Topic: Deepwater Horizon

[Ke-ke wan]

The proponents of drilling say, "But how else do we decrease the dependence on foreign oil?"

And I wonder why we aren't putting full energies into all of the alternate forms of energy instead. 

The oil tycoons are like a Mafia. 

[Muffin]

'Top kill' BP operation to halt US oil leak fails
'Top kill' BP operation to halt US oil leak fails

The next option after the failure of "top kill" is called the lower-marine-riser-package (LMRP) cap containment system. It involves an underwater robot using a saw to hack off the leaking pipe and place a cap over it.

The LMRP cap is already on site and the operation is expected to last four days.

BP says it cannot guarantee that the new method - which has not been carried out at depths of 5,000 feet before - will be successful.

[Michael]

 

[Nichi]

I read this on the effect of hurricanes on the spill:

~If the oil is out to sea (the ocean?), a hurricane will help speed up the biodegradation process; however, I don't know if they are referring to the dispersant as well as the oil.

~If a hurricane comes into the Gulf, moving counter-clockwise as it does, the direction of the churned-up oil will depend on which side of the slick the storm tracks. If it tracks to the east of the spill, it will move the oil away from the Gulf Coast. If to the west of the spill, it will move oil onto the coast, for the same distance inland as is the surge.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/hurricanes_oil_factsheet.pdf
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As Rudy noted, BP could not plug up the leak. There are new measures in store over the next 4 days, and it sure is looking as if the cap which was projected to be ready 2 months from now is going to be the answer ... if that will even work.

Meanwhile, more agencies and the administration and the public are tearing their hair out. For the first time, one is seeing discussion of International implications, like with Cuba's coral reef.

I suspect that in the end, this will be taken out of BP's hands.

[Michael]

Unfortunately I can't see how they can take it out of BP's hands - no else has the expertise.
They may make a big fuss of taking it out of their hands, but from what I hear, that would be a nightmare for the government.

[Nichi]

A brief sojourn into the dramatics and emotional values of presidential performances, this editorial was interesting to me because Obama's recent "trip to the Gulf" left me with an odd taste in my mouth as well.

Once More, With Feeling

By MAUREEN DOWD
May 29, 2010
New York Times

President Spock’s behavior is illogical.

Once more, he has willfully and inexplicably resisted fulfilling a signal part of his job: being a prism in moments of fear and pride, reflecting what Americans feel so they know he gets it.

“This president needs to tell BP, ’I’m your daddy,’ “ scolded James Carville, a New Orleans resident, as he called Barack Obama’s response to Louisiana’s new watery heartbreak “lackadaisical.”

At a press conference, Obama said Malia had asked him, as he shaved, “Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?” (That hole should be plugged with a junk-shot of Glenn Beck, who crudely mocked the adorable Malia.) Oddly, the good father who wrote so poignantly about growing up without a daddy scorns the paternal aspect of the presidency.

In the campaign, Obama’s fight flagged to the point that his donors openly upbraided him. In the Oval, he waited too long to express outrage and offer leadership on A.I.G., the banks, the bonuses, the job loss and mortgage fears, the Christmas underwear bomber, the death panel scare tactics, the ugly name-calling of Tea Party protesters.

Too often it feels as though Barry is watching from a balcony, reluctant to enter the fray until the clamor of the crowd forces him to come down. The pattern is perverse. The man whose presidency is rooted in his ability to inspire withholds that inspiration when it is most needed.

Oblivious to warnings about Osama hitting the U.S. and Katrina hitting New Orleans, W. often seemed more absorbed in workouts than work. Obama, by contrast, does his homework; he conveys a rare and impressive grasp of difficult subjects when he at last deigns to talk to the news media and reassure those whose lives are overturned by disaster.

The wound-tight, travel-light Obama has a distaste for the adversarial and the random. But if you stick too rigidly to a No Drama rule in the White House, you risk keeping reality at bay. Presidencies are always about crisis management.

Obama invented himself against all odds and repeated parental abandonment, and he worked hard to regiment his emotions. But now that can come across as imperviousness and inflexibility. He wants to run the agenda; he doesn’t want the agenda to run him. Once you become president, though, there’s no way to predict what your crises will be.

F.D.R. achieved greatness not by means of imposing his temperament and intellect on the world but by reacting to what the world threw at him.

For five weeks, it looked as though Obama considered the gushing that became the worst oil spill in U.S. history a distraction, like a fire alarm going off in the middle of a law seminar he was teaching. He’ll deal with it, but he’s annoyed because it’s not on his syllabus.

