Judge blocks moratorium on off-shore drilling

[Kthulhut Fhtagn]

NEW ORLEANS – A federal judge in New Orleans on Tuesday blocked a six-month moratorium on new deepwater drilling projects imposed in response to the massive Gulf oil spill.

The White House promised an immediate appeal. President Barack Obama's administration had halted approval of any new permits for deepwater drilling and suspended drilling of 33 exploratory wells in the Gulf.

Source (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill)

[Drysdale]

Good

[thaiboxerken]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/23/us/23drill.html

Does Conservative madness know no bounds?

[leftysergeant]

Good

Why is it good that a judge just ruled AGAINST public safety in favor of a bunch of crybaby industrialists?

Public safety is the first concern of government. Enabling people to drive vehicles the size of main battle tanks is not more important to public safety than is protecting the food supply.

[leftysergeant]

Source (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill)

Feldman needs to be removed from the bench. He has no grounds on which to require that the moratorium be lifted prior to determination of the safety of continuing. That's rather like allowing a lunatic to keep a pistol until it is determined whether or not he was right to shoot somebody.

[AlBell]

To the alternative question: Does the Obama administrations madness have the same problem?

[Drysdale]

What grounds does Obama have instituting the ban in the first place?

[AvalonXQ]

Good. Now the government won't be unnecessarily putting lots of people out of work before we actually know whether there's a problem.

[ponderingturtle]

Good. Now the government won't be unnecessarily putting lots of people out of work before we actually know whether there's a problem.

Think about were we would be if they did that after challenger and Columbia. Stopping sending shuttles into space put people out of work, at least temporarily. That was the wrong thing to do, I mean look at the spaces they opened up in the astronaut program for a start.

[firecoins]

Think about were we would be if they did that after challenger and Columbia. Stopping sending shuttles into space put people out of work, at least temporarily. That was the wrong thing to do, I mean look at the spaces they opened up in the astronaut program for a start.
They stopped the shuttle program. They will be outof work

[TraneWreck]

Good. Now the government won't be unnecessarily putting lots of people out of work before we actually know whether there's a problem.

Given the potential risk, the moratorium on deep water drilling was prudent.

If you want to employ those people have them start drilling relief wells on all existing rigs. The minute those are done, starts sucking up that delicious crude.

Regardless of what the problem is, we already know a solution that will prevent all future spills (explosions and unecessary rig-worker death, not so much). I think it's also safe to assume that the Deep Water wasn't the only rig with lax regulation and dangerous procedural short-cuts.

Put yourself in Obama's shoes: what would we think of him if another rig springs a leak?

[ponderingturtle]

They stopped the shuttle program. They will be outof work

But this logic shows that it was wrong to stop shuttle flights just because one blew up and you don't know why. I wonder if there will be an injunction about that as well.

[AvalonXQ]

Put yourself in Obama's shoes: what would we think of him if another rig springs a leak?

I assume nothing, since apparently Obama is incapable of error. He's perfect no matter what he does.
It's always those evil corporations' fault!

[AvalonXQ]

But this logic shows that it was wrong to stop shuttle flights just because one blew up and you don't know why.

We didn't shut down all automobile manufacturing when the Pintos started exploding.

[TraneWreck]

I assume nothing, since apparently Obama is incapable of error. He's perfect no matter what he does.
It's always those evil corporations' fault!

There will always be some apologist for anything. Hell, 1/5 of the country approved of Bush when he left. But setting aside the 20% at each end of the spectrum, the rest can easily be swayed.

We are on notice that government has failed in the Gulf. The regulation scheme was a farce.

We are on notice that business has failed in the Gulf. Given the chance, they flaunted the notion of safe practice.

There could be no indication of a failed presidency more obvious than another disaster after we've learned these things but before knowing the specific problem. Obama has no choice.

[TraneWreck]

We didn't shut down all automobile manufacturing when the Pintos started exploding.

But they shut down Pinto manufacturing.

This moratorium only applies to the deep water rigs.

[Alferd_Packer]

What grounds does Obama have instituting the ban in the first place?

I would imagine that it is the same grounds by which the administration can ground all the planes of a particular model if a safety flaw is discovered.

[Ladewig]

That's rather like allowing a lunatic to keep a pistol until it is determined whether or not he was right to shoot somebody.

Isn't it more like taking everyone's pistols while investigating a shooting involving a single gun owner?

[ponderingturtle]

We didn't shut down all automobile manufacturing when the Pintos started exploding.

You are right auto recalls are bad for the ecconomy. Toyota would be so much better if they didn't have all that bad press around their recalls. And a similar number of people died from those problems as died in the rig explosion.

[HistoryGal]

Why is it good that a judge just ruled AGAINST public safety in favor of a bunch of crybaby industrialists?

I always like to read the actual rulings before I spout an opinion.

I'm guessing that you haven't read the ruling issued by Judge Feldman. You can find it here:

http://www.laed.uscourts.gov/GENERAL/Notices/10-1663_doc67.pdf

Here are a couple of quotes from that Order's Ruling and Reasons:

A thirty-day examination was conducted in consultation with respected experts from state and federal governments, academic institutions, and industry and advocacy organizations. On May 27, 2010 the Secretary issued a Report, which reviews all aspects of drilling operations and recommends immediate and long term reforms to improve drilling safety. In the Executive Summary to the Report, the Secretary recommends “a six-month moratorium on permits for new wells being drilled using floating rigs.” He also recommends “an immediate halt to drilling operations on the 33 permitted wells, not including relief wells currently being drilled by BP, that are currently being drilled using floating rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.” Much to the government’s discomfort and this Court’s uneasiness, the Summary also states that “the recommendations contained in this report have been peer-reviewed by seven experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering.” As the plaintiffs, and the experts themselves, pointedly observe, this statement was misleading. The experts charge it was a “misrepresentation.” It was factually incorrect. Although the experts agreed with the safety recommendations contained in the body of the main Report, five of the National Academy experts and three of the other experts have publicly stated that they “do not agree with the six month blanket moratorium” on floating drilling. They envisioned a more limited kind of moratorium, but a blanket moratorium was added after their final review, they complain, and was never agreed to by them. A factor that might cause some apprehension about the probity of the process that led to the Report.Emphasis added.

Later in the Order and Reasons, Judge Feldman wrote:

Of course, the present state of the Administrative Record includes more than the Report, the Notice to Lessees, and the Memorandum of Moratorium. It includes a great deal of information consulted by the agency in making its decision. The defendants have submitted affidavits and some documents that purport to explain the agency’s decision-making process. The Shallow Water Energy Security Coalition Presentation attempts at some clarification of the decision to define “deepwater” as depths greater than 500 feet. It is undisputed that at depths of over 500 feet, floating rigs must be used, and the Executive Summary to the Report refers to a moratorium on drilling using “floating rigs.” Other documents submitted summarize some of the tests and studies performed. For example, one study showed that at 3000psi, the shear rams on three of the six tested rigs failed to shear their samples; in the follow up study, various ram models were tested on 214 pipe samples and 7.5% were unsuccessful at shearing the pipe below 3000psi. How these studies support a finding that shear equipment does not work consistently at 500 feet is incomprehensible. If some drilling equipment parts are flawed, is it rational to say all are? Are all airplanes a danger because one was? All oil tankers like Exxon Valdez? All trains? All mines? That sort of thinking seems heavyhanded, and rather overbearing.Emphasis added.

Footnote 10:
If the MMS and the Department truly were incompetent and corrupt, as the intervenors insist, the Court fails to see how this conclusion supports the government’s position. Indeed, while the government makes light of the fact that several of the experts disagree with the recommendations in the Report by noting that they do not disagree with the findings, of greater concern is the misleading text in the Executive Summary that seems to assert that all the experts agree with the Secretary’s recommendation. The government’s hair-splitting explanation abuses reason, common sense, and the text at issue.Emphasis added.

[Arrow]

With little surprise, see the White House will appeal the decision. It heads off to the 5th circuit courts.

http://michellemalkin.com/2010/06/22/breaking-judge-rules-against-obamatorium-on-drilling/

[HistoryGal]

Has no one here actually read the ruling???

http://www.laed.uscourts.gov/GENERAL/Notices/10-1663_doc67.pdf

Just a couple of quotes from the ruling:

A thirty-day examination was conducted in consultation with respected experts from state and federal governments, academic institutions, and industry and advocacy organizations. On May 27, 2010 the Secretary issued a Report, which reviews all aspects of drilling operations and recommends immediate and long term reforms to improve drilling safety. In the Executive Summary to the Report, the Secretary recommends “a six-month moratorium on permits for new wells being drilled using floating rigs.” He also recommends “an immediate halt to drilling operations on the 33 permitted wells, not including relief wells currently being drilled by BP, that are currently being drilled using floating rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.” Much to the government’s discomfort and this Court’s uneasiness, the Summary also states that “the recommendations contained in this report have been peer-reviewed by seven experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering.” As the plaintiffs, and the experts themselves, pointedly observe, this statement was misleading. The experts charge it was a “misrepresentation.” It was factually incorrect. Although the experts agreed with the safety recommendations contained in the body of the main Report, five of the National Academy experts and three of the other experts have publicly stated that they “do not agree with the six month blanket moratorium” on floating drilling. They envisioned a more limited kind of moratorium, but a blanket moratorium was added after their final review, they complain, and was never agreed to by them. A factor that might cause some apprehension about the probity of the process that led to the Report.Emphasis added.

Later in the Order and Reasons, Judge Feldman wrote:

Of course, the present state of the Administrative Record includes more than the Report, the Notice to Lessees, and the Memorandum of Moratorium. It includes a great deal of information consulted by the agency in making its decision. The defendants have submitted affidavits and some documents that purport to explain the agency’s decision-making process. The Shallow Water Energy Security Coalition Presentation attempts at some clarification of the decision to define “deepwater” as depths greater than 500 feet. It is undisputed that at depths of over 500 feet, floating rigs must be used, and the Executive Summary to the Report refers to a moratorium on drilling using “floating rigs.” Other documents submitted summarize some of the tests and studies performed. For example, one study showed that at 3000psi, the shear rams on three of the six tested rigs failed to shear their samples; in the follow up study, various ram models were tested on 214 pipe samples and 7.5% were unsuccessful at shearing the pipe below 3000psi. How these studies support a finding that shear equipment does not work consistently at 500 feet is incomprehensible. If some drilling equipment parts are flawed, is it rational to say all are? Are all airplanes a danger because one was? All oil tankers like Exxon Valdez? All trains? All mines? That sort of thinking seems heavyhanded, and rather overbearing.Emphasis added.

Footnote 10:
If the MMS and the Department truly were incompetent and corrupt, as the intervenors insist, the Court fails to see how this conclusion supports the government’s position. Indeed, while the government makes light of the fact that several of the experts disagree with the recommendations in the Report by noting that they do not disagree with the findings, of greater concern is the misleading text in the Executive Summary that seems to assert that all the experts agree with the Secretary’s recommendation. The government’s hair-splitting explanation abuses reason, common sense, and the text at issue.Emphasis added.

I encourage reading the entire Order and Reasons of the ruling.

[thaiboxerken]

The moratorium is an intelligent move because we know that this accident wasn't just a BP failing, but a failing of the MMS. The MMS affects how all drilling operations are handled. Also, moratoriums have been done before after other oil disasters...yet it appears it's only bad if Obama does it.

[TraneWreck]

Has no one here actually read the ruling???

http://www.laed.uscourts.gov/GENERAL/Notices/10-1663_doc67.pdf

Just a couple of quotes from the ruling:

Emphasis added.

Later in the Order and Reasons, Judge Feldman wrote:

Emphasis added.

Footnote 10:
Emphasis added.

I encourage reading the entire Order and Reasons of the ruling.

First, I will acknowledge that the full-out moratorium might be an overreaction, but it is justified.

The airplane analogy, however, sums up the wrongness of the decision. People can rationally choose whether the risk of airplane flight is worth the shortened travel time. Even the worst crashes affect a relatively small number of people.

As we have seen, oil rigs can destroy the economy of entire regions. Additionally, the people who suffer the consequence have no control over the behavior, there is no risk assessment by the victms.

[Nova Land]

From the AP news story (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill) in the OP:

A federal judge struck down the Obama administration's six-month ban on deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, saying the government rashly concluded that because one rig failed, the others are in immediate danger, too...

Several companies ... asked U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman in New Orleans to overturn the moratorium.

They argued it was arbitrarily imposed after the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that killed 11 workers and blew out the well 5,000 feet underwater. It has spewed anywhere from 67 million to 127 million gallons of oil into the Gulf.

Feldman sided with the companies.


It sounds like the kind of ruling Martin Feldman would make, but I thought he was dead. (According to Wikipedia, he died in 1982).

I bet this is a typo, and it's Michael Feldman they mean. Look for a correction in later versions of this story.

[JoeTheJuggler]

I know the news media keep saying it is the moratorium that's adversely affecting the Louisiana economy, but does anyone know just how many wells would be effected by the moratorium? I heard that it was something under 1 percent of the active well drilling projects in the Gulf. Something like 33 out of 3600, I think.

IIRC, the moratorium only applies to deep water projects (deeper than 500 feet), since we don't know the specifics yet of what happened at Deepwater Horizon.

Just trying to get some sense of scale into the discussion.

[Alferd_Packer]

I bet this is a typo, and it's Michael Feldman they mean.

Damn Your Eyes!

[JoeTheJuggler]

I bet this is a typo, and it's Michael Feldman they mean.

Well whad'ya know?
;)

[AvalonXQ]

As we have seen, oil rigs can destroy the economy of entire regions. Additionally, the people who suffer the consequence have no control over the behavior, there is no risk assessment by the victms.

