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The only reason they were even drilling that deep was because...environmentalists lobbied the government to ban drilling in (comparatively safer) shallower waters.

And of course, they could be drilling in an even safer spot: on land. But again, government has banned drilling in alaska.

But hey, I agree, the government is obviously crucial in protecting the environment : /

At 5/30/10 08:54 PM, JeremieCompNerd wrote: I think we can escape oil as a power source, though I agree we need it (in MUCH smaller quantities) for plastics and other such endeavors. We can replace it as a power source, so we should try to do so before we run out. If we keep using oil to power our cars, we're going to hit the day when we no longer have enough of it left (several hundred years down the road most likely, but it will eventually happen) to use for anything at all.

"We" (i.e. the government) don't need to do anything. As oil becomes increasingly scarce and more expensive to obtain, the price will rise and people will begin to use less.
This will cause oil alternative markets to emerge (e.g. by the time oil becomes impractically expensive im sure something like hydrogen cars will become a widespread feasible alternative to conventional cars).
Also, as oil becomes too expensive pharmaceutical companies will naturally conduct research into alternatives to use because this will mean in the long run billions of dollars of savings.

At 6/6/10 08:56 AM, bcdemon wrote: Well sure he would. And his buddy Dick Cheney and Haliburton would be reaping the benefits.

So by your own admission, Bush would have been more proactive in the cleanup process than Obama and BP?

yeah maybe but its all our fault we can actualy sponge or ta 90% of the oil s going out

So I wanted to run this idea by everyone here. The picture below is an initial design concept for a "Petroleum Dependency Rating" - something that businesses could voluntarily label their products with to increase awareness of petroleum usage for both companies and consumers. Of course, this simple graphic would be backed by a comprehensive study and report that went into detail about how much petroleum is being used, and how it might be reduced. (The core idea is that you don't need to drill for so much oil if you don't need much oil to begin with.)

Give me honest feedback, people. I want to make sure this is an idea worth publicizing.

At 6/6/10 11:26 AM, Proteas wrote:

At 6/6/10 08:56 AM, bcdemon wrote: Well sure he would. And his buddy Dick Cheney and Haliburton would be reaping the benefits.

So by your own admission, Bush would have been more proactive in the cleanup process than Obama and BP?

Holy, the air getting thin down there proteas? You asked "would Bush have let a disaster like this go on on for over a month", I said "well sure he would". How is that admitting that Bush would have been more proactive? I did however admit that Bush and Cheney would make a pile of cash off this disaster, that's all.

You're trying to pin this on Obama, personally I think it's all those closet jumping republicans who are at fault.

At 6/6/10 10:08 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote: The only reason they were even drilling that deep was because...environmentalists lobbied the government to ban drilling in (comparatively safer) shallower waters.

And of course, they could be drilling in an even safer spot: on land. But again, government has banned drilling in alaska.

But hey, I agree, the government is obviously crucial in protecting the environment : /

Not if they dropped the ball and obviously not payed that much attention to the MMS who dropped the ball on a huge scale.

God, those people need to be fired.

At 6/6/10 06:39 PM, Dawnslayer wrote: Give me honest feedback, people. I want to make sure this is an idea worth publicizing.

This is rad, and a departure from the 'feel-good' consumer activism popular among liberal corporate whores, (like 'Fair-Trade Certified So You Don't Have to Think About Dirt Poor Columbian Children Harvesting Coffee Beans for a Yearly Wage < The Cost of Your Frappuccino") but only based on the very real truth that nearly all widely-available goods rate obscenely high in all three categories.

At 6/7/10 08:53 AM, bcdemon wrote: I did however admit that Bush and Cheney would make a pile of cash off this disaster, that's all.

That's what I was referring to. :-D

You're trying to pin this on Obama, personally I think it's all those closet jumping republicans who are at fault.

The only thing I blame Obama for is turning down foreign help in the early stages of the spill, which is asinine coming from someone touted as being SOOOOOOOO much better and smarter than George W. Bush. Doing something like that makes him equal to if not worse than Bush in sheer stupidity.

