Rolling 2010 Oil Spill Thread

I just can't believe there's a giant artery of OIL gushing thousands of gallons into the Gulf and it's going to take a minimum of 90 days to stop. can you even stop it? how do you get down there? what if it doesn't work?

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NHVPmXi04PI/RrALG6oLHHI/AAAAAAAAAOU/JNgqO_5i5Vo/S660/cthulhu-ocean2.jpg

it was nice knowing you guys, see you in the next life

I think the 90 days estimate is coming from the amount of time it would take to drill a SECOND well on the seabed to siphon off some of the oil/reduce the pressure on the gusher. At first that idea was floated as sort of a worst-case scenario plan, in case all the other ideas didn't work, but it's looking more and more likely from what I'm seeing. I just watched the new Coast Guard leader on the spill, Admiral forgot his name, on Meet the Press, and when he was asked about what countermeasures they're taking, he was still saying something like "BP is working very hard on plans to mitigate the..." Given BP's track record of success on this over the past week, umm...

what incentive does BP have to deal with this in a timely manner?

They're on the hook for cleanup costs, which of course increase with every day that the oil is still leaking.

To me, its not so much about defending big oil.

So far, alternatives to petroleum for liquid vehicular fuel are few and (as yet) not competitively priced.

If we believe we can simply stop producing from domestic resources, we're simply displacing the production to other, often more ecologically sensitive areas of the world. While its possible that we (in the US) as a service economy might survive by cutting each others's hair, creating financial industries devoted to disguising risk, or sponsoring our empire's version of gladitorial combat in the judicial system, none of those are readily exportable.

Perhaps China will continue to extend our credit lines. But when the rinminbi is revalued, it will be to halt supply driven price inflation within China. The rinminbi can be revalued much higher to better bid for limited world resources, before it impacts that nation's labor price advantage. They can outbid us for any surplus petroleum energy easily, even at current exchange rates.

We (in the US) only produce about 30% of our liquid fuel/petroleum needs. For 60 years an suburban infrastructure development has been predicated upon cheap liquid fuels for transportation.

Can you walk to work?

In a decade US oil demand coverage goes to 20% (or less), while world supply declines. This will be worst for nations who are too small to have reserve currencies. But its bad, very bad, for the US as well. Any industry subject to trade might benefit from the leveling of currencies and relative labor costs, but it will be harmed as raw materials climb.

We (in the US) still have some liquid fuel reserves that might be exploited, and their contribution will be to defer the day our suburban sprawl must become self sufficient. They can buy us time to convert to shale gas, wind, solar and other fuels.

As for the oil industry, the U.S. Gulf of Mexico is one prospective basin among about 40 worldwide. The capital (rigs and other capital intensive items) will move elsewhere, and 20,000 America-based mid-skilled workers will have to find alternative means of support.

I agree, especially on the point that less production here just means more production elsewhere. It's the opposition to any measure that might even REDUCE the use of oil and other fossil fuels that is outrageous. Between the mid-70s and last year, fuel efficiency of our vehicle fleet actually DECREASED, even as 40 mpg became the norm in Europe and Japan. High speed trains? Even as, again, Europe and Asia made rapid advances so that their citizens would have the option of traveling conveniently and relatively cheaply from city to city, we let our passenger rail system collapse over the past century.

And, of course, there's the biggest gift of all to the oil industry - the refusal to even consider a price on carbon. Alternatives to oil and coal already are competitively priced, if the costs of oil and coal reflected their true costs to the environment and society. That's a subsidy to the oil industry that comes in the form of a cost that should be imposed but isn't. On top of that there are more transparent subsidies, like reduced corporate income taxes on companies that are making higher profits in history.

I agree with all you've said. Sometimes I've decribed my political views (elsewhere) as green libertarian. While the two philosophies may seem intractably opposed, the real problem with lassais fair approaches it that they don't place a price on environmental externalies. These are fundamental, the social inequity issues can be solved, should a steady state environment permit general prosperity.

In the future, our descendants will live in a world of low-impact high-technology renewable resources. That's never been a question. The issue is how we can tranform from here to there.

My view is not dissimilar to that of James Hanson: carbon emission rights trading is a failure where it's been tried. It enriches traders & lawyers but does little to actually throttle carbon production. Simply put a final use tax on carbon, and adjust the taxation rate to match the externalities.

As for this spill? I lived through IXTOC 1, and while it took a season for volunteers to clean the beaches from Brownsville to Galveston, it was done. No species perished. We'll solve this.

suspicious of the timing of the calamity (namely that it occurred right on the cusp of Earth Day and during a period of political contentiousness over drilling)

So, like, in most of our lifetimes then? What suspicious timing indeed!

