Another Perspective on the BP Oil Spill
After the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, oil spewed into the Gulf at a (conservatively) estimated rate of 5,000 barrels a day for more than a month. And nearly as much ink has been spilled condemning BP, the oil company that leased the deep-water rig and is now spearheading the cleanup.
All that vitriol directed toward BP from the blogosphere, the mainstream media, and the U.S. government has had a discernible effect on public opinion: A recent CNN/Opinion Research poll found that 76 percent of respondents disapprove of the way BP has handled the spill.
And no wonder. BP appears to have consistently underestimated the scope of the spill and overestimated the chances of various proposed fixes. Tony Hayward, the chief executive of BP, admitted frankly that he underestimated the extent of environmental damage the spill could inflict on the Gulf Coast ecosystem. And the current spill is only the latest in a series of unfortunate accidents — a March 2005 explosion at a BP refinery in Texas killed 15 people — that have brought deserved scrutiny to BP’s safety practices and procedures.
But before we ride BP out on the rails, consider this: Finding and extracting oil from the earth ranks among the most dangerous of occupations. And thanks to regulations and pressure from environmental groups, oil companies are largely prevented from seeking new oil reserves near U.S. coasts, forcing them out into deep water where the dangers and complexities of an already dangerous and complex business increase one hundred-fold.
A good way to honor these workers is to clean up and restore the spillage, BP to pay for the whole mess, and invest in research for alternative fuels.
About H2 fuel cells: “The National Hydrogen Association and the U.S. Fuel Cell Council criticized this decision (by the Obama administration) arguing that “…the cuts proposed in the DOE hydrogen and fuel cell program threaten to disrupt commercialization of a family of technologies that are showing exceptional promise and beginning to gain market traction.”
There are numerous prototype or production cars and buses based on fuel cell technology being researched or manufactured by motor car manufacturers.”
What are you waiting for, Obama?
What was it Rahm said? Never let a good crisis go to waste.
What is it about liberals that they can’t resist spending other people’s money on schemes that not only won’t work, but are proven losers.
quote Markthefake: “proven loser”; “paranoia”; “3 to 4 years, you won’t be able to tell that a spill ever happened”;
Appears we have the oil industry shill poster with us: Markthefake “always there to defend big oil and spread canards about the real alternatives to oil: Markthefake
Jay,
are you here to tell us how you are creating ethanol out of nothing again?
Why is it that liberals not only can’t do math, but get offended when other people reveal their errors?
Marktheflake: Big oily man bigger oily lies,
Hey Jay, since you are obviously ignorant, I’ll clue in on a little piece of reality.
Hydrogen is almost always made from natural gas.
….hydrogen is separated from fossil fuels for hydrogen fuel celled cars but normally pure hydrogen is made by electrolysis. Not unlike those school experiments in science class.
to make hydrogen (actually split water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen) requires energy
…nothing is free except the money liberals steal from people who produce to give it the the victim class.
Markthe flake: in no post have I ever discussed that alternitive
Marktheflake: big oily man, bigger oily lies.
nice to have the oil industry rep!
If that technology were really that good, they’d be able to sell it to investors.
Shh, you’ll hurt vivo and Jays feelings.
How about this,
It is all about the income being equal or larger for them. Until this corporations find a way to replace this oil based income, moving forward to alternative energies won’t happened. We have had the capability to make electric cars powered by solar panels that keep charges even when the sun is down for about twenty years if no longer but is has not happened because, what would happen? no more OIL changes, no more gas, no more additives, no more transmission fluid, no more brake fluid, etc, etc, etc.
If hydrogen fuel cells are such a great idea, why do they need taxpayer money? Either it is commercially viable technology or it isn’t. I don’t remember hearing about Edison, Bell, Whitney or Gates getting millions of taxpayer dollars in developing their inventions. The good ones succeeded in the market, and the not so good ones failed.
Oil & gas are commercially viable without taxpayer dollars, hydrogen fuel cells, wind mills, solar panels, ethanol aren’t. Until they are commercially viable, oil and gas is what we need.
That’s the American way.
If you read about hydrogen fuel cells, you’ll find out that the technology is viable. The resistance comes from changing the infracstructure: gas stations, distribution, auto engines, and loss of business to the oil industry.