What really bugs me is how the democrats policy has been absolutely no drilling on land because of "potential environmental impact." Well, here's what your concern for the environment gets you. They had to drill a mile under water where no man could actually get his hands on the oil itself, and now they're having to spend precious time inventing new technology or adapt existing technology meant to deal with oil blowouts on land, and the way things are looking right now? They're going to be smelling diesel fuel in England before long.

At 6/7/10 07:13 PM, Proteas wrote: What really bugs me is how the democrats policy has been absolutely no drilling on land because of "potential environmental impact." Well, here's what your concern for the environment gets you.

To be fair, cleaning up an oil spill in water is easier than cleaning up one on land.

Really, this disaster is the result of a reckless disregard for the environment. There's a number of ways it could have been prevented, but redundant failsafes were turned down on the basis of cost. As I mentioned in the other topic about this, an acoustic blowout trigger would most likely have prevented the spill, and only costs a measly $500k.

This spill doesn't mean that deep-sea drilling as a whole is a terrible idea, it means that we haven't appropriately adapted to the difficulties involved with it. Off-shore drilling should require simultaneous drilling of a relief well with the primary well (as it does in arctic off-shore operations, at least in Canada), so that in the event of a blowout, the well is already in place and ready to go at a moment's notice.

We also need more research into techniques for stopping off-shore oil leaks. We've basically been trying to hack together new solutions from land-based techniques that are much more difficult to implement underwater.

At 6/6/10 10:08 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote: The only reason they were even drilling that deep was because...environmentalists lobbied the government to ban drilling in (comparatively safer) shallower waters.

And of course, they could be drilling in an even safer spot: on land. But again, government has banned drilling in alaska.

But hey, I agree, the government is obviously crucial in protecting the environment : /

I heard this from exact same argument from some fail-anarchist I'm sub too on youtube. Yeah blaming the government (which is basically a corporation ) for your lack of protective measures ......

At 6/8/10 10:31 AM, thedo12 wrote: Yeah blaming the government (which is basically a corporation ) for your lack of protective measures ......

???

because of government they unnecessarily had to go somewhere less safe for drilling

pretty simple

At 6/8/10 10:38 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote: ???

because of government they unnecessarily had to go somewhere less safe for drilling

pretty simple

Yeah, but to go there and fail to drill safely is their fault, not the governments. You see why that argument only goes so far? Of course you don't, but I felt like pointing it out anyway.

Yeah, but to go there and fail to drill safely is their fault, not the governments. You see why that argument only goes so far? Of course you don't, but I felt like pointing it out anyway.

Oil spills are always a problem

It's also worth noting that BP was given a categorical exclusion from having to provide a detailed environmental analysis of their rig. But as far as I am concerned, if someone leases property out to someone to do something that could potentially cause damage to the property of nearby areas, it is the responsibility of the one doing the leasing to make sure that someone like BP is doing what they should be. But obviously whoever is in charge of 'regulating' BP was derelict in their duties, and I don't expect that more funding towards that particular bureaucracy, or creating a new bureaucracy, or adding another thousand commandments to the federal register is going to solve this systematic problem.

A private company is a profit maximizer, and they will do whatever they can to earn the most profit. But no sane private owner would give someone the right to put a rig on their property unless they knew something like this was insured against because no private owner would want the hassle of that much damage to their property and the property around them.

At 6/7/10 07:13 PM, Proteas wrote: The only thing I blame Obama for is turning down foreign help in the early stages of the spill, which is asinine coming from someone touted as being SOOOOOOOO much better and smarter than George W. Bush. Doing something like that makes him equal to if not worse than Bush in sheer stupidity.

And if he had outsourced the cleanup effort to a foreign company, people would bitch about Obama sending local jobs overseas. Not to say that that is the reason he denied foreign help, but it is the truth.

What really bugs me is how the democrats policy has been absolutely no drilling on land because of "potential environmental impact." Well, here's what your concern for the environment gets you. They had to drill a mile under water where no man could actually get his hands on the oil itself, and now they're having to spend precious time inventing new technology or adapt existing technology meant to deal with oil blowouts on land, and the way things are looking right now? They're going to be smelling diesel fuel in England before long.

