The Oil Spill - or "Goodbye Seafood"

[unkbill]

The cities of Gulf Shores & Orange Beach have persuaded BP to purchase ten additional beach raking machines to facilitate faster and more effective clean up. The mechanical beach rakes are capable of sifting even very small contaminates from the sand efficiently and safely. There are now five machines cleaning the beaches daily. The cities are working with the U.S. Coast Guard and EPA to determine the best time to operate the rakes-- most likely at night following low tide.

Well that is good news anyhow.

[Leisher]

The cities of Gulf Shores & Orange Beach have persuaded BP to purchase ten additional beach raking machines to facilitate faster and more effective clean up.

I saw a report on those over the weekend. Apparently the cities really demanded BP buy them insisting they'd be better and faster than BP's manual method. According to the report I saw, they suck and BP's manual method is still the way to go.

[Malcolm]

Is BP blameless? Hell no, but I don't think they are solely responsible.

BP would absolutely love NOT to drill down a mile in the ocean if they had some better way to provide energy. Windmills & solar panels don't fucking cut it. The R+D costs for keeping up technology, tools, & training even to have a realistic shot at getting the bubbly up from the depths are massive.

On the other hand, they've apparently got incompetent engineers, managers, or both. Crucify them for that. But they wouldn't need to perform drilling miracles if we started exploring other ways to provide fuel. *cough* *nuclear power* *cough*

[GORDON]

Or even drilling closer to shore. As someone said earlier, this would have been an easy fix in 200 feet of water.

Can't because of legislation.



Edited By GORDON on 1276649843

[Malcolm]

Remember that our government oversees this stuff.

Smoke, meet gun. Gun, smoke.

That's according to newly released government inspection reports that show the Deepwater Horizon rig was only surveyed six times in 2008, even though the government requires drilling rigs to be inspected every month. In total, it missed 16 checks since January 2005. It's unclear whether the lapse is the fault of federal authorities or BP itself.

Uh, bullshit. Unless you think that BP can just inspect its own platforms & answer to no one. Everyone in Congress should just forfeit their pay.

Actually, one of them has another idea ...

"Well, in the Asian culture, we do things differently. During the Samurai days, we'd just give you the knife and ask you to commit hara-kiri," said Cao, who is Vietnamese-American. "My constituents are still debating on what they want me to ask you to do."

Hilarious.

[Malcolm]

Kill the moratorium. Directly from the mouth of the Louisiana governor.

[thibodeaux]

Well, no shit. Because when:
1. Half the rednecks in a state full of rednecks works in an industry and
2. 99.999% of your tax revenue comes from taxing that industry

you're gonna want that industry to stick around.

Listen to me, people: THERE ARE NO JOBS AND NEVER HAVE BEEN AND NEVER WILL BE ANY JOBS IN LOUISIANA, EXCEPT:
* cutting down trees and turning them into boards or paper
* catching tasty animals and turning them into food
* pumping dead dinosours out of the ground
* welfare queen

[TPRJones]

Don't forget:
* running casinos for visiting Texans



Edited By TPRJones on 1277156538

[thibodeaux]

That falls under welfare queen.

[Malcolm]

Florida governor a bit of a psycho.

"I would like to have a special session to ban it here in the Sunshine State," he told CBS "Early Show" anchor Harry Smith. "We're so dependent on tourism for our economy, it's very important that we keep [the beaches] clean."

Yeah, tourism is what keeps your air conditioning working.

[GORDON]

The Dutch have ships capable of cleaning 99% of the oil fromt he water.

The American EPA won't allow them in the gulf because the require 99.9985% efficiency.

http://www.financialpost.com/Avertible+catastrophe/3203808/story.html

Why does neither the U.S. government nor U.S. energy companies have on hand the cleanup technology available in Europe? Ironically, the superior European technology runs afoul of U.S. environmental rules. The voracious Dutch vessels, for example, continuously suck up vast quantities of oily water, extract most of the oil and then spit overboard vast quantities of nearly oil-free water. Nearly oil-free isn't good enough for the U.S. regulators, who have a standard of 15 parts per million -- if water isn't at least 99.9985% pure, it may not be returned to the Gulf of Mexico.

Let's keep saying how there is nothing Obama can do about the oil spill, and it isn't his fault.



Edited By GORDON on 1277909891

[Malcolm]

The American EPA won't allow them in the gulf because the require 99.9985% efficiency.

So, where do we get ships with that batting average?

[GORDON]

The American EPA won't allow them in the gulf because the require 99.9985% efficiency.

So, where do we get ships with that batting average?

We don't. According to the article, the EPA requires the water to be stored in the ship, brought to shore, scrubbed to that percentage, and then released back into the gulf.

[Troy]

That article is kind of funny. The Story is on how foreign oil companies are fantastic because they are directly controlled, heavily regulated, and government directed(12 hour contingency) to have better responses to oil spills.

