Showing posts with label oil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oil. Show all posts
7/22/10
7/15/10
The Oil Gusher Is Capped And Undergoing Testing
Apparently the cap is in place and BP is testing to make sure the pressure won't blow up the floor of the sea. My BP feeds here, BP's actual feeds page (now updated with all feeds on one page) is here.
6/15/10
Senator Frank Lautenberg Introduces Smart Oil Drilling Bill
I wrote earlier that we need to drill concurrent relief wells. Now Senator Lautenberg has introduced a bill to do just that...
"My bill takes a common-sense step to contain damages that come with the inherently dangerous drilling business. If relief wells had been in place before the BP rig explosion, the gushing oil could have been stopped in weeks instead of months," Lautenberg said in a statement sent to the Huffington Post. "Clean energy that will reduce our dependence on oil is the long-term solution - but while offshore drilling continues in the Gulf and Alaska, this bill provides a proven way to contain oil spill drilling disasters. I will also continue to oppose any energy proposal in the Senate that does not protect New Jersey from oil drilling in the Atlantic."h/t JM
6/9/10
BP: The Juice Gatherer
According to Senator Nelson, top-kill may have blown out the part of the well casing under the sea bed. This means that the well can never be capped. The only way to stop the flow is to drill relief wells.
Since we are clearly not going to stop drilling for oil in the Gulf, the least we can do is require that relief wells be simultaneously drilled from now on, and all existing wells also have relief wells drilled. I assume this would cost a shitload of money, but if we want to protect ourselves, we pay.
All the boom being touted by BP isn't doing much, and from what oil cleanup experts say, it simply won't. But it could at least get tended to better, or at all.
I have 6 of the 8 feeds on the live BP feeds page and watch them frequently. I have not noticed much change in anything. I mean, the feeds are cool, but they don't show how the oil is being captured that BP says is being captured. There must be other feeds--they don't have any other way to do their work down there.
BP totally screwed this up. They are the 4th largest company in the world. They are so big they have virtually nothing to fear. Their greatest asset is the American people. Until we don't need them, or want them, they do what they are supposed to do--make money extracting our juice.
6/4/10
Robert Reich Responds To Charges Of Political Lunacy With Sanity
Reich got some crap for saying Obama should put BP into receivership. The complaints were political. Bob's idea isn't political lunacy unless you believe politicians exist to run for office and nothing else; Bob's idea is how one who claims to take responsibility for the horror would take responsibility, even if one doesn't get re-elected because of it.
Imagine politicians fixing things. Imagine.
Imagine politicians fixing things. Imagine.
Is It Political Lunacy for the President to Take Charge in the Gulf Or Political Lunacy for Him Not To? A Colloquy
FRIDAY, JUNE 4, 2010
I just came across this post from Theda Skocpol, a professor of government and sociology at Harvard whom I’ve never known to mince words.
I like Bob Reich and consider him a friend, but he is nuts. [She’s referring to my suggestion that the President put BP into temporary receivership.] There is a reason why the right, including Sarah Palin, is calling for Obama to “take charge” of the BP disaster, including fixing the leaking pipe. This is a problem that cannot be solved, and probably will not be for many months.My response:
They want Obama to directly own it so they can reinforce their message that government does not work. Why should liberals, stupidly, be pushing for this? I cannot figure out what the left and many liberal pundits think they are doing in all this.
When a huge private corporation makes a mess and cannot fix it, it is sheer lunacy to take direct charge of that mess unless you can fix it right away.
Obama and the government can (a) hold BP accountable in criminal and financial terms; and (b) orchestrate the mitigation, restitution, and financial help for the regions affected. They are doing this and should be as visible as possible about steps in both areas. The last thing they should do is take charge of fixing the leak itself when they cannot.
I like Theda Skocpol and consider her a friend, but she’s got this one backwards. It’s not “political lunacy” for the president to take charge of this mess. It’s political lunacy for him not to.
Would Theda propose that if a military contractor accidentally fired off a missile, or the owner of a nuclear reactor accidentally allowed it to melt down, or a food processor accidentally sent off deadly bacteria into America’s food chain, that the President should not take control because he couldn’t “fix” these disasters right away? Or that he shouldn’t get involved because the political right might subsequently use his efforts to reinforce its message that the government doesn’t work?
What’s happening in the Gulf is the worst environmental disaster in American history. It defies common sense for the President to delegate most of its solution to the same corporation whose negligence in all likelihood created it.
The public deeply distrusts BP, with good reason. Its record to date has been cutting corners to make profits. Yes, BP’s expertise may be necessary now. But how can we believe BP is using all the resources at its disposal to stop the leak? (A petroleum engineer told me earlier this week that BP has some two dozen tankers in the Gulf that could be siphoning off the oil, and has shut down work on the second relief well in order to cannibalize parts from it for the primary kill effort.)
How can we trust that decisions BP continues to make – such as the use of toxic dispersants – properly weigh risks to the safety and health of Americans?
And as BP continues to pay out dividends to its shareholders, how can we trust it will have enough capital to pay all the costs of cleanup, not to mention the costs to businesses and individauls of the devastation it’s wrought?
For the President to stand apart from all this – to set up a commission to study how it happened and instruct the Justice Department to inquire into the possibility that civil and criminal fines may be appropriate – is both poliltically unwise and against the public’s interest. I fear Americans will come to see it as a dereliction of duty.
6/3/10
Visit My BP Live Feeds Page
Up there, under the title of this blog where you can select pages, or here. (From BP's live feeds page, but all in one place.)
5/31/10
Pronoun Confusion: Who's In Charge Of Gulf Response?
Why Obama Should Put BP Under Temporary Receivership
...5. The President is not legally in charge. As long as BP is not under the direct control of the government he has no direct line of authority, and responsibility is totally confused. For example, listen for the “we” and “they” pronouns that were used by Carol Browner in response to a question on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday (emphasis added): “We’re now going to move into a situation where they’re going to attempt to control the oil that’s coming out, move it to a vessel, take it onshore ….We always knew that the relief well was the permanent way to close this .… Now we move to the third option, which is to contain it. If [the new cap on the relief well is] a snug fit, then there could be very, very little oil. If they’re not able to get as snug a fit, then there could be more. We’re going to hope for the best and prepare for the worst.” When you get pronoun confusion like this, you can bet on confusion — both inside the Administration and among the public. There is no good reason why “they” are in charge of an operation of which “we” are hoping for the best and preparing for the worst...
5/28/10
Milestones
--On May 30, 2010, we will have spent one trillion dollars on our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
--On June 7, 2010, the war in Afghanistan will be America's longest war.
--The Gulf Coast now has oil all over it, and the cleanup has so far cost BP about $900 million. It makes that much in a week or two.
--1 in 6 American students attends a high-poverty school.
--Monday is Memorial Day.
Have a great weekend.
--On June 7, 2010, the war in Afghanistan will be America's longest war.
--The Gulf Coast now has oil all over it, and the cleanup has so far cost BP about $900 million. It makes that much in a week or two.
--1 in 6 American students attends a high-poverty school.
--Monday is Memorial Day.
Have a great weekend.
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