I personally blame BP, for not having a disaster plan in place. They obviously knew they were going to drill way the fuzz down their, they should have had a plan on hand in case anything (such as this) happened. But to watch the news 3-4 weeks after the fact and hearing them say "well were going to try..." is absolutely disgusting. It would be nice to see a huge oil company come crashing down after an epic fail such as this.

okay my thoughts is taht we will always be semi dependent on fossil fuels no matter what, and while this is a serious disaster it will open very few eyes to what pottential problems there are if we continue to use fossil fuels. Now for clean up what you say is true BP should have to clean up the spill and foot the bill but they've been trying to do taht for a month and nothing has happened so the government is going to have to before the problem gets much worse

At 6/8/10 10:38 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

At 6/8/10 10:31 AM, thedo12 wrote: Yeah blaming the government (which is basically a corporation ) for your lack of protective measures ......

???

because of government they unnecessarily had to go somewhere less safe for drilling

pretty simple

Also because of government, the standards for safe drilling which would have prevented the spill in the first place have no teeth to enforce responsible practices with. I believe they call it "deregulation" to make it sound appealing to people who don't pay attention.

wait a sec, it seems that Obama is taking blame from many Republicans.

But this is hypocritical because first, they've deregulated (or maintained the status quo of deregulation) of the oil industry... AND isn't it, in general-- the PHILOSOPHY of the Republican party to have a small government?

Funny how people like Bobby Jindel and Sarah Palin extols the virtue of the Republican party, criticizing how Big Government will kill grandma in death panels and take away your guns...

But they're either begging for help (Bobby)... or not saying anything at all (Sarah...which is suprising for the loud mouth who has everything to say about on anything...)

At 6/8/10 08:03 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

Yeah, but to go there and fail to drill safely is their fault, not the governments. You see why that argument only goes so far? Of course you don't, but I felt like pointing it out anyway.

Oil spills are always a problem

It's also worth noting that BP was given a categorical exclusion from having to provide a detailed environmental analysis of their rig. But as far as I am concerned, if someone leases property out to someone to do something that could potentially cause damage to the property of nearby areas, it is the responsibility of the one doing the leasing to make sure that someone like BP is doing what they should be. But obviously whoever is in charge of 'regulating' BP was derelict in their duties, and I don't expect that more funding towards that particular bureaucracy, or creating a new bureaucracy, or adding another thousand commandments to the federal register is going to solve this systematic problem.

A private company is a profit maximizer, and they will do whatever they can to earn the most profit. But no sane private owner would give someone the right to put a rig on their property unless they knew something like this was insured against because no private owner would want the hassle of that much damage to their property and the property around them.

Yup, case in point the Hindenburg. No one would put explosive gas in a blimp meant to carry passengers. Or, another case in point, the Titanic. No one would race a boat through iceburg infested waters to exceed deadlines at the risk of safety. Or case in point, you're wrong.

It doesn't matter who does the leasing. The person who built the system is the team with the experts. By your own arguments they should have been able to sufficiently guarantee safety, even while maximizing profits. This was a failure on the part of BP at its core. The rest of the system WAS shot to hell by deregulation (initiated by Bush and unfixed by Obama) and massive corruption (The mining & mineral agency staff was known in a report to take bribes from oil companies; do drugs with their employees, namely cocaine; and sleep with those they were meant to be regulating; additionally BP had over 600 safety citations when compared to the one or two that other companies had in the last few years). This particular well did not have working safety features, again BP's fault ultimately. Deep Horizon was known by its engineers to be over taxed, as well as its workers since they constantly asked BP for more workers. Finally, it was BP that ordered heavy mud be removed from the system and replaced by lighter sea water in order to expedite things and increase profit.

Government simply didn't do anything to stop them, but BP totally created this disaster through greed and negligence.

Obama should be making more effort. The government is still extremely slow at helping. Jindal has been begging for millions of feet of oil barrier, which does exist, but isn't being bought due to bureacracy. He also shouldn't be talking about suing them till after the problem has been solved. Having BP do everything it can to evade legal liability isn't helpful to stopping the spill.

On other fronts, like supplying manpower, he's better.

He's also had no clue what to do, and didn't even visit the site till 18 days in, but that sort of patheticness is standard for the government, and excusable.

BP's safety measures were quite terrible, and they should have had a remote shutdown system in place. They've been fairly ok, though, after the accident. Good cleaning crews, and they've not been too bad on financial compensation.

