Do we know what these dispersants do to the environment and how they actually "break down oil" and to what the oil is broken down too?
The dispersants are a hydrocarbon based compound from what I understand. It's toxic too, and it just breaks the oil down into tiny droplets. It doesn't eradicate the oil or anything like that. It's a choice between toxicity on shore or toxicity in the sea. Also, it's a product made by the oil companies, that they sell to themselves and then claim as a tax write-off.
So really, we'll just end up eating the oil in any fish that survive afterwards and are caught... Man, it better add a great flavor to my Snapper.
Let's just purge open all of our off-shore drilling sites, have all of them dump oil into the seas, and then light fire to the oil in an uncontrolled setting. This will cause huge amounts of carbon dioxide in the air all at once, raising the temperature, as well as vicious smog clouds, AND we'll have destroyed the ocean along with giant areas of trash like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and the newly discovered Garbage Patch of the N. Atlantic!
The only good I can possibly see coming from this is a real push towards developing viable green alternative energy sources for the masses.
...I'm not holding my breath. :?
...safety standards might get tightened?
That's a good thing that can come from this.
This is a thing that can make the US government and populace get the same attitude we have - that you should have such strict regulations that the oil companies feel it's just ridiculous
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DrakeEdgelord TrashBelow the ecliptic plane.Registered Userregular
Wouldn't it be better to have it on the shore than in the water? I would think the ecosystem under the water is more important both ecologically and economically than anything living near the coast.
We have a very permeable aquifer in my region. I'd rather it didn't get on to shore because a lot of people around here still use wells for household water.
Wouldn't it be better to have it on the shore than in the water? I would think the ecosystem under the water is more important both ecologically and economically than anything living near the coast.
We have a very permeable aquifer in my region. I'd rather it didn't get on to shore because a lot of people around here still use wells for household water.
Wouldn't it be better to have it on the shore than in the water? I would think the ecosystem under the water is more important both ecologically and economically than anything living near the coast.
We have a very permeable aquifer in my region. I'd rather it didn't get on to shore because a lot of people around here still use wells for household water.
I suppose the aquifer is kind of a big deal.
Be careful, you might accidentally flood your entire fortress by digging into it. Oh wait, this isn't Dwarf Fortress Aquifers.
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DrakeEdgelord TrashBelow the ecliptic plane.Registered Userregular
Wouldn't it be better to have it on the shore than in the water? I would think the ecosystem under the water is more important both ecologically and economically than anything living near the coast.
We have a very permeable aquifer in my region. I'd rather it didn't get on to shore because a lot of people around here still use wells for household water.
I suppose the aquifer is kind of a big deal.
I'm also concerned about the effect of dispersants. Really there just isn't much that anyone can do about it at this point. It's like using aggressive chemo and radiation therapy on a cancer patient before they become terminal, I guess.
Jeff Childs, a deputy incident commander for BP, said in a briefing with Alabama officials that the company successfully shut a set of hydraulic shears known as annular rams, helping to clamp the ruptured pipe and block the leaking oil.
No mention of how much this has reduced the flow, but that would be difficult to determine at the moment, I guess.
Edit - and I do actually want to be educated here, I'm curious about these sort of random facts.
Remote Operated Vehicles are being used to deploy the annular ram shears. I really hope that this is effective, although I can't see it being any kind of long term solution. Still if they can reduce the flow, that will make working at that depth easier to manage.
So apparently, according to CNN, some critics of the administration are calling the accident "Obama's Katrina". Motherfucking parallelism failure.
I saw some quotes in a CNN article from people claiming that Obama is trying to make up for Katrina by coming down there and visiting. This seems a little odd since Katrina wasn't under his watch but I guess he could be trying to "make up for" the bush administration. ...Or he could just be doing what a president is supposed to be doing in a situation like this. LAWL.
CommunistCow on
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
Too little too late. The majority of the booms are breaking due to weather.
Looks like the gulf is getting their own personal version of the exxon valdez
Darkchampion3d on
Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence --Thomas Jefferson
It was noted earlier that BP was going to try to dodge the cleanup bill, but I found an article on NPR indicating otherwise. He acknowledges the early distribution of the $5K suit waiver offers, and says that was a mistake and that they've redirected away from that "standard" piece of paperwork.
Nothing said about the volunteer boats having to sign waivers to help clean up.
I'd like this to be the sort of world where BP actually does the right thing in terms of cleaning up the mess. I also want a pony.
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DrakeEdgelord TrashBelow the ecliptic plane.Registered Userregular
Is the rig even a big concern relative to the leak from the well? I thought the rig only held 350,000 gallons at most.
I wish the article was more clear on that point. If all they did was stop the sunken rig from leaking then that's no big help. If they managed to close a leak on the riser itself then that's big news.