This ‘unviability’ forces the government to act and pump money, just like any other entrepreneur. Bet you can’t think the gov’t can be entrepreneurial . . . (Your conservative brain is programmed to think only rigid concepts)
BP and other companies are looking into alternative fuels. We have been doing so for decades. The truth is that without heavy subsidies no company is going to do this work because they know the payout is minimal. These alternative sources can provide only limited amounts of what we need. We are a world that runs on oil, like it or not, and we can’t change overnight. It took 100 years to get to this point. It is immature to think we can just switch to unproven and ineffective sources and retain our lifestyles. If, on the other hand, your goal is to live in some environmental Utopia, I suggest you go to bed and dream. That’s the only way it’s going to happen unless we return to the Stone Ages.
A very thoughtful piece. In an ideal world, we would all now be 1) rooting every minute for BP and the assembled experts to stop the leak 2) for all levels of government to provide constructive help toward that end 3) for honest and thoughtful “post-mortems” that think about things like why are we getting the “necessary” oil 45 miles from shore in extremely hard scenarios when there is vast oil in remote regions of our country, right under the surface, where risks are minimal.
Obama did not create the spill, though I have read, amazingly, that the Government was involved in actually well drilling decisions just prior to the explosion. Likewise, George Bush did not create Katrina, but was nevertheless villified endlessly for his response. Democrats should remember what motivated their post-Katrina response. Was it “how can we help” or “how can we use the to destroy Bush”? I think we all know.
“Another Perspective on the BP Oil Spill”
Just as Iraq was invaded solely to keep the vast majority of Iraqi oil off the market;
And just as the USA is committed to keep the Iranian dictators, that parade as religious, in power at all cost; specifically to limit the development of Iranian oil: limit world supply;
I do not put it past BP to create an environment to limit off shore drilling and therefore the world supply of oil;
Oh, limit supply = high price! glut of oil = lower price!
circa 1973; “Oh my, we are running out of oil!”
Did you take lessons in paranoia, or does it come naturally?
marktheflake: describes himself again
marktheflake: BP’s rep on PJ
Iraqi oil was already off the market. Remember the UN ban?
The invasion allowed Iraq to start selling it’s oil openly for the first time in a decade. It also allowed them to invest in equipment that has enabled them to greatly increase their output.
BP deliberately caused a spill, that’s costing them billions, perhaps as much as a hundred billion dollars. All to gain a couple of billion dollars? (assuming they aren’t driven into bankruptcy.)
“Remember the UN ban?”
Yes we do, and we should also remember the corrupt UN letting Saddam sell his oil to the Russians, French and Germans and get massive kick backs for their socialist “leaders” and the corruptocrats at the UN, the focus of evil in the world.
Lying scammers, the Europeans and world government body.
Jay, the most recent guesses about the extent of the leak show that about 13,000 barrels(40 gallon units) a day are leaking. This would make the BP well one of the most prolific discoveries in a long time/ BP is in business to make a profit. They would get over $800,000.00 per day for this well and would take that any day. They aren’t about to blow off a mother lode like this to see if they can affect world oil prices, which they can’t. BP will end up paying several billion dollars to clean this up and will spend years recovering from the cost of the clean-up. Don’t be so paranoid about BP.
Last time I checked, oil prices were falling.
I guess the evil genius’s plan to raise oil prices isn’t working.
Check again, they just made an announcement that the price will rise due to the spill
If…if…there was a conspiracy..it would be to limit, cut off, drilling in or around the USA, by the USA..”if”.. and to have “us” completely foreign dependent.
I do believe the majority of Americans are naive as to what is going on..just as I am to most of this mess. Plus, I don’t believe the majority cares, unless it hits their checkbook or their heart.
Our prayers and deepest condolence go out to the families of the lost.
The political posturing and bloviation that surround this disaster have shown that we don’t have people of competence where they’re needed most: in the White House. Obama’s ineptitude will cost this country literally billions of dollars unecessarily.
Now he wants to throw up his hands and quit drilling in the Gulf, just like his radical environmentalist handlers want him to. Washington supposedly had a plan in place to deal with such disasters after the Exxon Valdez spill, why wasn’t that plan implemented withing hours of the explosion to contain the leaked oil and burn it far out to sea? Why wasn’t this plan tested for readiness? Why didn’t anyone in charge know that there were no oil booms available, and therefore the plan wasn’t tenable?