For 60 years an suburban infrastructure development has been predicated upon cheap liquid fuels for transportation.

Can you walk to work?

In a decade US oil demand coverage goes to 20% (or less), while world supply declines.

What pro-oil seems to miss is that these are not simply causes -- or reasons to continue pursuing oil -- but also symptoms of the problem. Everyone that lives in a suburb is now heavily dependent on oil. I can't walk to work because oil is king and stomps all over other public transportation options. US demand rises because we make cars that use more oil. etc. etc.

takes my parents 15 minutes to drive to the nearest supermarket from their home in suburban jersey. -0-

As for this spill? I lived through IXTOC 1, and while it took a season for volunteers to clean the beaches from Brownsville to Galveston, it was done. No species perished. We'll solve this.

The BP Gulf Disaster is already approaching the scale of the Exxon Valdez spill, and will likely surpass it, so I think it's a more appropriate point of comparison than IXTOC 1, as bad as that was. Unfortunately, the impacts of Exxon Valdez on environment and economy are still being felt today.

Maybe we'll "solve" the immediate problems created by this spill. The more important question is, will we learn anything this time?

(I should say "scale of the disaster", not just scale, because I realize the IXTOC spill was huuuuuuge, but it was also 600 miles away from Texas)

AFAIK, it was the automotive industry tied to internal combustion engines that bought out and extinguished private commuter rail in the US, not the oil producers/transporters/refiners/marketers. Blame GM, not XOM, for the historical problem.

If we chose to produce ammonia or methanol fuels from offshore wind, or algal biodiesel from desert saline pond impounds, it will be produced by companies whose logo you already know. Capital doesn't appear from nowhere. Little capitalists (like myself) can trade in advance of the behemoths. But I assure you, when algal biodiesel (say, from the Mojave) becomes competitive, there are only a handful of companies who with the intellectual and financial wherewithal to make carbon neutral fuel production profitable.

Sure, I don't doubt it. But it's not the fact that BP/Exxon/Shell/Chevron/Conoco are huge corporations that's the issue here. If BP would actually move beyond petroleum and supply some innovative clean energy, I'd be ecstatic. It's what they're actually DOING. The point is, those huge companies won't make the shift to clean energy until every drop of profitable, dirty fossil fuels are exploited. The wellbeing of humanity and our environment doesn't factor into the decision, just the $$$ of it. And as the need to shift to clean energy becomes increasingly urgent with climate change and supply constraints, the price of increasingly scarce fossil fuels will only go up.

http://www.sovereign-publications.com/images/renewable-energy/BP-Alt-Energy.jpg

BP, amongst international majors, has been second only to Statoil (the Norwegian national oil co), in its move towards renewables. Its a shame this happened to them, rather than Exxon, who have vehemently opposed alternatives...

I'm pretty sure that BP has dropped most of its renewables research. I can't remember where I was reading this but the "beyond petroleum" logo has been dropped, Tony Hayward said something to the effect that "we're not in business to save the planet" when he became CEO a couple of years ago, and what little research/funding there is is pretty much confined to biofuel and runs in the low millions of dollars.

Agggh, don't get me started on BP's greenwashing.

Choose your favorite word to click on: BP's actions don't line up with their pleasant logo.

I'm pretty sure that BP has dropped most of its renewables research

See the "actions" link just above.

You're right. More has been spent marketing the "beyond petroleum" label than has actually been spent investing in it. AFAIK, Statoil is the only major with profitable renewables subdivision.

That doesn't change the fact that its international oil companies and the largest electricity utilities that actually have the wherewithal to effect a gradual change to renewables. Government and the public can change incentives, but in the US at least, local/state governments will be incapacitated by public sector unions and their pension obligations for the next few decades.

Go look at the mechanics of making your own biodiesel and decide if its worth it. All the information is online.

If BP stands out at all compared to Exxon et al., it's in the same way that someone convicted of assault and battery looks pretty good next to the child rapist.

Again, I'm fully aware that big energy companies are better positioned to take clean energy solutions and ramp them up quickly. There's a reason that utilities are the primary examples of natural monopolies in Econ 101.

I'm saying that it's demonstrated that they've fought tooth and nail to resist that switch to clean energy, and are primary culprits in the malaise of disinformation on climate and energy.

If we want to treat corporations as people, fine - when people in our society have repeatedly demonstrated that they're attitudes toward other people are malign, we usually keep a careful eye on them, rather then letting them take over the town.

Corporations are artificial life-forms. We the living choose the terrain over which they consume resources and release waste.