Then 100 comments on how the Obama administration is the devil because they want to add more restriction and oversight to oil companies.

I just don't get the logic. Before this, I've read on these boards about how "Corporations take care of themselves," how regulations are unneeded, and more regulations just cause job losses and less competitive marketplaces.

So regulations were eased, the EPA was neutered, and then when something bad happens, It's the governments fault because they trusted corporations to take care of their own problems. Members of the GOP even apologize to BP that we want to hold them accountable for their fuck-ups.



Edited By Troy on 1277916159

[Malcolm]

So regulations were eased, the EPA was neutered, and then when something bad happens, It's the governments fault because they trusted corporations to take care of their own problems. Members of the GOP even apologize to BP that we want to hold them accountable for their fuck-ups.

It is the fucking gov't's fault when they fail to keep up their half of the regulation biz. The gov't missed the inspections, didn't follow them up, and never halted construction or operations on the platform. They aren't regulators, they're the mafia that takes a cut & hangs you the fuck out to dry when things go bad. It's in their interests when things like this happen, then they can spend more time & money trying to figure out new creatively useless ways in some vain attempt to "send a message" or make sure it "never happens again." Then they can get reelected & keep their sweet, sweet kickbacks coming in. They make their living on other people's suffering & the false promises of ending said suffering.

Again, is BP responsible for their doing biz with incompetent companies & their own idiot engineers. Sure. Get them for general stupidity. However, they sure as fuck weren't trying to ejaculate a couple million gallons of oil per day, & get hammered for a $20 billion escrow in the process because of some media coverage of birds drenched in crude.

Do you want to make it harder to put up oil platforms? I sure as fuck don't. We can either stop bitching about the bad things that happen when you drill a mile down into the sea at funny angles or figure out an easier, less risky way to produce energy. If the GOVERNMENT didn't have such fucked up regulations on nuclear power, we could toss up a few of those plants.

So yeah, fuck the government. This shit is what happens when you run an industry into the fucking ground like they have.



Edited By Malcolm on 1277918575

[Troy]

Normally when I think "running into the ground" I don't normally think of some of the highest profits margins, executive salaries, and lowest tax rates of any corporations that operate in the US.

I agree that the government has been so fucking up big oil's ass the last 9 years that they couldn't see the sunlight. Heaven forbid we actually try to change some these "policies" by introducing real government oversight that isn't clogged to the brim with kickbacks and corruption.

As to nuclear power, I'd say it's coming along at about the rate you would expect, given the horrible PR from 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, etc. Most new Nuclear Power initiatives require votes from populaces scared of raising children with 12 toes.



Edited By Troy on 1277921230

[TPRJones]

...by introducing real government oversight that isn't clogged to the brim with kickbacks and corruption.

Hell, you might as well try to run your car with unicorn blood and leprechaun tears. Because they're just as likely to exist as what you are asking for here.

Most new Nuclear Power initiatives require votes from populaces <s>scared of raising children with 12 toes</s> woefully uneducated about science and technology, and disgustingly proud of their ignorance.

Fixed.



Edited By TPRJones on 1277922990

[Malcolm]

Normally when I think "running into the ground" I don't normally think of some of the highest profits margins, executive salaries, and lowest tax rates of any corporations that operate in the US.

Offset by the massive R+D costs that go into researching & investigating all the technology & equipment needed to pull off modern deep-sea drilling or energy production in general.

[Malcolm]

As to nuclear power, I'd say it's coming along at about the rate you would expect, given the horrible PR from 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, etc. Most new Nuclear Power initiatives require votes from populaces scared of raising children with 12 toes.

1) Three Mile Island -- not actually a total meltdown. If that's the worst accident we ever have, we're doing pretty damn well.

2) Chernobyl -- not us. I'm not going to have my national power needs ignored because some commies couldn't figure out physics a few decades ago. I hear Pintos used to explode in a rear-end collision. Better stop driving any & all cars ever produced for the rest of eternity.

Not too mention that it's been forever since we've had above a level 3 nuclear incident.

[Troy]

Normally when I think "running into the ground" I don't normally think of some of the highest profits margins, executive salaries, and lowest tax rates of any corporations that operate in the US.

Offset by the massive R+D costs that go into researching & investigating all the technology & equipment needed to pull off modern deep-sea drilling or energy production in general.

Profits = revenue - expenses, of which R+D is principle. Unless you mean it offsets revenue? I'd say that Oil companies haven't had much trouble offsetting R+D essentially since their inception. For some odd reason, these profits seemed to spike during the Bush/Cheney Whitehouse. (shock)

Also, you guys are barking up the wrong tree about Nuclear power, I'm too young to even be born/remember any previous problems. You can throw facts and figures and statistics at people as much as possible. The voting public still, for whatever reason, distrust nuclear power, as dumb as that is. The anti-intellectual movement cuts both ways, I suppose.



Edited By Troy on 1277928394