Oil & water don’t mix…

[Scott G]

Oil & water don’t mix…, that is one of the first experiments all of us had in science class during elementary school.

You’d think they would have learned that by now…

Regardless of the technology, some situations are just too risky when, not if something goes wrong.

Well…, maybe by destroying the Gulf Coast it will put some more fired up enthusiasm towards renewables and benign energy technology.

Just my random thoughts…

[OldKat]

@Scott G 18144 wrote:

Oil & water don’t mix…, that is one of the first experiments all of us had in science class during elementary school.

You’d think they would have learned that by now…

Regardless of the technology, some situations are just too risky when, not if something goes wrong.

Well…, maybe by destroying the Gulf Coast it will put some more fired up enthusiasm towards renewables and benign energy technology.

Just my random thoughts…

Don’t believe all the hype you see on the TV there Scott. Did you know that there is more NATURAL seepage of crude (and natural gas) into the Gulf every year than what has flowed from the fallen BP platform? Probably hadn’t heard that had you? It is true. This indicates that nature has a way of dealing with oil in the Gulf, or any other body of water. IF they get this thing contained fairly soon it will be a significant, but probably a fairly short term impact to the ecosystems along the coast. If it flows for months and months, that is obviously a different story. That would overwhelm nature’s ability to breakdown the product and dispose of it.

Fact is the oil industry in the Gulf has a very good long term environmental track record, in spite of this incident. Since 2005 there have been over 10,000 wells drilled in the Gulf, not all completed as producing wells, but a significant percentage has been. Has anyone heard of ANY of them having a significant leak? No, because they haven’t. IF they had you would have seen it on the 5 o’clock news, or more accurately the 24 hour / around the clock news. Lack of such stories is telling. Over the life of the production in the GOM there have literally been 100’s of THOUSANDS of oil and gas wells drilled. Ever heard of anything like this happening before? No, because it hasn’t. BTW: most of the production in the Gulf is natural gas and not crude.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying this is no big deal … because it is. However, IF it is contained anytime soon the damage will be manageable. If you will remember, after the first Gulf (as in Persian) War the media was saying that the oil wells that Saddam Hussein had his military set on fire might not be put out for 10 years or more. It took what? Maybe 100 days or so to put out all of the fires and cap the wells. This current situation is bad, but it is not the end of the world as it is being portrayed. There is a high likelihood that they will determine EXACTLY what caused this and go from there.

I am NOT saying we shouldn’t pursue alternative energy, because we should. I am saying that oil will be with us probably much longer than anybody posting on this board will be alive. I do not work for BP; I do not own any of their stock. I am not a spokesman for them or the industry, but I have been employed in it for nearly 30 years now and I can tell you the media gets more wrong than they ever get right when it comes to the oil and gas industries.

[Stable-Man]

Yeah, I don’t particularly like it, but the US uses probably hundreds of millions of gallons of oil a day, just from searching around online a bit, to fuel our hundreds of millions of cars and tractors and to form plastic, etc. The impact of all these refinements and processes is no doubt way more than this spill. The fact is we’re stuck with oil and it’s up to the people to get rid of the dependence.

[near horse]

Sorry but when somebody’s been signing your paycheck for 30+ yrs, it can certainly cloud your vision and Oldkat, your comments sound like you’re not seeing the whole picture. Just because

[more NATURAL seepage of crude (and natural gas) into the Gulf every year than what has flowed from the fallen BP platform/QUOTE] doesn’t mean that spilling that much oil in a month IN ADDITION to what is already seeping in to the gulf isn’t catastrophic and won’t have severe consequences on the environment. Sure, it won’t impact most of us and after the visible oil slick is gone we’ll call it “all better” but that’s not true. For example, the fisheries in the area of Alaska most impacted by the Exxon Valdez spill have never fully recovered – For that matter, we can say that nature “took care of” the nuclear wasteland of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, whatever that means.

This is the same oil industry that trashes the Niger delta and portions of South America with sloppy work and spills. Why?

Plus, guess who’s going to foot the bill for this one – yep, the consumer. Obama can “require” BP to pay up but those costs will be recouped at the pump – just wait.

In one respect, it is our “fault” for being oil dependent but people long before us made the decisions that developed a nation based on cheap oil (highway systems for one). It will take some time to figure out how to undo this reliance and you can believe that any company making billion dollar quarterly profits isn’t going to go away easily.