BP, the corporation, is in a carbon intensive field, and of course like others in its field chooses to adjust local gradients to improve its own prospects.

Physicist Steve Koonin became VP for science at BP, and his 1995 lecture on our energy prospects, including CO2 issues is among the best discussions I've found anywhere. He's now Undersecretary for Science in Obama's DOE, and I think he's an excellent choice.

It's silly to consider these corporations like people (sillier still to grant them political rights). They're artificial lifeforms under our control, if we collectively choose to use it. Some, like BP were and and can still be directed to advance human needs. Others (Exxon) have demonstrated intense opposition to balancing economic gain with environmental externalities. At some point we collectively will have to dispose of them.

I don't think I'm understanding your "green libertarian" stance. You agree that there should be a price on carbon, and that Big Oil are "artificial lifeforms under our control, if we collectively choose to use it", and that "at some point we collectively will have to dispose of them". Where does the "libertarian" part come in?

Loosely "libertarian" in that I'm generally opposed to governmental middle-class income transfer subsidies/entitlements like Social Security & Medicare, as well as subsidies to the millitary-industrial complex like the Cold War buildup or elective wars like those in Grenada, Panama, Columbia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Excluding middle-class income transfers, overspending on the military, and concomitent interest on entitlement/MIC produced deficits leaves about 20% of the US federal budget as actually elective, the pie-slice that has been argued over for the past 40 years.

Once one takes as the principle that we should leave a better world for successive generations, and to not do so will only make their liabilities worse, then wealth transfer entitlements and military spending become obstacles to steering the ship of state as great as that of corporate preferences.

I'd love a market economy in which balancing human needs and environmental externalities were considered engineering optimization problems. Unfortunately, we're ruled by lawyers and not engineers, so we'll get "solutions" supported by Goldman Sachs and law partnerships rather than incentives that actually work. Noted GW scientist Jim Hansen has spoken at length on this.

Its a two party system. I still support the party that is more amenable to pragmatism & rationalism than that which clamps its hands over its ears. That doesn't mean I like all of my fellow supporters.

apologies in advance for the irrational sidebar on an otherwise rational thread, but a secret kremlin report detailing the north korean torpedo attack responsible for the rig explosion! waaay more exciting than discussion of energy policy, and more plausible than 9/11 conspiracy theories to boot.

(ugh repost, sorry, mods can delete at will)

Libertarianism means a lot of different things to different people. But one unifying feature (I thought) was that it stresses the primacy of individual action over that of the State. But of all the arguments against libertarianism, I always thought that the history of man's interaction with the environment was perhaps the #1 case against it. After all, environmental policy is so difficult precisely because of the paradox that people, acting in their own private interests, will destroy the environment that they depend on, due in part to the temporal and spatial discounting that I rambled about over here on the impending end of the world thread.

Corporations are artificial life-forms.

OTM. Skynet has been happening for 100+ years now.

xp Z S: Exactly.

The major fault of classical libertarianism with respect to my concerns is that doesn't take into consideration economic externalities. My neighbor can build a pork concentrated animal feeding operation, its atmospheric and surface water effluents will destroy my own well-being and property value, and classical libertarianism has nothing to say about it. The same is true of industries, nations, and individuals releasing greenhouse gases into our common atmosphere. Its no stretch to say that many current crises are in Garrett Hardin's phrase, Tradgedies of the Commons. The linked essay should be required reading for anyone in elective or high executive office by the way.

So, if you see the primary and central role of government as ensuring our and our descendants survival and well-being, then within native/market economies the most effective tool is for government to place a price on externalities. Put a price on C02, and tax carbon consumption and exhaust rather than income from non-carbon intensive income, etc.

Governments can't do everything, and to no small extent, they much chose priorities. In the US we have archeological strata perverse incentives who all have their own lobbies. We encourage housing separation of family generations (since the elderly expect to receive independent income), reverse wealth transfer from the poor to the rich (the elderly are now the wealthiest demographic slice), health cost inflation (since we demand coverage rather than insurance), increasing debt (federal deficits are now funded by Fed Reserve "quantitative easing" (read printing)), and I could go on and on.

In time, we will change our incentive structure. If a country like China can wholly transform itself in 30 years, so can we. But to think we can do everything is youthful idealism. We choose priorities, and I choose leaving my nephews and nieces a better world (environmentally) than the one I inherited.

archeological strata of perverse incentives which all....

I shouldn't essay whilst taking breaks from lawnmowing....

