…and this is a 
Look at this: BP knew about problems at that burning oil rig 11 months ago. They screwed up with bad decisions in the short interval immediately before the explosion, but documents have come to light showing that they were worried about "loss of control" months before the disaster — and what they did in response was to ask for delays in testing (which they got), and then they fudged the tests by using a lower pressure.
This is basically criminal misconduct. But hey, what's the point of getting upset over 11 deaths and a mere environmental catastrophe? We need the oil. Let's just help the oil companies get beyond this.
Here's a map of the approximately 4000 oil rigs operating in the Gulf of Mexico.
Everyone is fixated on that one burning mess in the Gulf, which is probably exactly what the oil companies want — they are probably sweating pungent carcinogenic petrochemicals at the thought that someone might look around and notice all of those other rigs, which almost certainly have a paper trail of shortcuts and risks and shoddy management. While BP is struggling to catch up with its responsibilities and close off the well and clean up the poisons, I think a great thing for the Obama administration to do would be to descend on each of those other wells with a force of elite regulatory accountants, documenting all the potential and extant problems, and telling each company to fix them. Now. Without cheating, without getting any special dispensations. If they can't fix them, shut them down or hit them with massive penalties.
I have a very low opinion of oil company executives. I doubt that they have any sincere regrets about the loss of life or the destruction of the environment. But having to fix every place where they shaved corners, and pay out money to bring everything up to legally mandated standards — now that will make them cry.
Hmm. Here's another site with a count of US oil and gas rigs — it says there are about 1500. I can't account for the discrepancy, unless there has been a rapid decline in the last few years (this site is more current), or there is some other criterion for inclusion in this particular list.
It doesn't matter, of course — except that a smaller number makes it easier to review them all.
Environment
Politics
Comments
Posted by: Aegis Linnear
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May 30, 2010 4:20 PM
It's a nice fantasy...I'd love to believe it were realistic. But I hardly need mention the pointlessness of wishful thinking.
Let's spread this little tidbit as far and wide as we can. Literally everyone we know should hear of this. The wider it's spread, the more furious people will be likely to put some pressure on their local representative and reach across the great gulf between what people need and what the government thinks they want...let the guys at the top know exactly what we think of this goddamn feeble excuse for acceptable conduct.
Posted by: Legion
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May 30, 2010 4:30 PM
The individuals at the executive level of BP management don't care whether BP gets hit with big fines. Even if some of them lose their jobs, they still walk away with their fat salaries, stock options, and severance packages.
No, the way you deal with this problem and all other corporate crime is to repeal the concept of corporate personhood and go after the personal assets of the bastards in charge.
Threaten a rich executive with losing his job, and all he sees is an early retirement and more time on the golf course.
Threaten to make him a poor man, send him to jail, and put his family on the street and you'll see a guy motivated to do the right thing for a change.
Posted by: skeptifem
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May 30, 2010 4:41 PM
That will not work.
They will just pass the cost onto the consumer, like they always do. Then the talking points on the news will be about how those mean environmentalists fucked up the free market and made costs high, and that this is a plot to control the lifestyle of americans, etc. The less educated (most people) will fall for this if it is put on repeat enough times. Our infrastructure is built around needing their oil to do anything. Shit is all decentralized and trucked out to everywhere, people need to do things like buy groceries and get to work in order to live. There aren't alternatives and the oil companies know that. They are going to squeeze every cent of profit out of a scarce resource because legally, they have to. They have to try and get as much money as possible. Discouraging alternatives and charging people as much as possible for a resource is what they are going to do. Honestly, they have us by the balls here. I have reduced my use of gasoline as much as possible but it still isn't zero, and even if everyone reduced their usage the amount needed would still be huge because of the sheer amount of people and tasks that must be done.
And hey, even if they did get massive fines and punishment, maybe the government could make it up to them by giving some other portion of their gigantic corporate network a big fucking military contract that the public won't be privy to. That is unfortunately the best we can hope for with public outrage because then something would actually be done about the unsafe conditions, not that there aren't a million other accidents waiting to happen as a result of corporate greed. If they bend to our will the government is going to have to make it up to those guys somehow.
The problem here is that a small number of business elites own everything, and the majority of people have no say at all in how our economy functions. I am not sure how to solve this problem, but thinking that we could actually knock BP down in any substantial way is a fairy tale. The power in the country is concentrated in such a way that they can basically do whatever the hell they want to.
Posted by: Zeno
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May 30, 2010 4:43 PM
Nice idea. Of course, it would be offered as further proof that President Obama wants to control all sectors of the economy as part of his communist-socialist-Nazi dictatorship. Or something. Cue half-term former governor and full-ass nutcase Sarah Palin for some trenchantly insightful commentary.
Posted by: Samphire
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May 30, 2010 4:44 PM
Hello America. Can you hear me?
Good.
Then tell me about Bhopal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster
Do please let me know when all those UCC bastards have been relieved of their assets.
Posted by: skeptifem
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May 30, 2010 4:48 PM
@Legion- There are always 10 people to take the one jailed guys place. The power structure of society is the problem. It demands sociopathic bullshit like this of executives.
Posted by: rturpin
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May 30, 2010 4:48 PM
I hope a tighter and better regulatory regime for offshore drilling is one consequence of this disaster. That said, 95% of the wells in that picture are in shallow water. If the BP disaster does anything, it should highlight the risks to deepwater drilling.
Posted by: Lola
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May 30, 2010 4:55 PM
American has had decades to find alternatives to burning fossil fuels. Burning oil is the same as burning coal; we are just a modern day Dickens novel. The only thing we can do is make all consumer-driven cars electric powered. If we had done that 40 years ago, after the oil embargo, we would not be obsessing over the biggest man-made natural disaster since the Viet Nam war.
Posted by: philboid
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May 30, 2010 4:56 PM
Those are not all oil platforms, Prof. Most of them are natural gas rigs, which are not nearly the environmental threat as the oil sites.
Posted by: llewelly
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May 30, 2010 4:56 PM
PZ:
In other words, you recommend punishing them by enforcing laws and regulations which already exist, but are not actually enforced. By doing what ought to be done regardless of their degree of culpability, what the US government already had a responsibility to do.
That's where we are, folks. Necessary saftey regulations are enforced only response to grievous and willful negligence on the part of business. The sad truth: Obama, so far, is not giving any real indication he will do even that much.
Posted by: Zeno
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May 30, 2010 5:09 PM
I think we just assume this too often. Sure, companies like to do it, but it's not an argument against enforcing safety standards and regulations. The companies that get sloppy and get slapped with major expenses to rectify their transgressions can simply try to "pass the cost" to consumers, but it will put them at a competitive disadvantage relative to their rivals (which is why monopolies are so bad -- you need some rivals). If BP jacks up all their prices so that consumers can pay for their Gulf Coast negligence, watch people drive their cars to other gas stations instead.
Posted by: viggen
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May 30, 2010 5:17 PM
It's convenient to blame the oil companies and their executives, but that overlooks the actual problem, which is the over-consumption of their product.
I think this disaster was inevitable. If not by BP, then by someone else. The issue is one of volume and frequency: the more often we dig or drill, the more likely something bad will happen. Machines aren't perfect, and neither are people--in fact people are pretty much just corrupt. If we aren't getting the oil here, until the American way of life changes, we are getting it from somewhere. Alternative energy is a fine promise, but it isn't something that can happen tomorrow--infrastructure does not materialize out of nowhere, particularly when it's cheaper to do something else.
So, is it better to get this oil here? Or to import it from the Kingdoms on the other side of the Suez? Or maybe from our good friends in South America? If the oil slick doesn't happen here, it will happen somewhere. Maybe we should just impose legislation that will prohibit americans from buying cars and driving... that would go over really well... (maybe such a law will help with the obesity epidemic)
In my opinion, it's time to stop playing the blame game. If anybody truly wants to actually solve the problem, they'd best hang up their keys and walk rather than driving. The fact is that this isn't an issue that's going to be solved by the actions of someone else, or by pointing the finger.
Posted by: HenryS
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May 30, 2010 5:18 PM
I think a great thing for the Obama administration..
******
I think that PZ may have permanent Hopium brain damage. Obama received the most money from BP during the campaign and Ken Salazar was appointed Interior Sec. precisely because he was a shill for big oil. The bigger worry is that Obama is in the pocket of Big Nuclear. More subsidies for possibly 100 new power plants and the 20 year extension of the operating permits for end of life, first generation reactors.
Posted by: Diane G.
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May 30, 2010 5:19 PM
Alternatively, they will then justify massive lay-offs at the bottom of the pyramid, throwing thousands out of work, whose combined salaries wouldn't equal that of one corporate VP.
Posted by: Yubal
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May 30, 2010 5:22 PM
cleaning up oil spills of the Louisiana coast, uh?
Guys, there is a major catastrophic oil spill in Nigeria every year (says this article)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/niger-delta-bears-brunt-after-50-years-of-oil-spills-421634.html
...and nobody even bothers cleaning the mess up, that's what these people say
http://www.platformlondon.org/carbonweb/showitem.asp?article=73&parent=7&link=Y&gp=3
I guess that urge for cleaning up has something to do with the location of the oil spill and the resulting media coverage?
Posted by: David Marjanović
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May 30, 2010 5:23 PM
This is basically Cher-fucking-nobyl.
Where would the electricity come from? Currently, most comes from burning fossil fuels.
OK, the answers to that one are obvious, but not trivial to implement either.
Posted by: Fred The Hun
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May 30, 2010 5:37 PM
Bwahahahaha! Get Real!
Look in the damn mirror folks! None of you is willing to give up your consumer based lifestyles. Give up your cars, plane trips, pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, plastic crap etc.. etc.. Are you?
Because all of that exists because of one thing and one thing only. *OIL*
But you will be learning to live without all that stuff regardless because Peak Oil is here and drilling for ever more difficult, riskier and ever more expensive oil is the new reality. This disaster in the Gulf is what you can expect much more of in the future. Have fun...
Ride a Bike or Take a Hike!
Cheers!
Posted by: Samphire
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May 30, 2010 5:42 PM
Zeno, it doesn't work that way. Any company will always try to be competitive. So BP will sell its petrol for much the same price as its competitors.
BP has a huge cash pile which, assuming it self-insures, will be utilised to settle any claims. However, this cash pile would otherwise be used for investment in new oil fields. If the money is used to pay coastal fisherman for loss of earnings then it won't be available to invest in replacing depleted oilfields leading to oil shortgages. If there is a shortage of oil then oil prices rise. Consequently, the actual cost will fall on the end-user. But then it always does.
Also BP is a public company. It is owned in part by the same body who is investing your wages in your pension scheme. So, one way and another, anybody who invests in a pension scheme will be paying for the damage.
No Western man is an island.
Posted by: Pen
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May 30, 2010 5:43 PM
Passing legitimate costs on to the consumer is a legitimate thing to do. If the cost of drilling oil safely was really so high that they couldn't do it at current rates and make a reasonable profit, they would be in their rights to raise prices.
If they're going to try to make an unreasonable profit while cutting corners no matter what, that's an entirely different problem. What legal recourse do we have in a capitalist society? I suspect not much. Technically, we can refuse to buy their product. In practice, maybe not so much, though I think we should be alert to the possibilities.
Maybe the American government could wield some power by granting contracts to companies that are most competitive on the safety:price front. If at this point it followed PZ's excellent suggestion, it could simply kick out all companies not meeting safety standards and make them re-apply for access contracts on new terms, in competition with other companies. Does the American government have that level of control?
Posted by: morebeerplease
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May 30, 2010 5:46 PM
"a force of elite regulatory accountants" ? Please, NO! Risk assessment on these kind of installations is not just a regulatory box-ticking matter. You need to have a deep fundamental understanding of the nature of the thing you're dealing with. It's mostly engineering/hydraulics, with some phase chemistry and thermodynamics thrown in. Not for the faint-hearted. The main problem in BP appears to be that the accountants are telling the engineers how to work. They should be helping/advising the engineers, but NOT calling the shots. I used to work on off-shore oil rigs. 'Town', i.e. where the orders came from, was mocked and derided because the money-men just don't get it. We had a huge disaster in the North Sea, a rig called the Piper Alpha went bang, with serious loss of life.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piper_Alpha.
Do you really want accountants in charge?
OK, so BP would suffer if they did it right an nobody else did, to fix that needs effective regulation, but I repeat, with the engineers in charge.
Posted by: Peter Ashby
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May 30, 2010 5:46 PM
How about your Americans curbing your unnatural and abnormal thirst for oil? I have been reading about how soon cars sold in the US will have to have a mileage Europe exceeded over 10years ago and we have not stood still since and the EU is mandating 65mpg by 2020.
Meanwhile you have some of the cheapest gas prices in the world.
Fix that and you wouldn't need to scrabble desperately for every last drop of the black stuff like desperate addicts.
That is what is behind all the shortcuts and cost cutting just as much as oil company profits.
The UK and Norway mandated and enforced safety on rigs in the North Sea 30 years ago and the UK switched enforcement to the Health and Safety Executive who have no other role and depend not on the oil co's for income.
Posted by: flyonthewall
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May 30, 2010 5:59 PM
The founding fathers rolled over in their graves the day the supreme court ruled that corporations have the same rights as people.