And yeah, I never really held any great hope for the containment booms to stay together. The wind has been nonstop for about a week now, causing some pretty rough seas.
edit: Looking over the article again the language seems to state that they haven't done anything with the riser itself, only slowing the flow from the sunken rig.
Is the rig even a big concern relative to the leak from the well? I thought the rig only held 350,000 gallons at most.
I wish the article was more clear on that point. If all they did was stop the sunken rig from leaking then that's no big help. If they managed to close a leak on the riser itself then that's big news.
And yeah, I never really held any great hope for the containment booms to stay together. The wind has been nonstop for about a week now, causing some pretty rough seas.
edit: Looking over the article again the language seems to state that they haven't done anything with the riser itself, only slowing the flow from the sunken rig.
Are the annular rams part of the annular preventer?
The blowout preventer also has systems for testing the various rams; a BP official said earlier in the week that the device had been tested 10 days before the accident.
MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) - Oil spill update: BP official Jeff Childs says the company has been able to deploy a ram that clamps around the drill pipe at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. Childs says that maneuver has slowed the flow of oil in and around the pipe.
“This morning, we were able to actuate the annular (ram), which clamps around the drill pipe, and shuts off flow in and around the drill pipe, and we’ve seen a noticeable reduction in the flow. That’s very good news, it means those rams are functioning,” explained Childs.
Childs says the company is still trying to activate a second ram, called a shear, which would stop the flow entirely.
Childs is a BP executive who is based in Alaska. He works with at least one person who was involved in the Exxon Valdez spill. That 1989 disaster was the worst spill on record, with more than 11 million barrels of crude released into Prince William Sound.
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DrakeEdgelord TrashBelow the ecliptic plane.Registered Userregular
After reading that, I have come to realize that the article I linked is filled with shit research. Like the fact that there are two types of BOP, annular and ram, but there isn't any such a thing as an annular ram.
Seems like we can infer that they are seeing some success activating the BOP at the wellhead. I really hope that is the case.
I don't know if those images are entirely accurate. I think that's an "estimate" of where the oil could be. But the spill does cover a lot of area.
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DrakeEdgelord TrashBelow the ecliptic plane.Registered Userregular
edited May 2010
Remember that the majority of the oil is still below the surface of the Gulf. Did ABC happen to mention what source of information they based that graphic on, Galenblade?
Remember that the majority of the oil is still below the surface of the Gulf. Did ABC happen to mention what source of information they based that graphic on, Galenblade?
Don't know, pulled it off the internets, but MKR's link seems immeasurably better.
BP, now under federal scrutiny because of its role in the deadly Gulf of Mexico explosion and oil spill, is one of three finalists for a federal award honoring offshore oil companies for "outstanding safety and pollution prevention."
The winner of the award - chosen before the April 20 oil rig incident - was to be announced this coming Monday at a luncheon in Houston. But the U.S. Department of Interior this week postponed the awards ceremony, saying it needs to devote its resources to the ongoing situation resulting from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and fire.
I wish the article was more clear on that point. If all they did was stop the sunken rig from leaking then that's no big help. If they managed to close a leak on the riser itself then that's big news.
And yeah, I never really held any great hope for the containment booms to stay together. The wind has been nonstop for about a week now, causing some pretty rough seas.
edit: Looking over the article again the language seems to state that they haven't done anything with the riser itself, only slowing the flow from the sunken rig.
[/QUOTE]
In my ideal world, they would have begun construction on that relief well years ago. Just drill 75% of the way, thus making it a lot easier to dig through later on.
Maybe there's some sort of engineering reason not to do this. I really hope that it's not simply cost, however. Apparently the relief well will cost $100 M to complete, although I don't know how much it would cost to just start drilling in advance. Still, $100M is a small price to pay for extra insurance.
Rush Limbaugh reassured his audience today that this spill isn't a big deal. The salt water in the ocean will clear all this up in a few months.
I wonder what he'll say if it ends up in the Gulf Stream as predicted and washes up onto the island of Palm Beach, where he has a home.
If Rush said it, it must be true!
What will he say in a few weeks after the Gulf Coast's beaches are covered in sludge?
Darkchampion3d on
Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence --Thomas Jefferson
I work for a Vietnamese Newspaper in the Northwest. I think I'm going to start calling up local Seafood restaurants/vendors and ask them for their thoughts.
I don't think people are aware of the scope of this problem.
We have a lot of Vietnamese shrimpers/fishermen down here. Their livelihoods are on those boats. And their families own the restaraunts the boats service. It's going to hit them really, really hard. It's sad, too, because they all worked so fuckin hard to establish themselves here for the last 40 years and have two/three generations tied up in those businesses. There ain't no way of fixing it, either. All the Vietnamese in the northern Gulf Coast can't exactly pick up and move the whole lot of themselves to North Carolina.