On a lighter note:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWuuXpeqNNw

I LOVE that clip. Just used it to defuse a heated political argument (and simultaneously make my point!) with a family member on FB.

loooooooooooooooool

I thought I was maybe being pessimistic with 25,000 barrels/day, but...

Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen said the volume of crude oil spewing from the damaged well could climb to 100,000 barrels a day, with 60 days to 90 days needed for BP to drill relief wells to stem the flow. He spoke to the obvious urgency of stopping the flow of crude.

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/gulf_oil_spill_has_our_full_at.html

nice

British Petroleum has withdrawn one of its waiver forms after fishermen in Venice, a town bracing for the arrival of an oil slick from the company's leaking rig, complained BP was trying to “pull the wool over our eyes” by asking them to sign away all rights to sue.

The waiver form was distributed Saturday at a Venice public school, where the company was offering a health and safety class for locals whom it says it will hire. Though a spokeswoman said the company does not yet know exactly what positions it's hiring for, it was accepting applications and, with them, the signed waivers

...

Many were frustrated by the paperwork and bureaucracy, citing frequently BP's lack of local staff.

“We got a certificate of completion that doesn't even have my name on it. Come on, now,” said Bret Ainsworth, 51, a crab fisherman...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/bp-pulls-forms-asking-fishermen-to-sign-away-rights-to-sue/article1554200/

There are a number of international 'suspects' who might want to do something like this. They range from Muslim terrorists to the Red Chinese

Whew, glad Chiang Kai-Shek isn't involved.

Man, this whole situation has me seriously depressed.

It's mindboggling that there isn't a regulated safety procedure in place in case of such an event. Like, no one sat down and said "if this device fails, x amount of oil will flow out at such and such a rate - let's devise a way to cap it." What other safety.procedures are not in place for activities with potentially catestrophic results?

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/05/ag_bp_trying_to_get_alabamians_to_give_up_right_to.php?ref=fpblg

They're still trying to cheat in Alabama, though. xxxp

Who's to blame for the oil spill? Dick Cheney
By Alex Pareene

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill could end up being the worst American man-made environmental catastrophe of this generation. With the oil still spilling and investigations into the causes yet to come, it's too early to neatly assign blame to any one person. But for now, let's hold Dick Cheney personally responsible for the whole thing.

Here's the evidence: The Wall Street Journal reports that the oil well didn't have a remote-control shut-off switch. The reason it didn't have a thing that it seems every single offshore drilling rig should have? According to environmental lawyer Mike Papantonio, it's because Dick Cheney's energy task force decided that the $500,000 switches were too expensive, and they didn't want to make BP buy any.

Is that not enough reason to blame the former Dark Lord of the Naval Observatory? Guess what: Halliburton is involved, too! The Los Angeles Times reports that BP contracted Dick Cheney's old company to cement the deepwater drill hole. Cementing the hole was, according to the U.S. Minerals Management Service, "the single most-important factor in 18 of 39 well blowouts in the Gulf of Mexico over a 14-year period." And Hallburton is already under investigation for faulty cementing in an Australian well last year.

The spill will very likely destroy the fragile economies of at least five states and it could even plunge the nation back into a recession. So thanks, Dick. Nice work.

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/05/03/dick_cheney_halliburton_oil_spill/index.html

lol @ that conspiracy link:

To the reason for North Korea attacking the Deepwater Horizon, these reports say, was to present US President Obama with an “impossible dilemma” prior to the opening of the United Nations Review Conference of the Parties to the Treat on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) set to begin May 3rd in New York.

This “impossible dilemma” facing Obama is indeed real as the decision he is faced with is either to allow the continuation of this massive oil leak catastrophe to continue for months, or immediately stop it by the only known and proven means possible, the detonation of a thermonuclear device.

Looking forward to "Loose Change 2: NK-Ultra"... actually, I was writing a big long post about how that conspiracy theory is tailor-made for libertarians and other free-market types so they don't have to deal with the cognitive dissonance this tragedy should trigger in their credulous, tiny minds. But this whole thing is so depressing I just don't have the heart right now.

Things could be looking much more positive by the weekend:

May 3, 2010
BP Says Crews Make Progress Stemming Oil Leaks
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON and HENRY FOUNTAIN

NEW ORLEANS — BP reported some glimmers of progress on Monday in its efforts to stem oil leaks from an undersea well off the Louisiana coast that have created what President Obama called a “potentially unprecedented environmental disaster.”

Bill Salvin, a company spokesman, said that crews had finished building a containment dome, a 4-story, 70-ton structure that the company plans to lower into place over one of the three leaks to catch the escaping oil and allow it to be pumped to the surface. The other two domes would be completed on Tuesday, Mr. Salvin said, and crews hoped to install all three domes by the weekend.