There was once a time when we recognized danger and prepared for it, instead of giving up and walking away. Perhaps when we get over this little fling with weak-willed and inept leadership, we’ll start electing people who actually know what they’re doing and can respond to inevitable disasters with the “can-do” attitude that America once admired.
Early on, and due to the toxic nature of chemical dispersants, Governor Jindal asked that the surface oil be ignited before it began to sink. His request was denied. The Agitator-in-Chief could have lessened the calamity by immediately ceding authority over the entire project to Jindal, a problem-solving leader.
It really bugs me to hear all the eco-nuts whining about the “irreversable” damage this spill is causing. BS. In 3 to 4 years, you won’t be able to tell that a spill ever happened.
Ditto that.
the spill is bad ..but no where near as bad as the liberals make it out to be. there are even fissures that release oil into the sea naturally. go figure.
unfortunately we will all pay a price much higher then necessary thanks to the morons who now occupy the white house.
Sorry, but as someone who lives in SE Louisiana I have to disagree with you. This spill is definitely as bad as they suggest. The worst part is that the oil is flowing into our marshes which will be impossible to clean up. I noticed several people comparing our spill to the one in Mexico. The coast of Louisiana is very different from the Bay of Campeche where the Mexican oil spill occurred. It is much easier to clean their part of the Gulf than it will be to clean ours because of the fact that LA has so few beaches and a lot more wetlands.
Indeed, let’s maintain some perspective here.
The Ixtoc I leak that occurred in the 1980s leaked at 2 – 3 times the rate this well is leaking, and it took the Mexican government over 9 months to get it stopped. Yet the Gulf recovered just fine.
What’s more, the Mexican government refused to pay for any of the damages it caused. I expect BP will pay for everything.
That doesn’t mean this leak is not a big problem — it is.
But bear in mind that BP is a major player in the global oil industry — and that industry supplies virtually all the fuel that powers the global economy. And it is the global economy that feeds, clothes and houses some 6+ billion human beings every day.
So the global oil industry — including BP — provide enormously valuable products that support and enhance the lives of billions of human beings. Any industry that does so much deserves a great deal of respect and gratitude. Even given its occasional accidents and failures and the harm they bring, the good it has done and is doing vastly exceeds that harm.
BP will eventually get this leak plugged, clean up the Gulf and compensate all those who’ve been harmed. They will learn from this accident and make changes to equipment and procedures to make future accidents less likely. And life will go on.
But we must keep drilling. The global economy that keeps us all alive needs the fuel to keep functioning.
The spill in Mexico happened in 1979 and they have not had a spill since. They cleaned it up with voluntary help, the government and the aid of the UN. It is very different on this one because of the depth of the leak and the current that travels the world (same current that led Katrina) if they don’t hurry how are they going to pay for all the world’s damage?
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Ah Ha!
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I knew this environmental disaster of the 5th imaginable quantum magnitude was all Bush’s fault.
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WUSSIE!
Several humorous cartoons on Obama’s real relationship with Big Oil at http://drawfortruth.wordpress.com/category/big-oil-2/
Let’s see, we could be drilling at ground zero, sea level, Alaska, the Arctic Wild Life Refuge, where a blow out can be stopped almost immediately in an unpopulated environment not the center for shipping, fishing, and tourism for half the nation. No, let’s be stupid. Thanks to Beverly Hill’s greens, British Petroleum, headquartered in London, gets to drill at sea bed level five thousand feet down in the middle of the Caribbean where it’s almost impossible to stop a blow out in less than three months. Doubtless an act of prescience, the President did send back Winston Churchill’s bust to the Brits to reset our special relationship, and withdrew all those above ground oil properties in the West from future exploration that Bush had opened up. You can’t fix stupid.
We could also be drilling on the continental shelf, in just a few hundred feet of water. Using technology that is decades old instead of the cutting edge stuff needed to drill in 5000 feet of water.
I agree with you completely. There is no reason that BP should be drilling in 5000ft of water especially since we now realize that they obviously have no idea how to stop a leak at that depth! As for the environmentalists in Beverly Hills I believe that they actually want this spill to be a disaster. They see the spill as proof that we should not be drilling for oil at all.