We are nothing but pawns and slaves to "The Corporation" and government is its whore.
Posted by: Crudely Wrott , Drinking Solo Since Death's Back On The Wagon
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May 30, 2010 6:00 PM
*cough*
The graphic would indicate that there are about 3999 rigs in the Gulf that are not active threats.
Not that there are no potential threats. We maintain civilization by managing potential threats. The science and technology of offshore drilling is highly advanced. Almost as highly advanced as the managerial art of avoiding responsibility and cutting costs to the bone ("To the bone, Alice!") while maximizing profit. Current corporate law is the chief patron of that art.
Risking imaginative and pungent opprobrium, I still have to tip my hat to the guys that actually go and get that stuff out of the ground. It is an increasingly difficult job, often under lousy conditions, working long shifts around large and dangerous equipment. The men on the drill floor depend on each other to the same degree that cops and Marines do. They can, and sometimes do, die while striving to do the job required of them. Those jobs are all about satisfying the demands of the rest of us. Think of that next time you fill up.
Posted by: MadScientist
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May 30, 2010 6:06 PM
That sounds typical of management at large companies - "shopping around" until you find a lackey. To be fair, not all managers do that. Once I even dealt with a company that actually paid for a proper scientific survey and paid out tens of millions to address the problems that were pointed out. Other companies only want some doofus to make up shit and say there's no problem without ever conducting a proper investigation.
What we do need to do is identify people responsible, send them to jail, and fine them a few million. Managers are quite happy to make decisions like this because they know they will never have to pay out a cent (the company is liable) and they will never go to jail (the company is responsible).
Posted by: rippingrich
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May 30, 2010 6:10 PM
clean up the poisons??
What do you mean, clean up the poisons?
Now that's delusional thinking.
There ain't no cleaning up this mess. What you really need to do is figure out what the hell your southern economy is going to do for the next thirty years. Look at the exon disaster, all these years later and there are still tremendous losses involved. This spill is over 4 times bigger. Say good bye to your tourism dollars and your fishing industry. Never mind the mass death to the environment and the dissolving of your watersheds. Maybe you should be asking where your going to move new Orleans too?
The only thing the gulf will be good for after this is drilling for oil.
Posted by: SlantedScience
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May 30, 2010 6:22 PM
Myers, you delight in telling us how much flying/driving you do for your job/hobby.
I'm the same; not a flight to some faraway place goes by without me Facebooking the fact to all my "friends".
So, how can we reconcile our desire to travel with our wish to see BP punished for this? I don't think we can.
Unless a person eschews air travel, car travel and home heating/cooling per se (as opposed to on a company by company basis), I believe that they have no right to whinge about the effects of providing fuel simply to allow them to go someplace.
We are all who use crude oil products culpable, and - unless we either a)spend our spare time crusading for ways to replace crude's useful products, or b)avoid using crude's products at all times within our lives - then we have no right to bring a single company to its knees.
I'm a non-preaching vegetarian, which in my case does not cover eggs, milk or seafood. What I absolutely hate is people who declare themselves as vegans, and go on to harangue people who eat meat while themselves relying on animal products daily within their lives; shoes, for example/i>.
I respect a prinicpled stand, but that turns to loathing when the person makes it while stood in quicksand, sinking rapidly lower as their hypocrisy drags them down.
This is not a personal attack on Myers; as I say, we all can feel repulsion at BP's actions, but at the same time we all (disregarding the TINY few who don't) rely on the products of their and others' companies.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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May 30, 2010 6:37 PM
There ain't no cleaning up this mess.
correct.
In fact, there was a similar (though not nearly as large) spill that affected coral reefs around the florida area decades ago, and they are STILL recording damage from that. The oil gets buried in pockets of debris, and as storms move the debris about, it gets re-released, causing surface damage all over again.
If you look at the lit, I bet you will be seeing papers published on the damage THIS spill is continuing to cause at least 40 years from now.
*sigh*
again, one of the reasons I left the states was because there was an obvious lack of responsibility, not only for those in govt, but for the PEOPLE THEMSELVES regarding the care and consequences of oil drilling and transport.
sorry, I grew up with Exxon Valdez. I watched people claim they would tear up their Exxon cards, and never buy Exxon again. I heard CA politicians campaigning on the idea that they would never allow offshore oil drilling again off of CA.
all of that lasted less than 2 years. Exxon slightly changed how it marketed its products, and slightly lowered its prices. Most people forgot all about it rather quickly. most of the CA political campaigning 2000 on included plans to allow for more offshore drilling again.
I agree with the europeans writing in who say america has forgotten its responsibility (or never took it seriously to begin with).
you will never get rid of criminal behavior, all you can do is mitigate the damage they will inevitably cause, and the only way to mitigate the damage from oil consumption is to simply NOT consume it any longer.
fuck enforcing the regulations, fuck trying to change corporations, fuck asking people to be responsible for toxic catastrophes. We are little more than children, apparently, and can't be bothered to worry about dangerous toys. Nope, we simply have to remove the dangerous toys.
IOW, there is only ONE productive strategy to undertake, and that is to keep working to get us OFF of oil as fuel, and even work to find substitutes for petroleum based plastics (there are some, btw).
No other solution will have any long term effect on this mess at all, IMO.
Posted by: Fred The Hun
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May 30, 2010 6:39 PM
BTW I've asked this question before... anyone have more information on deep sea hydrocarbon plumes in the Gulf? Or the effects this could have on micro fauna and plankton and how it might effect the food chain?
http://www.marine.usf.edu/oil-spill-2010.shtml
Posted by: Ichthyic
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May 30, 2010 6:39 PM
This is not a personal attack on Myers
yes, it is, you just want to rationalize it as not being one.
get lost.
Posted by: Yubal
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May 30, 2010 6:39 PM
Assuming that the amount of oil spilled off the Louisiana coast (till the second drill hole is ready in ~august) will be around 5 times as much as spilled during the Exxon Valdez accident in 1989 (~250.000 bbl), the spill will have the size of a little more than 1% of the daily world oil consumption. (~90mio. bbl/day).
That is why we are running short in oil, not the leaking hole down there. That's just peanuts.
If we further assume the amount of dollars BP has to pay in compensation will also be five times higher than what Exxon had to pay (~$2.5 bio) it will be about a fourth of their annual profit (~$50bio).
There should still be money left to invest elsewhere, like for lobbyist in the West or for bribing African dictators. The total market value of the extractable oil under the now leaking drill-hole was estimated to be about $250mio, so about 50 out of the 4000 oil rigs in that picture could pay off the estimated legal cost, means 3950 rigs left to generate shareholder profit. (assuming all the oil field have the same size/output) Although only few of them belong to BP, you might understand now why BP seems to be pretty much relaxed about that little spill. The only issue they don't like so far is the media coverage.
Posted by: Crudely Wrott , Drinking Solo Since Death's Back On The Wagon
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May 30, 2010 6:43 PM
I found a well written piece from AP that is a nice capsule of the current state of things and some disturbing projections for the future.
Go here.
Posted by: llewelly
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May 30, 2010 6:45 PM
SlantedScience Author Profile Page | May 30, 2010 6:22 PM:
So you believe merely purchasing a company's products removes one's right of free speech? You know, I didn't think you could get dumber, but I guess I was wrong.
In reality, everyone retains the right to complain about a company's behavior, regardless of whether or not they buy its products. Furthermore, everyone has a responsibility to acknowledge the good and bad aspects of their decisions. Pointing out that a company whose products one has purchased has committed some wrong, is a responsibility.
Uh, does it not occur to you that publicly castigating a company for its misbehavior is a good way of raising awareness about the need switch to alternatives? Actually, it does, but your intellectual dishonesty forces you to tie yourself in knots to attack those you disagree with.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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May 30, 2010 6:46 PM
Go here.
can't, link's busted.
Posted by: Crudely Wrott , Drinking Solo Since Death's Back On The Wagon
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May 30, 2010 6:46 PM
Sorry: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100530/D9G1CECG0.html
My HTML-fu has flown.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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May 30, 2010 6:48 PM
BTW I've asked this question before.
did you see my recommendation there to have a chat with Roy Caldwell at UC Berkeley?
Don't know if he is still active in looking at long term oil damage, but he at least would have some references for you.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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May 30, 2010 6:51 PM
at CW, from your link:
I wonder if those churchgoers might ever realize that their time on sundays would be far more effectively spent trying to clean oil from beaches and birds.
naw, that would involve actual, you know, *work*.
ewwww.
Posted by: Fred The Hun
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May 30, 2010 6:52 PM
Ichthyic @35,
No I missed it but will check into it now, Thanks!
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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May 30, 2010 6:55 PM
Yawn, Slanted Science, the fuckwit liar, and Yubal, the woomesiter idjit still posting? What losers, wasting their time (not ours). They lost their credibility ages ago, by not supplying evidence to back their inanities...
Posted by: unclerobert.myopenid.com
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May 30, 2010 6:57 PM
The Oil Spill Angers The Liberals & The Conservatives. MSNBC & Fox News!
Posted by: Crudely Wrott , Drinking Solo Since Death's Back On The Wagon
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May 30, 2010 6:58 PM
Ichthyic @ 36,
Sure it did. Sadly, they are otherwise led by their need to worship the tripod.
Posted by: HB Desiato
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May 30, 2010 6:59 PM
Better stop the insinuations that corporations have seized control of various aspects of government, it might lead PZ to consider that Pharma controls the FDC and CDC in which case some of those vaccines might come under question... and then, well, the maxi-vaccers might have a moment of self doubt.
Interior and EPA owned by Oil- no problem
Treasury and the Fed owned by Wall Street (GS) - no problem
Agriculture owned by Cargil and Monsanto - no problem
Defense owned by Haliburton and Boeing - no problem
And all of them using us as grist for the mill.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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May 30, 2010 7:01 PM
the maxi-vaccers
??
please, tell us more about your amazing tinfoil hat.
Posted by: Ben Goren
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May 30, 2010 7:05 PM
Well, for all y’all whining about how we should stop using oil…how many of y’all have or are budgeting for your own personal green power plants?
Here in the American Southwest, you can get a big enough photovoltaic array to provide all your power needs for about as much as you’d spend on a new car. And you can finance it the same way. Payoff times are in the ten- to fifteen-year range depending on how you finance it; after that, you’re in the green financially as well as environmentally. If all goes according to plan, I’ll have one on my own roof about this time next year.
If solar doesn’t work for you in your part of the world, wind probably does. If wind doesn’t, then there’s still geothermal. If none of those work, you’re either buried in the middle of an apartment complex or the like, or you’re in the middle of nowhere.
Yes, I know. The sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow. But that’s why you get a grid tie-in system. Get a system big enough to produce as much electricity over the course of a year as you use in an entire year (both numbers are very predictable). Sometimes you’ll put more energy into the grid than you take out, sometimes the other way ’round. It’s not a 100% solution for the whole population, but it’ll get us at least 80% there; why let the perfect be the enemy of the good?
For me, it’ll be a no-brainer. Even if we get rolling blackouts in the future, I’ll still have plenty of power for myself to run the A/C guilt-free.
I’m also planning on replacing the engine in my ’68 VW Westfalia with an electric motor. I don’t drive much or far; the electric conversion should, again, take care of 80% or more of my driving needs. For the rest I’ll either rent or find a clunker.
Done right, getting off of oil means spending less money and getting more for what you do spend. Yeah, there’s a bigger up-front capital investment…but, even with interest on a loan, you should still come out ahead.
Oh — if your home owner’s association won’t let you do what you want with your own property? Tough fucking shit. You’re really fucking stupid, and I have no sympathy for you whatsoever. Sell the toxic dump and move somewhere civilized.
Cheers,
b&
--
EAC Memographer
BAAWA Knight of Blasphemy
``All but God can prove this sentence true.''
Posted by: Crudely Wrott , Drinking Solo Since Death's Back On The Wagon
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May 30, 2010 7:06 PM
@40:
I should have added this clause to the last sentence, ", and to maintain group cohesion."
Posted by: iDodd
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May 30, 2010 7:08 PM
I'm sure the executives at Massey Energy are breathing a huge sigh of relief that the BP disaster has taken the spotlight off them and their responsibilities for their little coal mine accident in West Virginia a few weeks back.
Signed,
Another liberal for nuclear energy
Posted by: SlantedScience
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May 30, 2010 7:14 PM
@#32, llewelly, who said: "Uh, does it not occur to you that publicly castigating a company for its misbehavior is a good way of raising awareness about the need switch to alternatives? Actually, it does, but your intellectual dishonesty forces you to tie yourself in knots to attack those you disagree with."
The point is that this isn't about a single company; it's about a method which they and other companies use to provide us with most of our daily comforts.
Bringing down this one company - even if it were possible through the methods suggested, which it isn't given the apathy most of the western world has to things which don't affect them directly and now - would merely temporarily raise the price of crude oil and its derivatives.
If our reliance on crude oil is a major concern of yours (not specifically addressed to the quotee, but to all reading this), then you need to be campaigning seriously and with passion for alternative sources of our fuels and of our disposables.
Go back and read my words on vegetarianism/veganism for what I think is an appropriate parallel example.