Even if Obama doesn’t watch “Treme” on HBO, it’s strange that he would not have a more spontaneous emotional response to another horrendous hit for Louisiana, with residents and lawmakers crying on the news and dead pelicans washing up on shore. But then, he didn’t make his first-ever visit to New Orleans until nearly a year after Katrina hit. “I never had occasion to be here,” he told The Times’s Jeff Zeleny, then at The Chicago Tribune.

Just as President Clinton once protested to reporters that he was still “relevant,” President Obama had to protest to reporters last week that he has feelings.

He seemed to tune out a bit after the exhausting battle over health care, with the air of someone who says to himself: “Oh, man, that was a heavy lift. I’m taking a break.”

He’s spending the holiday weekend in Chicago when he should be commemorating Memorial Day here with the families of troops killed in battle and with veterans at Arlington Cemetery.

Republican senators who had a contentious lunch with the president last week described him as whiny, thin-skinned and in over his head, and there was extreme Democratic angst at the White House’s dilatory and deferential attitude on the spill.

Even more than with the greedy financiers and arrogant carmakers, it was important to offend and slap back the deceptive malefactors at BP.

Obama and top aides who believe in his divinity make a mistake to dismiss complaints of his aloofness as Washington white noise. He treats the press as a nuisance rather than examining his own inability to encapsulate Americans’ feelings.

“The media may get tired of the story, but we will not,” he told Gulf Coast residents when he visited on Friday. Actually, if it weren’t for the media, the president would probably never have woken up from his torpor and flown down there.

Instead of getting Bill Clinton to offer Joe Sestak a job, Obama should be offering Clinton one. Bill would certainly know how to gush at a gusher gone haywire. Let him resume a cameo role as Feeler in Chief. The post is open.
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/opinion/30dowd.html?WT.mc_id=OP-SM-E-FB-SM-LIN-DOW-053010-NYT-NA&WT.mc_ev=click
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/opinion/30dowd.html?WT.mc_id=OP-SM-E-FB-SM-LIN-DOW-053010-NYT-NA&WT.mc_ev=click

"Torpor" is a good word ... that's how the progression of events has felt to me - like a befuddled, directionless non-response to events. I'm speaking intuitively. Though it's probably in fact more like the seemingly-passive quality of PTSD.

[Nichi]

A Hole in the Earth - Failure - No Platitudes Will Do - Here Comes Hurricane Season - Apoplexy and Apocalypse

[Michael]

I find myself in contrary views about this. On the one hand I do like to see a leader reflect back the emotional state of the people they lead, and on the other hand I am sceptical of this as I often see politicians play the reflection card cynically.

Do we want a national political system that runs like an evening soap-opera? Because that's what we have.

I feel in myself, I look for a leader to reflect my anxiety when I sense nothing is happening to fix it. When I have confidence in the leadership, that I sense they know the problems and are dealing with them in the best possible way, then I don't care if they don't reflect my anxiety. But I would kinda like it - always nice to see someone articulate my turmoil.

However politics these days is about appearances, so if Obama isn't giving the masses their parental dose, he'd better get cracking or he'll lose them.

[Nichi]

Ocean currents likely to carry oil along Atlantic coast

[Nichi]

The last healing attempt has failed, and the oil has now come ashore in Pensacola, Florida. It's going to engorge the eastern part of the Gulf, where there are many coral reefs and other rare and precious life.

My last hope, since Pensacola has a huge Naval Base, is that the military will become proactive in this, somehow, someway - even if by putting more pressure on the administration. I will bet as we speak, someone in the Navy knows what needs to be done....

Just dreaming, perhaps.

[Michael]

I've seen this on TV, about interviews and comments from people in the US.

It's like the US citizens have this indelible sense of belief in the power of their armed forces. It has always been the way that the military can just blast their way through any problem. Something about the American psych that brute force in the end is the answer to all obstacles.

I've seen people saying they should send in the military to fix this leak. That Obama hasn't done enough, and he should have kicked BP off the case and brought in the 'real' fix-it men from wherever.

It doesn't matter how many top people have answered to the question of why don't they push BP out of the task as they have been so incompetent: "With what?"

There simply isn't anyone more experienced in this than BP. Obama can only jump up and down to show everyone he cares, but he can't do a damn thing to make this work any faster. America is stuck with BP to fix this problem - there isn't anyone else.

The idea that BP is in league with Obama or his associates in perpetuating this catastrophe is insane. BP is about to be wiped out. It has lost a third of its market valuation already, and is likely to lose much more - soon its stocks will be near worthless. This is an unmitigated catastrophe for BP as much as it is for the coastline.