... which is why the government has the right to carry out a risk assessment and decide whether drilling is appropriate.
But that doesn't imply that the government should ignore the experts and ban the activity, having not carried out the risk assessment, because it makes them look good.

[TraneWreck]

... which is why the government has the right to carry out a risk assessment and decide whether drilling is appropriate.
But that doesn't imply that the government should ignore the experts and ban the activity, having not carried out the risk assessment, because it makes them look good.

Honestly, I find the risk assessment irrelevant to everything except the lives of rig workers. While certainly a major concern, that doesn't rise to the level of an essential national issue. Hell, 15 workers died in a BP explosion in 2005 and there wasn't a major national incident:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5454130.html

There's no possible way to make drilling oil 100% safe. If 1/2 of 1% of rigs are flawed, look at the results. There should be a moratorium until relief wells are dug on all rigs, shallow and deep. The minute those are done, lift the moratorium and keep investigating.

As it stands now, any accident can become a crisis. Dig a relief well and any accident becomes a tragic accident and nothing more.

[Skeptic Guy]

My concern is that it seems that MMS oversight and regulation was a sham and, I thought, there was some question whether the blowout preventer technology was adequate for wells at that depth. I didn't think it was such a bad idea to pause, take a deep breath, and make sure they have it as right as they can.

BP's short-cuts contributed significantly to the accident, therefore I would think that it might be a good idea to have inspectors fly out to the drill rigs and look things over.

[fuelair]

I assume nothing, since apparently Obama is incapable of error. He's perfect no matter what he does.
It's always those evil corporations' fault! Just checking - was it BP or Obama who violated several of their own safety regs - and - according to their own memos - underplaced safety devices that would likely have prevented any major spill and likely any spill at all. At least our loathing of bush and all his butt buddies had a basis in the real world.

[Newtons Bit]

I would imagine that it is the same grounds by which the administration can ground all the planes of a particular model if a safety flaw is discovered.

What is the safety flaw in oil rigs that was discovered? Knowingly using a damaged blow-out preventer? Not repairing possibly damaged casings?

[WildCat]

I would imagine that it is the same grounds by which the administration can ground all the planes of a particular model if a safety flaw is discovered.
That's true. However, the judge ruled (http://www.laed.uscourts.gov/GENERAL/Notices/10-1663_doc67.pdf) there was no factual basis for the moratorium:
On the record now before the Court, the defendants have failed to cogently reflect the decision to issue a blanket, generic, indeed punitive, moratorium with the facts developed during the thirty-day review. The plaintiffs have established a likelihood of successfully showing that the Administration acted arbitrarily and capriciously in issuing the moratorium.

...This Court is persuaded that the public interest weighs in favor of granting a preliminary injunction. While a suspension of activities directed after a rational interpretation of the evidence could outweigh the impact on the plaintiffs and the public, here, the Court has found the plaintiffs would likely succeed in showing that the agency’s decision was arbitrary and capricious. An invalid agency decision to suspend drilling of wells in depths of over 500 feet simply cannot justify the immeasurable effect on the plaintiffs, the local economy, the Gulf region, and the critical present-day aspect of the availability of domestic energy in this country.

[quadraginta]

From the AP news story (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill) in the OP:




It sounds like the kind of ruling Martin Feldman would make, but I thought he was dead. (According to Wikipedia, he died in 1982).

I bet this is a typo, and it's Michael Feldman they mean. Look for a correction in later versions of this story.


Hmmm.

Whad'Ya Know? (http://judgepedia.org/index.php/Martin_Feldman)

[quadraginta]

Well whad'ya know?
;)


Curses. Beat me to it.

[ponderingturtle]

Just checking - was it BP or Obama who violated several of their own safety regs - and - according to their own memos - underplaced safety devices that would likely have prevented any major spill and likely any spill at all. At least our loathing of bush and all his butt buddies had a basis in the real world.

Haven't you been listening, Obama did all that.

[dtugg]

Feldman needs to be removed from the bench. He has no grounds on which to require that the moratorium be lifted prior to determination of the safety of continuing. That's rather like allowing a lunatic to keep a pistol until it is determined whether or not he was right to shoot somebody.

Luckily, federal judges cannot be removed from the bench just because you don't like their decisions.

[MikeMangum]

I think the moratorium is stupid, but I also think it is a policy decision that the Federal government should be able to make. I can see an argument for allowing already existing leases, but the government should be able to, at the very least, stop issuing new leases if it so desires. I'm not sure I understand how the policy impacts pre-existing leases.

[leftysergeant]

Luckily, federal judges cannot be removed from the bench just because you don't like their decisions.

They can be if they rule in favor of an industry in which they have a financial stake. It's called "corruption."

Lots of that went on in regards to the courts under the misguidance of the previous POTUS.

[leftysergeant]

What is the safety flaw in oil rigs that was discovered? Knowingly using a damaged blow-out preventer? Not repairing possibly damaged casings?

Incorrect operator headspace.

[Newtons Bit]

Incorrect operator headspace.

I think it's: insufficient manager cranium capacity.

[dtugg]

They can be if they rule in favor of an industry in which they have a financial stake. It's called "corruption."

Lots of that went on in regards to the courts under the misguidance of the previous POTUS.

Let me know when you can prove this happened.

[rwguinn]

Let me know when you can prove this happened.
Is lefty doing a Beck here?
Sounds like it to me!

[fuelair]

Let me know when you can prove this happened.

It's been proved at least as of an hour ago. He has stock in the company that built the rig that caused the spill. Paper records shown on air.:D:D:D:D:D Now for his, I hope, impeachment/de-barring!!!

[leftysergeant]

It's been proved at least as of an hour ago. He has stock in the company that built the rig that caused the spill. Paper records shown on air.:D:D:D:D:D Now for his, I hope, impeachment/de-barring!!!

Ah, Schadenfreude! Obama may get to appoint another judge.

[JoeTheJuggler]

If some drilling equipment parts are flawed, is it rational to say all are? Are all airplanes a danger because one was? All oil tankers like Exxon Valdez? All trains? All mines? That sort of thinking seems heavyhanded, and rather overbearing.

If a new and not well-tested airplane goes down and something about the design of the plane is suspected as the cause of the crash, you're darn right we should ground other planes of that design until we at least know the cause of the crash.

And again, the moratorium would only affect 33 out of 3600 oil and natural gas platforms in the Gulf. No way is this the major cause of economic hardship in the region. And BP should pay those affected by it anyway, since their disaster is what led to the moratorium.

[leftysergeant]

If a new and not well-tested airplane goes down and something about the design of the plane is suspected as the cause of the crash, you're darn right we should ground other planes of that design until we at least know the cause of the crash.

During the operational phase of the Osprey program, they grounded all of them everytime one crashed.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Hmmm.

Whad'Ya Know? (http://judgepedia.org/index.php/Martin_Feldman)

Not much. . . .you?

(Somebody had to say it.)
:)

[dtugg]

It's been proved at least as of an hour ago. He has stock in the company that built the rig that caused the spill. Paper records shown on air.:D:D:D:D:D Now for his, I hope, impeachment/de-barring!!!

Evidence?

[defaultdotxbe]

Just checking - was it BP or Obama who violated several of their own safety regs - and - according to their own memos - underplaced safety devices that would likely have prevented any major spill and likely any spill at all. At least our loathing of bush and all his butt buddies had a basis in the real world.
so why shut down all drilling if it was BPs lack of safety that led to the accident? why not shut down BP drilling

And again, the moratorium would only affect 33 out of 3600 oil and natural gas platforms in the Gulf. No way is this the major cause of economic hardship in the region. And BP should pay those affected by it anyway, since their disaster is what led to the moratorium.
how many of the 3567 remaining rigs are operated by BP? do we know they follow proper safety procedures?

During the operational phase of the Osprey program, they grounded all of them everytime one crashed.
but they didnt ground all arcraft, or even all propeller-driven aircraft



personally i think obama is using the situation to further his political agencda, but honestly i could give a crap about that, thats what politicians do, push agendas

what gets me is to see all the people who applaud this, are the same people who criticize bush for doing the same thing (and the people criticize this applaud bush for the same reason)

[thaiboxerken]

so why shut down all drilling if it was BPs lack of safety that led to the accident? why not shut down BP drilling


It wasn't just BP's lack of safety, but the MMS lack of oversight. Because of this, we have no idea if the other drilling operations are safe or not. It would be smart to stop all drilling operations until they can be inspected at this poing. This isn't the first time a moratorium has been issued due to an oil spill, just the first time the conservatives made a big stink about it.

[defaultdotxbe]

It wasn't just BP's lack of safety, but the MMS lack of oversight. Because of this, we have no idea if the other drilling operations are safe or not. It would be smart to stop all drilling operations until they can be inspected at this poing. This isn't the first time a moratorium has been issued due to an oil spill, just the first time the conservatives made a big stink about it.
so then would the lack of oversight not apply to all offshore drilling, not just deep water? would it apply to all oil drilling not just offshore? would it apply to all mining, not just oil?

i understand that there have been moratoriums before, but on the side of the issue the reasons dont seem to match the action, which is why i think there is another reason obama is targeting just deep water rigs

to go back to the plane crash analogy, if it turns out the problem was a malfuntion in the individual aircraft, or a design flaw in that type of aircraft, but a problem with the FAA or ATC not doing their job, grounding just the one type of plane doesnt really help

[thaiboxerken]

I agree, the moratorium should encompass even more than it does now. If nothing else, the entire energy industry should have to undergo new inspections after the MMS has been restructured. The politics would never let a moratorium on the entire industry happen, but it's good that he's started with the most dangerous part of the oil industry.

[leftysergeant]

Targetting just the deep water rigs makes sense. It is the least adverse action for the industry over-all, because it involves the fewest rigs.

A naked man with good lungs and a llead-weighted line can check out a lot of the in-shore rigs.

Some species of whales can't reach the botom of the Deep Water Horizon site.

It will take specialized equipment to inspect them, and that stuff is all kind of tied up right now because some empty suit with a matching brain case could stand to wait to have the job finished, even if it meant throwing the safety manual overboard.

OoooH! Ooooh!. I just got an idea. Send Ptomaine Tony and the judsge down to have a look at the effected bore holes.

[defaultdotxbe]

Targetting just the deep water rigs makes sense. It is the least adverse action for the industry over-all, because it involves the fewest rigs.
so its just a feel good law with no real effect one way or the other. gotcha

[thaiboxerken]

so its just a feel good law with no real effect one way or the other. gotcha

How you came up with this as Lefty's position is beyond me. Maybe they should send you down to the Gulf of Mexico. The amount of straw you have could soak up all the oil.

[leftysergeant]

so its just a feel good law with no real effect one way or the other. gotcha

No. It targets the most potentially disasterous scenario first. Just the fact that they are deep enough to cause particular threats to all life on earth and the fact that their start-up was overseen by a gang of drongos appointed by a corrupt moron must give us all pause. Let's be sure they haven't screwed up as badly on the other deep-water rigs and, if they have, take all safety measures now, before we have more oil spilling into the ocean than it can ever absorb.

[JoeTheJuggler]

so why shut down all drilling if it was BPs lack of safety that led to the accident? why not shut down BP drilling
Because we don't know exactly what led to the accident, and we do know that the industry in general has done a poor job with contingency plans (relying instead on "fail safes" that we now know are not).


how many of the 3567 remaining rigs are operated by BP? do we know they follow proper safety procedures?
The moratorium was only for those in deep water. A blow out in shallow water can be capped. Apparently there are no viable contingency plans for an accident like this in deep water. (Other than letting the oil spew while relief wells are drilled.)


but they didnt ground all arcraft, or even all propeller-driven aircraft
And the moratorium wasn't for all oil drilling in the Gulf. It was only for similar platforms (that is, in deep water). The judge is using a faulty analogy suggesting that the moratorium would be analogous to grounding all airplanes. It would be more like grounding all of that same aircraft if a design flaw were suspected--at least until the cause of the crash is determined.

[JoeTheJuggler]

so then would the lack of oversight not apply to all offshore drilling, not just deep water? would it apply to all oil drilling not just offshore? would it apply to all mining, not just oil?
Again, problems in shallow water wells can be dealt with. We have learned the hard way that there are no viable contingency plans for problems like this in deep water wells. We have learned that what works in shallow water doesn't work in deep water.


to go back to the plane crash analogy, if it turns out the problem was a malfuntion in the individual aircraft, or a design flaw in that type of aircraft, but a problem with the FAA or ATC not doing their job, grounding just the one type of plane doesnt really help
And once the cause of the crash were determined NOT to be a design flaw (or in this case, once a viable contingency plan for deep water well problems is developed), the grounding would be lifted. Again, with new aircraft, this happens a lot. We want to err on the side of safety.

ETA: Just to clarify: I see two valid reasons for the moratorium. One is that we're not sure exactly what caused the disaster at Deepwater Horizon (could be just BP's cutting-corners with standard safety practices to save money, or it could be a problem with the nature of deep water drilling--either way, it's a good idea to stop those other projects until we're sure they're not doing the same thing that led to the disaster), and the other is that even if we're taking every precaution, we shouldn't allow them to go forward until viable contingency plans are in place in case of failure of the "fail safes". It's unacceptable that the only solution to a leak like this is to slow it a little while relief wells are drilled. I think the moratorium should remain in place until both issues are addressed.