Obviously, I have no idea what you get up to outside of commenting on this website. But that alone seems to take up a lot many people's available time, and all it does is spray piss into the wind about religion.
If you're really upset about this mess then devote your time to solving it. I don't myself because - just like yourselves - I am more about pouring angry words into the internet than actually doing shit to help the world out.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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May 30, 2010 7:17 PM
Yawn, Idjit SS still thinks he has anything we consider cogent to say us, based upon his past irrelevancies and non-cogent posts? What a loser....
Posted by: Ichthyic
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May 30, 2010 7:20 PM
Go back and read my words on vegetarianism/veganism for what I think is an appropriate parallel example.
go on, say something about abortion.
I fucking dare you.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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May 30, 2010 7:23 PM
iDodd #45
Nuclear power has its own problems, like waste that remains hazardous for thousands of years.
Posted by: Yubal
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May 30, 2010 7:26 PM
I got me so far
- 4x6m polycrystalline solar panels, installed 2003, expected break even 2018.
- a solar water heater module, installed 2001, provides virtually all warm water in our house, expected break even 2014
Posted by: Crudely Wrott , Drinking Solo Since Death's Back On The Wagon
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May 30, 2010 7:30 PM
How can you complain about our piss-spraying when we do it with wit, charm, humor and in an effort to plant a seeds of comprehension while you do spray without anything but antagonism and sneers? It appears you are only attempting to mark territory, to leave your scent behind you.
Thank you. I now fully understand the concept of "do as I say, not as I do."
At times you almost sound persuasive and, indeed, your observation that the problems leading to this mess are systemic and not part of intransigence on the part of BP alone. Then you go and blow your own credibility out of the water by telling us that we are not nice enough.
Well, isn't that nice. Nice of you to stop by. Have a nice day.
Posted by: Sunday Afternoon
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May 30, 2010 7:40 PM
Anyone else notice the similarity between the Seed Media Group logo (see bottom of the page) and bp's logo (see here)?
Posted by: SlantedScience
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May 30, 2010 7:46 PM
Okay, I can see that I'm falling into the traps set by in-house anti-trolls. That is, those regulars of a website who are so glamored by their own regular appearances and longevity in posting believe that they are the site's crucial defenders against anyone who arrives with an alternative POV.
Whatever; go ahead and masturbate your egos with words a very few will ever read.
I guess I need to stop responding to these guys;just continue to comment on posts as I wish and - if anyone is stupid enough to pursue a personal vendetta against someone who's making comments on a free fucking website - ignore the sad folk who suck a little bit of lifeforce from these places.
In conclusion, for now: everybody who is proselytizing about boycotting BP because of their screwup needs to realize that they are advocating making one of the other oil companies richer, and I need to be a little less aggressive towards other posters. As Elvis didn't say: "A little less action, a little more conversation".
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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May 30, 2010 7:49 PM
Better known as spreading your idiocy. Which anyone except a total fool recognizes. Shutting your mouth shows real intelligence. Which you definitely lack...Posted by: Fred The Hun
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May 30, 2010 8:04 PM
Ben Goren Author @43,
Here in the American Southwest, you can get a big enough photovoltaic array to provide all your power needs for about as much as you’d spend on a new car.
Posted by: Fred The Hun
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May 30, 2010 8:06 PM
I meant to include this link...
http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll225/Fmagyar/Question.png
Posted by: Crudely Wrott , Drinking Solo Since Death's Back On The Wagon
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May 30, 2010 8:11 PM
SlantedScience, I'm sure that any traps you are falling into are of your own device. They are the same ones that many here fell into and only climbed out of by flailing about desperately, by stopping and taking a full inventory, or by the kind ministrations of others. More likely a combination of all, if my story is any example.
I'm sure that you would find a more receptive audience does actually dwell here if you would not say silly shit like,
"I guess I need to stop responding to these guys;just continue to comment on posts as I wish and - if anyone is stupid enough to pursue a personal vendetta against someone who's making comments on a free fucking website - ignore the sad folk who suck a little bit of lifeforce from these places."
The only vendetta engaged in here is the one against dishonesty. And douchebaggery. Dishonesty and douchebaggery and writing impenetrable paragraphs like the one above.
It's not easy to be snarky. It's an acquired skill and needs constant honing, like a razor, to maintain its edge. Perhaps you should be reading this blog for edification rather than ammunition. That might help you to stop giving us your ammunition to sling back at you.
Posted by: F
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May 30, 2010 8:11 PM
Gulf sand berms: a massive and risky experiment
80 miles of sand berms???? Experts express doubts.......
Michael Welland's Through the Sandglass
Posted by: Doc Bill
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May 30, 2010 8:24 PM
Two things we know. The well pressure got out of control and the BOP failed.
The final stage of cementing in a well is a lot like taking the wire off a bottle of champagne. Your calculation tells you that the pressure of the bottle (well) is balanced by the fit of the cork (cement) and that removing the restraint wire (drilling mud) is safe to do.
But, what if the seal is not so good? What if something else is going on (methyl hydrates?) akin to holding that bottle of unwired champagne over a heat source, or shaking it up.
If you've ever tried to push a cork back into a bottle of champagne once it decides to eject, then you have some idea of what BP faced with this blowout.
Clearly, BP replaced heavy drilling mud with seawater in the riser too soon. But, why did the BOP fail? We won't know that until it's brought to the surface and taken apart.
Meanwhile, if you REALLY want to do something positive then donate to the relief efforts in the Gulf, turn your lights out and reduce your power consumption. Drive your car once a week to the store to shop instead of every day. Cut your energy consumption by 20%.
Posted by: F
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May 30, 2010 8:26 PM
Smart Pig: BP's OTHER Spill this Week
Gulf Oil Spill: 10 Horrifying Facts You Never Wanted To Know
BP’sother disaster- PR stunt: Bussing additional clean-up crews to Grand Isle for Obama visit
Posted by: David Marjanović
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May 30, 2010 8:26 PM
Tens of thousands of years.
Posted by: Brandon
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May 30, 2010 8:31 PM
The picture associated with this blog entry is misleading. It is from the NOAA and it is a map of producing wells located in the Gulf of Mexico. Also, this image is probably from around 2005/2006.
According to Baker Hughes rig count there are currently 46 rigs drilling in the Gulf. Not 3999.
Thought it was important to clear this up.
Posted by: Asclepias
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May 30, 2010 8:49 PM
Quite frankly, I think the greatest punishment would be to take them somewhere between 10 and 100 miles out into the mess, dump them into the ocean, and make them swim back to shore.
Posted by: raven
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May 30, 2010 8:49 PM
Ixtoc 1 happened in the Mexican gulf in 1979. It was a shallow water well, 160 feet deep. It took Pemex 9 months to stop the oil from flowing, after a leak of 3 million barrels.
The BP well is a mile under water. Right now it looks like it could flow for many more months. Not going to bother with a wild guess other than that.
Posted by: Lola
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May 30, 2010 8:51 PM
"Where would the electricity come from? Currently, most comes from burning fossil fuels."
Nope. It comes from nuclear energy, hydro, windfarms, solar, etc.
Posted by: Kirk
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May 30, 2010 8:52 PM
But that's ok. Consumers should pay for the actual costs of a product they want, plus a reasonable profit for the producer. I'm perfectly happy to do that. The obscene executive compensation is a different issue, and has nothing to do with passing costs on to the consumer.
But if the cost of oil goes up 10% (or whatever it should be for implementing additional shut-off mechanisms on off-shore rigs), that's a price I will gladly pay.
I think both of those work. And I also think the latter should be applied more often. But the former helps also. When executives see other executives getting fired, it does get their attention. The outrageous golden parachutes are a valid concern, but most of these people don't want to exit in disgrace.
Posted by: Crudely Wrott , Drinking Solo Since Death's Back On The Wagon
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May 30, 2010 8:56 PM
Doc Bill @ 59, there seems to be some questions about the recent history of the BOP in question, some of them with a high eyebrow-raising factor. Depending on the actual maintenance and inspection protocols, testing regimes that were or were not followed and the results thereof, there are literally thousands of possible failure scenarios.
Not matter the scenario of the BOP before the event of the rig's failure, it is important to consider the stresses imposed on every pound of steel, every foot of pipe between the BOP and the rig at the actual time of the explosion and the minutes and hours following.
Once the control systems of the rig were compromised the dynamics of the platform/drillstem/BOP/wellhead assembly would have been radically changed.
Loss of buoyancy and station holding capability would mean that large forces of tension, compression and torque would be applied to the whole system and that these forces would likely exceed any design or testing standards. Again, because of the large number of unknowns, we are left with a huge number of failure scenarios.
If we ever come to understand the whole sequence of events it will probably come from two venues. Inside courtrooms and at the bottom of the Gulf. Perhaps this is a watershed moment for Deep Sea Forensics.
Posted by: swangeese
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May 30, 2010 8:57 PM
Reducing consumption and using alternative energies is great, but a drop in the bucket considering how most of our life comes from oil in one way or another.
One constructive thing to do is to contact your Congresscritter and demand that Louisiana receive 50% of our oil royalties. That and press for research into alternative energy.
Garland Robinette nicely sums up how Louisianans including myself are feeling right now.
And this is the response the feds have provided us so far. They are so intertwined with BP that any effectual response is unlikely. We are on our own. And that's why the royalty money is so important.
Posted by: David Marjanović
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May 30, 2010 9:00 PM
I think it's time for some blogpimping.
And then some more.
Posted by: Asclepias
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May 30, 2010 9:12 PM
Goddamnit, I am sick of being blamed for this! You'd think that each and every citizen forced BP to drill at 5,000 feet ion the gulf! Well, guess what? As far as driving, many of us have very little choice to do otherwise. Yes, I ride my bike a lot, if you call 20-30 miles a day a lot, but I don't ride outside in the wintertime because there's this little thing called ice which causes a loss of traction that can be hell for a cyclist. Also, out here we get westerly winds of 30-60mph. I've biked against them before, sometimes at the risk of getting blown into traffic! Yes, I have considered how cool it would be to be able to hook my bike to the house or car and use energy generated by 30-40 miles of cycling to power it, but I lack the knowhow and the manual and mechanical dexterity to put something like that together. OK, with that little rant over...
We are being held hostage to these companies. If you've seen Who Killed The Electric Car, you know that the oil companies and the car companies have done a pretty good job of squelching new ideas when it comes to clean energy. This is going to take some sort of legislation to fix.
Posted by: Doc Bill
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May 30, 2010 9:19 PM
Yeah, CW @ 67, I agree that I was being a little simplistic but I was trying to get the point across that these oil companies work very hard and have top engineers working on how to drill and produce these deep water wells.
Sure, there is pressure to do things quickly and minimize costs. After all, a deepwater drilling ship costs about a Million dollars a day to operate. You don't want it hanging around if you don't need to.
Now, in this case, would waiting a day have made a difference. Perhaps. Maybe the concrete would have set properly. Maybe problems with methyl hydrates would have been more obvious. Maybe they would have had more clues to keep the well controlled under mud pressure. Lots of maybes.
Yeah, there was undoubtedly pressure to keep to schedule and get the job done and not lag about. On any other day the decision to remove the mud would have been OK.
But, on this day, obviously it wasn't.
The question remains as to why the BOP failed. To me that's the key to this entire tragedy. What went wrong at the BOP?
One thing is for sure, the ONLY way this well will get controlled is when the relief wells are drilled. That's a certainty and it won't happen before August. The flow might be stanched in the meanwhile to one degree or another, but until that precise drilling is done flow it will.
Posted by: Kirk
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May 30, 2010 9:38 PM
@ Asclepias
:D
I worked in Germany for several years, and money was tight, and I rode a bike year round. In Germany in the winter you spend a lot of days with precipitation and the temps are near freezing, either just above or just below.
And the punch line is that it's kind of like what happened with BP. A little success can be a dangerous thing. It's a little icy and you ride and you don't fall down, so you ride a little faster and you don't fall down, and you ride a little faster and WHAM you're on the pavement checking for broken bones.
Posted by: Crudely Wrott , Drinking Solo Since Death's Back On The Wagon
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May 30, 2010 9:38 PM
I agree, Doc. Since the blowout preventer is the key to the integrity of the bore hole it must be the focus of attention.
I'm entertaining a notion that it was damaged or stressed by the sudden weight of the drill string and casing when they parted from the rig or when the rig was, possibly, imposing its weight on the string as it lost buoyancy. What if at some point the normal weight the BOP supports suddenly had the full weight of the string and some large portion of the platform's weight added?
Of course, there is that uncertain history of this particular BOP. I imagine much screwing of the pooch will be found out.
And it's a damned shame! We are capable of doing so much better.
Posted by: Yubal
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May 30, 2010 9:56 PM
@ Asclepias the hard-core biker
you can buy spike tires to keep rolling on ice. almost every bicyclist in Scandinavia has a set
Posted by: Fred The Hun
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May 30, 2010 10:03 PM
Too bad we seem not to be able to apply lessons of the past to new situations. It might be of some value to revisit this just substitute Deepwater Horizon, BP engineers and BP management where appropriate:
Posted by: Asclepias
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May 30, 2010 10:09 PM
Thanks for the info, Yubal. I'll look into those stateside.
