Thinking about the BP Oil spill...

[tommyt654]

I would suggest everyone watch the movie, Its available on HBO,S on demand and I,ll reserve my judgement till congress gets done with them, but B.P,s and Halliburtons involvment leaves little to be desired, but the flaming water faucets and creekbeds out west are very scary,not to mention whats going on around the Dallas/Ft.Worth area, just food for thought.

[jabe]

Gasland

I watched that documentary and it's scary. Imagine your drinking water catching on fire because of all the toxins from fracturing seeping into your water source. It's happening in our ranching country, so a lot of the cattle/cows are drinking this water and their meat/milk will be on your dinner table. Haliburton developed this propreitary fracturing procedure which uses 596 different chemicals (some known carcinogens) and became excempt from the Clean Water Act, due to you guessed it former VP Dick Chaney. Now our sea food is being polluted with this oil spill in the gulf, what're you going to eat? That documentary might be 5 % truth & 95% exageration but I'm not going to take that chance with my family. We are not pollution free here in Hawaii but at least we cannot set our our drinking water on fire. I know, I'll be eating more local produce/seafood & livestock raised here in Hawaii.

[billwmeyer]

They keep talking about the problems with the ice crystals, and I keep wondering if the ice is a solution instead of a problem. Liquid helium anyone? Ok, I am way out of my league here. I am just a beancounter, not an engineer! I do hope something works soon.

Bill

[jackellis]

The rationale is simple and not dumb if you accept two facts:

Most of what you say makes sense, but there's no way to guarantee this won't happen again because there is no ironclad way to ensure humans won't take shortcuts. I can tell you some rather amusing stories about pencil-whipping log books in the aviation business, for example.

So either a federal inspector has to be on board with authority from both the government and the companies involved to override the on-site managers and shut things down, or it seems to me there needs to be a moratorium until engineers come up with better methods to control a blowout or a leak once it's under way.

[LCHIEN]

Most of what you say makes sense, but there's no way to guarantee this won't happen again because there is no ironclad way to ensure humans won't take shortcuts. I can tell you some rather amusing stories about pencil-whipping log books in the aviation business, for example.

So either a federal inspector has to be on board with authority from both the government and the companies involved to override the on-site managers and shut things down, or it seems to me there needs to be a moratorium until engineers come up with better methods to control a blowout or a leak once it's under way.

You asked me why the governors wanted to allow deepwater drilling and I explained that. Sure there's a possibility of failure like BP again. But its remote (let's not argue just how remote), especially compared to the likelihood of economic distress in their state.

A federal inspector sounds like a good idea. But he will require a high degree of skill in the art of well drilling and marine operations. They will come from the same pool of personnel that the Oil companies seek out. Its a hard life offshore - Many of the decisions are made on-shore using real-time data uplinks and communications to the rigs. One of the complaints has been that qualified supervisors for the oil companies are very expensive and don't want to work offshore - thus the reason for the comm links. The company man offshore (e.g. the BP rep on board) have been gravitating to less experienced guys who talk to the experienced guys onshore.

Keeping the Gov Rep aboard up to speed technically and not subject to pressure will be a herculean task. He'll have a status sort of like the communist party rep on board all soviet subs in the past - despised by all on the sub and thought of as an interloper and obstacle. Usually a loner and often a social misfit. Has a great deal of power to override the captain - but often afraid to use it or sometimes uses it for the wrong reasons.

Not against it necessarily but just listing some of the problems I would see.