At 6/9/10 08:12 AM, Ytaker wrote: Obama should be making more effort. The government is still extremely slow at helping. Jindal has been begging for millions of feet of oil barrier, which does exist, but isn't being bought due to bureacracy.

I thought that the reason was, as given by "bureaucracy," was that there was no proof the sand blocks he want would (one) work, or (two) not shift tidal flows in such a way that another environmental catastrophe would occur. And then, after that, it would apparently make more sense to erect the new barrier islands that have been studied since Katrina as they would do a better job anyway (though neither party has called for this).

He also shouldn't be talking about suing them till after the problem has been solved. Having BP do everything it can to evade legal liability isn't helpful to stopping the spill.

1) BP hasn't avoided any legal liability.
2) There is no proof the government could handle this better than BP. The government is not in the habit of drilling for oil or dealing with those kind of mechanics. Like it or not the Oil companies are probably the most qualified to understand and try to fix the problem, even if that means we're hopeless.
3) Obviously, Obama doesn't have confidence in the current governmental structure to get this done, or possibly even the funding, most of which isn't really his fault.

He's also had no clue what to do, and didn't even visit the site till 18 days in, but that sort of patheticness is standard for the government, and excusable.

Most politicians don't study oil wells before going into politics. Most politicians wouldn't know what to do. And, thanks to the BP PR folks, no one knew this was a huge problem until it was clear BP was lying through their teeth about the amount of oil spilling.

BP's safety measures were quite terrible, and they should have had a remote shutdown system in place. They've been fairly ok, though, after the accident. Good cleaning crews, and they've not been too bad on financial compensation.

I don't think anyone can judge yet whether BP is doing a good job of cleaning up or compensating people. Frankly, it is not possible for BP to compensate anyone for the damage it has done.

At 6/8/10 11:03 AM, gumOnShoe wrote: Yeah, but to go there and fail to drill safely is their fault, not the governments. You see why that argument only goes so far? Of course you don't, but I felt like pointing it out anyway.

so basically, we need government regulations...because of government regulations

lol

At 6/10/10 02:14 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

At 6/8/10 11:03 AM, gumOnShoe wrote: Yeah, but to go there and fail to drill safely is their fault, not the governments. You see why that argument only goes so far? Of course you don't, but I felt like pointing it out anyway.

so basically, we need government regulations...because of government regulations

lol

No, not at all. Oil wells did not HAVE to be built deep in the sea. They could have, lets say, never existed, as preposterous of an idea that is and unlikely. The point being that it was the company's choice to drill where they did and how they did, the government approved plans and provided, in this case, horrible over sight. But, the actual problems were due to BP engineering & executive decisions. Simply because the government said "you can't drill here, here or here" does not mean that the government caused safety failures. The government can do a few things:

1) Require companies to follow certain safety standards
2) Stop actions they deem are unsafe
3) ... uh tax people

The government did not build this rig or make the decisions that lead to the accident. BP did all of that on its own. Had the government used its first power listed above to require redundant safety standards that Elfer pointed out in another thread, we likely would not be in this position today had they been enforced. That said, BP could have implemented those things all of its own accord and chose not to. Therefor, BP really does hold all of the liability.

BP has a constrained set of choices, some of those are bounded by the laws the government makes, but none of its choices are determined by the government. Therefor, BP is totally and unequivocally at fault in this case.

But as I said, you're so paranoid you couldn't eat a logical argument if it was baked into a nice cake for you and covered in frosting that wrote "this is a logical argument" with the universe pointing at it and screaming "TRUE TRUE TRUE" at the top of its lungs.

At 6/9/10 09:00 AM, gumOnShoe wrote:

At 6/9/10 08:12 AM, Ytaker wrote: Obama should be making more effort. The government is still extremely slow at helping. Jindal has been begging for millions of feet of oil barrier, which does exist, but isn't being bought due to bureacracy.

I thought that the reason was, as given by "bureaucracy," was that there was no proof the sand blocks he want would (one) work, or (two) not shift tidal flows in such a way that another environmental catastrophe would occur. And then, after that, it would apparently make more sense to erect the new barrier islands that have been studied since Katrina as they would do a better job anyway (though neither party has called for this).