Sorry OldKat but I have nothing but disdain for the oil industry. They were drilling at 5000+ ft deep and nobody had a safety plan better than that Jr High science project they tried with the dome? Come on. They have a fortune in revenue; spend a bit more on safety. As a taxpayer, I also want to know how MY/OUR resource (it is the nation’s not BP’s) can generate billions in profits for them while I/WE are paying outrageous prices to use our own resource? Sure, they pay for the lease but whoever negotiated that thing is an idiot. The oil industry started out as fat cats in the Getty days and not much has changed since. They were part of the effort, along with the auto and rubber industries, that undermined and destroyed development of mass transit in the early years of the growth of Los Angeles. It worked out well for them but not so good for those folks in the smog-laden gridlock that the LA area is. I have seen little change.

[Andy Carson]

As much as I generally don’t like oil, I think I have to side with OldKat here. Media seems to like interesting stories and they rarely put things into proper perspective. How many offshore oil rigs do not spill? If there is less than 1% failure do we say the whole concept is wrongheaded? I don’t think so… Check out this link that lists the top oilspills in history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_spills
The current spill ranks, but not high (at least so far). Ixtoc (2nd worst in history) was in the same body of water and looks to be at least 10 times higher in total oil spilled. I would be curious to know what the environmental fallout from Ixtoc was… It’s hard for me to believe that Deepwater Horizon will be worse…

[near horse]

I mean really let’s use our heads a bit here – go spray motor oil on your beehive or goats or horses (and I mean coat them good – eyes nostrils the whole gamut) and see how that works out. I’m not a big fan of the media either but listing the top 10 spills doesn’t change anything – it’s like saying we f—ed up hugely before so that makes it ok now. Remember “tradition – just because we’ve always done it this way, doesn’t mean it’s not stupid”.

Who’s reporting a less than 1% “failure rate” (whatever that means) and how in the world is that calculated? Is it the number of spills divided by the number of active wells or total wells drilled (including all those that never produced so could never spill …) In addition, we wouldn’t accept the govt reporting on itself and I have a hard time trusting an industry to the same.

Media …..rarely put things into proper perspective

How can you know this to be true in this case?

I grew up with oil nearby – refinery next my grade school, pump jacks over the outfield fences at the local ball fields and rigs off the beaches. There were plenty of times where accidents happened that barely got an article in the newspaper – let alone wikipedia. School closed on 2 occasions in 8 years due to refinerey issues … Union oil ground is now a superfund site …… off shore spills leaving tar balls etc washing up for 15 yrs ….

If the spill is not THE WORST on record, then it’s not THAT bad? Not true.

Whether the media has played this thing to death or not is irrelevant. A leak pouring a quarter million gallons per day is a disaster like it or not.

[jac]

I suppose its a bit like planes.. Stastisticaly speaking the safest way to travel but when one crashes.. total disaster..and who does the stastistics ??
John

[Andy Carson]

I reported a less than 1% failure rate because I figured there has got to be more than 100 offshore oil and gas platforms in the gulf. Actually, there are 3,858 just for the US(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_platform), making the failure rate 0.026%. Perspective, to me, means comparing the thing of interest to similar things. If it is an oil spill, it seems fairest to compare it to other oil spills. Again, I am not saying this is good, or even OK, but I think there is so much spin in the media it is hard to figure out how much this matters. Which story would sell better:
“Oil spill grows to 3.5M gallons as BP scrambles”
or “Oil spill might be larger than the median oil spill over the last 70 years”
or “Oil spill might be the largest in the gulf of mexico if not stopped in the next 3 months”
Also, which story furthers someones political agenda more? I hate that I have to filter news stories though this spin apparatus, but I like to just look at the facts and historical precendent.

[near horse]

What or whose politcal agenda is being furthered by these headlines? They might be sensational but not political that I can tell.

hard to figure out how much this matters

how much which thing matters? The oil leak?

I guess if we want to do comparisons, then compare it to other deep ocean drilling that’s busted wide open – not to tanker spills, land-based or shallow ocean wells. Probably nothing to compare and therein lies part of the problem – it’s a new game. Also, as someone who can appreciate engineering you should recognize how pathetic the whole safety system was/is for this operation. Shouldn’t have happened.