[defaultdotxbe]

Again, problems in shallow water wells can be dealt with. We have learned the hard way that there are no viable contingency plans for problems like this in deep water wells.
to me thats kindof liek saying "you cant shoot someone in the head, because it will kill them, but you can stab them in the arm because they can stitch that up at the hospital"

And once the cause of the crash were determined NOT to be a design flaw (or in this case, once a viable contingency plan for deep water well problems is developed), the grounding would be lifted. Again, with new aircraft, this happens a lot. We want to err on the side of safety.you missed my point, if the problem is with ATC or FAA then ANY aircraft in the air is a problem

and it seems this is a similar issue, with the oversight, not with the equipment or methods


as i said before i really dont care one way or the other, it just seems the justification doesnt match the actions

[quadraginta]

Because we don't know exactly what led to the accident, and we do know that the industry in general has done a poor job with contingency plans (relying instead on "fail safes" that we now know are not).



The moratorium was only for those in deep water. A blow out in shallow water can be capped . Apparently there are no viable contingency plans for an accident like this in deep water. (Other than letting the oil spew while relief wells are drilled.)



And the moratorium wasn't for all oil drilling in the Gulf. It was only for similar platforms (that is, in deep water). The judge is using a faulty analogy suggesting that the moratorium would be analogous to grounding all airplanes. It would be more like grounding all of that same aircraft if a design flaw were suspected--at least until the cause of the crash is determined.


I'm not in disagreement with the general point you are making, but I highlighted the above because I think the lessons of Ixtoc 1 should be kept in mind. That spill was almost a perfect duplicate of this one, including methods used to try and stop it. The only significant difference that I've uncovered was that it occurred at ~160 ft. down. That's not a lot deeper than recreational skindiving depth.

The disagreement I have is that it may be hard to criticize the Administration for being too cautious with this moratorium when arguments can be made that it is not being cautious enough on pretty much the same available evidence.

[JoeTheJuggler]

to me thats kindof liek saying "you cant shoot someone in the head, because it will kill them, but you can stab them in the arm because they can stitch that up at the hospital"
It's not like that in any way whatsoever.

you missed my point, if the problem is with ATC or FAA then ANY aircraft in the air is a problem
You're missing the point. Again, in shallow water wells, there are proven contingency plans for failure, but in these 33 deep water wells, there are not. Even if the cause of the Deepwater Horizon turns out--as you say--to be the fault of government regulators, until we determine that cause and make sure these other wells aren't doing the same thing, it's not safe to let them continue, what with the lack of viable contingency plans.

The problem with your reasoning is that you pretend you already know that the cause of the disaster was oversight and nothing else, but in fact, you don't know that. And even if that were the cause, how do you know that same lack of oversight isn't going to cause a problem in one of these 33 other deep water wells (which also have no viable contingency plans)?


and it seems this is a similar issue, with the oversight, not with the equipment or methods
You're claiming to know more than anyone else in the world, including the people investigating the disaster.

To make the analogy work, imagine an experimental airplane that crashes and the pilot is killed because his seat ejection/parachute fails. Since we've never seen the seat ejection/parachute function in this new plane design, and we don't know what caused the plane to crash, all other planes of this same design are grounded until these two issues (the cause of the crash, and developing a functional seat ejection/parachute) are resolved.

[JoeTheJuggler]

I'm not in disagreement with the general point you are making, but I highlighted the above because I think the lessons of Ixtoc 1 should be kept in mind. That spill was almost a perfect duplicate of this one, including methods used to try and stop it. The only significant difference that I've uncovered was that it occurred at ~160 ft. down. That's not a lot deeper than recreational skindiving depth.

The disagreement I have is that it may be hard to criticize the Administration for being too cautious with this moratorium when arguments can be made that it is not being cautious enough on pretty much the same available evidence.

I stand corrected. If anything, the moratorium should be expanded to cover more drilling projects until viable contingency plans are in place.

In documents BP submitted to the government in 2009, they claimed to be able to handle a blow out that leaked something like 130,000 barrels per day. We know now that this is utterly false.

Yes, if anything the problem is broader than the deep water wells, and the moratorium should include more drilling projects.

But addressing the moratorium as it is (applying only to 33 wells), it's not at all analogous to grounding all airplanes because one plane crashes.

ETA: Did they try the gigantic cap thingy on Ixtoc? I thought the only reason it failed on Deepwater Horizon was the formation of hydrates due to the depth. Do hydrates form even at depths shallower than 500 ft? (Perhaps I'm relying too much on BP's optimism.)

[rwguinn]

so why shut down all drilling if it was BPs lack of safety that led to the accident? why not shut down BP drilling


how many of the 3567 remaining rigs are operated by BP? do we know they follow proper safety procedures?


...)
You are confusing "production" with "Drilling". There are not 3567 rigs DRILLING in the Gulf.

[funk de fino]

No. It targets the most potentially disasterous scenario first. Just the fact that they are deep enough to cause particular threats to all life on earth and the fact that their start-up was overseen by a gang of drongos appointed by a corrupt moron must give us all pause. Let's be sure they haven't screwed up as badly on the other deep-water rigs and, if they have, take all safety measures now, before we have more oil spilling into the ocean than it can ever absorb.

Your posts are increasingly idiotic and childish. This sort of stuff makes you look worse than those you castigate.

[funk de fino]

You are confusing "production" with "Drilling". There are not 3567 rigs DRILLING in the Gulf.

Another case of the media lapdogs and the slurpers being woefully uninformed about the whole thing.

[JoeTheJuggler]

You are confusing "production" with "Drilling". There are not 3567 rigs DRILLING in the Gulf.

But the numbers refer to the economic impact to coast residents (particularly Louisiana). Most oil rig workers are still at work.

Even the judge's analogy to grounding all airplanes shows this misunderstanding. The moratorium wouldn't affect very many workers in the Gulf [ETA:relatively speaking].

ETA: BTW, the moratorium would only have affected 22 previously started drilling projects. The other 11 were previously permitted projects that hadn't started drilling yet.

ETA: Here's a bit of fact checking on the economic impact the moratorium would have had: http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/npr-hypes-economic-impact-of-deep-water-drilling-ban/

[NoScotsman]

It's kind of silly when you think about it ... drilling miles under the ocean ... far from shore. Especially, when there's so much oil on land waiting to be drilled.

And as for drilling on land ... I don't understand why we scar the earth with oil wells in populated places, but prohibit ourselves from drilling in barren wastelands above the arctic circle. Personally, I'd like to protect the land in the lower48 ...

[JoeTheJuggler]

And as for drilling on land ... I don't understand why we scar the earth with oil wells in populated places, but prohibit ourselves from drilling in barren wastelands above the arctic circle. Personally, I'd like to protect the land in the lower48 ...

I'm not defending the practices, but I think the idea is that it's better to "scar the earth" in areas that have already been developed and populated by humans rather than sensitive biomes (like tundras or coastal wetlands). Just as no one complains about farming land that's already being farmed, but many complain when you chop down Amazon rain forest to farm the land.

[funk de fino]

It's kind of silly when you think about it ... drilling miles under the ocean ... far from shore. Especially, when there's so much oil on land waiting to be drilled.

And as for drilling on land ... I don't understand why we scar the earth with oil wells in populated places, but prohibit ourselves from drilling in barren wastelands above the arctic circle. Personally, I'd like to protect the land in the lower48 ...

With even more lax safety standards and regulations

[funk de fino]

But the numbers refer to the economic impact to coast residents (particularly Louisiana). Most oil rig workers are still at work.

Even the judge's analogy to grounding all airplanes shows this misunderstanding. The moratorium wouldn't affect very many workers in the Gulf [ETA:relatively speaking].

ETA: BTW, the moratorium would only have affected 22 previously started drilling projects. The other 11 were previously permitted projects that hadn't started drilling yet.

ETA: Here's a bit of fact checking on the economic impact the moratorium would have had: http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/npr-hypes-economic-impact-of-deep-water-drilling-ban/

Quite a few of our guys have been moved overseas. All the crews on any rigs which pick up contracts outside the gulf will also move. They will not sit idle in the GOM waiting when someone will pay them a million dollars a day.

I agree with the halt even though it affects my business. We need to make sure everything is hunky dorey. There will be problems found on the rigs. Mostly procedural.

[Metullus]

As I understand the ruling the judge is pointing out that Salazar has presented no factual basis justifying a moratorium since the justification that was presented relied on a blatant misrepresentation of the views of Salazar's own experts.

If there is a cogent argument for the moratorium Salazar should make it. That he felt it necessary to misrepresent the consensus of his own experts in order to sell the moratorium is not encouraging.

[quadraginta]

It's kind of silly when you think about it ... drilling miles under the ocean ... far from shore. Especially, when there's so much oil on land waiting to be drilled.

And as for drilling on land ... I don't understand why we scar the earth with oil wells in populated places, but prohibit ourselves from drilling in barren wastelands above the arctic circle. Personally, I'd like to protect the land in the lower48 ...


Me too.

From "Mountaintop removal mining"...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/db/Martin_County_home.jpg/800px-Martin_County_home.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/MTR1.jpg

[Drysdale]

Does this moratorium only affect American companies?

If so what's really the point?

[Newtons Bit]

But the numbers refer to the economic impact to coast residents (particularly Louisiana). Most oil rig workers are still at work.

Even the judge's analogy to grounding all airplanes shows this misunderstanding. The moratorium wouldn't affect very many workers in the Gulf [ETA:relatively speaking].

ETA: BTW, the moratorium would only have affected 22 previously started drilling projects. The other 11 were previously permitted projects that hadn't started drilling yet.

ETA: Here's a bit of fact checking on the economic impact the moratorium would have had: http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/npr-hypes-economic-impact-of-deep-water-drilling-ban/

33 rigs at $500,000/day comes out to $6 billion a year. $6 billion that would have gone into US jobs and services. That doesn't include economic value of the oil going to refineries, or taxes levied on the extracted oil.

But hey, if you're okay just throwing that kind of money away because you think the oil companies need a "time out", go for it. Me? I'll read the report by the experts and be satisfied by their recommendation that the moratorium is NOT necessary.

[rwguinn]

33 rigs at $500,000/day comes out to $6 billion a year. $6 billion that would have gone into US jobs and services. That doesn't include economic value of the oil going to refineries, or taxes levied on the extracted oil.

But hey, if you're okay just throwing that kind of money away because you think the oil companies need a "time out", go for it. Me? I'll read the report by the experts and be satisfied by their recommendation that the moratorium is NOT necessary.
JTJ has trouble differentiation between Production rig and Drilling rig.
Never mind "floating platform" and fixed platform...

[leftysergeant]

Your posts are increasingly idiotic and childish. This sort of stuff makes you look worse than those you castigate.You cannot escape the fact that the Shrub utrterly corrupterd everything he ever touched. It is a matter of public safety that the corruption be investigated and the results on the sea bottom be assessed and corrected before any further drilling goes on. We cannot afford a mistake, and the results of a mistake are not corrrectible by money in any amount.

The world runs on FOOD, not oil.

[JoeTheJuggler]

33 rigs at $500,000/day comes out to $6 billion a year. $6 billion that would have gone into US jobs and services. That doesn't include economic value of the oil going to refineries, or taxes levied on the extracted oil.

More fact checking: the moratorium wasn't necessarily going to be longer than 6 months. The $500,000 per day figure is the revenue of the well owner, right? If we're talking about BP, most of that money does NOT go into the local economy. (See the link I posted earlier on the economic effects of the moratorium.)


But hey, if you're okay just throwing that kind of money away because you think the oil companies need a "time out", go for it. Me? I'll read the report by the experts and be satisfied by their recommendation that the moratorium is NOT necessary.
Straw man. Nobody is suggesting the moratorium as a punishment for the industry. It's about safety.

[JoeTheJuggler]

JTJ has trouble differentiation between Production rig and Drilling rig.
Never mind "floating platform" and fixed platform...

So how does a drilling project earn $500,000 per day?

And I have no problem distinguishing the two. Opponents of the moratorium seem to have the problem you're speaking of. To hear them talk, the moratorium would have shut down all oil companies working in the Gulf.

[rwguinn]

So how does a drilling project earn $500,000 per day?

And I have no problem distinguishing the two. Opponents of the moratorium seem to have the problem you're speaking of. To hear them talk, the moratorium would have shut down all oil companies working in the Gulf.
Let's see:
JoeTheJuggler drilling, inc. has an offshore drilling platform.
BP wants a hole drilled in the Gulf of Mexico.
JTG drilling, Inc, says "sure. I'll do it and you don't have to pay us a cent"
That's how it DOESN'T generate $500,000 per day.

[thaiboxerken]

33 rigs at $500,000/day comes out to $6 billion a year.

How much would it cost if 1 or 2 of those rigs blew up and caused another oil eruption underwater?

[Newtons Bit]

How much would it cost if 1 or 2 of those rigs blew up and caused another oil eruption underwater?

You're JAQ'ing off. The expert witnesses in this case did not feel that a moratorium was necessary. What you're asking is non-sequitur.

[thaiboxerken]

You're JAQ'ing off. The expert witnesses in this case did not feel that a moratorium was necessary.

What would it cost if another spill like the one going on happens?

[AlBell]

What would it cost if another spill like the one going on happens?
Considering the current mess, hard to tell. The Gulf is already destroyed.

Probably could be argued, nothing like the liability facing BP/Anadarco/Mitsui/Transocean.

People I believe estimate cost of the 6 mo moratorium at 40,000+ jobs, $15 billion +-.

[leftysergeant]

You're JAQ'ing off. The expert witnesses in this case did not feel that a moratorium was necessary. What you're asking is non-sequitur.

The expert may be saying that without having inspected any of the rigs himself, which is just plain stupid. The rigs look good on paper, but remember that that paper was generated by a thoroughly corrupted office.