A related ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVehAAwh0gY&feature=player_embedded
Those of you that think this oil spill is something that will be “all over and back to normal in a couple of years”..need to come on down here. See the marshlands. I’m not an eco nut, but I know when things are not being done like they should be, or should I say when “nothing” is being accomplished. The Feds have not given the help , and there is no plan in action along the Gulf..so who screwed up>
It’s not an “irreversible” situation. It will be tough. 20 years+. The wetlands are delicate. The oyster beds will take several years. The shrimp etc coming out of the Gulf will suspect for several years. This incident will put a stop to drilling for a while and limit it greatly. We do need to find alternative energy sources. HOWEVER< keep drilling, "drill baby drill", while we investigate lower cost alternative energy.
Many other countries are drilling all around the Gulf..what happens if such an incident occurs with them?
Maybe, just maybe, they will realize when things are going wrong and shut down and fix it, ie the BOP on Deep Water. This well had too many problems that were obviously not addressed as they happened. Where were/are the contingency plans..oh, there were/are none..riiight..
But to say the people are over reacting is irresponsible. Where was the order to burn when we could have… This needs to be contained before it hits the loop current.
Is this all Obama's fault? Of course not. However, he has shown an ineptitude in handling a major catastrophe. James Carville, Matalin, and Billy Nungesser have it right on target!!
Thank heavens for Jindal and his ability to dig in and do what's right for his state no matter whose federal toes he steps on.
Experience in other parts of the world indicate that it only takes a few years for the environment to recover.
The only alternative to oil is nuclear, and even that gets federal subsidies. For transportation needs, there are no cheap alternatives to oil.
What Federal subsidies? If you mean the DOE, they deal with military tech and education- maybe it should be eliminated, but the debate needs to be honest. If you mean loan guarantees, the nuclear industry pays for those; the government is just writing and selling an insurance policy that no private company would ever write, not because it’s not a good deal, but because no private company could pay off on the policy if they had to. If you mean assuming the waste disposal liability, the rate payers pay for that, too, with a $1/MWh tax on nuclear power to pay for used fuel disposal.
here is some information on oil naturally spilling into the ocean
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/01/000127082228.htm
As long as the environmental groups who strong-armed politicians into these laws
and regulations about where oil can be drilled for, and where it cannot be drilled for, I say shine the light on their hypocrisy.
As long as they demonize the Oil industry, yet support it by purchasing petroleum products, they deserve the label, “Hypocrite”!
Matt, I don’t think yours is simply another perspective, I think it’s an invaluable perspective. Your piece honors some very honorable people. Heroes? To me, many are. You’ll sleep good tonight knowing that this had to be written. I salute you.
As to the oil spill, yesterday I started looking at it from a different perspective. I saw it kind of as a metaphor for the total screw up that I believe is the Obama administration. It’s long. But it’s got a thread throughout that I think hands together pretty well.
If you have the time to read it, let me know what you think. Rach
HEADLINE:
I ask you to visualize the gushing undersea oil spill as I attempt to explain Obama.
I was sitting in the service department of a car dealer yesterday watching some putrid CNN type channel, looking at all the oil oozing out of the broken pipe, and suddenly everything became clearer. I don’t mean suddenly I had the ability to explain why the sound of Kelly Tilghman’s voice makes me turn off the golf channel. But all of a sudden, I began to understand why Barack Obama makes me sick.
You see, when I watched that gushing oil flow, the biggest and most avoidable environmental disaster in the history of America, it made me think of other Obama blights weighing down this nation. For example, I was reminded of all the taxpayer money Obama’s squandered, imagining nicely packed wads of taxpayer money gushing through a black hole. I felt disgusted; sick; like I’d just drunk a half glass of the heavy black stuff.
And I blamed Obama who opened the money valve way back in the Stimulus Lying Days of 2009 and, in the name of heading off more than 8% unemployment, for letting it wastefully gush forth. Down a bottomless pit. Day after day, much like the oil pollutes the waters around the southern United States, Obama’s money spill is killing the chances of our children to know their American Dream; to have a better life than we did. In the name of global governance, Obama is destroying the American dream. The interest on the trillions gushing out of Obama’s black hole effectively sinks our children’s chances of having a better life than we did. And as they get older, they’ll realize that Obama’s financial draining of America has delt a death blow to Midicare. And Social Security. The trillion upon trillion of taxpayer-wasted-dollars that is ObamaCare is destined not just to ruin the world’s best health care system, but one day to eviscerate the American economy. You see, just around the corner, many economists believe, is hyperinflation. Which not only will make American dollars almost worthless, but will be the depression Obama said he had avoided.
