Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

    • Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

      With the Gulf Oil spill leaking out an estimated 18-40 millions of barrels to date, there have been a number of attempts to stop the flow with different solutions. One was to "Top Kill" the surge, which fills up the the blowout protector with drilling mud, and sometimes junk like pieces of rubber and golf balls. It has a 60-70% success rate.
      It failed.
      Now, there are no solutions except to drill more wells, to relieve the pressure, but that won't finish until july-august. With an above-average hurricane season coming up, there will be even more ecosystem-related damage. This is considered to be one of the worst offshore oil spills in history, exceeding the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

      Here is a couple of interesting links as well:
      pbs.org/newshour/rundown/oil-ticker/CS4sampleLive.swf
      (live underwater camera)

      Top kill's failure means Gulf oil spill will only get worse - Environment - MiamiHerald.com
      (miami herald article)

    • Re: Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

      this goes out to the shady person who de-repped me with this:

      "don't bring Obama into this"

      tell me, why can't I bring Obama into this yo? I'm not for or against Bush, however people used Bush as their scapegoat for every political or environmental problem that occurred in the U.S., so again, why can't I use Obama as a scapegoat? Is there something different between him and Bush that I should know about besides their respective political parties and skin color?

      Where were you when people brought Bush into a problem that didn't have anything to do with him yo?

    • Re: Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

      Oh I'm with you on this one. From my perspective (In Australia) it is utterly ridiculous that people are laying blame on their president for something he didn't cause, couldn't prevent, doesn't have the ability to organise being fixed and immediately lept on to ensure that BP did all it could to fix things and took responsibility.
      From the news coverage I've seen he has been doing everything he reasonably can do about it (and of course to be seen to be doing so) but is still being blamed by people because he didn't have a magic wand to fix things instantly.

      I'm no specific Obama fan, and in Australia we only hear about the bigger things he's been doing, so I'm fairly removed from it, that is the opinion I formed of things.
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    • Re: Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

      I'm surprised there wasn't a thread earlier on this.

      I think the CEO or whatever-title-he-is of BP is handling this very badly and unsympathetically, probably because he knows he can afford to, what with being a big corporation, not to mention that he probably isn't as to blame as people think.
      There's a systematic problem with offshore drilling at the moment; this spill could have happened on any rig run by any company. Now you can address that problem by banning offshore drilling or just pausing it (and the former would be nice, as the sooner we get off oil the better) but what is needed is a mature assessment of the system, not a populist witchunt, because that's only a shallow solution, if a solution at all.
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    • Re: Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

      Esmo wrote:

      There's a systematic problem with offshore drilling at the moment; this spill could have happened on any rig run by any company. Now you can address that problem by banning offshore drilling or just pausing it (and the former would be nice, as the sooner we get off oil the better) but what is needed is a mature assessment of the system, not a populist witchunt, because that's only a shallow solution, if a solution at all.

      Or you could stop regulating offshore drilling so heavily that rigs are forced out into deeper and riskier waters. But then Obama doesn't get to make a nice sounding speech about evil corporations and then go expannd the power of his government even further.

    • Re: Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

      Obama has failed on all his promises to the American people, his smoke and mirrors plow has been uncovered.

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    • Re: Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

      Frosty wrote:

      Or you could stop regulating offshore drilling so heavily that rigs are forced out into deeper and riskier waters. But then Obama doesn't get to make a nice sounding speech about evil corporations and then go expannd the power of his government even further.
      You're joking.

      Stop regulating offshore drilling so heavily? LOL
      You should become a U.S. Senator.
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    • Re: Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

      Did anyone actually think Obama would do anything in his presidency? McCain was the better choice, not by much though. Preferably picked a non-Dem/Rep would have been best for this nation our two party system is killing us...

      Anyways, the BP disaster was a fiasco. The MSS was under staffed, under funded and unable to perform their duties and let this refinery not get the inspections it needed. Neither the Government nor BP had any sort of plans prepared for how to handle what anyone should have known would happen eventually, obviously no one thought eventually was going to be this soon.

      It was pure foolishness and our damned unsightly system is only making it worse.
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    • Re: Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

      In Canada there is a law that there HAS to be relief wells whith every rig:( but not here, since the US has a drill baby drill attitude .. But this is also a community tradgedy for me.. I live on the west coast of florida right by the spill
      :(

      The post was edited 1 time, last by Uncle Dan ().

    • Re: Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

      Esmo wrote:


      Now you can address that problem by banning offshore drilling or just pausing it (and the former would be nice, as the sooner we get off oil the better) but what is needed is a mature assessment of the system, not a populist witchunt, because that's only a shallow solution, if a solution at all.


      That's just impractical though. The oil is still needed everywhere, so the USA would have to buy it overseas, which would raise the price of oil even further. You can't just decide we should stop using oil so we will stop offshore drilling. It has to be fazed out first and replaced with other energy sources, or the economy will hit another recession, as it has every time in the past when international oil issues have arisen.
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    • Re: Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

      It took Mexico ten months to cap their Gulf of Mexico oil well Ixtoc I and they didn't have to pay compensation to the US since Pemex was owned by the state. That was with Red Adair too.
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    • Re: Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

      Jarndyce wrote:

      That's just impractical though. The oil is still needed everywhere, so the USA would have to buy it overseas, which would raise the price of oil even further. You can't just decide we should stop using oil so we will stop offshore drilling. It has to be fazed out first and replaced with other energy sources, or the economy will hit another recession, as it has every time in the past when international oil issues have arisen.

      True, which is why we can't be rash, and my examples of solutions actually rather were. But we can't just keep carrying on as we are.
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    • Re: Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

      LuklaAdvocate wrote:

      Both, but leaning more towards the latter.

      Show me a source.

      United States Code Title 43, Chapter 29, Subchapter 3, 1337 (2)

      Drilling within 3 miles of the coast is subject to state taxation on top of any other taxes, making a tax incentive to drill further offshore in more dangerious waters.

      In addition, the Oil pollution Act of 1990 limits liability to $75 million in the case of spills, eliminating much of the incentive to avoid risky wells that would exist had the government not arbitrarily capped liability.

      Also, as for it being unregulated, United States Code Title 43, Chapter 29, Subchapter 3, 1347 states:

      the Secretary, and the Secretary of the Department in which the Coast Guard is operating, shall require... the use of the best available and safest technologies which the Secretary determines to be economically feasible, wherever failure of equipment would have a significant effect on safety, health, or the environment