The judge stepped outside his area of expertise and authority. If it turns out that he is vested in any of the companies involved, he needs to hang up his robe and leave the gavel on the bench for someone with a conscience.

Or Congress can kick him to the curb in disgrace.

[Newtons Bit]

The expert may be saying that without having inspected any of the rigs himself, which is just plain stupid. The rigs look good on paper, but remember that that paper was generated by a thoroughly corrupted office.

It's not one expert. It was a peer-review panel of 7. 5 of them do not approve of the 6-month moratorium. They are all upset that the report claims that they supported the 6-month moratorium. That part was added after their peer review. When a person uses someone elses work as their own, it's called plagiarism. What do you call knowingly attributing a statement to someone who never made it? Lying? Fraud?

The judge stepped outside his area of expertise and authority.

Lawyers are supposed to defer to experts in fields they're not experts in (which is all but law). Unless there's judges who are also engineers somewhere?

If it turns out that he is vested in any of the companies involved, he needs to hang up his robe and leave the gavel on the bench for someone with a conscience.

Sure, that's an obvious conflict of interest and an ethical violation. You just need to prove it.

[thaiboxerken]

Considering the current mess, hard to tell. The Gulf is already destroyed.

Probably could be argued, nothing like the liability facing BP/Anadarco/Mitsui/Transocean.

People I believe estimate cost of the 6 mo moratorium at 40,000+ jobs, $15 billion +-.

You don't think another spill in the Gulf would increase the chance of destroying more shorelines outside of the gulf?

[AlBell]

You don't think another spill in the Gulf would increase the chance of destroying more shorelines outside of the gulf?
I agree it might.

If the Yellowstone super volcano awakes, or the San Andres fault looses the Big One, or a we take 50 mile diameter asteroid strike, or even if 3 Mile Island burps bad things would also occur.

Drilling activities in deep water -- not only in the Gulf -- are now being examined by operators & rig owners to the best of their abilities, and conducted with nothing but safe operations in mind for all concerned.

The renamed/restructured MMS, and govt oversight, will remain a joke as always.

[thaiboxerken]

Drilling activities in deep water -- not only in the Gulf -- are now being examined by operators & rig owners to the best of their abilities, and conducted with nothing but safe operations in mind for all concerned.


I doubt it. We've heard this story before. This isn't the first time the oil industry has destroyed the environment.

[JoeTheJuggler]

You're JAQ'ing off. The expert witnesses in this case did not feel that a moratorium was necessary. What you're asking is non-sequitur.

Whose experts?

Also, aren't these the same experts who said that Deepwater Horizon was virtually fail-safe? The same experts who claimed BP had the ability to handle a worst case scenario leak? The same experts who insisted that the leak was only 5,000 barrels per day when independent experts said that based on the video of the leak it was much higher than that?

Congress' investigation is still underway, and no one is asserting any conclusions, as you suggest. That's why a moratorium is appropriate. If anyone can guarantee that whatever happened at Deepwater Horizon cannot happen at another deep water well, they are being less than honest.

[JoeTheJuggler]

The renamed/restructured MMS, and govt oversight, will remain a joke as always.

As long as they are still in bed (literally and figuratively) with the industry they regulate, you are right.

I don't believe this has to be the case.

If you think government oversight is not possible, are you suggesting we should just trust the industry?

[Newtons Bit]

Whose experts?

They are the ones that the Obama Administration explicitly asked to peer-review the paper. They're the Obama administration experts.

“the recommendations contained in this report have been peer-reviewed by seven experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering.”

I'll wait to read your other statements until after you catch up on what the facts actually are.

[thaiboxerken]

Have these "experts" been to every one of those 33 sites and investigated the safety of their operations?

[JoeTheJuggler]

They are the ones that the Obama Administration explicitly asked to peer-review the paper. They're the Obama administration experts.
So what about the rest of my questions? Aren't these the same experts the industry relies on?

Again, Congress' investigation is not yet complete. BP themselves say that they don't know how key decisions were made or what led to the disaster.

Their investigation is unlikely to rely strictly on one single source of information.

Why not stop the drilling in these 22 deep water wells and wait until we find out what went wrong with Deepwater Horizon? No way 6 months will be more economically devastating than the disaster itself--and certainly less difficult than a repeat of the disaster.

[leftysergeant]

Drilling activities in deep water -- not only in the Gulf -- are now being examined by operators & rig owners to the best of their abilities, and conducted with nothing but safe operations in mind for all concerned.

That's what they say. No way in hell am I going to accept it, given what private industry does when they think nobody is watching. They are not to be trusted when lives are at stake. They have just screwed up too often in the past and there is not a doubt in the mind of a rational person that they will again if they think they can get away with cutting a corner.

The renamed/restructured MMS, and govt oversight, will remain a joke as always.

If the Republicants get back into power, certainly. Wait and see how it operates after Obama takes out the trash from the Shrub years.

[leftysergeant]

They are the ones that the Obama Administration explicitly asked to peer-review the paper. They're the Obama administration experts.

Sounds as though, rather than the consensus, the administration acted on the worst-case scenario. You never go wrong betting on the worst case and ceasing operations if lives are at stake by proceding, but not from ceasing. Always pick the course which kills the fewest people if it is wrong.

[Newtons Bit]

So what about the rest of my questions? Aren't these the same experts the industry relies on?

I take it that you decided NOT to educate yourself. Definitely an odd choice.

Why not stop the drilling in these 22 deep water wells and wait until we find out what went wrong with Deepwater Horizon? No way 6 months will be more economically devastating than the disaster itself--and certainly less difficult than a repeat of the disaster.

We already know what went wrong.

[Newtons Bit]

Sounds as though, rather than the consensus, the administration acted on the worst-case scenario. You never go wrong betting on the worst case and ceasing operations if lives are at stake by proceding, but not from ceasing. Always pick the course which kills the fewest people if it is wrong.

Sure, let's ban all cars, because face it, people die in car accidents. Let's ban all planes, food (it causes cancer), going outside (causes cancer), excercising (people die from heart attacks during it) until we figure out how to make it fail-safe.

The point I'm making is that you need to understand what the risk is. If a minuscule risk isn't acceptable, then we might as well stop living. The panel from the NAE thought it was acceptable with some additional safety measures.

[thaiboxerken]

So, Newton. Is it your position that, since the Gulf is already messed up, screw safety and drill, baby, drill?

[JoeTheJuggler]

We already know what went wrong.

So was Tony Hayward lying to Congress? He said he didn't know. He said BP's investigation is still going on and hasn't reached any conclusions.

[Sword_Of_Truth]

The world runs on FOOD, not oil.

And what does farm machinery run on?

[JoeTheJuggler]

I take it that you decided NOT to educate yourself. Definitely an odd choice.

Bull. I just don't believe that the report you keep talking about is the end of the story.

Congress' investigation is not finished. BP says their investigation isn't finished.

Nobody has a viable contingency plan to handle a blow out in deep water (despite BP's document filed with the government in 2009 saying that they could handle a blow up leaking something like 120,000 barrels per day).

As Quadraginta pointed out, the Deepwater Horizon disaster is very similar to the Ixtoc 1 leak. So what exactly has changed to guarantee it won't happen again?

[quadraginta]

So, Newton. Is it your position that, since the Gulf is already messed up, screw safety and drill, baby, drill?


:D "If it ain't rainin', the roof don't leak. If it is rainin' you can't fix it, no how."

Soooo. As a completely hypothetical exercise, suppose that the injunction against the moratorium stays in place, and a couple of weeks from now another drill rig goes blooey and the top pops on anther well bore.

Is it Obama's fault because ...?

a) He wasn't strong and resolute enough to win against the injunction.
b) He's a closet Moslem, and it was part of an al-Qaeda plot to make his enemies look bad.
c) He's really a tool of the oil interests, and his moratorium was all for show anyway.
d) He's Kenyan.
e) All of the above and you oughta see what else I read on this blog I found last night.

[quixotecoyote]

And what does farm machinery run on?

You are a victim of propaganda!

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f253/quixotecoyote/oneoffs/Women-in-Soviet-Propaganda-01.jpg

If you stroke the stalk gently, the crop grows on its own!

[JoeTheJuggler]

Salazar announced that he will issue a new moratorium order.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10387830.stm

[Newtons Bit]

So, Newton. Is it your position that, since the Gulf is already messed up, screw safety and drill, baby, drill?

You need help.

[thaiboxerken]

You need help.

Is that a yes or a no?

[leftysergeant]

And what does farm machinery run on?Irrelevant. Food can be produced without the use of the internal combustion engine.

[defaultdotxbe]

Irrelevant. Food can be produced without the use of the internal combustion engine.
but enough for the whole world to run on?

[leftysergeant]

The point I'm making is that you need to understand what the risk is. If a minuscule risk isn't acceptable, then we might as well stop living.

The risk is not miniscule. It can wipe out the entire food web if it goes wrong. Nobody has the right to run that risk for profit. NOBODY. Right now we have a "miniscule risk" about to snuff out life in the Gulf. The dirtbags operating the wells have fed us a line of horse crap with the aid of a panel of corrupt leaches appointed and mentored in part by the worst president we have ever had. They are required by law to have an emergency plan in place that will make a disaster unlikely. They haven't, end of discussion on that point (at least among rational people who have been following what went wrong.)

The panel from the NAE thought it was acceptable with some additional safety measures.

They don't have the right to make that decison on behalf of rational people.

(You did get that point about needing an acceptable disaster mitigation plan, didn't you?)

[funk de fino]

So how does a drilling project earn $500,000 per day?

And I have no problem distinguishing the two. Opponents of the moratorium seem to have the problem you're speaking of. To hear them talk, the moratorium would have shut down all oil companies working in the Gulf.

Good god man. BP pay Transocean approx $500,000 a day for the rig (thats down a far bit due to the downturn, it has been as much as $1 mil). Transocean are a US company with US employees. They also pay Halliburton money for services and other ROV companies, drillpipe companies, shipping companies.......... I could go on.

Do you get it now?

If those rigs go elsewhere during the moratorium then it will be a difficult few years in the GOM. Those large floaters do not grow on trees.

I agree with the halt but it will damage the economy in TX, LA, AL etc etc big time.

[leftysergeant]

but enough for the whole world to run on?As long as there are still fish, yes. Without fish, no way in hell.

The cost of being wrong is unacceptable.

[defaultdotxbe]

As long as there are still fish, yes. Without fish, no way in hell.

The cost of being wrong is unacceptable.
fish that will have to be caught using sail and row boats, and delivered to people using horse and buggies

[leftysergeant]

I agree with the halt but it will damage the economy in TX, LA, AL etc etc big time.

Meh. They will have to come back eventually.

Oil-poisoned fisheries might never rebound, for all human purposes. Once a species is gone, that's it. You do not risk destroying an irreplaceable resource to allow a small percentage of the world's population to continue to profit from the extraction of a resource we can learn to do without, especially if there are other sources of that resource.

There is a hell of a lot of oil on the world that can be extracted with reasonable safety. The fish populations are alrerady in decline because for too long governments, run by drooling greedy morons, have allowed private enterprise to screw them up. It has to stop somewhere.

Since the oil companies have proven themsel;ves not up to the job of safety, they can all stop what they are doing until they learn to do it right.

And I still say that that judge is part of the problem. He is too stupid and corrupt for office of any sort. He has violated the canons of his profession and needs to just go away and stop risking my life for the good of his stock portfolio.

[thaiboxerken]

I agree with the halt but it will damage the economy in TX, LA, AL etc etc big time.

Temporarily, yes. However, it would not hurt the economy nearly as bad as another oil well eruption under the ocean.

I think some people don't understand that a true fix to this lack of safety oversite will be painful but necessary.

[Newtons Bit]

They don't have the right to make that decison on behalf of rational people.

They ARE the rational people that are supposed to make the call. That's why they're called "experts". That's why the Obama administration had them peer-review their recommendations. Who else is supposed to do it? Lawyers? They're not legally allowed to do it and they know!

You need to read the judgement that Historygal linked that explains why the administration does not have the authority necessary to stop existing permits under the current law with the evidence they provided.

[thaiboxerken]

How do the "experts" know without actually going to every site in question here?

[leftysergeant]

You need to read the judgement that Historygal linked that explains why the administration does not have the authority necessary to stop existing permits under the current law with the evidence they provided.

The government has the right to stop any dangerous activity if the possible harm from stopping that activity is less than the possible harm that could result from continuing.

The rigs are operating illegally now, because they do not have a proper emrgency plan, owing to past corruption of a government agency. You can't grandfather them in to continue a crime.

[Newtons Bit]

The government has the right to stop any dangerous activity if the possible harm from stopping that activity is less than the possible harm that could result from continuing.

Of course they do! They just need to have some people who actually know what they're talking about give evidence for that. That's what the judgement is all about, you need to read it.

The rigs are operating illegally now, because they do not have a proper emrgency plan, owing to past corruption of a government agency. You can't grandfather them in to continue a crime.

The permit was granted, the government gets to decide what is necessary for a permit. They're not allowed to retroactively change the rules.

[thaiboxerken]

The permit was granted, the government gets to decide what is necessary for a permit. They're not allowed to retroactively change the rules.

They, however, able to retroactively revoke a permit to re-inspect.

[leftysergeant]

Of course they do! They just need to have some people who actually know what they're talking about give evidence for that. That's what the judgement is all about, you need to read it.

The evidence is killing all the life it touches on the beaches. Nuff said.

The permit was granted, the government gets to decide what is necessary for a permit. They're not allowed to retroactively change the rules.

Nobody is changing the rules. They are just taking a look to see which other rules are not being followed besides the ones that were ignored contrary to law.

