IfItWasMyHome.com - Visualizing the BP Oil Disaster
(this is a link, click on it)
This is starting to piss me off.
BP, with all their promises and attempts is not able to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf?
There is a moratorium for the next six months for offshore drilling in the US.
So I believe that BP just let it slide, don't care if they can cap the well or not, as long as they can perform the "ultimate solution" - namely having two "relief rigs" drilling right by; of course not ready until sometimes in August.
By not managing to cap the well, BP will circumcise the moratorium for off-shore drilling - a free ride again and pump the black gold into their coffers of that particular oil field. Very clever. It's all about money, not people.
In the mean time they dispense thousands of tons of chemicals on top of the sea and on the bottom just where it gushes out. God knows what that will do to the environment. Did I say environment, did I say natural habitat? Did I say long term?
Humans are such pitiful creatures, they don't even grow fur to protect themselves. They need clothes made of cotton and wool, all from nature and in the same breath they destroy their resources they depend on. Pathetic. Unless you wish to call a Nylon dress "clothing" - which of course again is derived from crude oil.
So get your windmills up, your solar-panels, whatever you can do - and kiss goodbye cooperations who wish to dominate our daly life.
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4 comments:
I'm with you on this one. We're all stuck on the boat with Captain Ahab at the wheel.
Hi Zee
It appears to me BP either took unacceptable risks and or failed to have a backup plan. Maybe like building dams with a certain stress allowance that entertained the thought that possibly one in 100 would collapse but that was a much cheaper alternative than building in at huge cost additional material cost as a safety measure to avoid an unexpected build up in pressure. Either way, the result is completely unacceptable and provides food for thought for the peak oil theory that says inevitably the cost of oil production will become so expensive it will force the cleaner alternatives to be considered. Ironically at a time in our history when there are far too many consumption goods than people wishing or needing to buy them, we could well do with more labour intensive industry requirements that arise from changing over to cleaner alternatives.
Best wishes
the problem is the BP well is about a mile under water. the pressure at that depth would squash a most modern submarine. the oil coming out of the ground is hotter than the boiling point of water. closing the well is impossible with today's technology. the only "sure" thing is to drill those relief wells, but even that risks uncertainty and failure.
the problem, like you said, is BP didn't have a backup plan. The solution would have been to install duplicate protections, much the way we design nuclear facilities. the technology to prevent a blowout is available and well-tested. unfortunately, it is expensive to install.
in hindsight, it is easy to say what should have been done.
the maddening thing is BP (and other oil companies, to be fair) keeps making this mistake over and over again: they don't adequately prepare for worst case scenarios. with proper foresight, we shouldn't need hindsight.
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