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« Save Net Neutrality from The Corporate Takeover of Media | Main | A headset that reads your brainwaves? »
Is BP Cutting Corners in Alaska?
Category: drill baby drill
Posted on: July 29, 2010 12:14 AM, by Greg Laden
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Environment
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TrackBack URL for this entry: http://scienceblogs.com/mt/pings/144509
Comments
Does the Pope hide behind Catholic doctrine as a way of avoiding handing over his kiddie fiddling mates to face proper justice whilst at the same time demonstrating quite astonishing misogyny... in the woods?
Posted by: Ellie | July 29, 2010 1:46 AM
Would you expect otherwise? All large companies cut corners everywhere except when it comes to executive salaries. Remember the Upper Big Branch Mine? How about the dozens before that over the past 100 years? The thousands of abandoned mine sites which are now a hazard on multiple fronts? How about all current oil extraction operations? There's a lot of instrumentation put in during the drilling and commissioning but when you get down to operations you're left with (a) what is absolutely essential to production and (b) what the local laws force you to put in. There is also this corporate mentality of "I want sensors to fail because then there is no record which would make us liable in court". So ... as long as all leaks in the pipeline are seen as a smaller loss than doing the job right, you can bet the worst job possible will always be done.
Posted by: MadScientist | July 29, 2010 6:11 AM
you might want to re-phrase that as -do big companies take risks to maximise profits? the real question is why do our governments let them get away with it?
Posted by: symball | July 29, 2010 8:48 AM
(Without even watching the videos)
Yes, just like every other oil company operating there. That's what happens in a business environment with an inadequate regulation and/or inspection regime. Especially when companies are encouraged (actually, in the USA, legally obliged) to take unethical shortcuts for the sake of profit.
Posted by: Chrisj | July 29, 2010 3:22 PM
Well, actually, no. Not at all. It is simply not true that a corporation is legally obliged to be unethical or to cut corners. They are obliged to follow the law and to respect regulation, then make their profit. Let's please not lose sight of that.
I believe that there is reason to believe that BP is more of a corner cutter than other companies. (Although I'm sure these things change over historical time.)
Posted by: Greg Laden | July 29, 2010 5:06 PM
Chrisj, all oil companies are not equivalent. BP has had a reputation in the industry for some time for being accident-prone. Compared with ExxonMobil, for example, their operating procedures are much less rigidly codified and rely more on the judgment of the company representative on the spot. Sometimes this works out well, other times it doesn't.
Posted by: CherryBomb | July 29, 2010 5:14 PM