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Dr Mario KartGames DealerAustin, TXRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
Inquiry: If it is the case that BP is going to be covering all cleanup costs, arent people that volunteer to help with the shore cleanup effort saving BP money?
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Yeah. The possible impact this will have on environmental politics is the only silver lining.
So really, we'll just end up eating the oil in any fish that survive afterwards and are caught... Man, it better add a great flavor to my Snapper.
Let's just purge open all of our off-shore drilling sites, have all of them dump oil into the seas, and then light fire to the oil in an uncontrolled setting. This will cause huge amounts of carbon dioxide in the air all at once, raising the temperature, as well as vicious smog clouds, AND we'll have destroyed the ocean along with giant areas of trash like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and the newly discovered Garbage Patch of the N. Atlantic!
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...safety standards might get tightened?
That's a good thing that can come from this.
This is a thing that can make the US government and populace get the same attitude we have - that you should have such strict regulations that the oil companies feel it's just ridiculous
We have a very permeable aquifer in my region. I'd rather it didn't get on to shore because a lot of people around here still use wells for household water.
I suppose the aquifer is kind of a big deal.
Be careful, you might accidentally flood your entire fortress by digging into it.
Oh wait, this isn't Dwarf Fortress Aquifers.
3DSFF: 5026-4429-6577
I'm also concerned about the effect of dispersants. Really there just isn't much that anyone can do about it at this point. It's like using aggressive chemo and radiation therapy on a cancer patient before they become terminal, I guess.
BP official: 'We've significantly cut the flow' of oil from damaged rig
No mention of how much this has reduced the flow, but that would be difficult to determine at the moment, I guess.
Edit - and I do actually want to be educated here, I'm curious about these sort of random facts.
Remote Operated Vehicles are being used to deploy the annular ram shears. I really hope that this is effective, although I can't see it being any kind of long term solution. Still if they can reduce the flow, that will make working at that depth easier to manage.
I saw some quotes in a CNN article from people claiming that Obama is trying to make up for Katrina by coming down there and visiting. This seems a little odd since Katrina wasn't under his watch but I guess he could be trying to "make up for" the bush administration. ...Or he could just be doing what a president is supposed to be doing in a situation like this. LAWL.
all trying to make bush look bad
Come Overwatch with meeeee
Looks like the gulf is getting their own personal version of the exxon valdez
Nothing said about the volunteer boats having to sign waivers to help clean up.
I'd like this to be the sort of world where BP actually does the right thing in terms of cleaning up the mess. I also want a pony.
I wish the article was more clear on that point. If all they did was stop the sunken rig from leaking then that's no big help. If they managed to close a leak on the riser itself then that's big news.
And yeah, I never really held any great hope for the containment booms to stay together. The wind has been nonstop for about a week now, causing some pretty rough seas.
edit: Looking over the article again the language seems to state that they haven't done anything with the riser itself, only slowing the flow from the sunken rig.
Give it a few more days to go down and its a long-term opportunity.
Are the annular rams part of the annular preventer?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/01/us/01engineering.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/01/us/01spill.html makes it sound like the rams are related to the well head.
edit:
http://www.fox10tv.com/dpp/news/gulf_oil_spill/bp-says-it-has-slowed-the-oil-leak
After reading that, I have come to realize that the article I linked is filled with shit research. Like the fact that there are two types of BOP, annular and ram, but there isn't any such a thing as an annular ram.
Seems like we can infer that they are seeing some success activating the BOP at the wellhead. I really hope that is the case.
3DSFF: 5026-4429-6577
edit: Their link system is silly goosery. Give me a moment to find the URL.
edit: There we go
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These were both linked by a site linked on the NOAA site, so I'm guessing the non-verified one is legit.
edit: Also useful: http://www.incidentnews.gov/incident/8220
Don't know, pulled it off the internets, but MKR's link seems immeasurably better.
Of course, that impact is likely to be negative because of the asinine Senate rules.
Link.
I wonder what he'll say if it ends up in the Gulf Stream as predicted and washes up onto the island of Palm Beach, where he has a home.
In my ideal world, they would have begun construction on that relief well years ago. Just drill 75% of the way, thus making it a lot easier to dig through later on.
Maybe there's some sort of engineering reason not to do this. I really hope that it's not simply cost, however. Apparently the relief well will cost $100 M to complete, although I don't know how much it would cost to just start drilling in advance. Still, $100M is a small price to pay for extra insurance.
If Rush said it, it must be true!
What will he say in a few weeks after the Gulf Coast's beaches are covered in sludge?
"Oh, you liberal hypocrites love a black president, but not a black pelican?"