Gulf Coast Oil Spill

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

Didn't halliburton provide the casing that didn't work?

Yes, I believe they did. You've got a few service companies at large here.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by Azure

I also hear a lot of people blaming BP for not stopping the leak.

Who should those people be blaming instead?

I don't know, maybe it's because we live in Calgary, but I'm hearing a lot of weak excuses for this thing. Excuses from the same people who would normally say "don't expect the government to bail you out if you eff something up".

[Pinner]

Mr. Coffee, maybe you haven't noticed but alot of Americans are blaming Obama for not doing enough and fixing this already.

That's what I mean by saying it has become political. Somehow it's his fault when in fact Bush and Cheney probably had more to do with it by deregulating some of the redundancies previously required for BOPs.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by fotze

They probably provided the casing that was a
asked for.

I haven't seen anything that the casing did fail. The cement failed (I think), which is pretty independant of the casing. Even if the casing did fail, it may have been because it was the wrong strength for the well conditions, which wouldn't be the casings fault.

Sounds like it may have been the cement. I had a data up last year, the service company sent out the wrong cement blend and it never set up, was like jello. Was just a clerical error, maybe something like that happened. In that case BP as operator will pay the bill, but they would be going after halliburton or whoever did the cementing uncivil court.

I don't think it's totally clear yet whether or not it was just the cement though, isn't there still uncertainty as to things like the BOP system failing? Everything I hear is that nothing concrete (pardon the pun) is known about exactly what failed, have you read differently? My understanding was that it was a combination of screw ups.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by Pinner

Mr. Coffee, maybe you haven't noticed but alot of Americans are blaming Obama for not doing enough and fixing this already.

That's what I mean by saying it has become political. Somehow it's his fault when in fact Bush and Cheney probably had more to do with it by deregulating some of the redundancies previously required for BOPs.

Okay... so then why "only in America" would something like this become political though? That's how I interpreted your original statement.

My point is that no matter where you are, this event would have spurred questions surrounding lax regulations.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by fotze

I guess you missed my posts earlier in the thread.

Not really, I saw them, skimmed them... and they looked kind of boring so I moved on.

[Bownesian]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

Pretty sure an ecological disaster of this magnitude, you know, an oil spill that has now surpassed Exxon's Valdez in terms of ugliness, would be getting political attention no matter what country you're talking about.

This is now the worst oil spill in the the country's history.

I think that the US administration's efforts should be on helping the locals whose industries and livelihoods will be destroyed while making sure that they don't create a worse humanitarian problem by rushing people out to skim the water and clean the beaches without adequate protection from the dangerous compounds floating in the Gulf. They need to make sure that the approach of mixing surfactants is the best approach, long term, because this will be a long term problem. They need to determine how to prevent this situation for next time. The government's focus has to be on protecting people now and long term first, how to minimize the total environmental damage second and how to clean up the mess in a safe manner last.

Appearing on TV mad about the situation, creating the spin that the Government is in control of an uncontrolled situation and staging photo-ops at a beach won't stop the oil from flowing and won't stop soon to be out of work fishermen from being poisoned by volitile organic compounds or feed their families.

From all appearances, the flow will not be stopped until the late summer so people need to prepare for double or triple or more of the Valdez spill. I read on another message board that this is the oil industry's Chernobyl and I thought that description was pretty apt. Perhaps this will be the event that marks the first real turning point in our eventual march away from fossil fuels. I work in the industry but I know that we can't keep drilling deeper in more remote areas while increasing consumption of a limited resource.

We will eventually end up converting to a different primary energy source - most likely nuclear supplemented with wind and hydro power, but those energy sources are all much less portable than oil (thus requiring a very large supply) and all take a long time to build. I hope that we will start now while we have the cheap oil to do it with.

[Pinner]

Originally Posted by fotze

Sounds like it may have been the cement. I had a data up last year, the service company sent out the wrong cement blend and it never set up, was like jello. Was just a clerical error, maybe something like that happened.

It's normal for me to see a sample of cement sitting on the company man's desk in the field. (in a styrofoam cup)

Mr. Coffee seems to have a reading comprehension problem, go have a coffee mister.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Bownesian

Appearing on TV mad about the situation, creating the spin that the Government is in control of an uncontrolled situation and staging photo-ops at a beach won't stop the oil from flowing and won't stop soon to be out of work fishermen from being poisoned by volitile organic compounds or feed their families.

Great post, Bownesian--and really, this part is exactly what I was saying, though less eloquently. The notion that we should be concerned about how Obama appears (in control, angry, tough, whatever) is idiotic.

Obama's role in this crisis began and ended when he capitulated on offshore drilling. That may turn out to be the biggest blunder of his presidency--I sure hope there isn't a bigger one--but the idea that somehow he should be indicted for his post-crisis demeanour is just stupid. Press conferences aren't going to fix anything; how you sound or seem doesn't matter.