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/O.jullMj0I2VvJaxMMVeNKSfOPf73voLSxJAe9PdlOWwi8Y-#258ec
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May 30, 2010 10:09 PM
we do not know what this mess will look like in a week or a month but most of the oil is still moving until we see on the 6:00 pm news we will have no idea what will be the political out come of this. One thing I would think that if and when oil starts coming ashore on the east coast of Florida and Georgia all bets will be off.
what seems remarkable is that they did not really expect an accident to happen. It is what happens when you believe in your ideas, "it wont happen to me" well maybe not but it does seem kind of fool hardy to bet the ranch on it, cause shit happens and now the people in charge are truly screwed regardless of what happens next.
it is the same with so much of what we do all our plans take into consideration that bad things could happen but we got it covered.
We are walking on a hire wire and there aint no net but we do not realize it.
It is the same thinking that caused the latest economic disaster.
I saw a woman on TV who worked in a balloon factory her job was as a tester. When asked if it startled her when a balloon would pop she said no she always expected them to pop. Too bad more people do not think like that.
uncle frogy
Posted by: llewelly
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May 30, 2010 10:16 PM
Asclepias | May 30, 2010 9:12 PM:
But you've got to get used to it. It's the only way the corporatoid robots can justify either their grotesque worship of crony capitalism, or their staunch denial of reality. If you don't accept blame, BP, Deepwater Horizon, Koch, and other corporations will be blamed. And that would be terribly, terribly, terribly unfair. And it would prove you hate freedom and worship Mao.
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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May 30, 2010 10:21 PM
How's this for a suggestion?
Posted by: BrianX
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May 30, 2010 10:30 PM
The nuclear waste problem probably can't be solved, but it could be drastically reduced with fuel reprocessing; I seem to recall it's Cold War paranoia that prevents it from happening though. What I want to know is this: there's probably more depleted uranium in the world than we'll ever use for plane and elevator counterweights, radionuclide shipping containers, anti-tank missiles, and exotic paperweights for Theodore Grey's periodic table table. How bloody hard could it be to stuff it in breeder reactors and turn into plutonium as needed?
Posted by: alex.fairchild
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May 30, 2010 10:43 PM
"elite regulatory accountants"?
Yikes.
Posted by: Crudely Wrott , Drinking Solo Since Death's Back On The Wagon
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May 30, 2010 10:46 PM
Fred the Hun, how'd you know I was thinking of the same comparison?
The take away lesson from Challenger, as artfully shown by Feynman, was that because failure has not happened on any number of previous attempts there is no reason to assume failure is less likely to occur on any later attempts.
I wonder, will another Feynman emerge as this whole deal plays out? Stay tumed.
Posted by: ckitching
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May 30, 2010 10:54 PM
Given how many people were speaking out against the health care reform bill, not by pointing out weaknesses in the bill itself, but by saying that they're healthy now and don't need health insurance, I'd say this is a problem of epidemic proportions.
Posted by: skeptifem
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May 30, 2010 10:59 PM
Kirk
Gasoline is not a product I want, it is a product that our society is built around and therefore people need it to live. The only people who have access to some alternative are the rich.
I don't think that anyone considering the interests of the general public would construct things in such a way. People who are important enough to be calling those kinds of shots are almost always doing things in the interest of private power. If the general population had some kind of voice in the economy (which happens to be one of the most important forces in our lives) stuff like this wouldn't happen.
Don't worry about all the tax money citizens pumped into ventures that greatly benefit oil companies like BP over the past...forever. It isn't like they owe anyone anything, right?
Posted by: Krubozumo Nyankoye
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May 30, 2010 11:14 PM
As usual comments on this thread are moving fast so it is hard to offer anything meaningful without being far behind so I will try to address a few things in a few posts. I am not a drilling engineer but I have a passing acquaintance with the discipline and there is a lot out there to read about it.
First the BOP. It is my understanding that this particular BOP had a history of hydralic problems, most notable, leaking fluid. That should have been a very big red flag.
Second well pressures and cementing. Apparently the design of this well was a bit unconventional and the casing cement job was questionable. I have read in the WSJ that Halliburton (yes I know) specified 21 centering devices for cementing the casing, BP settled for 6. This is critical because the well design used a kind of telescoping pipe system. Thus unless the entire drill string was centered properly it would be possible for methane to permeate through the casing into the main drill pipe a shallower depths.
Third, backup systems. The BOP on this well did not have an acoustic trigger, so once the blowout at the drill platform, explosion and fire occurred, there was no mechanism except ROVs to trigger the BOP. This may be a moot point because the ROVs have never been able to get the shear rams to cut the pipe, probably due to hydraulic failure.
According to the same WSJ report, 12 hours before the blowout BP overruled the advice of the platform operator not to purge the mud from the well. At that time tests (something called a negative pressure test) had been run repeatedly that indicated that the mud should not be purged until a concrete cap had been injected in the drill string below the BOP. It appears that that decision was the proximate cause of the blowout.
Apologies for not providing citations and such but I beg mercy for the reason stated at the outset and because I have limited bandwidth and even more limited time. There is plenty of information out there on the net though. Second disclaimer, citing the WSJ. While it is true it is a News Corp. property, they still seem to have some fairly good reporters. However, one complaint is that they provide no primary sources for the information they reported so I am out on a limb there but the narrative is at least plausible.
Posted by: skeptifem
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May 30, 2010 11:16 PM
It was intended to be an argument that got at the root cause of the abuses, not to say that there shouldn't be safety regulations enforced. Of course there should be. The change that we are working on should be aimed at problems that are likely to cause other environmental and economic issues in the future. The problem is bigger than the framing of the OP make it out to be.
Anyway, there are not many alternative companies who deal in oil for americans. The companies can either all raise their prices and get a lot more money for their oil, or keep their prices low and sell more of it. People need to gas up their cars so they can't decide not to go to any of them for the product. The likely result is that there will be some kind of price raising from everyone, since there are few other options for consumers than paying the higher prices.
The idea that giant corporations think about competition the way you imagine them to is shown to be false over and over again. There are a countless industries where all the big players band together in their willingness to screw over their customers. This is why there are going to be some new credit regulations soon- banks and credit card companies did this all the time. They all charged fees for things that did not cost money, and had deceptive practices. Many communications and airline companies are in that boat, too, and those aren't even essential in the same way gasoline is. Health insurance all decided that pre-existing conditions shouldn't be covered. People have few other options so they just had to deal with it. I could go on and on.
Posted by: Crudely Wrott , Drinking Solo Since Death's Back On The Wagon
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May 30, 2010 11:31 PM
From Skeptifem @ 84,
"I don't think that anyone considering the interests of the general public would construct things in such a way."
Yet some do. Many don't. The relative proportions seem to favor the latter. Even so, major catastrophes have a probability greater than zero. This is no surprise, given such wonders as the Great Molasses Flood and Love Canal.
Currying favor is one of humanities most highly developed talents. The greater the risk, the higher the profile, the greater demand, the scarcer the supply, the greater the temptation to give assurances that everything is under control, nothing
badworse can happen.Such predilections are not given near enough consideration by the constituency of our legislators. As a result, many pooches are screwed and the cost (in risk and recovery) is simply passed on to you know who.
Is it reasonable to expect the electorate to be sufficiently knowledgeable to demand that their representatives act responsibly and within the constraints of established science? Of course not. No one has the time. Expect similar avoidable accidents to continue to happen.
If only we could teach our children how shit really works . . .
Posted by: Krubozumo Nyankoye
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May 30, 2010 11:31 PM
Fred the Hun @ #75
Here here. I was tempted to sort the same kind of arrogance. I would draw the parallel a little more closely, however. In the case of the Challenger the engineers had evidence that there was a mission threatening flaw in the O-ring seals of the SRBs, they were overruled by managment and remained silent only to witness the disasterous consequences. The exact same thing appears to have happened on the Deepwater Horizon, the engineers told management it was dangerous to purge the riser but they were overruled. They took no further action.
Having seen the documentary made about Roger Beaujolais (sp?) I do not at all want to heap ridicule upon those who gave their best advice and were pushed aside. However, the gravity of the situation bears some scrutiny. If lives are at stake I think it is incumbent upon one to do everything possible to prevent disaster, even at great personal expense.
Again I do not mean to criticize those who did not actively try to prevent either disaster after they were marginalized, I would rather say that the social system in which we live and operate is at fault in that people can come into positions of such enormous responsibility and actually not realize what is the right thing to do in a crisis.
This is a bit out of character for me, I usually don't like drawing parallels even when they are apt. One more part of the Feynman statement on the Challenger disaster, he ended it with this phrase,
... for you cannot fool nature.
Posted by: skeptifem
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May 30, 2010 11:35 PM
pen
What I meant was that if you punish them financially (like with fines) we might as well just cut them a check and cut out the theatrics.
And I don't know where to begin about passing "legitimate costs" onto the consumer. We, the tax paying public, have done many favors to large oil companies over the years. We get the privilege of buying oil at a rate that enables the executives make millions of dollars each year, and in turn we get to work and eat (if you are lucky). The public did not have a voice in the economy and infrastructure being structured around fossil fuels, and most people do not have the kind of money to afford alternate technologies. The power that these organisations weild is completely illegitimate and damaging to the world. The public has very little say in important economic matters like this, but we are here to pay the price when things go wrong.
Posted by: Emil Karlsson
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May 30, 2010 11:46 PM
If you really care about the environment, then authoritarian states are the first institutions you should want to get rid off. Just look at wars and the weapon industry during the 20th century alone or the burning of fossil fuels by China. These probably contributed significantly to climate pollution and destruction.
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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May 30, 2010 11:50 PM
And how exactly would you go about doing this?
More wars?
Good point, jackass.
Posted by: Krubozumo Nyankoye
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May 30, 2010 11:54 PM
On the subject of how BP should be made to do penance for this egregious deed, here is my suggestion.
BP is a publicly traded company, so the FED can take them over. That is the stick. The carrot is, they agree to invest 90% of their profits on an open ended basis to mitigating the consequences of this release of crude oil into the gulf. This would include all means of clean up from employing laborers to clean birds, sop up oil, etc. to in depth long term research into how to ameliorate the residual effects of oil over years and decades. With the stipulation that if BP goes bankrupt, the cost for the same activities will be equally allocated to all other public companies trading in primary petroleum production in the US.
It would at least be instructive to see what so called market dynamics did in such a scenario.
Posted by: Usagichan
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May 31, 2010 12:00 AM
#92
I doubt that - they are a British company (That's what the B in BP stands for), and while they are a multinational, they remain based in Britain. The US government could conceivably seize their US assets I suppose, but that might backfire the next time a new foreign government decides to seize US assets someplace...
Posted by: xyx
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May 31, 2010 12:04 AM
Actually, the costs of regulation to producers are highest in an uncompetitive market, because producers will have already raised prices about as high as they can so they'll have to bear most of the additional cost. It's in competitive markets that regulation costs get passed to consumers.
I suspect sufficiently high fines to BP along with additional regulations would sharply decrease the probabilities of an incident like this repeating.
Posted by: Doc Bill
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May 31, 2010 12:07 AM
CW and Krum, various,
Considering the rapid nature of the blowout I can't help but suspect that methane hydrates played a factor. They expand something like 80 times in volume when they "decompress" and could add quite a "burp" to the pressure in the riser.
Don't know for sure, of course, but those damned things do cause problems.
Best I know, the BOP did not have a "remote" trigger as is required in other parts of the world. And there have been some stories circulating about its maintenance history. All will come out when the thing is brought up and analyzed, and the industry will benefit from what is learned.
Posted by: Crudely Wrott , Drinking Solo Since Death's Back On The Wagon
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May 31, 2010 12:09 AM
I take this only slightly out of context, Skeptifem:
Oh yes, we did. By our ecstatic embracing of the motor car. Actually, trucks, at first. They saved so much labor. Then there was a way to obtain lubricants without having to send whalers to sea. Our grandparents dearly loved the oil burning furnace; they didn't have to return covered in black soot from stoking the coal burner. Don't forget aircraft fuel, that enabled a half century of amazement and warfare. Then the jet fuel that allows a child to return home from halfway round the world within a day.
It is obvious that the selection of technology's benefits poses a curious guessing game. Because there is a great lag between a few people (scientists and technicians) understanding the implications of a new technology and that same understanding permeating the general population. Not everyone gets exposed to the information and, shucks, most people just don't have the time, the skills, or either. This allows plenty of elbow room for both error and mischief.
Again I say that our children and the education we can manage to give them represent the only practical solutions to problems like this oil spill. This is a generational problem; resulting from generations of error and mischief and soluble only by our providing our children the tools and techniques to answer questions that will outlive us.
Got kids in school? Go to PTA, board meetings. Initiate contact with the faculty. We owe our children. And theirs.
Posted by: Krubozumo Nyankoye
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May 31, 2010 12:21 AM
One last comment before I retire for the night, it is already past midnight here. Nuclear power.
I see nuclear power as a bridge technology, that, if properly implemented, will ultimately allow us to convert to a total solar economy. We do, after all have that huge nuclear furnace 93 million miles away churning out energy at a prodigious rate that we utilize only a tiny fraction of. But before we can harness the incredible largess of our nearby star, we have to settle things here to an extent that we can devote a large proportion of our resources to going into space.