(Corruption of a government agency is illegal, you know.)

The emregency plans they submitted were defective and the Shrub-era leftovers who signed off on the plans were on the take.

(There is reason to suspect that the judge who issued the injunction might be as well.)

[funk de fino]

The evidence is killing all the life it touches on the beaches. Nuff said.

This is an inaccurate post.

[defaultdotxbe]

The emregency plans they submitted were defective and the Shrub-era leftovers who signed off on the plans were on the take.
besides "bush orchestrated 9/11" is there any anti-right wing conspiracy theory you dont subscribe to?

[thaiboxerken]

besides "bush orchestrated 9/11" is there any anti-right wing conspiracy theory you dont subscribe to?

It's not a conspiracy theory that Bush/Cheney greatly let regulations slide in the oil industry.

[leftysergeant]

besides "bush orchestrated 9/11" is there any anti-right wing conspiracy theory you dont subscribe to?

Actually, I subscribe to very few conspiracy theories of any sort. I do, however, consider the drooling moron guilty of corrupting agencies and of allowing serious criminal activity within his administration, some of this criminal activity constituting war crimes as defined by the Geneva Conventions.

There is no question that he castrated the MMS and made it a lap dog of the industries it was supposed to regulate.

[Newtons Bit]

Nobody is changing the rules. They are just taking a look to see which other rules are not being followed besides the ones that were ignored contrary to law.

(Corruption of a government agency is illegal, you know.)

The emregency plans they submitted were defective and the Shrub-era leftovers who signed off on the plans were on the take.

The government did not make that argument. They're welcome to, but they didn't. The judge can't rule on arguments not made.

(There is reason to suspect that the judge who issued the injunction might be as well.)

He was a Reagan appointee.

[thaiboxerken]

He was a Reagan appointee.

Which is all the more reason to question the judge's decision.

[JoeTheJuggler]

The permit was granted, the government gets to decide what is necessary for a permit. They're not allowed to retroactively change the rules.

They're not changing the rules, but they are indeed allowed to retroactively revoke or suspend permits in the interest of public safety.

Remember, at least part of the documentation that were submitted to win these permits have proven to be bogus by Congress' investigation into the matter. For example, it turned out that across the industry these contingency plans were worthless. Several of them just copied the same plans word for word for arctic drilling (they even mention walruses in contingency plans for Gulf of Mexico wells). BP's documentation claimed that for Deepwater Horizon they could handle up to a 120,000 barrels per day leak, and we know now that was a false claim.

But, so far, no one's talking about revoking these permits altogether. The moratorium would be for 6 months. I suspect if the investigation of BP were resolved and these contingency plans were worked out, drilling would be allowed to resume sooner.

[leftysergeant]

The government did not make that argument. They're welcome to, but they didn't. The judge can't rule on arguments not made.

He should not have ruled at all, if he has a stake in the outcome. There was evidence that the drilling was dangerous. He was only paying attention to the fact that it was expensive not to drill. He has no right to take that into consideration.

This was like accepting an argument that not every drunk driver is going to kill someone when deciding whether to dismiss a drunk-driving charge. So I got the wrong moron.

He was a Reagan appointee.

I figured it had to be one of two drooling morons who put the yutz on the bench. So I got the wrong moron. Mea minima culpa.

[Newtons Bit]

He should not have rules at all, if he has a stake in the outcome.

Evidence that he owns a stake in an oil service company?

He was only paying attention to the fact that it was expensive not to drill.

No, he did not.

READ THE RULING

[JoeTheJuggler]

He should not have ruled at all, if he has a stake in the outcome. There was evidence that the drilling was dangerous. He was only paying attention to the fact that it was expensive not to drill. He has no right to take that into consideration.


Good point. Even if the economy of a region were entirely dependent on a practice, that doesn't make the practice safe or legal or right.

I wonder how many drug dealers try that argument? "My drug dealing is bring
ing X dollars into the region, so you can't stop me." :rolleyes:

[JoeTheJuggler]

Good god man. BP pay Transocean approx $500,000 a day for the rig (thats down a far bit due to the downturn, it has been as much as $1 mil). Transocean are a US company with US employees. They also pay Halliburton money for services and other ROV companies, drillpipe companies, shipping companies.......... I could go on.

Yes, thank you. No need for the hostility.

So these rigs earn the rig owner $500,000 a day, some small portion of which trickles down into the regional economy. See the article I cited above that fact checks the hyperbolic claims of the economic effect of the moratorium.

ETA: And lest we make appeals to the plight of the workers affected, don't forget that BP must make payments to replace their incomes as well. They don't want to, but they do. So the part of that $500,000 per day per rig that would get into the hands of local workers is already being replaced.

However, if the permits were granted based on false documentation (bogus or non-viable contingency plans), it doesn't really matter how much money these things bring into the economy. The permits could be revoked altogether and those who filed the bogus plans and the regulators they were in bed with (again literally and figuratively) could all be prosecuted for crimes.

The profitability of a crime doesn't make it not criminal.

As has been pointed out, contrary to Feldman's opinion, the moratorium doesn't go nearly as far as it could. It's meant as a temporary measure to insure safety while the investigation continues.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Meanwhile, I still haven't found any other source that has the story I found yesterda (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10387830.stm)y on BBC saying that Salazar announced that he would simply issue a new moratorium order.

All I find about it on CNN is a couple of sentences in the more general story that says Feldman will likely decide today whether or not to stay his suspension of the moratorium pending the government's appeal of his decision to take place later this summer.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/24/gulf.oil.disaster/index.html?hpt=T2

So did the Beeb get the story wrong? How on earth could that happen? Surely someone wouldn't have made up the Salazar quote. Maybe they took it out of context and he was saying that issuing a new moratorium order is another option that they would use if Feldman doesn't go along with their request to let the moratorium go on pending the appeal.

Anyone have another other information?

[funk de fino]

Yes, thank you. No need for the hostility.

So these rigs earn the rig owner $500,000 a day, some small portion of which trickles down into the regional economy. See the article I cited above that fact checks the hyperbolic claims of the economic effect of the moratorium.

ETA: And lest we make appeals to the plight of the workers affected, don't forget that BP must make payments to replace their incomes as well. They don't want to, but they do. So the part of that $500,000 per day per rig that would get into the hands of local workers is already being replaced.

However, if the permits were granted based on false documentation (bogus or non-viable contingency plans), it doesn't really matter how much money these things bring into the economy. The permits could be revoked altogether and those who filed the bogus plans and the regulators they were in bed with (again literally and figuratively) could all be prosecuted for crimes.

The profitability of a crime doesn't make it not criminal.

As has been pointed out, contrary to Feldman's opinion, the moratorium doesn't go nearly as far as it could. It's meant as a temporary measure to insure safety while the investigation continues.

When someone tries to get you to stop digging because you are making a fool of yourself it is a good idea to take note. If I was being hostile you might have had a point. I was shocked at your ignorance. I was not attacking you.

PS - BP MUST not do anything. They are doing it becaue they have said they would. Unlike other companes in the past who turned up their noses and said "sue us". Then tied it up in courts for years.

Can you even find an Exxon apology?

There is only one lot of hyperbole going on here and it is your increasingly uninformed posts on the Oil industry. Small portion!! Too funny.

[leftysergeant]

Evidence that he owns a stake in an oil service company?

If he still owns any of the stocks in this article, he is corrupt, not allowed, by the canons of judicial conduct to even touch the case. Out of line if he even comments publicily. A sorry yutz if he even files an amicus brief. At worst, he has committed an impeachable offense and needs to go home and make room for an honest judge in that jurisdiction.

http://www.aolnews.com/gulf-oil-spill/article/judge-feldman-who-nixed-drilling-ban-has-oil-investments/19527477



No, he did not.

READ THE RULING

Too tedious. If he does owns the stocks described, it doesn't even matter what he ruled, or on what he claims to have based his decision. He committed a crime by accepting the case. At the very best, he created the appearance of a conflict of interest, thus eroding the integrity of the court.

He needs to be gone.

[Beerina]

So we can get a proper judge in there who will implement the outrage of the concrete canyon dwellers of the north?

[leftysergeant]

So we can get a proper judge in there who will implement the outrage of the concrete canyon dwellers of the north?

I would settle for one who is not a fully-owned subsidiary of private industry.

[quadraginta]

<snip>

Oil-poisoned fisheries might never rebound, for all human purposes. Once a species is gone, that's it. You do not risk destroying an irreplaceable resource to allow a small percentage of the world's population to continue to profit from the extraction of a resource we can learn to do without, especially if there are other sources of that resource.

<snip>

The evidence is killing all the life it touches on the beaches. Nuff said.



Nobody is changing the rules. They are just taking a look to see which other rules are not being followed besides the ones that were ignored contrary to law.

(Corruption of a government agency is illegal, you know.)

The emregency plans they submitted were defective and the Shrub-era leftovers who signed off on the plans were on the take.

(There is reason to suspect that the judge who issued the injunction might be as well.)

This is an inaccurate post.


The discussions of post-spill ecological recovery in the Persian Gulf (the worst spill in the world by an order of magnitude) have seemed to suggest that there is substantial recovery to fisheries in three or four years. I haven't uncovered any proof of species extinction from that spill, or any other.

One follow-up study of the Ixtoc spill that I found buried pretty deep in Googledom caught my eye because in addition to similar conclusions the author even went a little further and conjectured that the recovery was more largely attributable to the absence of pressures from over-harvesting for that period than to the passing of toxic effects from the spill.

Wouldn't it be ironic if the most useful lesson to be learned by the public from these spills is that a regular moratorium on commercial fishing is more important (and more productive) than offshore drilling bans.

Wetlands and estuary recovery may be more problematic, since the ecosystems involved may not be as robust, but if the U.S. public really wants to tackle that ogre there are much better targets than oil spills. The spills are garish and newsworthy, with lots of photo ops for the six o'clock alarmists, but they aren't where the main problems are to be found. The real culprits are in agri-business and real estate development ... much less photogenic, and more intimidating to local pols whose campaign money isn't as dependent on the petroleum industries.

[JoeTheJuggler]

PS - BP MUST not do anything. They are doing it becaue they have said they would. Unlike other companes in the past who turned up their noses and said "sue us". Then tied it up in courts for years.

Don't worry, that will happen too. My understanding is the settlements being paid out now will not sign away anyone's right to sue. They're being given because BP knows there's no point in contesting them since they are liable, and is desperately attempting to protect its public image.

[JoeTheJuggler]

And not surprisingly Feldman announced today that he would not postpone the ban on the moratorium until the appeal is heard.

However, his poor reasoning was shown in that he cited, among other reasons for allowing drilling to continue on these 22 wells and to commence on the other 11 "the critical present-day aspect of the availability of domestic energy in this country".

[JoeTheJuggler]

There is only one lot of hyperbole going on here and it is your increasingly uninformed posts on the Oil industry.

I don't claim to be an authority on the oil industry, but I do know that there are no viable contingency plans to handle massive leaks. You know how I know this? Because of the Deepwater Horizon disaster which continues to spew oil into the Gulf more than 2 months later.

So as an insider do you have better information about their contingency plans? Do you suppose these contingency plans weren't part of the documents required to get permits?

Exactly how many walruses are there in the Gulf of Mexico?

[JoeTheJuggler]

Back to the news: best I can tell Salazar is considering issuing a new moratorium order. I think he's trying to issue one that will be more limited so that it would not be struck down.

Here's some updates on it in this article (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/06/gulf-oil-spill-salazar-defends-renewed-moratorium.html) [ETA: and here (http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/06/22/Salazar-to-issue-new-moratorium-order/UPI-11621277207774/)]. I don't know why CNN doesn't mention this at all.

[Lurker]

Can you even find an Exxon apology?
Sure, they apologized the day after the incident.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3923/is_200205/ai_n9060883/pg_7/

[funk de fino]

Don't worry, that will happen too. My understanding is the settlements being paid out now will not sign away anyone's right to sue. They're being given because BP knows there's no point in contesting them since they are liable, and is desperately attempting to protect its public image.

Unlike US companies you mean? Like some companies who tried to take back compensation payments?

How about if BP has told Obama to take a hike and stick his $20 billion?

[funk de fino]

I don't claim to be an authority on the oil industry, but I do know that there are no viable contingency plans to handle massive leaks. You know how I know this? Because of the Deepwater Horizon disaster which continues to spew oil into the Gulf more than 2 months later.

Yes, well we all know that now eh? Does that make you feel superior to everyone else who knows now?

So as an insider do you have better information about their contingency plans? Do you suppose these contingency plans weren't part of the documents required to get permits?

I know they were not real world tested plans. I know they were estimates. I know this accident was not a normal spill. I know all the other companies had equally crap plans. I know you are failing to understand I am not defending these plans.

Exactly how many walruses are there in the Gulf of Mexico?

Ask all the companies who had this in their plans. Now tell me why that is relevant to the spill.

[funk de fino]

Sure, they apologized the day after the incident.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3923/is_200205/ai_n9060883/pg_7/

Nice one, now hopefully everyone here will read the rest of that piece. And compare.

[Lurker]

Nice one, now hopefully everyone here will read the rest of that piece. And compare.

Agreed.

[HistoryGal]

Regarding a suggestion he read the ruling:

Too tedious.

I wish I could be as certain of one thing as you are of all things. Alas, I'm not, which is why I read rulings and court documents and whatever else I can get my hands on, so that when I render an opinion, it is as informed as possible.