And it is a catastrophe for Obama, because all he can do is watch, and in the people's frustration they want him to save the situation. He is as powerless as anyone to stop the flow of oil. And it appears all attempts to contain the spread is also futile. He should have acted sooner, I hear some say - how? He is as powerless in this as everyone else.

In a land that prides itself on can-do, no one can do anything except BP. Americans should get used to the idea that some things can't be fixed with a gun. They also have to get used to paying higher prices for their gasoline.

It's funny how we hear so much about this spill, but how much have we heard about the leakage of oil in Niger? Only yesterday I heard for the first time that Niger suffers a much greater spillage of oil than what is occurring in the Gulf, every year!

It's one catastrophe after another, and all because we like cheap goods. We let them get away with it, because we, the citizens, are too stupid to stop them. They destroy the planet, then spin a whole load of bullshit about the evilness of those who want to change things for the benefit of the common wealth ... and we believe them. Then we vote them back in to keep ripping off the people and planet. Humanity is paying for its laziness and lack of intelligence ... and unfortunately so are those who had no choice - our companion species on this planet.

But it's not all doom. There is also a powerful force for life and sanity. Join up today!

[Nichi]

Actually, I wasn't thinking of the Navy using brute force --- I was thinking they had some knowledge up their sleeve about the ocean, currents, seabeds, and such - and the means to get around therein.

But now that you mention their influence - they do have an influence on things. That was made manifest just last week as they objected to offshore drilling in Virginia Beach: Obama obliged them and called it off.

I don't know what you're talking about with the guns.
 

[Muffin]

Making money on an oil disaster

I wonder how much a catastrophe it will be for BP.
At the end of the article there are some ideas on what Obama should do.

[Michael]

Yes Rudi, they will squirm out it.
The danger for BP however, is not that they will go broke. It is that their market valuation will drop so low due to this event, that they become a prime take-over target. Business as usual, but the shareholders will lose buckets.

I have read that after the last big spill in the Gulf, the environment movement really started in the US, along with an increase in legislation and other such things. So if enough people get outraged about this, some significant changes could result.

Unfortunately, I sense that the power of this kind of multinational business will be un-dimmed by such events.

But you are absolutely right, Obama now has a clear obligation to ensure all the talk is followed by action right through to the end. That is one thing he can do, and as we are witnessing in Australia, big moral rhetoric by heart-thumping politicians has a tendency to evaporate after awhile, and after numerous visits to their office by those with the funds to bankroll the next election. It's all about politics, and not oil spills or coastlines. Thus the activists have to maintain the pressure.

[Nichi]

In 1979, we seemed to be more able and willing to mobilize our own resources. The Ixtoc Disaster of 1979:

In Texas, an emphasis was placed on coastal countermeasures protecting the bays and lagoons formed by the barrier islands. Impacts of oil to the barrier island beaches were ranked as second in importance to protecting inlets to the bays and lagoons. This was done with the placement of skimmers and booms. Efforts were concentrated on the Brazos-Santiago Pass, Port Mansfield Channel, Aransas Pass, and Cedar Bayou which during the course of the spill was sealed with sand. Economically and environmentally sensitive barrier island beaches were cleaned daily. Laborers used rakes and shovels to clean beaches rather than heavier equipment which removed too much sand. Ultimately, 71,500 barrels of oil impacted 162 miles of U.S. beaches, and over 10,000 cubic yards of oiled material were removed.

Containment

In the next nine months, experts and divers including Red Adair were brought in to contain and cap the oil well.[7] An average of approximately ten thousand to thirty thousand barrels per day were discharged into the Gulf until it was finally capped on 23 March 1980, nearly 10 months later.

Aftermath

Prevailing currents carried the oil towards the Texas coastline. The US government had two months to prepare booms to protect major inlets. Pemex spent $100 million to clean up the spill and avoided paying compensation by asserting sovereign immunity.

The oil slick surrounded Rancho Nuevo, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, which is one of the few nesting sites for Kemp's Ridley sea turtles. Thousands of baby sea turtles were airlifted to a clean portion of the Gulf of Mexico to help save the rare species.


I suppose in all fairness, Texas had 2 months to prepare, unlike Louisianna, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida now. Nonetheless, we took it into our own hands...  While currently, we're still standing here wondering will BP step in?  Who's coming to save us? No one - best make Plan B fast!

(I also like this part in '79 whereby "thousands of turtles were airlifted to safety." That's what I call action.)