It is quite true that nuclear power produces some pretty nasty stuff in terms of daughter elements from radioactive decay. With a very few exceptions, all of these isotopes of elements occur in nature and can be immobilized effectively by simulating their natural occurrence in minerals and rocks. Moreover, their volume is trivial compared to the quantities of waste we discharge into the environment today, such as the billions of tons of fossil carbon.
The burning of coal is the primary source of electric power in the US. In France, it is nuclear.
Reprocessing is indeed an issue, but most of the irrational arguments against it are just that, it does not contribute to nuclear proliferation. Belligerance does.
I passed over a lot of other stuff worth saying but it takes time to respond and mine has more or less run out, I'll check back in tomorrow to see if anybody notices my comments.
Posted by: akiwiinoz
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May 31, 2010 12:25 AM
Tis Himself, et al. Why all the focus on reactors that use Uranium as fuel and create wastes lasting for tens of thousands of years. Type IV breeder reactor technology is available: they use thorium instead of uranium, and can also use nuclear waste as fuel (reducing the half life to a hundred years or so, IIRC).
KiwiInOz
Posted by: Crudely Wrott , Drinking Solo Since Death's Back On The Wagon
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May 31, 2010 12:42 AM
We would be nuclear powered today had not the first widely known application of atomic energy been a bomb.
Of course, there was a steady stream of applications of the power of atoms (and how to use it) for a half century before Trinity. Fact is, they were only of interest to a very small subset of humanity, the news being wasted on the remainder.
The day Hiroshima was bombed was the first ever heard of nuclear energy by almost everyone on the planet. Almost. Every. One.
And we were very afraid. Our fear became a useful tool for those who could afford nuclear technology. As soon as two antagonists (real or imaginary) knew how, no one had a doubt that the atom was evil, not the least due to the fear of our neighbors. Even to this day almost everyone recoils from it as from a snake. Even as most everyone cannot tell a pit viper from a garter snake.
I have shown rattlesnakes to my children, had them look and touch. They grew up only cautious and know how to avoid the bad ones and admire the rest. My eldest has since shown her own babies.
If only I had a suitcase-sized nuclear power plant. Maybe like a Shipstone? Just think what I could teach them. The net fear quotient of the planet would not drop appreciably but it would drop some.
Posted by: Yubal
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May 31, 2010 1:03 AM
akiwiinoz,
The accelerator driven subcritical reactors (ADSR) are not available, yet. They need at least 15 more years to come up with a test reactor of 500MW or so.
These types of reactors would be appreciated on the background we are going to run low in uranium in ~80 years...and of course the unsolved waste problem.
Posted by: iDodd
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May 31, 2010 1:12 AM
"Krubozumo Nyankoye @ #97
One last comment before I retire for the night, it is already past midnight here. Nuclear power." You rightly point out that the issue of waste is a purely technical one, one that nature and the French have figured out how to deal with, not a political one which most opponents want to make it.
The usual argument I hear is "I'm not willing to risk the potential for disaster over the long term. . ." To which I say I'd rather take a calculated risk on the potential disaster than the certain risk on the actual disasters we live everyday in the forms of the billions of tons of waste, environmental destruction, etc. that we get from coal and oil.
Folks, don't let your fear and emotions keep you from looking at the possibilities for at least a partial solution. Get educated. Use your critical thinking skills. The technology for reasonably safe operation exists and is in use around the world.
Posted by: thebibleistheotherside
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May 31, 2010 1:29 AM
Everyone is fixated on that one burning mess in the Gulf, which is probably exactly what the oil companies want...
Obama's inexperience is obvious when it comes to this disaster! Even liberals are asking him to take charge after more than a month now on this debacle.
BP did cut corners, but an oil spill is not what oil companies want, they want that price of oil to go up and up...
iDodd said...
Folks, don't let your fear and emotions keep you from looking at the possibilities for at least a partial solution.
The outlook for renewable energy sources to replace fossil fuels is not bright. In the State in which I live, many windmills have been built. However, there is a two tier cost. One is land, it takes up a lot of land. Second, the money, it costs companies to pay people for these projects plus it costs the consumer more money. Overall, renewable energy doesn't have the capacity to replace fossil fuels. Having said that, the place where I live is 50/50, which means 50 percent is fossil fuel and 50 percent comes from renewable energy. My parents house 100 percent renewable. I wonder how many liberals who believe in all this global warming has done the same?
I would like to see the United States independent from foreign oil and oil in general which means alternative energy should play a bigger role but in a more effective way.
Posted by: 朴競花/박경화 (Gyeong Hwa)
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May 31, 2010 1:39 AM
Many. Now stop grandstanding.
Posted by: akiwiinoz
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May 31, 2010 2:02 AM
Hi Yubal,
My understanding is that we have the technology available for, for example, integral fast reactors, and other Type IV species, and that, with the political will and investment, these could be installed in a modular fashion in existing coal-fired thermal power stations. But yeah, there hasn't been a commercial scale demo, and the energy-economics playing field hasn't been leveled as yet.
Cheers,
KiwiInOz
Posted by: clausentum
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May 31, 2010 2:43 AM
Is there any serious rebuttal to David Mackay yet? If not, nuclear's all we've got, and the greens are going to take the world down with them.
Posted by: jcmartz.myopenid.com
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May 31, 2010 3:12 AM
Unfortunately the companies (BP, Halliburton, Transocean) running the oil rig are just pointing the finger at each other.
There's a federal law, Oil Pollution Act of 1990 that require (oil) companies to have a plan in case of an oil spill.
Posted by: Colin
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May 31, 2010 3:40 AM
For those arguing for a boycott, bear in mind that it would be possible for BP to spin-off its US operation and declare it bankrupt.
It seems unrealistic, but at some point a cost/benefit decision would be made (we've seen BP are quite capable of making those). If any boycott is successful, it might start to make sense to BP to do just that.
At that point, no-one gets any money from BP, including everyone on the Gulf coast who needs it.
I'm all for PZ's idea, though, but I agree it should be engineers, not accountants.
Very good site for detail is The Oil Drum.
Posted by: JB
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May 31, 2010 3:40 AM
I disagree to some extent with PZ here. Not that BP (and Shell and Conoco and ExxonMobil, various middle Eastern governments, etc) should not face up to their responsibilities, but that we all should face up to our responsiblities.
By buying oil from these organisations, we accept a level of risk that there will be environmental disasters. Just as you might accept the possibility that a child is enslaved to make your T-shirts or that a chunk of rainforest is cut down to make your garden furniture.
It's easy to avoid these two examples - there are companies that make sure that you can do so for a slightly higher price. But unless you don't use motorised transport, drive an LPG-powered car, or only buy your fuel from a company that provides oil produced to the highest environmental standards possible, then you (and I) are as guilty as BP. It isn't an excuse to say that the last option isn't there; just as it was never an excuse to say you didn't know your cocoa-beans were harvested by a child-labourer - you are still guilty. Do something about it.
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/O.jullMj0I2VvJaxMMVeNKSfOPf73voLSxJAe9PdlOWwi8Y-#258ec
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May 31, 2010 3:49 AM
here is an article that is not really focused on the oil mess and energy but more generally about where we are at the present time. It is a discussion of an article from The Financial Times by Simon Schama, I think it is relevant to this thread and the post that started it it is not long
uncle frogy
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/05/schama-are-the-guillotines-being-sharpened.html
Posted by: Rorschach
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May 31, 2010 3:53 AM
Utter nonsense.
I haven't broken any laws or cut any corners when I purchase petrol.BP had known about the potential for problems with this well long ago, chose to ignore it, and is therefore guilty of breaking laws and being irresponsible wrt the potential environmental consequences.The company should be dissolved, its CEOs and the people responsible put in prison and made to pay, and the whole thing sold off to the highest bidder, or be taken over by the government.
Posted by: Usagichan
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May 31, 2010 4:08 AM
Rorachach #110
The problem is that this is not an American company - The real culprits would just sling their subordinates to the sharks and let the entire US operation dissolve going on their merry way.
However satisfying, punitive action is not going to have the impact of adequate regulation. Of course the US could simply ban foreign companies from the business, but somehow I don't think that that would go too well with its political philosophy.
Posted by: Rorschach
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May 31, 2010 4:52 AM
Yeah, true of course, thanks.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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May 31, 2010 5:32 AM
Slimysicko sez:
ignore the sad folk who suck a little bit of lifeforce from these places.
was that advice to us, or to yourself?
shall I remind you, again, what you said of the ladies who shared their rape experiences?
I frankly would rather not see the words in print again.
I still vote for you to go in the ashcan.
Posted by: JB
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May 31, 2010 6:49 AM
#110 You don't break any laws by flying to Japan for a whale-steak dinner. If you did, you contribute to the continued endangerment of the whale population(s) and a nearly criminal CO2 emission. Likewise with your cheap T-shirts and mahogany furniture previously mentioned.
And assuming you still want to have a little oil to power your way-of-life, then why pick on BP - they're just the latest in a long line of polluters. Which isn't to say that BP/Transocean should not clear up their mess. But after that _we_ have to take it further and refuse to buy fuel that has been produced unethically. That's hard, but if we do not do that, we remain responsible.
Posted by: Anubis Bloodsin the third
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May 31, 2010 7:39 AM
Global corporation like BP enjoy a gamble here and there...with no come backs because even an environmental disaster as this one is not fatal in the long run.
But profit is fun to play with...see how much they can earn this month!
They know they are seemingly indispensable in the scheme of things.
Any investigation or board of inquiry that criticizes their actions ...'will not be in full possession of the facts' simply because the facts will not be forthcoming in the first place!
That scenario can be all but guaranteed.
A few changes at the top maybe...a chance to spend more quality time with the family and improve golf handicap...nothing draconian a few of the junior board members with possibly a senior head honcho to show contriteness...then again maybe not!
Any changes made are not punishment per se....just a slight realignment of personnel more to assuage the public marketing face which seems a tad smudged and less then pristine these days, rather then sack cloth and ashes methinks!
Any deposed in a pragmatic 'restructuring' will be amply recompensed...enough to retire on for sure...with stock options!
But the corporate image will be preserved...the company will prosper and another disaster WILL happen because of and not in spite of 'new safety procedures' and another board configuration evolved...and so it goes!
The oil will flow...until it flows no more.
Appealing to the fairy tale of sustainable energy is for the foreseeable future a sound bite and so it shall remain.
Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space, OM, A little FUCKING ray of sunshine
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May 31, 2010 8:23 AM
People are conflating two issues--personal responsibility for energy consumption and responsibility for the catastrophe in the Gulf.
Yes, we are all responsible for the environmental damage from the energy we consume, and we must cut back that
No, we are not responsible for the criminal conduct of a corporation that 1)knew there were problems with the well, 2)did not report the trouble, 3)kept operating the well at high capacity, 4)has a history of placing profit before safety and 5)had no plans for mitigating a catastrophe.
Our personal responsibility for our own consumption does not mitigate one iota BP's responsibility for its actions. Nor does it change the fact that the reason BP was allowed to function in such a lax regulatory environment is because Big Oil owned the Administration from 2000-2008.
Yes, we are responsible for our own consumption--morally responsible. BP and the Bushies are criminally responsible.
Posted by: windy
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May 31, 2010 8:25 AM
llewelly:
Exactly...
No, or he wouldn't have appointed Ken Salazar in the first place. Heckuva job, Kenny!
Posted by: dr2chase
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May 31, 2010 8:58 AM
Three remarks:
@yubal, @asclepias -- not just spiked tires, CARBIDE-spiked tires. Nokian makes them, so does Schwalbe. I like the Nokian W240 best so far. Might consider an xtracycle or other cargo bike (see picture at blog post at link).
@Doc bill -- and they were pumping seawater in, and (cold) seawater at pressure plus methane makes hydrates. Someone else has surely thought about this.
Some of the "personal choices" for reducing oil consumption do not require hair shirts and self-flagellation. Stricter insulation standards for new construction cost more initially, but improve quality of life and cost of ownership. Eat less dead mammal flesh, and you cut back on consumption of natural gas (or would if we could turn off all govt. support for corn ethanol) which leaves more available for power plant use and those who heat with gas. Biking's not bad, most days, and good fraction of us could do it pretty easily once we were in shape.
Getting our dad-gum near-Boston oak-tree-shaded no-gas-service house off of fuel oil heat is going to be a pain. Still haven't figured out whether we would be better off with solar+woodstove (got that already) or heat pump -- and ground sourced, or air sourced? And there's kids approaching college age to worry about.
I've got little patience for anyone who turns it into a religious issue. We'll never get to zero consumption of the stuff produced by fossil fuels, but if we get close, we can produce it by other methods and afford that cost. I'm not at all sure what happens to airplane travel down the line.
Posted by: JB
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May 31, 2010 9:32 AM
Reducing consumption is good, but that is not my point. The FSC organisation persuades us to buy timber from managed forests. If we buy Fairtrade goods, we can be confident that we do minimal harm to the primary producers. We can ask for fish that has been caught without a sidecatch of turtles and dolphins. As far as I know there isn't anything like that for oil.
