I recently found out something astounding about myself: I have the gift of prophesy. I was so generally miffed at President Obama a few weeks ago when after his big Health Care Reform win, he painfully grafted an olive branch in the conservative fruit tree called the Republicans in Congress with his - we will drill for more oil along our coast lines, so we can save some primary elections - speech. Who gets elected is so much more important than the quality of our oceans, marine life, and our beach ecosystems anyway, don't you think. Just as long as we can be total and complete gas and energy hogs. Heaven forbid we sacrifice a little!At the time I wondered, wouldn't it be ironic if one of these went down in such horrific glory as to show the t-e-r-r-i-b-l-e effects that one of these metal contraptions imploding does to our environment. Our economy. Our life.
Well, hell now it's happened.
Good bye Gulf of Mexico.
But hey, we have enough gas to drive our fat, overweight behinds around though.
Hope it was worth it.
Drill baby drill...
7 comments:
Oh boy...the Ron Paul conspiracy theorists are going crazy! There is a lot more to this story that is not shaping up well for Republicans or anybody who supports offshore oil exploration. The environmental impact of this explosion does not have much to do with the explosion itself. It has to do with the fact they're not able to shut off the well head. This could have been prevented by a simple remotely operated shut off switch with a cost of $500k. The cost of the oil rig in 2001 was $350 Million. So for an additional .1% of the project cost they could have prevented the environmental impact of this disaster. And no surprise...it was Republicans who voted down the proposed regulation that would require these switches be installed. Two other oil drilling countries require the switches. I support offshore oil drilling, and I think Obama would probably be a little more responsible with it...so for him to come out in support of it, I'm with him. Just....PLEASE...require some way of shutting off an oil well head remotely!
I've not heard about that, but I only watch local news channels, but seriously, these companies make billions in profits every quarter! And they can't spend a little time and money on preparing themselves for this kind of disaster??
I keep thinking about how this relates to nuclear power and NIMBY, and how sure these ideas for energy production are great on paper, when they're working perfectly, but the problem as we can now all see loud and clear is this - nothing rarely works perfectly, and when these things break they break big, with serious long term consequences. It's called looking ahead.
Thanks for the heads up. That's an interesting little tidbit, but I don't blame Congress just yet, I blame the company. They should've spent the money and prepared better.
Agreed...and BP is blaming the company who constructed the oil rig as well. However, since they owned the lease, they're responsible for the damage. I haven't heard about the remote shut off switch on the local news, but it was a featured story on drudgereport.com. Apparently (probably no surprise to you) the opposition to mandating the switches was led by Dick Cheney.
Watching Brian Williams tonight he summed it up perfectly "How come the nation who flew to the moon is unable to plug a leaking oil well?" (I paraphrase).
Then in another news story (9News maybe?) I heard they're rushing to re-route the leaking oil to an oil tanker so it doesn't cause any more damage. And the feds NEVER started surface burning as was promised. So it tells me that they're trying to salvage the leaking oil at the expense of the environment! Plug the thing and clean it up! Then install the necessary safety stops and...drill baby drill!
This kind of oil doesn't burn well because it's partially mixing with the water, or so I read. Sucking it up is probably best for the environment all around, as burning is an environmental problem as well, although not as severe, and not as easy as it sounds. Obviously.
My bet is it will be months before they can stop it. Meanwhile it kills everything in its path. So if you like shrimp, I'd stock up now.
Very interesting read. Thanks guys. I was shocked, as you were Lula, at Pres. Obama's change on off shore drilling. As I read into it, it seemed more like lip service. If I remember correctly, "looking into" or "researching effects" of off shore drilling, "continuing current drilling" etc. Not exactly, "Drill baby drill". But definitely going away from his campaigned upon principles of building up alternative energy, and environment protection. Guess he is first a politician, just like the rest of them!
I say "Frack, baby, frack!" (Method used in extracting natural gas). Much more environmentally friendly in extraction and usage (cars) than oil/gas, much cheaper, the US already has natural gas reserves, vehicles using natural gas (Oklahoma postal service), etc.
Curtis, you sound like a moderate Republican; that's progress! Brian Williams is having a salutary effect on you, it seems ...
srbushman, it is politics. The most that could be extracted with Obama's plan is one year's worth of our present consumption. Hardly seems worth the risk, commitment, the eyesore. But to get his energy program through, the President needs GOP votes, notably Lindsey Graham. So it's a fig leaf to the drill, baby drill crowd. It's all about Big Oil money, and who gets it. No one ever mentions that oil is a fungible commodity, so there's no U.S. allotment of oil drilled off our shores. As environmentalists are quick to point out, that oil could just as easily end up fueling our terrorist enemies. The only way to boost our national security is to reduce our oil dependence and become energy independent. It's not on the consumption side. You're right, natural gas is part of our energy independence future, not oil.
Lula, notice how Dick Cheney has been silent on this whole deal? This is Cheney's Katrina. And guess who subcontracts the BP rig operators, Transocean? Cheney's old pals, Halliburton. Every other big operator in the North Sea and Brazil is required by law to have the redundant safety shut-off valve. Cheney staffed the regulator with cronies and removed the proposed requirement for those acoustic switches. read RFK Jr. here:
http://www.propublica.org/article/bp-gulf-oil-spill-dispersants-0430
It's been two decades since the Exxon spill and they're still finding a ton of oil in the sand. That's the thing with oil - it doesn't revert back to plants with time. It stays oil f-o-r-e-v-e-r. What are shrimp and lobster? Bottom feeders. They basically eat the garbage off the sea floor. Who knows if they will ever be able to fish these beds again. Between the dispersant and the oil, it will probably always be contaminated.
Damn Cheney straight to h-e-double touthpicks!
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