[Andy Carson]

Actually, I think that Ixtoc is a pretty good spill to compare to (although the volumes are very different). Both were caused by blowouts on underwater wells in the same body of water. Ixtoc was in shallower water 150 ft, but was drilling much deeper than the Deepwater Horizon (11,800 ft). They also had troubles capping the Ixtoc well and the spill continued for many months. I still don’t know what the environment impact of the current spill will be, but do not trust the media to produce an accurate and scientifically supported prediction. I think it is overly simplistic to say “oil is gross and that’s alot of oil.” I was reading a little about what the impact of Ixtoc was and mostly found data on how much tourism revenue was lost, the monetary impact on fishing, the numbers of wildlife cleaned (without giving the numbers of wildlife NOT cleaned!), and the amount of money the cleanup cost the US. From these measurement the impact was not great, but I am skeptical that this captures the whole picture and don’t really know what the proper way to measure the environmental impact of something like this ought to be. I remember alot of concern about the Valdez and the impact (at least by some measures) seemed greater there. Perhaps the percieved impact was greater because people are more environmentally aware than they were in 1980, or perhaps the effects of an oil spill are easier to see in Alaska versus Mexico. It seems that an important factor in determining the environmental impact is how close to land and wetlands the oil gets. Maybe this is simply because these are areas we can measure, but I am pretty sure these are also areas with more life than in the deep ocean.

[near horse]

(without giving the numbers of wildlife NOT cleaned!),
How would you measure that?

I think it is more like – wildlife cleaned before spill = 0; After spill = X difference is impact of spill on wildlife but that’s only the the impact on stuff you can hold in your hand and clean. Some of the rest of the measurements are meant to make it more “tangible” to the average person so they convert stuff to dollars lost. People can understand dollars vs metric tons of zooplankton wiped out.

I think it is overly simplistic to say “oil is gross and that’s alot of oil.”

Who said this? Gross is the wrong word – toxic is the right one. Read the label about avoiding prolonged exposure to simple motor oil – not good for living organisms.

[Carl Russell]

I’ve got to agree with Geoff on this one. I have zero tolerance for the oil industry.

All of the rest of us, either by legislation, or at least by moral code, take measures in our work that protect resources, or we to install fail-safe back-up systems, or minimize risks. Just because there is huge global demand for the stuff, doesn’t give them the right to, on top of gargantuan profits, make half-assed attempts to acquire oil from these hard to get to places.

It makes no difference what scale the disaster takes on, we should not be trying to diminish the impact based on the importance of potentially securing the resource. The stuff is toxic and should be handled like it is. That means it should be harvested only in ways that PREVENT leaks and spills of ANY kind or amount.

It will cost us one way or another. Better to pay money for a more costly product, than to shift the cost onto unmeasurable numbers of organisms, and our descendants who will be the ones who finally find out the true long-term costs.

Carl

[mitchmaine]

hey carl, when you cut someones woodlot or build them a chicken house. and something goes wrong, you fix it. so chances are you do a pretty good job the first time.
when you work for the corporation, and things go wrong, grab your lunch pail and head home. no worries. somebody else will do something. except there isn’t somebody else.
individuals and groups now cry for their rights. somebodys always infringing on their rights. hardly anyone wants to hear or know about their resposibilities. every time somebody gets a right in this country, it ought to go along with one resposability. feed the dog, put out the trash, or clean up the oilspill. mitch

[jac]

Therein lies the problem. Costly product !! the powers that be can never allow oil to be overly expensive because the whole world economy and food production depends on the stuff.. so in that light I fear the safety issues will be compromised every time to save a $$ for the share holders. I would be ok with dearer oil prices IF the extra money was going to increase the safety factors to prevent spills.. but we all know that they would jump on the band wagon and prop up the dividends.. am I being too hard on these guys ??? I take it this well is a harder than normal site to extract oil from, as per the “peak oil” scenario ?….
John

[Andy Carson]

Again, I am not saying this oil spill is a good thing, but I am willing to entertain the possibility it’s not that bad. If oil was a new thing to the gulf, than I would have more of a zero tolerance policy about it, but it seems that oil leaks out of the ocean floor all the time as isn’t nearly as toxic as I would have suspected. I found an interesting article describing natural seepage and the discovery of the strange and fastastic creatures that live in and near the oil seeps. These creatures obtain thier energy from oil and gas rather than conventional foods. Substantial amounts of oil must have been leaking for a long, long time for a whole several species of animals to evolve to eat it!http://www.rense.com/general63/refil.htm

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