Not sand blocks. He wants floating barriers. Which they are installing. Just slowly.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/
2010/05/wh-were-on-the-case-jindal-help.
html

If they had done it faster, they could have massively limited the scale of damage. He should personally cut through any bureacracy.

He also shouldn't be talking about suing them till after the problem has been solved. Having BP do everything it can to evade legal liability isn't helpful to stopping the spill.

1) BP hasn't avoided any legal liability.
2) There is no proof the government could handle this better than BP. The government is not in the habit of drilling for oil or dealing with those kind of mechanics. Like it or not the Oil companies are probably the most qualified to understand and try to fix the problem, even if that means we're hopeless.
3) Obviously, Obama doesn't have confidence in the current governmental structure to get this done, or possibly even the funding, most of which isn't really his fault.

I don't know what their lawyers and engineers are doing. They're quite secretive. Regardless, I'd prefer if Obama was supportive of their efforts until after they've delt with the problem.

The government does have experience cleaning up and slowing oil spills, however.

He's also had no clue what to do, and didn't even visit the site till 18 days in, but that sort of patheticness is standard for the government, and excusable.

Most politicians don't study oil wells before going into politics. Most politicians wouldn't know what to do. And, thanks to the BP PR folks, no one knew this was a huge problem until it was clear BP was lying through their teeth about the amount of oil spilling.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/new s/17390/111965

They fairly quickly got an estimate of 100000 barrels a day, at the upper limit.

The government was doing PR too.

BP's safety measures were quite terrible, and they should have had a remote shutdown system in place. They've been fairly ok, though, after the accident. Good cleaning crews, and they've not been too bad on financial compensation.

I don't think anyone can judge yet whether BP is doing a good job of cleaning up or compensating people. Frankly, it is not possible for BP to compensate anyone for the damage it has done.

You can see how much they're doing, and see if they've refused anyone compensation.

At 6/10/10 07:56 AM, gumOnShoe wrote: But as I said, you're so paranoid you couldn't eat a logical argument if it was baked into a nice cake for you and covered in frosting that wrote "this is a logical argument" with the universe pointing at it and screaming "TRUE TRUE TRUE" at the top of its lungs.

wahhh you're liek so dumb >:C

At 6/8/10 10:38 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

At 6/8/10 10:31 AM, thedo12 wrote: Yeah blaming the government (which is basically a corporation ) for your lack of protective measures ......

???

because of government they unnecessarily had to go somewhere less safe for drilling

pretty simple

But the spill could have been prevented with some fairly inexpensive measures, as I mentioned earlier. An acoustic blowout trigger likely would have shut off the flow, and having a relief well already drilled would have allowed them to cap the leak quickly even if the blowout preventer failed. Yes, these measures cost money, but responsible companies spend money to prevent accidents before they happen, rather than doing the bare minimum to pass inspection.

As always, companies need to listen to their engineers, not the accountants or the people with business school degrees.

At 6/10/10 09:18 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

At 6/10/10 07:56 AM, gumOnShoe wrote: But as I said, you're so paranoid you couldn't eat a logical argument if it was baked into a nice cake for you and covered in frosting that wrote "this is a logical argument" with the universe pointing at it and screaming "TRUE TRUE TRUE" at the top of its lungs.

wahhh you're liek so dumb >:C

I'd like to believe this is all just an act, but... maybe it unfortunately isn't. Maybe I've just been pretending you're more intelligent than you are.

Last Saturday, I went to a place at my college where I was supposed to work on the oil spill for a paid job. It was the first time I had ever taken a drug test, and they discovered pharmaceticals in my urine, so they had to test them for a few days before I could get in. I am currently on vacation in Orlando, so I will have to wait until I get back.

On facebook, this kid updated his status as "We can land a man on the moon but we can fix an oil spill." I responded by saying "It's because Russia isn't trying to fix an oil spill." It's sort of true though. If another country had the same problem, the US would be damn sure they'd fix the problem first.

At 6/10/10 08:29 PM, MrOctopi wrote: On facebook, this kid updated his status as "We can land a man on the moon but we can fix an oil spill." I responded by saying "It's because Russia isn't trying to fix an oil spill." It's sort of true though. If another country had the same problem, the US would be damn sure they'd fix the problem first.

Which begs the question, should Central America intercede on the grounds that they rely on the Gulf as well?