If he still owns any of the stocks in this article, he is corrupt, not allowed, by the canons of judicial conduct to even touch the case. Out of line if he even comments publicily. A sorry yutz if he even files an amicus brief. At worst, he has committed an impeachable offense and needs to go home and make room for an honest judge in that jurisdiction.BTW, I have a 401k spread among 10 different mutual funds. I might own some of the stock. I might not. Ditto for the judge. There is no information available that the judge owns those stocks now. However, since I have read the ruling, and searched for any court documents related to the case, such a suggestion was not made by the White House. There was no request that the judge recuse himself.

Unless you can prove bribery, treason or high crimes and misdemeanors, there are no grounds for impeachment. Please take a look at the U.S. Constitution - it's not terribly long or written in complicated English.

Allegedly owning stock is not a felony, nor does the judge appear to be in a position to overthrow the U.S. government (those are the standards of high crimes and misdemeanors). There is no proof that he has accepted bribery, and absolutely no proof that he has committed treason.

If the judge does still own these stocks, he may have made a full disclosure to both sides before taking the case, which would render all your comments moot. It might have been wiser for Judge Feldman to have recused himself; however, I don't see where it would go any further than that.

It concerns me that you toss these words and phrases out without a true understanding of what they mean.

However, if you truly think the judge is corrupt because he owns that stock, would you be willing to state that anyone involved in the case for the moratorium who owned the same or similar stocks is also corrupt and should be tossed out?

I'd like to think you would be consistent.

Anyway, even though you'll think it too tedious to read, here is the original complaint:

http://www.marinelog.com/DIGITAL/digitalhoscomplaint.html

Here is the defendants' request for a stay of the order pending an appeal to the 5th Circuit:

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/moratorium-injunction-stay-request-6-23-10.pdf

And here is the Order from Judge Martin denying the plaintiff's request to immediately enforce the injunction, denying the defendants' request for a stay, and, most important, granting the Intervenor's request for the Judge's Financial Disclosure Report. Whether he owns the stocks or not, we can be assured the Judge isn't hiding anything.

http://www.laed.uscourts.gov/GENERAL/Notices/10-1663_doc82.pdf

I do understand that these documents are far too tedious for you to read, but others might find them enlightening.

[JoeTheJuggler]

How about if BP has told Obama to take a hike and stick his $20 billion?

They'd probably face more problems than they do now. Right now, they still have the loyalty of most Gulf coast residents.

[Newtons Bit]

I do understand that these documents are far too tedious for you to read, but others might find them enlightening.

Indeed. Thank you, ma'am.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Yes, well we all know that now eh? Does that make you feel superior to everyone else who knows now?
I have no idea what you're talking about.

The point is that there are no viable contingency plans in place. The plans the industry has offered as part of the requirements to get permits are bogus. That's a good reason to impose a moratorium.

ETA: You attacked me for my lack of knowledge of the oil industry (excuse me the "Oil industry"), and I'm pointing out that one need not be any kind of an expert to know for certain that these contingency plans are bunk.



I know they were not real world tested plans. I know they were estimates. I know this accident was not a normal spill. I know all the other companies had equally crap plans. I know you are failing to understand I am not defending these plans.
You're defending Feldman's decision to stop the moratorium. That decision is based in part on the knowledge we all have now that the contingency plans provided by the oil companies in order to get these permits were bunk. The estimates were not at all reasonable reflections of the capabilities of the oil companies to handle an emergency like this.


Ask all the companies who had this in their plans. Now tell me why that is relevant to the spill.
I don't know how many, but it's at least two (http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/06/15/127863551/oil-execs-grilled-for-identical-emergency-plans-walruses-and-all). Both Exxon-Mobil and BP had it in their Gulf of Mexico plans.

It's relevant to the topic of this thread: the moratorium on deep water drilling. It turns out pretty much all the companies copied the same emergency plans in the documentation they submitted to regulators. Since they got their permits with these bogus plans, the moratorium is appropriate.

[leftysergeant]

I wish I could be as certain of one thing as you are of all things. Alas, I'm not, which is why I read rulings and court documents and whatever else I can get my hands on, so that when I render an opinion, it is as informed as possible.

Until he proves that he does not own the stock he has, as clearly as possible, created the appearnce of impropriatey. That in itself is a conflict of interest. If he does, indeed still own the stock, he has in actuality acted improperly. That is impeachable.

BTW, I have a 401k spread among 10 different mutual funds. I might own some of the stock. I might not. Ditto for the judge. There is no information available that the judge owns those stocks now. However, since I have read the ruling, and searched for any court documents related to the case, such a suggestion was not made by the White House. There was no request that the judge recuse himself.

Unless you can prove bribery, treason or high crimes and misdemeanors, there are no grounds for impeachment. Please take a look at the U.S. Constitution - it's not terribly long or written in complicated English.

Allegedly owning stock is not a felony, nor does the judge appear to be in a position to overthrow the U.S. government (those are the standards of high crimes and misdemeanors). There is no proof that he has accepted bribery, and absolutely no proof that he has committed treason.

If the judge does still own these stocks, he may have made a full disclosure to both sides before taking the case, which would render all your comments moot.

Do you think Salazar would have trusted the dork if he knew he was a stock holder? Do you think that the senile old twit even cares whether what he is doing is right? He is of the "break government so that industry can do what needs to be done" school. like the moron who appointed him.

Consider that the idiot thinks that the energy crisi is so great that we can't do without the oil that would be produced in the time it takes to see whether the rigs are operating as legally as they claim.

It might have been wiser for Judge Feldman to have recused himself; however, I don't see where it would go any further than that.

It isn't a matter of "wiser." He violated the canons of his profession and brought disgrace upon the system.

However, if you truly think the judge is corrupt because he owns that stock, would you be willing to state that anyone involved in the case for the moratorium who owned the same or similar stocks is also corrupt and should be tossed out?

If you own stock, and argue for the moratorium, you are arguing against your own finacial interests but, if you are in a position which involves the public safety, you are arguing for the safety of the nation, which is to say, doing the right thing even at the risk of personal loss. There is no way to spin that into "corruption."

[leftysergeant]

Unlike US companies you mean? Like some companies who tried to take back compensation payments?

How about if BP has told Obama to take a hike and stick his $20 billion?Two words: Martial Law

[quadraginta]

<snip>

I know they were not real world tested plans. I know they were estimates. I know this accident was not a normal spill. I know all the other companies had equally crap plans. I know you are failing to understand I am not defending these plans.

You're defending Feldman's decision to stop the moratorium.

<snip>


Not that the man needs me to defend him, but I think in the fog of your indignation you must have overlooked the part where he said this ...

<snip>
If those rigs go elsewhere during the moratorium then it will be a difficult few years in the GOM. Those large floaters do not grow on trees.

I agree with the halt but it will damage the economy in TX, LA, AL etc etc big time.


Recognizing that an action will have consequences is not the same as condemning (or condoning) the action itself.

[HistoryGal]

Until he proves that he does not own the stock he has, as clearly as possible, created the appearnce of impropriatey. That in itself is a conflict of interest. If he does, indeed still own the stock, he has in actuality acted improperly. That is impeachable.

Ah, so he must be Caesar's wife, does he?

Your inferences do not a conflict of interest make.

And a conflict of interest does not an impeachable offense make.

Were you quoting me here or just plagiarizing? Without your putting quote marks around this, it's difficult to understand what you're trying to do with my words:

BTW, I have a 401k spread among 10 different mutual funds. I might own some of the stock. I might not. Ditto for the judge. There is no information available that the judge owns those stocks now. However, since I have read the ruling, and searched for any court documents related to the case, such a suggestion was not made by the White House. There was no request that the judge recuse himself.
Unless you can prove bribery, treason or high crimes and misdemeanors, there are no grounds for impeachment. Please take a look at the U.S. Constitution - it's not terribly long or written in complicated English.

Allegedly owning stock is not a felony, nor does the judge appear to be in a position to overthrow the U.S. government (those are the standards of high crimes and misdemeanors). There is no proof that he has accepted bribery, and absolutely no proof that he has committed treason.
Do you think Salazar would have trusted the dork if he knew he was a stock holder? Do you think that the senile old twit even cares whether what he is doing is right? He is of the "break government so that industry can do what needs to be done" school. like the moron who appointed him.

Consider that the idiot thinks that the energy crisi is so great that we can't do without the oil that would be produced in the time it takes to see whether the rigs are operating as legally as they claim."Dork." "Twit." "Idiot." Ad hominem attacks don't make Judge Feldman look bad, and they don't reflect well on you at all. It's not a way to win an argument, in any event.

It isn't a matter of "wiser." He violated the canons of his profession and brought disgrace upon the system.You don't know that yet, do you?

If you own stock, and argue for the moratorium, you are arguing against your own finacial interests but, if you are in a position which involves the public safety, you are arguing for the safety of the nation, which is to say, doing the right thing even at the risk of personal loss. There is no way to spin that into "corruption."Define "public safety" in this instance. Eleven people were tragically killed in this accident. That's a terrible thing; it truly is. But shutting down the rigs will put thousands of people at risk of losing their livelihoods, homes, families, etc. It will be one more nail in Louisiana's coffin. Furthermore, less oil will probably mean more coal (anyone more familiar with coal as an energy source in place of oil, please correct me if I'm wrong), and coal mining is a lot more dangerous.

So, "public safety" is a mutable condition. It can be defined in many ways. It can be argued that dependence on foreign oil is not in the interest of the United States. It can be asserted that forcing the gulf coast states to the point of bankruptcy is not in the interest of public safety. It could be said that a shortage of oil this winter may kill dozens, scores, hundreds or even more people in the north and northeast - a direct contravention of public safety. It can even be said that misrepresenting the conclusions of five out of seven experts violates public safety.

I would also like to point out that oil does seep from the ocean floor naturally. Off the coast of Santa Barbara, for example, there is a naturally occurring leak that seeps 20 to 25 tons of oil each day, and has done so for several hundred thousand years. Department of Energy studies on this, and on other leaks, conclude that each year, more than 47 million gallons leak naturally into US waters.

Shall we put a 6-month moratorium on nature?

[leftysergeant]

If the moratorium stands and there is a problem, and it is fixed, nobody dies. If there is a problem and another well blows, people will die. We know that ther companies pencil-whipped their permits. This increases the chance that a well will blow. The first concern of the law is public safety. AFTER that come ecconomic concerns. The judge is an idiot, and probably a corrupt one at that.

Let him tell the House Judiciary Committee that he acted in the best public interest.

[NoZed Avenger]

It's relevant to the topic of this thread: the moratorium on deep water drilling. It turns out pretty much all the companies copied the same emergency plans in the documentation they submitted to regulators. Since they got their permits with these bogus plans, the moratorium is appropriate.

A side point. The plans had to follow federal law; the assumptions in the plans were in fact mandated by federal law - which is why they shared plans. They were only "bogus" to the extent the assumptions they were based on proved bad. But those came from the federal regulators.

[WildCat]

Let him tell the House Judiciary Committee that he acted in the best public interest.
No.

We are not some banana republic ruled by a party strongman.

[NoZed Avenger]

If the moratorium stands and there is a problem, and it is fixed, nobody dies. If there is a problem and another well blows, people will die. We know that ther companies pencil-whipped their permits. This increases the chance that a well will blow. The first concern of the law is public safety. AFTER that come ecconomic concerns. The judge is an idiot, and probably a corrupt one at that.

Let him tell the House Judiciary Committee that he acted in the best public interest.

That's about enough of that crap. Good, bad, or indifferent, accusations of corruption against a federal sitting judge should be based on more than bile and wishful thinking.

The fact is that the 5th Circuit -- I practice out of Texas, btw -- uses a system to check conflicts and clear any judge for each and every case like this. The system is computerized and automatically kicks out any judge with a financial interest or conflict. If Judge Feldman was allowed to take the case, it was because he owned no stock in any affected company. Period.

So stop with the crap. If you want to criticize the decision, then do it on the merits.

But then, I guess you'd actually have to *read* it then, wouldn't you?

[HistoryGal]

Unlike US companies you mean? Like some companies who tried to take back compensation payments?

How about if BP has told Obama to take a hike and stick his $20 billion?

Two words: Martial Law

Three words: Posse Comitatus Act

I would not want to live in your world.

And I realize that you're a brick wall upon which I no longer wish to bang my head.

You're scary, and I'm done with you.

[funk de fino]

They'd probably face more problems than they do now. Right now, they still have the loyalty of most Gulf coast residents.

But the did not HAVE to do this did they? I know from experience not many oil companies would have. They would have had to be dragged kicking and screaming through the courts for this.

[funk de fino]

I have no idea what you're talking about.

The point is that there are no viable contingency plans in place. The plans the industry has offered as part of the requirements to get permits are bogus. That's a good reason to impose a moratorium.

ETA: You attacked me for my lack of knowledge of the oil industry (excuse me the "Oil industry"), and I'm pointing out that one need not be any kind of an expert to know for certain that these contingency plans are bunk.

Now you have it. The genius that you are has figured this out after the spill. Who was supposed to figure this out before the spill? Did you know before the spill? Did the MMA?


You're defending Feldman's decision to stop the moratorium. That decision is based in part on the knowledge we all have now that the contingency plans provided by the oil companies in order to get these permits were bunk. The estimates were not at all reasonable reflections of the capabilities of the oil companies to handle an emergency like this.

You really really need to read my posts and stop being blinded by your ideology and hatred of Big Oil. If you fail to do so, and continue to misrepresent my position, then good luck with that. I see I am not the only one here who has noticed that.

How did you know the estimates were not good prior to the spill? You do know that the accidents are all different? You do know it is not as easy as sending in another ship willie nillie over that footprint with all that operations going on? You do know that you cannot use any old ship with any old equipment installed on it? I have seen the actual plans and pictures of the subsea layout as it was last week. There is every likliehood if they are not careful there could be another accident because it is so crowded. How many guys can you fit in a phone booth?

