it time for "Fun With Bad Analogies" again? Damn I miss that show.

For me that "130 year old gasoline engine" for of "modern transportation" works just great getting me where I need to go quickly, safely and efficiently. But it's probably only me.

Who knows, but Obama recently said that terrorists attaining nuclear weapons are the biggest threat to national security.

Obama- "The single biggest threat to US security, both short-term, medium-term and long-term, would be the possibility of a terrorist organisation obtaining a nuclear weapon," Mr Obama said.
"This is something that could change the security landscape in this country and around the world for years to come.
"If there was ever a detonation in New York City, or London, or Johannesburg, the ramifications economically, politically and from a security perspective would be devastating."

Here's a Guardian piece relating to the dangers-

"We are at a crossroads. Unless governments work together to safeguard nuclear energy supplies, the rise in unsecured nuclear technology will put us all in danger. Without this, we are hurtling towards a state of nuclear anarchy where terrorists or rogue states have the ways and means of making nuclear weapons or 'dirty bombs', the consequences of which are unimaginable," says Barnaby."
~ http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...-nuclear-waste

"Iran's Kayhan press service warned last week, "If the US strikes Iran with nuclear weapons, there are elements which will respond with nuclear blasts in the centers of America's main cities."
~ http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LD20Ak01.html

"Since 1993 the IAEA has reported 175 cases of nuclear trafficking, 18 involving highly enriched uranium or plutonium suitable for use in nuclear weapons.

In another assessment, The NRC notes that between 15-20% of US nuclear plants would sustain safety critical levels of damage from a vehicle bomb accessing close to the supervised boundary of the plant.

The truly alarming fact is that the UK simply does not incorporate a requirement for its nuclear power stations and plants to be tested against what are now considered to be credible acts of terrorism. Nuclear safety and the emergency planning legislation do not take account of terrorism in any detail whatsoever. (3)
In fact, unlike the United States where DBTs are assumed to be real, physical attacks on the power stations, the UK relies upon detecting the terrorist intent in good time to be able to avert the attack, rather than requiring the operator to physically modify and strengthen the plant. This effectively means that there are no security measures that would adequately negate the damage of a deliberate attack other than catching any would be terrorists before they find themselves in a position to inflict harm. This approach therefore relies almost entirely on the effectiveness of our intelligence services, leaving absolutely no room for error whatsoever.

In dealing with the aftermath of a terrorist attack the three emergency services have entirely different approaches to radiological management and radiation dose limitation. The fire brigades have a national agreement that limits individual firefighters and teams of firefighters to a maximum single incident dose and they are trained in radiation procedures, fully equipped with personal dosimeters and have protective clothing and breathing apparatus. In comparison, ambulance personnel, paramedics and general hospital A&E staff have a zero-tolerance to radiation dose, no specific training and personal dosimetry, although some hospitals have contamination suits which can be used for 20 minutes maximum.\tThe police, who are to control the public movement and secure areas, have no radiation procedure training, no personal dosimetry and will not be equipped with radiation protection clothing. This situation could result in absolute chaos in the aftermath of any incident."
~ http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/Multime...eport/5387.pdf

It's interesting to me. When Bush was using fear to scare the shit out of people into starting wars and implementing pieces of the police state everyone on the left assumed he was lying in order to start wars and implement pieces of the police state.

Now that Obama is using fear to scare the shit out of people. You're all like..."Oh man, we better do something!" Ya'll better be careful...you might get whiplash.

No, this has been a recognized issue for a long time. Obama isn't starting a war either, at least not yet. Iran has been hyped up by nearly every country and as things stand I am very cautious about believing the hype.

HS, what would you propose "the world" do with our global dependence/interdependence on oil? Simply give it up? Not possible, not by a long shot. Oil will still be around for another 50 to 100 years, and if it's not being used for fuel by then, it'll still be used for plastics, chemicals and other things. You should actually visit an oil company, see how things are done first hand and then make informed comments.

Obama is beholden to the exact same interests as Bush, give or take a few unions. When the players are the same, expect the results of the game to be the same.