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edejom
Boulder climber
Butte, America
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May 19, 2010 - 12:21pm PT
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Maybe YOU would be safer, Skip, since money means so much to you...
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golsen
Social climber
kennewick, wa
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May 19, 2010 - 12:24pm PT
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I have been cleaning up environmental messes for over two decades, the worst stuff man has ever made. Further, I am very familiar with the OSHA laws that would have been applicable to Oil and Gas Operations onshore. It is very apparent that negligence due to greed was a factor in this. And I am glad that someone reminded folks that people died due to that negligence.
If the President of BP were tossed in jail without Bail until trial, perhaps a message would be sent concerning corporate negligence as it applies to Process Safety. I have learned in dealing with very dangerous stuff, protect the workers and you will be taking the first step in protecting the environment.
Unfortunately, BP is showing a track record with this stuff....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_Refinery_explosion
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apogee
climber
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May 19, 2010 - 12:45pm PT
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"Also on Tuesday, Senate Republicans blocked for a second time a Democratic plan to raise the liability limit for oil spills to $10 billion from $75 million."
Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable. At every turn, the Repugs are the Party of No. No matter what the issue is: if the Dems are for it, Repugs oppose it. Who cares if it serves the interests of the voters, or the GOP themselves...just oppose everything.
If the Dems had 1/10th of the messaging ability that the Repugs have, they would take this golden opportunity to clearly make them out to be the out-of-touch power-mongering idiots that they are. Not much likelihood of that, though.
As incredulous as one might be at the Repugs opposition, I find myself even more blown away by the walking Republagumby droids wandering around swallowing that shite hook, line and sinker. No matter how illogical it is.
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JoeSimo
Trad climber
New York
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May 19, 2010 - 12:46pm PT
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I think it's important to note we are all slightly responsible for this disaster too. We all demand certain things in life. IN this case we demand that we be able to drive our cars and demand cheap gas for them. When gas was $4-5 a gallon we all screamed about fuel costing to much and that more oil was needed to meet demand. This horrific event really drives home the true cost of our lifestyles. I doubt any of us have opted to drive less since this event. If we were all serious about preventing this from ever happening again we would all refuse to ever use gas again and either walk, bike or buy electric cars.
In fact my one hope (and this might sound awful) is that this disaster is SO bad that is finally forces the public as a whole to reject big oil and collectively demands an immediate alternative.
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apogee
climber
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May 19, 2010 - 12:54pm PT
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"I wonder how much greed is involved when climbers have
accidents?"
"Do you think if we all just paid a few more cents per route
we would be safer?"
A classic example of the tactic used by Repugs when the subject matter casts them in a poor light: change the subject to something that is sure to elicit a response, thereby shifting the spotlight away from them.
And yet the fact remains: your political party is actively working against your interests at every turn.
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gonzo chemist
climber
Crane Jackson's Fountain St. Theater
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May 19, 2010 - 12:59pm PT
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I think one of the major (and overlooked) issues associated with oil dependence, is that it (oil) is a feedstock for many of the materials that we take for granted in our daily lives. Oil not only produces the energy that we require for our way of life, but is the source of anything and everything that is polymer-based. In that way, we're all f*#ked at some point.
We can always find alternative sources of energy (solar, etc.) but finding alternatives to the plastic components we use for everything is more challenging.
just some food for thought.
I do find all the finger-pointing deplorable. Its really just another example of the many unethical, all-too-common behaviors of large corporations. I also find it sad how poorly prepared for this sort of accident BP is.
I guess no one thinks about Murphy's Law anymore...
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JoeSimo
Trad climber
New York
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May 19, 2010 - 01:02pm PT
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That I knew, but how much of oil goes to the production of gas/diesel and how much to fertilizers and plastics?
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golsen
Social climber
kennewick, wa
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May 19, 2010 - 01:02pm PT
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skipt may be singing a different tune if it were his brother or sister killed by companies that were negligent in basic process safety.
There are minimum standards with regards to technical and engineering solutions that provide for safe operations and also for contingency planning. The pressure of the $ can persuade management to take unjustifiable risks.
It is not a democrat versus republican issue, although the current republican's version of just say "no" to all legislation is atrocious, this spill was partially caused by an organization taking risks with workers lives and then the environment. All in order to fill our tanks....
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golsen
Social climber
kennewick, wa
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May 19, 2010 - 01:15pm PT
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Joe and gonzo, here is another reference....
A barrel of oil yields these refined products (percent of barrel):
"47% gasoline for use in automobiles 23% heating oil and diesel fuel 18% other products, which includes petrochemical feedstock-products derived from petroleum principally for the manufacturing of chemicals, synthetic rubber and plastics 10% jet fuel 4% propane 3% asphalt (Percentages equal more than 100 because of an approximately 5% processing gain from refining.)"
not sure how good these numbers are, my guess is that this also depends upon source and quality of raw feed oil to refinery.
EDIT:
and another informative site.
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/energy-overview/petroleum-oil/
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apogee
climber
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May 19, 2010 - 01:22pm PT
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"skipt may be singing a different tune if it were his brother or sister killed by companies that were negligent in basic process safety."
He might sing a different tune, but it wouldn't be here on ST amongst his ideologic foes. Too much potential to be called out as hypocrite.
"And we all know the Sierra Club is a greedy organization."
Change that channel, Skip! It's the Sierra Club's fault! It's Obama's fault! It's the Democrats fault!
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apogee
climber
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May 19, 2010 - 01:31pm PT
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"I look forward to your critique on how BP and Obama could have handled this spill better."