I don't know how many, but it's at least two (http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/06/15/127863551/oil-execs-grilled-for-identical-emergency-plans-walruses-and-all). Both Exxon-Mobil and BP had it in their Gulf of Mexico plans.

Yep, 90% of the plans of the other oil companies were the same. Many parts of those plans will be identical to other deep water locations and many parts will have been copied and pasted. Those walrus parts are not the important parts. They are a red herring.

It's relevant to the topic of this thread: the moratorium on deep water drilling. It turns out pretty much all the companies copied the same emergency plans in the documentation they submitted to regulators. Since they got their permits with these bogus plans, the moratorium is appropriate.

See above. Not saying the moratorium is inappropriate. Blinkers off dude.

Just so you can chew on this before your next post. Read this. And there are others where I say the same thing.

I agree with the halt but it will damage the economy in TX, LA, AL etc etc big time.

[leftysergeant]

Define "public safety" in this instance. Eleven people were tragically killed in this accident. That's a terrible thing; it truly is. But shutting down the rigs will put thousands of people at risk of losing their livelihoods, homes, families, etc.

Utter twaddle. Nobody is going to die if we have to ration gas and prohibit using a main battle tank to tote one person's groceries home from a store three blocks away.

We will al die if there is no longer food to haul home.

It will be one more nail in Louisiana's coffin. So, "public safety" is a mutable condition. It can be defined in many ways. It can be argued that dependence on foreign oil is not in the interest of the United States. It can be asserted that forcing the gulf coast states to the point of bankruptcy is not in the interest of public safety. It could be said that a shortage of oil this winter may kill dozens, scores, hundreds or even more people in the north and northeast - a direct contravention of public safety. It can even be said that misrepresenting the conclusions of five out of seven experts violates public safety. Bull flops. The oil WILL run out, no "ifs,""ands," or "buts" about it. Ther fish will run out only if we let the sea become poisoned or let the fishing industry go on regulating itself into the ditch. It is more important to the future of all life, human and animal, that the Gulf get cleaned up and that measures be taken to ensure that the sea's ability to absorb the oil is not pushed past the breaking opoint. It is to that end that the comopanies were supposed to have actual plans to deal with the specific situations in which they were operating. It is clear now that they did not. They pencil-whipped it and a gang of corrupt beaurocrats rubber-stamped it and asked the oil company representative if he needed a kiss on the butt. This is not in the public interest, and there are no two ways about it. The moartorium was to allow the government to make sure that the companies were either in compliance or trying to come into compliance. There is no room for an error, and the profits of a company which shoulkd never have existed in the first place are not a consideration any more. The company has no right to harm the public, and that is all there is to that. And don't give me that sob story about freezing grannies because there is no diesel fuel. If it gets that bad, there is always the concept of "rationing." I'm sure you have heard of it.

Off the coast of Santa Barbara, for example, there is a naturally occurring leak that seeps 20 to 25 tons of oil each day, and has done so for several hundred thousand years. Department of Energy studies on this, and on other leaks, conclude that each year, more than 47 million gallons leak naturally into US waters.

Shall we put a 6-month moratorium on nature?

Thank you, Mister Limbaugh. Now, do you think this is a good thing? Of course this is, over the years, all broken down into less toxic stuff than that fresh layer of benzene on the waters of the Gulf. Do you want to test in real-life whether there is a limit to how much the sea can process? I don't, because it would be as stupid as making Palin President and Piyush Jindal VP.

Maybe a good compromise would be to take the drilling equipment out of the Gulf and have them suck the leakers dry.

The long and short of what I am saying is that there are alternatives to the oil that would come out of those wells, but none to the food that the leak is destroying.

[funk de fino]

Here is another one for JoetheJuggler to chew on while he considers his next post to me.

I agree with the halt even though it affects my business. We need to make sure everything is hunky dorey. There will be problems found on the rigs. Mostly procedural.

In a reply to him, in this thread no less. Now lets see if there is a concession on this.

[Beerina]

If the moratorium stands and there is a problem, and it is fixed, nobody dies. If there is a problem and another well blows, people will die. We know that ther companies pencil-whipped their permits. This increases the chance that a well will blow. The first concern of the law is public safety. AFTER that come ecconomic concerns. The judge is an idiot, and probably a corrupt one at that.

Let him tell the House Judiciary Committee that he acted in the best public interest.

Is the moratorium about public safety or appearing to do something to appease an outraged public?

I would only expect drilling operations using the same type of equipment to be a risk at the moment. This is a blanket, knee jerk reaction ban.


Again, it's people on the Gulf who point out this discrepancy and illogic of the ban, as it's their jobs that get hurt. It's people safely ensconced in their northern concrete canyons that are loudmouthing about about it.


Much like they do about nature preserves they mandate in wide-open, poorly populated western states.

[Newtons Bit]

The moartorium was to allow the government to make sure that the companies were either in compliance or trying to come into compliance.

Do you have a source for this claim, or did you just invent it? It's not necessary according to the experts that Salazar asked to peer-review his safety recommendations. I'm guessing you just invented it.

[funk de fino]

Is the moratorium about public safety or appearing to do something to appease an outraged public?

I would only expect drilling operations using the same type of equipment to be a risk at the moment. This is a blanket, knee jerk reaction ban.


Again, it's people on the Gulf who point out this discrepancy and illogic of the ban, as it's their jobs that get hurt. It's people safely ensconced in their northern concrete canyons that are loudmouthing about about it.


Much like they do about nature preserves they mandate in wide-open, poorly populated western states.

A lot of things are the same regardless of the type of drill rig or the operation. Standards and regulations are being ignored and this has to be looked at to prevent further tragedy. For one second forget about the spill and look at the explosion that killed the guys. The rigs are supposed to be able to have a huge leak like this without exploding. There is a very good chance that the explosion was cause by ignoring procedures, standards or regulations.

Those guys who died and the safety of every other worker there at the moment are more important than the oil spill. Or the economy in the short term.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Now you have it. The genius that you are has figured this out after the spill. Who was supposed to figure this out before the spill? Did you know before the spill? Did the MMA?

Those of us who support the moratorium figured this out before the NEXT spill.

Do keep the topic of this thread in mind.

And we ought to have figured it out before the Deepwater Horizon disaster. After all, it wasn't the first blow out in the Gulf of Mexico. The reason we didn't is that those whose job it was to regulate the industry weren't doing their jobs (and many of them had very unethical relationships with the industry).

[JoeTheJuggler]

Is the moratorium about public safety or appearing to do something to appease an outraged public?


It's for safety. It's a reasonable and prudent measure given that the investigation into Deepwater Horizon is not complete, and the investigation so far has shown that the oil industry put virtually no effort into the contingency plans.

Also, the fact that the moratorium has caused outrage makes me doubt that its intention was to win political points.

What do you suppose was the motivation to stop fishing in various areas in the Gulf at various times since the disaster? Safety or just keeping up appearances?

[JoeTheJuggler]

Do you have a source for this claim, or did you just invent it? It's not necessary according to the experts that Salazar asked to peer-review his safety recommendations. I'm guessing you just invented it.

You're still pretending that the investigation of the disaster at Deepwater Horizon is complete, aren't you?

See Funk's most recent post. Do you know why the thing exploded? If so, then you really should offer your unique expertise to Congress and to BP who are still trying to figure that out.

[rwguinn]

You're still pretending that the investigation of the disaster at Deepwater Horizon is complete, aren't you?

See Funk's most recent post. Do you know why the thing exploded? If so, then you really should offer your unique expertise to Congress and to BP who are still trying to figure that out.
You're confusing "investigation complete" with "we know what happened"
What happened is somebody made some really bonehead decisions, which virtually everybody in the business disagrees with. Somebody else did p!ss-poor maintenance and testing on the last line of defense.
Investigation complete is when the blame is placed and the lawsuits are settled.

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Actually, I subscribe to very few conspiracy theories of any sort.


You might want to modify that statement (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=160480).

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Irrelevant. Food can be produced without the use of the internal combustion engine.

When the first commercial oil wells were built, the earth had a little over 1 billion people.

Today, we have 6.8 billion.

Short version: No, it can't.

[JoeTheJuggler]

You're confusing "investigation complete" with "we know what happened"
What happened is somebody made some really bonehead decisions, which virtually everybody in the business disagrees with. Somebody else did p!ss-poor maintenance and testing on the last line of defense.
Investigation complete is when the blame is placed and the lawsuits are settled.

So do you know how the explosion happened? Do you know that it can't happen on the other drilling projects in question?

ETA: For that matter, your assessment of the findings isn't all that accurate. We know, for example, that some of the boneheaded decisions (such as simply photocopying old contingency plans that talk about Walruses in the Gulf of Mexico and list as an emergency contact a guy who's been dead some years) are common practices across the industry and not at all unique to Deepwater Horizon or BP.

So I think it would be wise and prudent to make sure those boneheaded decisions weren't in fact made at these other drilling projects before lifting the moratorium.

[JoeTheJuggler]

When the first commercial oil wells were built, the earth had a little over 1 billion people.

Today, we have 6.8 billion.

Short version: No, it can't.
I agree.

Our economy as it is now is completely dependent on oil. And our efforts to reduce our dependence on oil haven't done much of anything even to slow the increase in our consumption of it.

[Newtons Bit]

You're still pretending that the investigation of the disaster at Deepwater Horizon is complete, aren't you?

See Funk's most recent post. Do you know why the thing exploded? If so, then you really should offer your unique expertise to Congress and to BP who are still trying to figure that out.

Much in the same way that an engineer could tell you on 9/12 why the WTC collapsed, I can tell you why Deepwater Horizon exploded. I don't need to wait several years for the NIST report.

The rig exploded because they removed the heavy drilling mud from the pipe before setting a sufficient plug. This vastly lowered the head on top of the well to the point that the pressure in the well was greater than the pressure in the pipe. And when that happened, the fluids in the well will rose. The plug that was supposed to prevent a rise didn't work. As the fluid rose, the pressure dropped and a fraction of the liquid converted to gas. This gas hit air, mixed with oxygen, and ignited (probably from being at their flash point).

You can blame the plugs they had for failing, or maybe the casings, which they knew had been damaged. You could blame them for not using a blow-out preventer which would self-activate. You can definitely blame them for removing the drilling mud early.

A in-depth study will likely reveal which components failed where and which ones held up. Maybe the plug held but the casing around it failed, or vice versa. But it's really not necessary to know what caused the explosion. That study won't be finished in 6-months either. It will take years. But it's not necessary. The oil companies need to play safe, and the regulators need to stop giving explicit approval for oil companies wanting to ignore safety regulations.

[rwguinn]

So do you know how the explosion happened? Do you know that it can't happen on the other drilling projects in question?

ETA: For that matter, your assessment of the findings isn't all that accurate. We know, for example, that some of the boneheaded decisions (such as simply photocopying old contingency plans that talk about Walruses in the Gulf of Mexico and list as an emergency contact a guy who's been dead some years) are common practices across the industry and not at all unique to Deepwater Horizon or BP.

So I think it would be wise and prudent to make sure those boneheaded decisions weren't in fact made at these other drilling projects before lifting the moratorium.
The explosion happened due to bonehead decisions on the part of engineers to displace mud with seawater, reducing the pressure on the reservoir, among other things I am not competent to determine (although experts in the field are).
Those bonehead decisions triggered the whole mess, and all the contingency plans in the world for mitigation would not have stopped it.
You see--they had the well killed/plugged/whatever you want to call it, until somebody made those idiot decisions. Whether it was done against recommendations from engineers and other experts on site or not is the subject of the investigation (or rather, should be the subject of the investigations)

[funk de fino]

Those of us who support the moratorium figured this out before the NEXT spill.

Do keep the topic of this thread in mind.

And we ought to have figured it out before the Deepwater Horizon disaster. After all, it wasn't the first blow out in the Gulf of Mexico. The reason we didn't is that those whose job it was to regulate the industry weren't doing their jobs (and many of them had very unethical relationships with the industry).

I do not disagree.

You have an apology for me?

[funk de fino]

So do you know how the explosion happened? Do you know that it can't happen on the other drilling projects in question?

ETA: For that matter, your assessment of the findings isn't all that accurate. We know, for example, that some of the boneheaded decisions (such as simply photocopying old contingency plans that talk about Walruses in the Gulf of Mexico and list as an emergency contact a guy who's been dead some years) are common practices across the industry and not at all unique to Deepwater Horizon or BP.

So I think it would be wise and prudent to make sure those boneheaded decisions weren't in fact made at these other drilling projects before lifting the moratorium.

Photocopying is notthe same as copy and pasting then modifying. You need to go clear your head.

[funk de fino]

Much in the same way that an engineer could tell you on 9/12 why the WTC collapsed, I can tell you why Deepwater Horizon exploded. I don't need to wait several years for the NIST report.

The rig exploded because they removed the heavy drilling mud from the pipe before setting a sufficient plug. This vastly lowered the head on top of the well to the point that the pressure in the well was greater than the pressure in the pipe. And when that happened, the fluids in the well will rose. The plug that was supposed to prevent a rise didn't work. As the fluid rose, the pressure dropped and a fraction of the liquid converted to gas. This gas hit air, mixed with oxygen, and ignited (probably from being at their flash point).

You can blame the plugs they had for failing, or maybe the casings, which they knew had been damaged. You could blame them for not using a blow-out preventer which would self-activate. You can definitely blame them for removing the drilling mud early.