So BP is vulnerable now. Don't make them pay and then confiscate their US assets (as many have pointed out it is a British company) to let Shell carry on where they left off. More constructively make them pay (this is important) and then demand that they adhere to (verified with independant certification) better practices than the rest of the industry. We have to now convince them that they have to be greener than - think of something very green - before we will even think of buying their products again. Demand a better alternative. Or else accept that you are part of the problem in settling for the status quo - as I and most others do by default.
Posted by: Knockgoats
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May 31, 2010 10:00 AM
Why all the focus on reactors that use Uranium as fuel and create wastes lasting for tens of thousands of years. Type IV breeder reactor technology is available: they use thorium instead of uranium, and can also use nuclear waste as fuel (reducing the half life to a hundred years or so, IIRC). - KiwiInOz
This is a rather unusual sense of "available", in which it means: exists only on paper, never actually been built or tested.
Posted by: realinterrobang
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May 31, 2010 10:03 AM
Oh yes, we did. By our ecstatic embracing of the motor car.
You might be surprised (or maybe not) by how much of that demand was manufactured. I did a substantial amount of research into early automotive marketing at one point, and it's probably entirely fair to say that General Motors invented saturation advertising. I was never quite able to quantify how much car companies spent on ginning up demand for cars (and then second cars), but it had to be in the many millions of dollars in 1920s dollars.
While you may not be able to sell meat to vegetarians, so to speak, you can certainly convince people who only eat meat twice a week that they should be having it every day, and twice on Sundays, particularly if, for the consumer, there's no evident downside, and a lot of upsides. And that's pretty much exactly what the car companies did, starting around 1920. Ultimately, most of the blame comes back to one corporation or other.
If people only owned cars at the per capita rate of 1920, and the equivalent alternative transportation options available in 1920 were still available, we'd be in a lot less of this mess now...
Posted by: Arty45
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May 31, 2010 10:32 AM
I don't know if anyone has addressed the apparent "discrepancy" in rig counts, but one difference is likely explained by the fact that Baker-Hughes tracks actively drilling rigs -- there has to be drilling going taking place and the drill needs to be cutting downward into the earth.
In contrast, the number of platforms PRODUCING oil and/or gas will be much higher. Once the drilling is down, the rig moves to the next location and the well/platform continues to produce hydrocarbons for decades.
Posted by: Knockgoats
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May 31, 2010 10:36 AM
Is there any serious rebuttal to David Mackay yet? If not, nuclear's all we've got, and the greens are going to take the world down with them. - clausentum
I don't know how you get that from Mackay - I suspect just an anti-Green bias. I haven't read the whole thing, but Mackay's take home message is that the UK (a very densely populated country with high energy use) cannot supply its current energy demand from renewables alone - it either has to cut that demand considerably, or add nuclear, CCS, or importation of power from elsewhere (e.g. desert solar power from North Africa). Near the end he very briefly discusses (without the detailed calculations he made for the UK), Europe, North America and the world. Here's his final statement in that section:
We have a clear conclusion: the
non-solar renewables may be “huge,” but they are not huge enough. To complete a plan that adds up, we must rely on one or more forms of solar
power. Or use nuclear power. Or both. [My emphasis]
I'm somehow not seeing "nuclear is our only chance and the greens are going to take the world down with them" in that statement. Can you point it out to me?
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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May 31, 2010 10:45 AM
Oh and for all of you "nuclear is the only option!!1!!eleventy" types out there, this is what New England is currently dealing with.
Short article, but this is the important point:
There was a cover-up of the leak initally. The owners of the plant even went so far as to say that there weren't any underground pipes at the location of the leak, which was either 1) crass stupidity or 2) an outright lie.
As far as I can recall, there's still debate whether or not to re-license this plant.
Posted by: scentofviolets
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May 31, 2010 12:54 PM
I'm not sure what you mean by this comment. In fact, the first reactor to produce electricity was a breeder, the EBR-1:
Also, commercial power-producing breeder reactors have been brought online; the Russians have been running the BN-350 breeder for decades, and it has a breeding ratio of around 1.2. Fast breeder reactors have been constructed as well (In fact, Japan just restarted it's FBR facility Monju), they're just not economically competitive with conventional thermal reactors yet which is basically an engineering problem. If not, time will make up the difference :-)
Posted by: clausentum
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May 31, 2010 1:01 PM
Knockgoats - @123
No doubt I read Mackay through my own glasses, which are highly coloured, I admit. But the whole purport of his book is what an enormous project renewables would be, having to plaster the whole country with the things, and even then, a full back-up during the periods when there's no wind or sun (not as infrequent as you might imagine), looks impossible. A fair-minded reading of the book can only, in my opinion, lead to the conclusion that this just isn't going to happen.
Saving energy? It's virtually all tokenism: he makes plain the very serious changes to our life-style which would be necessary - it's not going to happen. And do we have the right to deny the people in developing countries the same standard of living as ourselves? That's one big time-bomb.
I agree he's cagey about nuclear : quote from page 169 "please don't get me wrong: I'm not trying to be pro-nuclear. I'm just pro-arithmetic." - scarcely surprising the way it's been demonised. Looking at the chapter on nuclear though, to me there's a clear message.
Nuclear waste - David Marjanović @61 : Mackay, "after 1000 years, the radioactivity of high-level waste is about the same as that of uranium ore".
Safety/leaks : OurDeadSelves@124 : - it's a grim business, but risks have to be quantified, and potential deaths weighed against potential benefit. After all, how many of us drive cars without qualms, knowning that thousands, including children will be killed by them in the course of the year? Mackay does the accounting, and comes to the conclusion that Nuclear and wind are the best amongst electricity sources (page 168).
Prejudice against the greens? If you thought they were responsible for delaying an adequate response to global warming by at least a generation, you'd be against them.
Posted by: Dornier Pfeil
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May 31, 2010 1:13 PM
Mr Myers,
Unless you lead an Amish like existence, tallow candles for illumination, firewood heat for your home, and a horse and buggy on cordword dirt roads for transportation, then you are as much a part of the problem as anyone else. I like to think of myself as green minded but until the people of the USA reject the modern petrochemical culture, blaming the petrochemical/political industry is blaming the symptom for the disease(Although I am willing to admit that a great deal of drug pushing by the automotive and petrochemical industries has been done since the 1920's).
Posted by: scentofviolets
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May 31, 2010 1:14 PM
Aside from the fact that Tritium decays by beta emission (ie, decays by emitting electrons, which are stopped by less than an inch of air and which can't even penetrate human skin), there's also the fact that, yes, all power sources are associated with some sort of noxious, health-harming effluvia. The question is, which is the best option. Now, nuclear is the only option in the sense that there is no way any other alternative energy can possibly replace coal, oil, or natural gas as the main source of energy in an industrial or post-industrial economy. I'm sorry, but that's pretty much determined by some rather basic physics considerations.
So the only question is rather or not nuclear waste products cause more harm than conventional coal (the only other alternative.) And in this case, the answer is a rather emphatic yes! In fact, not only are coal-fired plants rather noxious in the conventional sense, but they also release far more radiation into the environment than any nuclear plant (an amusing factoid: there is more nuclear energy in the ash from coal than there was chemical energy from the initial load of coal powering the plant. Nobody talks about interring the ashes at Yucca Flats, do they?)
Posted by: Peter Ashby
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May 31, 2010 1:16 PM
@Asclepius
It is legitimate to hold citizens of a democracy to account for the state of their nation. Well done for cycling, buff your half halo. But where is the public transport provision you could have pressed your representatives to invest in?
My knees won't let me cycle but we have a multiplicity of bus routes and actual sidewalks beside all our roads so you can like walk to the shops. How rad is that? The suburb where I live was built in the mid '60s, my house is as old as I am. We have no churches of equivalent age and many closed old ones. Another difference.
We are not perfect though, there is a perfectly good double track rail line at the bottom of the hill but I can't use that to go into town or work as it only serves long distance travel and even then only two trains a day in either direction stop there. I have caught precisely one train there, to go to Glasgow, at 06:30. So we have stuff to do, but things are changing, we are agitating for more local trains. The Scottish Parliament voted to rebuild the Waverley rail line down to the Borders.
All over Europe there is good public transport, I can use it to get to the most remote parts of the highlands even. We even made it free for our senior citizens to use. All done by our elected politicians.
What the hell are yours doing and what are you doing to change them?
Posted by: scentofviolets
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May 31, 2010 1:31 PM
Ah, an addendum to the above: Tritium, being an isotope of hydrogen, can combine with oxygen to make make tritiated water. So while beta emission is about the weakest form of radioactive decay there is, it's possible to introduce tritium internally by drinking contaminated water. However, even then, it has a short biological half-life in the human body of at most two weeks. So even contaminated ground water is a limited danger. Contrast with stuff like PCB's which can cause an immense amount of damage and is stable enough to last for decades, for example:
280 liters of tritiated water isn't even on the radar in terms of comparable harm. I trust that I don't have to mention that inhaling the radioactive emissions of conventional coal-fired plants is also a health hazard - and one far more deleterious and pervasive than the occasional release of tritium from a nuclear plant. I'm not excusing this, btw, merely pointing out the relative risks (does anyone remember that great LISTSERV group from the 80's, RISKS-L? Fantastic stuff.)
Posted by: Knockgoats
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May 31, 2010 1:37 PM
Prejudice against the greens? If you thought they were responsible for delaying an adequate response to global warming by at least a generation, you'd be against them. - clausentum
Er, the Greens were pushing for the development of renewables, energy efficiency, and demand reduction by behavioural change half a century ago. That nuclear power faded because of opposition from Greens is simply a pro-nuclear myth: Chernobyl had something to do with it, but the consistent economic and operational failures of nuclear power were the important factor. These failures are ongoing: take a look at the history of the Olkiluoto power station being built in Finland - massively late and over budget, and this was supposed to be the demonstration that the problems have been solved.
Saving energy? It's virtually all tokenism: he makes plain the very serious changes to our life-style which would be necessary - it's not going to happen.
This view is based on what, exactly? (Disclosure: I happen to head a research project in this area, and I don't know whether it's going to happen or not - but I see the funders needn't have bothered - all they had to do was ask clausentum.)
And do we have the right to deny the people in developing countries the same standard of living as ourselves?
Red herring. Many prominent Greens have, of course, made the need for global justice central to their political project. Oddly enough, the only time I see nuclear boosters mention the issue is in the context of pushing nuclear power; one might almost think they don't really care about the poor. Have you actually given any thought to what a nuclear industry big enough to supply a high percentage of global energy demand would look like? Inevitably, large quantities of plutonium and/or enriched uranium being transported around; corners being cut to control costs, at the expense of safety; attempts to divert the materials into weapons production. Have you followed the controversy over Iran's desire to produce enriched uranium, ostensibly for power plants? In practice, civil and military nuclear industries cannot be separated: the materials, skills, and technical processes have far too much overlap for that. That is why Iran can keep plausibly denying that they have any intention of making nuclear weapons.
You simply cherry-pick Mackay in order to bolster your own prejudices, and ignore the unexceptionable conclusion I quoted: the world needs either nuclear or solar.
Posted by: scentofviolets
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May 31, 2010 1:41 PM
I see this mentioned a lot, though mostly by the usual libertarian/right-wing types. Funny, how "the greens" have been so singularly ineffective at getting their agenda enacted when it comes to anything else, but they are strangely effective when it comes to nuclear.
No, imho, all you've got to do is look to see who benefits in cases like these. My guess is that when the price of gas is high enough, any sort of resistance to building more nuclear power plants by either consumers or the fossil fuel industry will suddenly undergo a profound collapse. In fact, I suspect that everyone already knows that nuclear is about the only way to go, and so this sort of resistance is really nothing more than a luxury they can afford to indulge in for the time being.
Posted by: scentofviolets
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May 31, 2010 1:56 PM
It's not clear to me whether your group is working on ways to save energy or on ways in which the typical American lifestyle might be feasibly changed. But in any event, I happen to agree (nothing fancy, just my personal opinion) that if it came down to either a drastic reduction in personal lifestyle or increasingly aggressive and obvious wars for control of the worlds oil supply, most USians would unhesitatingly go for the latter. The big thing would be personal transport, of course; no way is a Real American with Heartland Values going to give up his car and start taking the bus, fer godsakes. Only pansies, losers, and blacks ride the bus in the good 'ol U S of A :-(
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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May 31, 2010 2:27 PM
My point wasn't risk mitigation (or the dangers of tritium), rather that you can't expect nuclear power to be any better regulated than, say, the oil industry. And if one safety valve on one oil rig can malfunction and fuck up the entire Gulf of Mexico, what exactly will happen when one poorly regulated nuclear power plant blows all to hell?
Oh, right. Fucking Chernobyl.
No, it's not an acceptable alternative to fossil fuels. The risks are absolutely too high to rely on this technology. In a perfect fucking world, I'd agree that nuclear is a great option, but if this were a perfect fucking world, we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place.
Posted by: llewelly
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May 31, 2010 2:31 PM
Dornier Pfeil | May 31, 2010 1:13 PM:
Solar thermal power plants and photovoltaic cells harvest solar power far more efficiently than plants, and electrical motors are more efficient than animals.