This isn't even a political problem anymore. It's an ecological one. Let's stop worrying about the colour of Obama's tie (is it angry enough?) and start worrying about how the impact of a disaster like this could be mitigated.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by Bownesian

I think that the US administration's efforts should be on helping the locals whose industries and livelihoods will be destroyed while making sure that they don't create a worse humanitarian problem by rushing people out to skim the water and clean the beaches without adequate protection from the dangerous compounds floating in the Gulf. They need to make sure that the approach of mixing surfactants is the best approach, long term, because this will be a long term problem. They need to determine how to prevent this situation for next time. The government's focus has to be on protecting people now and long term first, how to minimize the total environmental damage second and how to clean up the mess in a safe manner last.

Appearing on TV mad about the situation, creating the spin that the Government is in control of an uncontrolled situation and staging photo-ops at a beach won't stop the oil from flowing and won't stop soon to be out of work fishermen from being poisoned by volitile organic compounds or feed their families.

From all appearances, the flow will not be stopped until the late summer so people need to prepare for double or triple or more of the Valdez spill. I read on another message board that this is the oil industry's Chernobyl and I thought that description was pretty apt. Perhaps this will be the event that marks the first real turning point in our eventual march away from fossil fuels. I work in the industry but I know that we can't keep drilling deeper in more remote areas while increasing consumption of a limited resource.

We will eventually end up converting to a different primary energy source - most likely nuclear supplemented with wind and hydro power, but those energy sources are all much less portable than oil (thus requiring a very large supply) and all take a long time to build. I hope that we will start now while we have the cheap oil to do it with.

Natural gas is probably the next logical energy input over the next 10 to 20 years according to some pretty prominent researchers in and around town. I know that it's still a non-renewable resource but it's a hell of a lot cleaner and the supply (onshore) is pretty impressive if all estimates are true for shale gas reserves.

But energy substitutes won't happen without price surges. Back in the day, whale blubber was a major energy source until we discovered petroleum and its various uses. So you're not going to see the move to energy substitutes until the price of oil sky rockets in my opinion because so many manufacturers that use oil as an input won't have a need to change their business until their businesses are directly affected. Environment notwithstanding, unfortunately.

[calumniate]

It's just so sad that technology exists to nuke the world and we can't cap a @#$Q#J oil well. This doesn't give me a good feeling. We've been screwing the ocean for centuries. It's going to come back to haunt us.

[Pinner]

Originally Posted by Bownesian

We will eventually end up converting to a different primary energy source - most likely nuclear supplemented with wind and hydro power, but those energy sources are all much less portable than oil (thus requiring a very large supply) and all take a long time to build. I hope that we will start now while we have the cheap oil to do it with.

We need oil right now but we should/will be switching to natural gas for alot of our needs (transportation) because we now have a huge supply, so much in fact we will not be selling to the U.S. much longer, now that they have their own supply.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by Pinner

Only in the states a blowout could become political.

Originally Posted by Pinner

Mr. Coffee, maybe you haven't noticed but alot of Americans are blaming Obama for not doing enough and fixing this already.

That's what I mean by saying it has become political. Somehow it's his fault when in fact Bush and Cheney probably had more to do with it by deregulating some of the redundancies previously required for BOPs.

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

Okay... so then why "only in America" would something like this become political though? That's how I interpreted your original statement.

My point is that no matter where you are, this event would have spurred questions surrounding lax regulations.

Originally Posted by Pinner

Mr. Coffee seems to have a reading comprehension problem, go have a coffee mister.

?????

[Pinner]

Originally Posted by calumniate

It's going to come back to haunt us.

Seafood Gumbo

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by Pinner

We need oil right now but we should/will be switching to natural gas for alot of our needs (transportation) because we now have a huge supply, so much in fact we will not be selling to the U.S. much longer, now that they have their own supply.

That's fine, we'll sell to Asia and Europe too, assuming they can get an LNG port and accept it.

Maybe Europe's tired of being manipulated by Russian agenda revolving around being the primary natural gas provider for the continent.

[Pinner]

You know alot and I respect your opinion fotze.

[photon]

Has this been posted yet?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/us...pagewanted=all

If so sorry.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by Pinner

You know alot and I respect your opinion fotze.

haha... okay let me get this straight. I point out that something like this wouldn't only happen in the States, which is what you stated, and then you say that I can't read and that I'm a dickwad because the guy I work with is poking fun at me?

Only on Calgarypuck, do I not respect fotze's opinions.

Oh and... relax.

[Pinner]

Take it easy on the coffee mister

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by fotze

I haven't read that, who is making excuses. BP fataed up big time, who is saying otherwise?

The story is being twisted shift some of the blame on to a certain politician's soundbites not being strong enough to stop the oil from coming out of the ground, so now it is partially his fault. And I quoted a post on here that said something like "people are blaming BP for not being able to stop the leak", as though it's a bad thing.