Bottom line, Obama’s financial schemes are killing free enterprise. He’s letting its vibrance and life seep away. His takeovers mean the days of a robust private enterprise economy are done for. Obama did the equivalent of taking an AK-47 Russian assault rifle and riddled every profit motive he could find, which is the only real and lasting way to create jobs. Barack, let’s remember, is a graduate of the Saul Alinsky school of Communism that teaches you how to destroy capitalism. He learned his lessons well, doing the exact opposite of what this country needed and needs, and he smiles and laughs and says we should be thanking him for killing us.
The snide snake oil salesman wants government jobs to increase ten-fold while crippling, though high taxes and over regulation, the chance of private enterprise jobs, really the engine of America, to flourish. Well, slick Obama, with the help of his Democratic enablers, is getting what he wanted. And what he hopes to do to kill America’s future. The reason Obama loves increasing political, governmental jobs: To keep them, people feel they have to vote Democratic because that’s the party of huge government. It’s the party of entitlements that overload our debt and kill our car companies. It’s the party of labor unions that send their goons to terrorize a 14 year old boy alone at home because they have some grudge against a banker father. They’re absent of any sense of decency. Morally, they are the poster child for extreme corruption, making Chicago style corruption pale by comparison.
For many of the same reasons, and as he tries to kill this country, Obama talks about comprehensive immigration reform. You see, like oil gushing forth produces a dead environment and dead industries like fishing and tourism, illegal aliens that pour like poison into this country represent potential Democratic voters, and the Obama government, rather than trying to stop it, welcomes it. Without reading them, Obama criticizes all laws that would enforce turning off the illegal alien people valve. Potentially, he sees them as increasing his political death grip on this country. And directs his ICE guy to announce that he won’t enforce any state law that tries to turn off the illegal immigrant people spigot causing American dollars to pour out, paying for everything from their medical care and schooling, to mopping up the blood and carnage when aliens maim, rape and kill tens of thousands of American citizens. Obama slickly calls this collateral damage, “worth it considering the potential votes these illegals may one day provide.”
Under Obama, terrorists gush forth, too. The international two-bit commie dictator Apology Tour, in part, was designed to prime the pump. After 9/11, there were zero terrorist attacks on our soil. Since Zero’s taken over, thanks to a criminally ineffective home security head, Janet Nepolitano, (who likes to call terrorist attacks, “man made disasters,”) the numbers of terrorist attacks have been rising like a rocket. Obama can’t even bring himself to call radical Islamic terrorists what they are. Which is about the only valve Obama can turn off.
At the same time, something else gushes forth. Hope. Enemy hope.
In the eyes of our enemies, Obama’s dismantling the power and potential of America’s missile defense system feeds the belief that America has lost its will, and can be beaten. The threats of international imminent attacks on America’s allies, like the oil spill, are now pouring forth. North Korea doesn’t think Obama has the will or desire to defend South Korea. Neither do I. Moreover, Russia saw Obama break national pledges to install missile defense systems for Poland and the Czech Republic. “The Poles and the Czechs know what it means to live under the boot of Russian domination. Obama’s decision to leave the two country’s unprotected represents a massive surrender of American strategic influence and a betrayal of two of its closest friends in the region.” (The Foundry, Sept. 17, 2009)
Other things that have been flowing like oil from broken pipes out of Corruption Inc., AKA, the Obama Administration, are bribes. The Cornhusker Kickback. The Louisiana Purchase. Both, dirty examples of buying Democratic votes for ObamaCare. Now, of course, Obama has taken bribes to a new level, a criminal level, by offering Joe Sustak the position of Navy Secretary for getting out of the senate race with Arlen Specter. The slippery administration, lying through their oil stained teeth, said that Bill Clinton had offered Sestak a worthless, non-paid position to leave the race. More Frequent Liar Miles for Obama. For obvious reasons, no special prosecutor will be named. In the Obama administration, the lies and corruption and attempts to destroy America fiscally, socially and militarily continue to spew forth like oil oozing through a broken pipe a mile beneath the sea. Obama is so far removed from honesty, integrity and belief in America that he’d be able to take a highly paid job in a huge office building in Red Square and not miss a beat.