87 petawatts of solar power (averaged over the whole of the year, over the whole of the globe, and accounting for cloud cover) reaches the earth's surface. US per capita power usage is about 10400 W. If we could capture 1 part in 900 (very difficult, but probably possible) of this solar power, a population of almost 9 billion could be supplied with the 10400 W per person consumption rate of the US population.
This 87 petawatts does not include the additional 87 petawatts of solar power absorbed by the atmosphere (because it doesn't reach the surface), which drives most all of our weather. The potential for wind power is in addition to the potential for solar power. There is also nuclear power (if the nuclear industry converts to generation 4 and thorium power plants ), but unlike solar and wind, nuclear will run out.
The claim that everyone must adopt a 17th century lifestyle in order to advance beyond fossil fuels is a lie. It is not necessary at all, and furthermore, it would not work at all.
Deforestation is a substantial contributor to global warming. There are not enough forests in the world to supply present world populations with enough wood fuel for either cooking or heating.
Posted by: Asclepias
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May 31, 2010 3:11 PM
Peter Ashby-
Therein lies the problem. I have talked to my senators until I am blue in the face (or, more accurately, fingers, but as often as they assure me that they will keep my thoughts in mind, I really don't think they could care any less. It doesn't help that I live in a very Republican state. The problem I see in Washington is that Congressional members are too worried about keeping their jobs to confront tough issues head on and piss people off.
Public transportation on the eastern and western coasts is far and away better than it is here. When I was in DC I much preferred public transport to the aggravation of driving. Here in Cheyenne I've taken public transportation a couple of times, but the circuitous route taken means that I can reach my destination far more quickly on my bike.
I know that biking or even walking are not options for a lot of people. Heck, a friend of mine had cerebral palsy, and couldn't even have started to do either one of those. I often wonder what beyond the political capital of oil companies would prevent us from revolutionizing our transportation system, and to my mind it seems like the response to anyone who suggested something like that would be akin to the US response to the Kyoto protocol: but they're not doing it, so why should we? Dumbest thing I've ever heard, but still...
Posted by: Knockgoats
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May 31, 2010 3:28 PM
Now, nuclear is the only option in the sense that there is no way any other alternative energy can possibly replace coal, oil, or natural gas as the main source of energy in an industrial or post-industrial economy. I'm sorry, but that's pretty much determined by some rather basic physics considerations. - scentofviolets
That simply isn't supported by the facts. The amount of energy delivered to the earth by the sun is vastly in excess of what human societies use (Janet Sawin, in "Charting a New Energy Future." State of the World 2003. By Lester R. Brown. Boston: W. W. Norton, gives a ratio of 10,000:1. Now clearly we can't capture all of that, but you need to show that we can't even capture (through direct solar capture, wind, waves, biofuel and biomass) anywhere near one thousandth of it. That requires more than a lofty assertion that "I'm sorry" (is anyone who says that in such a context ever sincere?),"this is pretty much determined by some basic physics considerations".
Posted by: Knockgoats
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May 31, 2010 3:59 PM
scentofviolets,
It's not clear to me whether your group is working on ways to save energy or on ways in which the typical American lifestyle might be feasibly changed.
The European lifestyle, as it happens.
But in any event, I happen to agree (nothing fancy, just my personal opinion) that if it came down to either a drastic reduction in personal lifestyle or increasingly aggressive and obvious wars for control of the worlds oil supply, most USians would unhesitatingly go for the latter.
But your personal opinion is worth precisely doodley-squat. Relevant evidence or arguments, by contrast, are of some use. These are not easy to come by when trying to forecast social change, but we can find some possibly useful approaches in sociology, social and environmental psychology, economics and history. In particular, we can look at large-scale social and cultural changes; and at what people have been prepared to give up, under the right circumstances, in the past. In the first category, consider the changes in attitude to race, gender and sexuality over the past few decades, or the growth of restrictions (legal and social) on smoking, and on drink-driving. Society-wide, deeply ingrained prejudices and addictions did not stop these changes. Are those supporting (to use your example) car use deeper than gender roles or substance addictions, or more advantageous to those holding them than belief in racial superiority? In the second category, consider what people will accept in times of war. Objectively, the situation of human civilisation now is every bit as serious as in the worst days of WWII - more so, probably. There are, of course, powerful forces of denial obstructing awareness of this, but there are also ways to counter them. Very preliminary results from the project I mentioned suggest that while people are confused and often in denial about anthropogenic climate change, they are mostly convinced that wasting energy is wrong; and they also show high levels of "willingness to be coerced" - i.e., they are prepared to accept government restrictions on energy use, provided the restrictions are seen to be fair. The results also give indications of where particular difficulties are to be expected in trying to reduce energy demand - for example, flying somewhere distant for an annual holiday is widely seen as an entitlement.
So you see, I do actually have a bit more than my "personal opinion" to go on - though not nearly as much more as I would like - and oddly enough, that leaves me much less certain about what is socio-culturally possible than you. I wonder why that is.
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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May 31, 2010 5:19 PM
One last thing:
So what you're saying is that it's perfectly okay for a nuclear power plant to be leaking, as long as it's not leaking anything that's "too radioactive."
Consider me gobsmacked.
Posted by: scentofviolets
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May 31, 2010 7:17 PM
Sigh. I repeat, for some rather basic physics considerations, you simply can't do this. And, yes, I am sorry that this is the case, so I am sincere. I'm guessing you don't have much training in physics, is this true?
You're probably thinking that it's "just" a matter of, say, developing more efficient solar cells and better batteries[1]. But there are some rather severe constraints placed on those devices for - basic physical reasons. You'll probably never see an economically viable solar cell that is as much as 10% efficient, but assume that's the case. How many of these units will you have to produce to satisfy the country's energy needs, ie, how many square meters will you need? Now tell me where you're going to put them, how are you going to store energy, etc. A simple BOTEC shows that this scheme simply doesn't work for any reasonable amounts of investment . . . especially compared with the nuclear alternative.
But if you think otherwise, by all means, show us ;-)
[1]Like fusion, cheap solar cells have been coming Real Soon Now for about fifty years. Every so often some popular science article trumpets a "breakthrough", and that they'll be on the market in six months or a year, and that's the last you ever here of said "breakthrough".
Posted by: scentofviolets
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May 31, 2010 7:23 PM
My personal opinions, such as they are, are based upon what I immediately see, and how calls to austerity have been historically received in the U.S. If you think you've actually got some relevant data that shows otherwise, by all means share. And no, saying, well Americans sacrificed in WWII or whatever is not evidence.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but that's all you've given so far. If you've got something that's not your personal opinion, again, share.
Posted by: scentofviolets
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May 31, 2010 7:32 PM
Uh-huh. Doubtless for some urgent reason you stopped reading my post right there, because you would never dishonestly snip the part where I said:
Since apparently you need me to explain this to you, the point of my post was that you have to assess relative risks. No, tritium escaping out of a nuclear facility and contaminating the groundwater isn't something to be trivialized - nor did I say that it should be. But in comparison to the alternatives, and in comparison with other industrial pollutants that we already live with every day, it's pretty small potatoes.
Do you understand now? If you don't, please explain what, precisely, you fail to comprehend, and I will try to rephrase that part in a way that is accessible to you.
Posted by: Knockgoats
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May 31, 2010 8:05 PM
But if you think otherwise, by all means, show us ;-)- scentofviolets
You made the claim, with which many highly knowledgeable people disagree. Mackay's book, for one, says differently at the global scale. Back your claim up properly, or withdraw it.
You'll probably never see an economically viable solar cell that is as much as 10% efficient, but assume that's the case.
On what grounds do you make this claim? There already are solar cells with an efficiency above 40%: http://cleantechnica.com/2009/01/20/german-researchers-break-solar-cell-efficiency-record/. Of course, these research products are not economically viable, but the situation is rather different from that with fusion, or even so-called "4th generation" nuclear reactors, which exist only on paper.
How many of these units will you have to produce to satisfy the country's energy needs, ie, how many square meters will you need? Now tell me where you're going to put them, how are you going to store energy, etc. A simple BOTEC shows that this scheme simply doesn't work for any reasonable amounts of investment . . . especially compared with the nuclear alternative.
Well this seems to be quite a retreat from the claim that basic physics was sufficient to ensure renewables could not supply the energy we need, doesn't it?
Real experts don't seem to be as certain as you about the limitations on renewables. Below is the abstract from:
"Renewable energy sources: Their global potential for the first-half of the 21st century at a global level: An integrated approach"
Bert J.M. de Vriesa, Detlef P. van Vuurenb and Monique M. Hoogwijka
Energy Policy
Volume 35, Issue 4, April 2007, Pages 2590-2610
Abstract
"The risk of human-induced climate change and the volatility of world oil markets make non-fossil fuel options important. This paper investigates the potential for wind, solar-PV and biomass (WSB) to deliver energy. The focus is on land opportunities and constraints and on production costs as a function of resource availability and depletion and of innovation dynamics. The context is provided by the IPCC SRES scenarios as simulated with the IMAGE 2.2 model. We explicitly consider several sources of uncertainty, aspects of the food vs. energy trade-off and the effects of interaction between the three options through their claims on land. We show that ‘potential production’ concepts are strongly dependent on the chosen land-use scenario—and should therefore be used with an indication of the underlying assumptions. Our results indicate a potential for liquid biofuels in the order of 75–300 EJ year−1 and for electricity from WSB options at production costs below 10 ¢ kWh−1 of 200–300 PWh year−1. Theoretically, future electricity demand can be amply met from WSB sources in most regions by 2050 below 10 ¢ kWh−1, but major uncertainties are the degree to which land is actually available and the rate and extent at which specific investment costs can be reduced. In some regions, competition for land among the three WSB options may significantly reduce the total potential as estimated from simple addition—which is another source of uncertainty."
Or we could look at
"Potentials and prospects for renewable energies at global scale"
Gustav Rescha, Anne Heldb, Thomas Fabera, Christian Panzera, Felipe Toroc and Reinhard Haasa
Energy Policy
Volume 36, Issue 11, November 2008, Pages 4048-4056
Here's a snippet from the conclusions:
"From a theoretical perspective RES [renewable energy sources] could contribute to meet more than 300,000 times the current overall primary energy demand at global scale, by considering technical constraints still the potential remains 16 times higher than current needs"
So, it seems that my choice is between peer-reviewed articles by known experts in the field who lay out detailed arguments, and a pseudonymous blog commenter who makes unsubstantiated claims based on nothing but their own authority. Now, which should I go with?
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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May 31, 2010 8:12 PM
Okay, well, if you weren't excusing (by comparing to coal-fired plants) the risks, why bother bringing it up at all? Or write a big ol' long post about why PCBs are way worse?
Plus, you fail to see my point. Whether or not tritium is gonna kill you is moot1. My reaction was to the leak, not necessarily what was leaking out.
Understand yet?
When confronted about the leak, the owners of Vermont Yankee lied2 and said that the plant didn't have (functioning) underground pipes. Well, it does and they're leaking.
What other safety concerns are we unaware of? What else are the owners willing to lie about?
These assholes want to have their license extended for another 20 goddamned years. Like I said before, trusting nuclear power is about as rational as trusting oil drilling.
1As I understand, exposure to tritium can actually lead to an increased cancer risk. So, as far as the "it's only got a 2 week half-life" argument in pretty fucking stupid.
2Or were possibly acting criminally stupid.
Posted by: Knockgoats
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May 31, 2010 8:14 PM
Not to put too fine a point on it, but that's all you've given so far. If you've got something that's not your personal opinion, again, share. - scentofviolets
Not to put too fine a point on it, that's a bare-faced lie. I gave relevant historical examples, and preliminary findings from the project I lead.
And no, saying, well Americans sacrificed in WWII or whatever is not evidence.
Well, yes, it is, actually. It shows that in the right circumstances, Americans have been willing to make very considerable sacrifices - up to and including risking their lives.
Posted by: Knockgoats
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May 31, 2010 8:23 PM
Incidentally, I don't think it at all likely that serious reductions in energy demand can be brought about without government intervention, in the form of carbon taxes or rationing. However, before such measures can be introduced, in democratic societies, a sufficient level of public acceptance must be reached - and change in attitudes can bring that about. I refer again to the example of the bans on smoking in public places now common across the USA and western Europe. Twenty or even ten years ago, the idea of such a ban would have provoked complete outrage - no democratic government would have dared. Now, they have been widely introduced without significant refusal to comply, or political damage.
Posted by: Krubozumo Nyankoye
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May 31, 2010 9:03 PM
Someone above pointed out that there are a number of naturally occurring radioactive elements in coal ash, which is true, primarily Urainium, Thorium and Potassium. These three elements also occur widely in various igneous rocks and in some locations in sedimentary rocks. Before the advent of scrubbing of fly-ash from coal fired plants for generating electricity particulates containing all these elements were widely disseminated across industrial countries, the US included. Now the majority of them are captured in the fly-ash sludges but the elements remain and in a much more concentrated condition so yes they do constitute an environmental hazard strictly in comparison to the high level radioactive "wastes" produced from fission reactors. This is not to mention that in addition the fly-ash sludge contains variable amounts of many other elements that in even small concentrations are toxic and hazardous.