Skippy-baby, believe-you-me, I have no illusions about where the blame lies on this one- we are all complicit in it, Dems, Repubs, Obama, Shrub, and each of us typing on our oil-based plastic computers at this very moment. My point is, sitting in one's ideologic bunker on this issue merely makes one out to be defensive and hypocritical. Worse yet, a political party that works against the very premise of corporate responsibility, while the disaster is very much underway, demonstrates an unbelievable amount of hypocrisy, cynicism, and clearly illustrates their transparent interest in regaining political power by any means.
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BrianH
Trad climber
santa fe
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May 19, 2010 - 01:37pm PT
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ITYM "government" rather then just Obama. The Office in the Interior Dept. that was tasked with inspecting the fail safe devices on the rig had been negligent since at least 2005.
Since January 2005, the federal Minerals Management Service conducted at least 16 fewer inspections aboard the Deepwater Horizon than it should have under the policy, a dramatic fall from the frequency of prior years, according to the agency's records.
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Earlier AP investigations have shown that the doomed rig was allowed to operate without safety documentation required by MMS regulations for the exact disaster scenario that occurred; that the cutoff valve which failed has repeatedly broken down at other wells in the years since regulators weakened testing requirements; and that regulation is so lax that some key safety aspects on rigs are decided almost entirely by the companies doing the work.
The above quote from yahoo.
Just a few hours ago the Chief of the MMS resigned.
According to ABC News, “Though federal regulations require offshore drilling locations to be inspected by the Department of the Interior's Minerals Mining Service every 30 days, those inspections have repeatedly not happened since the Deepwater Horizon site was permitted by MMS in 2001 – including one out of every four months since President Obama's inauguration … in the 16 months from January 2009 through April 2010 MMS failed to inspect Deepwater Horizon four times – in May 2009, August 2009, December 2009, and January 2010.”
http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2010/05/offshore_drilling_chief_quits.html
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golsen
Social climber
kennewick, wa
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May 19, 2010 - 01:39pm PT
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It is interesting to me how America treats criminals, suspected and convicted. A drunk driver accidentally hits someone and kills them. They may not have even been drinking that much, say just at the legal limit. All other accident data shows that it may not have even been his fault. We throw the book at them.
A corporation, be it coal mining or oil does not provide a safe environment for their workers and many are killed when it could have been prevented. The officers of the corporation are never held criminally liable, despite the fact that many innocent people have been killed.
I am not trying to pre-judge this particular incident; however, in my opinion something is definitely not right with the way we approach these things...
EDIT: good find Brian. Frequently the inspectors (similar to MSHA in Mining) are not given the teeth to shut things down until they are fixed. Government needs to have a more agile and "threatening" presence in terms of ability to fine and or shut things down if they are deemed unsafe and or dangerous to the environment.
One of the problems of Gavernment oversight is the lack of intelligence applied in terms of prioritizing magnittudes of risk.
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edejom
Boulder climber
Butte, America
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May 19, 2010 - 03:32pm PT
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For you, sir Skippy:-)
Good thing that I don't live in the Gulf of Mexico, eh?
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tolman_paul
Trad climber
Anchorage, AK
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May 19, 2010 - 03:45pm PT
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It's a friggin disaster and what could have been done better is already too late to rectify. All catastrophe's are a combination of errors, this one is no different. When the well was indicating pressure problems the BP company man never should have said everything is good, flush the well with sea water. Once the mud was out of the bore, there was no way they could control the well, the BOP failed and now we are where we are.
Sad to say I don't think there is any technology that can be used to do a better job of cleaning up the oil. Only a small percentage of the oil will be cleaned up by man. The only effective thing that can be done is to plug the well as quickly as possible, and then let nature takes it course to clean up the mess. All those boats and booms and later people walking beaches are just for PR, they will only recover a small percentage of the oil. And like all man made messes, in time, nature will heal herself.
And yes, oil companies pressure their contractors to take short cuts on one way or another in the interest of saving money. More often those shortcuts end up costing the oil co's in the long run. It's amazing how profitable they are given how profliagate they are. And IMHO from the many BP managers and engineers I've worked with, they hire and train their people to figure out every way possible not to held down to making a decision.
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wildone
climber
GHOST TOWN
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May 19, 2010 - 04:27pm PT
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Funny thing is, I don't subscribe to the idea that we are all complicit in this due to our demand for oil. That is a "false choice" fallacy that skipt presented, classically, to deflect blame.
Our actions, as consumers, didn't precipitate the mms slacking on the job or trans-ocean or bp making a shoddy platform. That ball is in their court, and there are certainly other companies that do it "right".
I've worked for some oil companies that staggered me with their "profligate" ways, and I've worked for others, elsewhere that really impressed me favorably.
Paul, I'll be in Anchorage for a few days on my way to the slope in a week. Wanna get a beer?
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lostinshanghai
Social climber
someplace
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May 19, 2010 - 05:19pm PT
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Will be interesting if it hits “Kuba”
If the Cubans ask for clean up/ restoration Funds from BP and company what will they say as well as Congress say and do? Would that be considered giving foreign aid to a communist government? Guess it is in the wording of it.
Look for new cars in Havana.
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tolman_paul
Trad climber
Anchorage, AK
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May 19, 2010 - 06:16pm PT
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Wildone,
I'll have to take a raincheck on the brew, we'll be down in Kachemak Bay then. Finally getting out of town for a week for a much, much needed vacation.
Can't wait.
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tolman_paul
Trad climber
Anchorage, AK
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May 19, 2010 - 07:11pm PT
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It's easy to blame an administration and government agencies, but in reality they had absolutely nothing to do with this disaster. That's like blaming the cops for not doing enough to stop a rape or a murder.
If this disaster hadn't occured, you'd still have the same folks at MMS under Obama's administration as you had under Bush.
Legally mandated codes, standards and inspections are instituted after major F/up's.
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