Whatever good Obama touches, Obama kills. Be it fish, a system of government of the United States, free enterprise, the American Dream, national defense. You name it. Obama’s either seriously weakened it, or is in the process of killing it. Intentionally. With fervor. And it stinks. But then, why should that surprise me? Obama’s stench has filled the air of freedom for 16 plus months now. Then again, as the saying goes, the fish stinks from the head. Although I haven’t spoken to any of them, I’m confident the fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico would agree.
As always, great post. You have summed it well. Thanks!
Nice work Rachel. Thanks for reading, and for the kind words.
-M
As a long time reader of PJM, I know you hated Obama from day one. You have no credibility.
My friend,
While you were into your deep thought at the service department; did you happen to notice ho many oil based products being used there? It is a money game. Until this corporations find a way to replace this oil based income, moving forward to alternative energies won’t happened. We have had the capability to make electric cars powered by solar panels that keep charges even when the sun is down for about twenty years if no longer but is has not happened because, what would happen? no more OIL changes, no more gas, no more additives, no more transmission fluid, no more brake fluid, etc, etc, etc. I hope you also had the chance to think about that in you long wait
MarkTheGreat: You da man! Thanks for the straight talk. I once heard it said that he who refuses to run the numbers is destined to talk foolishness, or something close to that.
What these enlightened “smart guys” refuse to acknowledge is that yes, you can live with alternative energy sources, but, and this is a huge BUT, not at anything near the standard of living they are accustomed to.
Petroleum provides a concentrated form of energy that can be transported with relative ease. It can be stored and used as needed, and it can be used where there are no power lines. Wind and solar are diffuse forms of energy that must first be collected, and once collected they cannot be stored. They can only be used as they are being collected. Then the energy can only be transported and used as electricity, at considerable expense, and only to where the electrical grid can take it. Not everything runs on electricity nor can it be made to. The production of ethanol, it has been demonstrated many times, consumes as much energy as is produced.
The idea that ethanol, wind, or solar,(which by the way, are all ultimately derived from the sun), is nothing but pie in the sky foolish talk by those who steadfastly refuse to run the numbers.
Regarding this oil leak, it never ceases to amaze that the first priority of some in power is to find some one to blame and demonize, rather than to find a solution to the problem.
Great article Matt. I cheered aloud that someone finally wrote a piece like this.
I would love to see an article outlining the risks of drilling and pumping in deep water compared to the safer areas that have been special-interest legislated closed. A list of the safer, closed areas along with the reasons they were closed would be very interesting.
we are missing the real picture. The 100 ton dome won’t work because ice crystals were plugging it up? Key word “plugging” they are trying to save the well
Mike: I believe that you are correct. BP is concerned with saving the well; in my opinion it is inexcusable that this company is willing to destroy my State and the entire Gulf Coast region in order to try to save the well. Also, this should have been taken care of a month ago.
Follow the money and the gold, (Including black)and you will find the culprits!!! Who loves money the most, governments, banks and corporations!!!! They are all guilty, they are peas of the same pod!!!
How many of the oh so brave critics of the management of this “oilspill” are university graduates, and spoiled students / adolescents :chronologically and mentally / emotionally? As are the Chief Executive and his minions of the US of A? The question is: who of the critics and know – it – alls has ever EVER got his hands dirty doing a REAL JOB that serves many millions of persons world-wide WITHOUT publicity and praise — and substantial monetary rewards? IN CONTRAST to those messengers / of what is right,who’s in, who’s out who make great sums of money and social privilege for no more service to others than being poison – pen writers and malicious gossip hounds?
I am a university graduate, but even if I wasn’t, it is not hard for one to look at a simple tiny grilling propane tank, and notice the shut off valve and the emergency pressure relief valve. Why were either of those missing on this well? Well sealed with a cap? what happens to a beer if you shake it vigorously? the cap comes off. We are talking the core pressure here, how long can that tiny cap handle it especially with all the earthquakes lately?
Drilling for oil is risky. Absolutely. However BP’s risk management seems to be directed at minimising the cost of liability rather than minimising impact of a problem. If they (and I dare say that the rest of the oil companies are the same) put money into engineering contingency rather than legal mitigation, then we wouldn’t be looking at a problem on such a scale – particularly as we head into hurricane season.
Remember the Ford Pinto? Seems like some accountant types in BP made a bet on people’s lives and guess what?. They lost so we all lost!