Just attempting to concentrate the dangerous elements in fly-ash sufficiently to manage it responsibly would be very expensive and greatly increase the overall "cost" of burning coal. At present this cost is completely externalized and the sludge is "disposed of" virtually without regulation or consideration for the possible consequences.
Bear in mind as well that every tonne of coal burned is a tonne of fossil carbon that has been sequestered effectively for millions of years. We are now beginning to realize the possible consequences of that behavior and the fact that those consequences are global and so poorly understood that we can barely guess what might happen in 10 - 20 - 40 - 80 years.
Posted by: scentofviolets
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May 31, 2010 10:24 PM
Sigh. This is why you need to know a little basic physics:
40% efficiency is nothing new; in fact, well over 50% efficiency was achieved in the 60's with quite unsophisticated (by today's standards) cells. How did they do this? Nothing fancy: They just matched up a monochromatic wave source with the band-gap of the material. And this is where your basic physics knowledge is helpful: the band-gaps in any given material are quite narrow for QM reasons, therefore:
The same holds true for photons with not enough energy to bridge the gap as well. Iow, the problem with getting a high-efficiency solar cell is that the Sun is a black-body emitter. The only known way to increase the so-called thermodynamic efficiency is to try to come up with materials that have multiple band-gaps; again, three or four appear to be a hard limit. But efficiency is not what researchers are typically looking for:
Look at those numbers. You can easily see then that efficiency is not the parameter to optimize, but rather the cost per watt. So there you're looking at something like those amorphous silicon cells that were going to go into production Real Soon Now . . . about thirty years ago.
That's basic physics, as I said. Further, you didn't respond to my questions about overall costs and areas, probably for the good and sufficient reason that even a quick-and-dirty BOTEC shows that at 10% efficiency (rather optimistic, imho), you're only going to be getting about 30 W/m^2. Since in 2005 the U.S. consumed about 30 Peta-Watt-hours, ie, 3x10^13 kWh, your looking at a rather large collection area. This also assumes that there is practically zero cost with energy storage and transportation; again, batteries seem to be up against some rather fundamental physical limits due to their operating nature.
The story is much the same for biofuels, but worse: you're doing good to extract 0.1% of the available insolation and turn it into a biofuel. Would you believe me if I said that photosynthesis is inherently a low-efficiency process ;-)
This stuff isn't hard to research, btw. I recommend that you start with the wiki entry on solar cells as a starting point.
Posted by: scentofviolets
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May 31, 2010 10:36 PM
Sigh. And yet, when I do it, it's just my personal opinion. You need to be consistent. Either we are both just giving our personal opinions, or we both have done what could be deemed "research" (I don't, but apparently you do, so I'll go with that in the interests of amicability.)
I'll see your four years of sacrifice and raise you several hundred years worth of Americans grabbing Indian land, Indian property, Indian resources. Are we really talking at that sophomoric a level? Do I have to really cite several thousands of years of groups of people making war on other groups over land, water, etc? By those standards - using your terminology - Americans are all too ready grab other people's stuff rather than do without. If the circumstances are right, that is ;-) Which is apparently most of the time.
Really, if you're part of some research group as you've maintained, don't you think you should be coming up with something a little more, er, substantial than this?
Posted by: Krubozumo Nyankoye
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June 1, 2010 12:12 AM
scentofviolets @#148
Forgive me for striking off on a tangent but I am curious since you seem to have some basic knowledge that I lack concerning what might be (or might not) the photoelectric effect. Theoretically what would be the optimum medium for capturing solar energy in the near vacuum of near earth space, converting it to microwave frequency energy and using masers to channel it to the earth's surface where it could be utilized as conventional electrical power?
This is the long term objective that I suggested in my earlier post about nuclear fission power serving as a bridge technology to being able to harness sufficient solar energy to meet all of our requirements.
I'd be interested in your opinions if you want to take the trouble to express them. My slant on the whole issue is from the standpoint of a resource geologist. Pretty narrow in terms of making any kind of a living from it, but I like to also try to think outside the normal bounds and foresee what might be possible in the future and how we could use what we already know to guide that future.
Posted by: clausentum
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June 1, 2010 3:34 AM
Knockgoats and others:
Mackay shows that solar is not on in our latitudes, and goes on to indicate how much solar area would be needed in areas where is might make sense. The areas seem huge, and there are many hypothetical assumptions, but accepting it were feasible to import our energy from there, it would make us horribly dependent, much more so than now, on countries at whose mercy we might prefer not to be.
My first experience of greens goes back a long way as well: at the price of betraying something about myself, let me say the first I recall was in the late sixties, when a fellow student proposed a "green" club at college. I'd had my first green stirrings in those days, and my thoughts were very much anti-automobile, as being so destructive of nature and much else. When I saw that this guy drove a car to college (it was quite rare in those days), and then as his first step as head green said that we shouldn't wipe our arses with coloured toilet paper, it was a trauma I've never quite got over. The next major contribution to perceptions of greens was when I came to Germany, and these yellow, round "Atomkraft nein danke" stickers were everywhere, but principally above a stinking exhaust pipe on the backs of cars.
The greens are big in Germany, but it's a valid thesis that their effect has been wholly negative. In January, when it was icy out, I saw a little old lady making her way at some risk to herself to the recycling skip to solemnly drop one empty bottle in it. A generation has been brought up in the belief that this is the way to save the environment and the world. Meanwhile Germany slithers without a workable energy policy, and the building of more anthracite power stations is one of the more likely options.
I understand your sarcasm at my opinion on energy saving, but informed gut-feeling is sometimes correct. Apparent savings are often negated by changes in lifestyle: the German car makers have done wonder improving the efficiency of their engines, by until recently it had little overall effect, because of a trend to larger cars. Home insulation seems a self-evident proposition, but the effects are often out-weighed by changes in perceptions as to what is a comfortable temperature, entitlement to air-conditioning, or a move to larger living spaces or smaller households.
A straight CO2 tax is the only answer without interfering unconscionably in people's lives, but it's true, public acceptance is far to seek. Your project looks interesting, although smacking a bit of social engineering. I wish you luck.
Posted by: mfd512
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June 1, 2010 7:41 AM
Here's a proposal. How about on every thread where we get on our collective high horses and proclaim how to get off oil we start with a few facts about ourselves on what we're actually doing to make it happen.
What kind of car do you drive? Year, make, model, mpg
How many miles do you drive per year?
How far do you live from work?
How large is your house?
How many times have you flown on a plane, work or pleasure, in the last year?
I'll go first
1. 1996 Acura Integra, 4cyl 32 mpg highway/26 city
2. less than 10,000
3. 3 miles
4. 940 sq feet
5. 3 times, all for work, which is abnormally large. I doubt I'll fly again in the next 6-12 months.
PZ, you must spend a hell of alot on carbon offsets for that lecture circuit you're on.
Posted by: Knockgoats
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June 1, 2010 7:44 AM
scentofviolets,
Sigh. Condescending little shit, aren't you?
You can easily see then that efficiency is not the parameter to optimize, but rather the cost per watt. So there you're looking at something like those amorphous silicon cells that were going to go into production Real Soon Now . . . about thirty years ago.
That's basic physics, as I said.
Er, no. If you are looking at cost per watt, that is not basic physics, and it was you who initially emphasised efficiency. Do try and keep your story straight. Costs per watt for solar PV have fallen considerably over recent years, and depend to a great extent on the scale of manufacture. This fall in cost can be confidently expected to continue, although the rate at which it will occur is hard to predict and indeed, depends partly on demand.
Further, you didn't respond to my questions about overall costs and areas
I am not an expert in the field of renewable energy, so I provided two links to published, peer-reviewed papers by experts in that field. You, of course, have ignored them, because they don't fit your dogmatic claims.
Sigh. And yet, when I do it, it's just my personal opinion.
That's how you characterised it. You did, later, give a very vague idea what this opinion was based on, without identifying any specific event. I, on the other hand, specified particular historical instances right from the start, and also drew on ongoing research I happen to be leading. See the difference yet?
I'll see your four years of sacrifice and raise you several hundred years worth of Americans grabbing Indian land, Indian property, Indian resources. Are we really talking at that sophomoric a level?
Well, you are. We are arguing about what is plausible in future social behaviour; so examples of willingness to make sacrifices are clearly relevant. Now, you may be right that Americans are sufficiently evil to back repeated wars of aggression rather than make such sacrifices, but your certainty that this is so is unwarranted. Setting aside any moral considerations, such wars are not risk or cost-free, either for the elite or for the population as a whole - as recent events in Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated.
clausentum,
I really have difficulty believing your hatred of Greens is based on such trivia as you recount. The fact that Germans are committed to recycling is a good thing, trivial though the advantages may be in some cases: it means they are more likely to accept other environmental measures. I do agree that the German Greens' insistence on phasing out nuclear power without a clear alternative was wrong, but since they have not been part of the government for some years, it is very dubious to blame them for Germany not having an adequate energy policy now. (Germany is, b.t.w., installing solar PV at a rapid rate).
I understand your sarcasm at my opinion on energy saving, but informed gut-feeling is sometimes correct. Apparent savings are often negated by changes in lifestyle: the German car makers have done wonder improving the efficiency of their engines, by until recently it had little overall effect, because of a trend to larger cars. Home insulation seems a self-evident proposition, but the effects are often out-weighed by changes in perceptions as to what is a comfortable temperature, entitlement to air-conditioning, or a move to larger living spaces or smaller households.
Um, yes. It's called the rebound effect, and is one of the main issues the project I lead is studying. I'm not sure what an "informed gut feeling" is.
A straight CO2 tax is the only answer without interfering unconscionably in people's lives, but it's true, public acceptance is far to seek.
I agree that either a tax, or a carbon-rationing
system, is essential. Public acceptance, at least in western Europe, is in my view not that far to seek - a view based on the preliminary results of the project I lead.
Your project looks interesting, although smacking a bit of social engineering.
Of course it's social engineering! It's social engineering every time a law is passed, a pressure group is founded, a book advocating a particular course of action is published. WTF is it with the idiocy that calling something "social engineering" is an argument against it?
Posted by: Knockgoats
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June 1, 2010 7:57 AM
BTW clausentum,
accepting it were feasible to import our energy from there, it would make us horribly dependent, much more so than now, on countries at whose mercy we might prefer not to be.
Would you like to point me to the reserves of uranium in western Europe?
Posted by: clausentum
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June 1, 2010 8:46 AM
..yes, Knockgoats:
- the effects of the greens live on despite them no longer being a part of the government: the SPD has lost so much support to them, it's taken over their agenda on energy, and even the CDU scarcely has the stomach to do the sensible thing.
- perhaps you're not a technical man: with the lead times for uranium mining and processing, plus stockpiling, and the long fuel cycles, there's a considerable buffer against political blackmail. And if breeder reactors ever become a reality, the problem is completely solved. The solar electricity supply on the other hand could be stopped with immediate effect, literally at the turn of a switch.
Posted by: Knockgoats
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June 1, 2010 8:55 AM
clausentum,
the effects of the greens live on despite them no longer being a part of the government: the SPD has lost so much support to them, it's taken over their agenda on energy, and even the CDU scarcely has the stomach to do the sensible thing.
You are simply blaming the Greens for the decisions of other parties. Can't you see how silly this is?
Reasonable point on uranium. OTOH, nuclear energy does inevitably raise serious security issues in the transport of nuclear materials, which would be exacerbated by breeder reactors; and if someone is selling you something on a regular basis, they are likely to be as dependent on the income as you are on the product. Nor would we be by any means wholly dependent on (say) North African solar power.
Posted by: davej
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June 1, 2010 10:22 AM
How about requiring the development and installation of triple-redundant blow-out protectors henceforth and also the development of fast-response capping equipment for the current wells?
Posted by: David Marjanović
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June 1, 2010 1:31 PM
Breeder reactors need to be cooled with liquid sodium... <shudder>
Fortunately, uranium ore tends not to crop out at the surface... and I wouldn't want to live where it does.
Besides, 1000 years is still a damn long time.
Chernobyl.
Cher-fucking-nobyl.
The mysterious, mysterious reason why Germany's Greens got that one of their goals enacted when all others are historical curiosities at most. Oh how mysterious!
Never mind Three Mile Island, the stomach-cramping horror that is Windscale/Sellafield, and so on and so forth ad nauseam.
Posted by: Knockgoats
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June 1, 2010 1:46 PM
Chernobyl David Marjanović
Ah, but David, Chernobyl was the result of the deficiencies of Communism. Under capitalism, companies never cut corners, and always put safety before profit. That's why there's never been a case of - for example - an oil rig exploding because those expert employees warning of the dangers of a particular procedure were ignored.
Posted by: Jayanta
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June 2, 2010 3:08 PM
We now have the government saying that the leak will continue till August. Or maybe even until the entire well has emptied itself.
What exactly is the situation? A pipe has been drilled into the well, and now is gushing out oil into the ocean bed.
Solution: Dig a shaft, say about a mile deep next to the pipe (shouldn't take more than a few days to do). Detonate a very powerful bomb, maybe even a nuclear bomb. The oil will no longer have a clear path to the surface and the leak will stop.
Posted by: philipgrc10
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November 12, 2011 12:55 PM
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Posted by: philipgrc9
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