“That will essentially eliminate most of the issues you have with oil in the water,” he said.

Basically, while the relief wells are drilled to clog the reservoir around the first well (this rig was contracted the day Deepwater Horizon sank, and has been on station since Tuesday), they'll pump up collected oil/sea water collected in these 70-ton domes up to a barge, separate out the oil (this is done cheaply with centrifuges), and offload at intervals. The manufacturer of the collector domes is Superior Well Services, who had a handful of these already fabbed for just such an event.

From someone who is a regular on a number of energy and energy investment related boards, the sense is that this leak will be much, much smaller than either Valdez or IXTOC 1, with most of the consequence being political. It will be very difficult to expand US drilling, so most of the rigs present in the GOM will be moving to the Mexican side, Brazil, or West Africa, and 5-10k or so jobs will be lost.

I saw that article earlier today, and while it's about 100x more optimistic than anything thing else I've read (and not so coincidentally relies on the optimism of the BP spokesman), maaaaaaaaaan I hope they're right and it works.

I suppose owners of BP-branded gasoline stations will be hurt as well by boycotts, organized or not, as happened in the aftermath of the Valdez incident.

Most (all?) BP stations are franchised and not owned by the company, and in the US, gasoline is transported through regional distribution hubs shared by all refiners and retailers. When you fill up your tank, the oil may have come from an Aramco well in Saudi Arabia, transported on Frontline tanker to a Valero refinery, with gasoline shipped on Energy Transfer Parners pipes to a distribution facility in your city, then trucked out by a BP truck to a BP station. The various brands differ only in the additive mixture added to the tanker trucks at local distribution facilities. Its a highly rationalized and vertically segmented industry, so boycotts only hurt the owner of the retail station, who more often than not is not the company you wish to boycott.

I hear this guy is hiring

This is so cool:

http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/loopcurrent.gif

Figure 1. The Loop Current flow northwards into the Gulf of Mexico. Every 6-11 months, a bulge in the current cuts off into a clockwise-rotating eddy that then drifts slowly west-southwestward towards Texas. Image credit: NOAA.

I had always assumed the flow was clockwise more or less throughout the Gulf...

Spill, baby, spill!!

The PB Atlantis rig (photo) is the world's largest and deepest submersible oil and natural gas platform -- it can produce 8.4 million gallons of oil a day. It is situated in the Gulf of Mexico.

Despite the present disaster, concerns that had been raised about the safety of Atlantis have not gone away. Rather, they are a giant step closer to having been validated. Food and Water Watch made this statement about Atlantis as early as July 2009:
BP has repeatedly skirted the law in developing the Atlantis project. BP’s own database from November 2008 shows that it does not have the required engineering certification for 85 percent of the project’s subsea piping and instrument diagrams and many of its safety shutdown systems’ logic diagrams....

Tell Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar to launch an immediate investigation and, given the seriousness of the situation, immediately suspend production at the Atlantis. Ask your member of Congress to call for oversight hearings on MMS regarding the regulation of the Atlantis and what role the Bush Administration played in allowing BP to operate the platform without proper safety documentation.

http://jotman.blogspot.com/2010/05/why-us-must-order-bp-to-supsend.html

Looks some scientist share my concerns about the chemical dispersant (my emphasis):

The dispersants are designed to break down crude into tiny drops, which can be eaten up by naturally occurring bacteria, to lessen the impact of a giant sea of crude washing on to oyster beds and birds' nests on shore. But environmental scientists say the dispersants, which can cause genetic mutations and cancer, add to the toxicity of the spill. That exposes sea turtles and bluefin tuna to an even greater risk than crude alone. Dolphins and whales have already been spotted in the spill.The dangers are even greater for dispersants poured into the source of the spill, where they are picked up by the current and wash through the Gulf.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/05/dispersant-deepwater-horizon-oil-toxic

Tony Hayward, hanging near Brainerd. Well, Duluth, more accurately.

http://projectmindwake.blogspot.com/2011/08/new-oil-leaking-from-deep-water-horizon.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-holder-bp-oil-spill-settlement-20121115,0,335475.story

British oil giant BP is more than prepared for the $4.5 billion in settlement charges it agreed to Thursday, analysts said.

In the third quarter alone, BP raked in sales of more than $93 billion and had a net profit of more than $5.2 billion.

Poor BP

they must be feeling really down

still leaking

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/27/gulf-oil-spill-bathtub-ring_n_6056348.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/03/us/bp-to-pay-gulf-coast-states-18-7-billion-for-deepwater-horizon-oil-spill.html?_r=0