A in-depth study will likely reveal which components failed where and which ones held up. Maybe the plug held but the casing around it failed, or vice versa. But it's really not necessary to know what caused the explosion. That study won't be finished in 6-months either. It will take years. But it's not necessary. The oil companies need to play safe, and the regulators need to stop giving explicit approval for oil companies wanting to ignore safety regulations.

No, you cannot. You can make guesses like the one above. You can look at some of the supposed actions and what they might have done and you can assume you know.

That does no-one any good.

[Newtons Bit]

No, you cannot. You can make guesses like the one above. You can look at some of the supposed actions and what they might have done and you can assume you know.

That does no-one any good.

It's pretty clear to someone who engineers as a living. The only real question remaining is whether the casing failed or the temp plug did. They knew the casing was damaged, and they knew the plug wasn't final. They should not have removed the drilling mud until the casing was inspected and the final plug installed. It's pretty :rule10'ing obvious. Just as obvious as saying that the WTC failed because a plane slammed into them.

[rwguinn]

It's pretty clear to someone who engineers as a living. The only real question remaining is whether the casing failed or the temp plug did. They knew the casing was damaged, and they knew the plug wasn't final. They should not have removed the drilling mud until the casing was inspected and the final plug installed. It's pretty :rule10'ing obvious. Just as obvious as saying that the WTC failed because a plane slammed into them.
It's amazing to me how so many of the folks who get bent out of shape over woo in the classroom, or medical profession, immediately play the "woo" card when real science is used to support a point.
We know what happened. All that's really left is why somebody made the idiot decisions.

[leftysergeant]

When the first commercial oil wells were built, the earth had a little over 1 billion people.

Today, we have 6.8 billion.

Short version: No, it can't.

Only because nobody with the money to influence such decisions is allowing the alternative energy programs to move ahead properly. We can do with a lot less oil than we are using if people just get their hips off their shoulders.

[Newtons Bit]

It's amazing to me how so many of the folks who get bent out of shape over woo in the classroom, or medical profession, immediately play the "woo" card when real science is used to support a point.
We know what happened. All that's really left is why somebody made the idiot decisions.

Money. That thing cost a lot of money / day. But the reports show that the water spout from the top was 240ft up in the air. Compare that to how much head is over the well. It sounds like someone did some math and was off by about 5%

[rwguinn]

Money. That thing cost a lot of money / day. But the reports show that the water spout from the top was 240ft up in the air. Compare that to how much head is over the well. It sounds like someone did some math and was off by about 5%
Don't those dudes know about Margin (or Factor of Safety)?

[Newtons Bit]

Don't those dudes know about Margin (or Factor of Safety)?

It's a foreign concept to you and me, but it's pretty common in professions where public safety isn't at risk. Mining factors of safety are very low. I recall one of my mineral engineering professors at school talking about 1.25 for temporary mining tunnels.

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Only because nobody with the money to influence such decisions is allowing the alternative energy programs to move ahead properly. We can do with a lot less oil than we are using if people just get their hips off their shoulders.

The reason alternative energy isn't taking off is because wind and solar are insanely expensive, too diffuse to be useful (both require massive arrays of turbines/panels or other collection systems with almost ecocidal footprints) and the only real alternative (nuclear) is under constant propaganda attack by green fearmongerers and eco-lobbyists.

[leftysergeant]

The reason alternative energy isn't taking off is because wind and solar are insanely expensive, too diffuse to be useful (both require massive arrays of turbines/panels or other collection systems with almost ecocidal footprints) and the only real alternative (nuclear) is under constant propaganda attack by green fearmongerers and eco-lobbyists.

Twaddle. If we had a wind turbine manufacturing industry here, the cost would come down and people would have jobs. But the money from tax cuts, which was supposed to produce industrial jobs has, instead, been piddled away gambling on derivatives or used to create jobs in China to undercut our working people.

And there is this one big thing about nuclear power that you seem to overlook. Mistakes are going to be with us for centuries. Safe? The oil maggots told us Gulf drilling was utterly safe, too.

Are you going to blame the blow-out on green activists next?

[rwguinn]

It's a foreign concept to you and me, but it's pretty common in professions where public safety isn't at risk. Mining factors of safety are very low. I recall one of my mineral engineering professors at school talking about 1.25 for temporary mining tunnels.
Even 25% margin would have held, though, if the error was only 5%.
On shuttle payloads, we started at 1.5, and final configuration was still 1.15.
On commercial aircraft, we shoot for 0 margin (FS=1.0) at 50% overload--but we have weight constraints.

[Newtons Bit]

Even 25% margin would have held, though, if the error was only 5%.

I was looking at actual demand to capacity, not including the margin. ;)

There's not telling how close these guys decided to push it.

[HistoryGal]

In response to post 164, please see post 161.

Thank you.

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Twaddle. If we had a wind turbine manufacturing industry here, the cost would come down and people would have jobs. But the money from tax cuts, which was supposed to produce industrial jobs has, instead, been piddled away gambling on derivatives or used to create jobs in China to undercut our working people.


Actually, no. For one thing, it takes 50 times the steel and concrete per megawatt to build wind as it does nuclear.

And as I said, the footprints of wind and solar vs. nuclear are staggeringly huge.

Bruce Nuclear Generating Station: 6.2 Gigawatts, ~1200 acres

Maple Ridge Wind Farm: 320 megwatts (peak output with suficient wind) 12,000 acres

Proposed 3 gigawatt solar plant in India: 37,120 acres (only operates during daytime, only produces 3 GW between 1000 hrs and 1400 hrs).

Too much cost, too big of a footprint for too little gain.

Are you going to blame the blow-out on green activists next?

Yup!

Whose fault is it that we were drilling in 5000 feet of water when we could have been drilling closer to shore where the problem could have been fixed earlier and safer?

[JoeTheJuggler]

The explosion happened due to bonehead decisions on the part of engineers to displace mud with seawater, reducing the pressure on the reservoir, among other things I am not competent to determine (although experts in the field are).

I think you and Newton's Bit should contact BP and Congress right away. Both of them have said that the investigations are incomplete, and the causes of the disaster aren't known.


Those bonehead decisions triggered the whole mess, and all the contingency plans in the world for mitigation would not have stopped it.
You're confusing contingency plans with "fail-safes". When the "fail-safes" fail, you need a contingency plan to stop spewing oil into the Gulf. (That is, they're not meant to prevent something like this, but to deal with it quickly after it happens.) Those contingency plans were part of the documentation required for the permits in question.

So don't confuse the two points: 1) investigations into the causes of the Deepwater Horizon disaster are incomplete contrary to what you two think, and 2) the industry has not provided adequate contingency plans.

It seems like the only solution to a blow out is to drill relief wells. If this is the case, and it takes months to drill relief wells, maybe we should require them to drill relief wells at the same time they drill the main well.

And again, this is not guesswork. We all know that the industry presently is unable to contain a leak like this. (My niece in Panama City said the beaches are a mess.)

[JoeTheJuggler]

Whose fault is it that we were drilling in 5000 feet of water when we could have been drilling closer to shore where the problem could have been fixed earlier and safer?

I don't know about whose fault it is, but it makes sense. Oil in the open ocean is a lot less harmful than it is on coasts, wetlands, estuaries and coastal islands.

I would say the "fault" is our dependence on oil.

[JoeTheJuggler]

The reason alternative energy isn't taking off is because wind and solar are insanely expensive, too diffuse to be useful (both require massive arrays of turbines/panels or other collection systems with almost ecocidal footprints) and the only real alternative (nuclear) is under constant propaganda attack by green fearmongerers and eco-lobbyists.

Isn't the relative cost of energy tied to policy?

Just as an example germane to this thread's topic, since off shore drilling platforms lack any viable contingency plans in the event of a blow-out except relief wells which take months to drill, what would happen to the cost of oil extraction if they were required to drill relief wells simultaneously with the main well?

FWIW, I think the "greens" and "eco-lobbyists" have become more and more friendly to nuclear energy.

[AvalonXQ]

I don't know about whose fault it is, but it makes sense. Oil in the open ocean is a lot less harmful than it is on coasts, wetlands, estuaries and coastal islands.

True or false: "the reason why this problem has been so difficult to fix is because of how deep we're drilling"?
True or false: "had this same problem occurred in shallow water, near the coast, it would likely have been fixed very quickly with very little damage"?

[quadraginta]

<snip>

Whose fault is it that we were drilling in 5000 feet of water when we could have been drilling closer to shore where the problem could have been fixed earlier and safer?


Why do people keep saying this?

Is there any evidence that drilling in shallower water would have made any difference beyond giving the spilled oil a head start at making landfall? Where it would be far less dispersed and degraded?

We've got clear evidence that it isn't necessarily the case.

[thaiboxerken]

As long as the oil industry doesn't know how to stop leaking oil wells quickly, there should be a moratorium.

[funk de fino]

It's pretty clear to someone who engineers as a living. The only real question remaining is whether the casing failed or the temp plug did. They knew the casing was damaged, and they knew the plug wasn't final. They should not have removed the drilling mud until the casing was inspected and the final plug installed. It's pretty :rule10'ing obvious. Just as obvious as saying that the WTC failed because a plane slammed into them.

An engineer would have notice the bolded part. Speculation out of your expertise. In mine however.

[rwguinn]

As long as there is any chance the rudder on an Airbus will fail, all aircraft should be grounded
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002078977_gaillard02.html

[Newtons Bit]

I think you and Newton's Bit should contact BP and Congress right away. Both of them have said that the investigations are incomplete, and the causes of the disaster aren't known.

:rolleyes:

[AlBell]

It seems like the only solution to a blow out is to drill relief wells. If this is the case, and it takes months to drill relief wells, maybe we should require them to drill relief wells at the same time they drill the main well.
Since these are all wildcats, that doubles or triples your chances of a blowout.

We all know that the industry presently is unable to contain a leak like this. (My niece in Panama City said the beaches are a mess.)
Buy a bicycle and turn off your a/c.

[Newtons Bit]

Since these are all wildcats, that doubles or triples your chances of a blowout.

It's kind of like trying a trans-Atlantic trip in a two-engine plane that can't make it very far on one engine.

[leftysergeant]

As long as there is any chance the rudder on an Airbus will fail, all aircraft should be grounded
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002078977_gaillard02.html

Just grounding Airbuses will do quite nicely.

[leftysergeant]

Too much cost, too big of a footprint for too little gain.

It's easier to store the waste product of a wind or solar array than that of a nuke reactor.

And I would assume you have heard of these thing-a-ma-bobs called "storage batteries."

Whose fault is it that we were drilling in 5000 feet of water when we could have been drilling closer to shore where the problem could have been fixed earlier and safer?

BP's.

[Newtons Bit]

And I would assume you have heard of these thing-a-ma-bobs called "storage batteries."

:boggled:

You, apparently, haven't.

[WildCat]

:boggled:

You, apparently, haven't.
They're magical, and require no power to produce! Free energy!

[Newtons Bit]

They're magical, and require no power to produce! Free energy!

And don't ever leak really harmful substances.

[Sword_Of_Truth]

It's easier to store the waste product of a wind or solar array than that of a nuke reactor.

If all the energy you used over your entire lifetime came from nuclear, all of the waste you were responsible for would fit into into a Chunky Soup™ can.

And I would assume you have heard of these thing-a-ma-bobs called "storage batteries."

Right... so take all those hundreds of turbines you'd have to build to make up for one reactor and multiply that by three. That's how many you'd need to over produce while the wind is blowing so you can store it for when it's not.

To replace the capacity of a single Westinghouse AP-1000 reactor with 2.5 megawatt wind turbines, you'd need more than one thousand six hundred of them and the total cost plus the battery facility would be more than 30 billion dollars.

It would cost ten billion to build a reactor facility with four times that capacity.

And then you'd need an army of personnel, and a fleet of trucks and helicopters to keep up the routine maintenence and repairs.

While a reactor facility, instead of being broken into a thousand little pieces and spread out over a wide area, has everything inside one or two buildings and has almost no carbon footprint for it's maintenence.

BP's.

Wrong, it's the tree huggers for pushing them out that far.

[leftysergeant]

If all the energy you used over your entire lifetime came from nuclear, all of the waste you were responsible for would fit into into a Chunky Soup™ can.

And it would have to be sealed away where nobody will get within a foot of it until some time after the end of the Holocene

Right... so take all those hundreds of turbines you'd have to build to make up for one reactor and multiply that by three. That's how many you'd need to over produce while the wind is blowing so you can store it for when it's not.

And you can run cattle under them. Try doing THAT at a nuke plant.

While a reactor facility, instead of being broken into a thousand little pieces and spread out over a wide area, has everything inside one or two buildings and has almost no carbon footprint for it's maintenence.

Fine, right. And we get rid of the radiation by...ermmmm...lemme see...

Wrong, it's the tree huggers for pushing them out that far.

That's what they want you to think.

[rwguinn]

They're magical, and require no power to produce! Free energy!

And don't ever leak really harmful substances.
I've got one, the size of a deck of cards, puts out 2 amps at 11 volts for an hour.
Flys a 2 lb model airplane for 20 minutes
Have to watch it like a hawk. They have a tendency toward "Rapid discharge with flame" while charging.
To put it out, drop in a bucket of water--fer bog's sake don't breathe the fumes!. Now, what do I do with that lithium infused 3 gallons of H2O?

(oh-and they're in every cell phone out there.)

[funk de fino]

I don't know about whose fault it is, but it makes sense. Oil in the open ocean is a lot less harmful than it is on coasts, wetlands, estuaries and coastal islands.

I would say the "fault" is our dependence on oil.

Are you going to man up and admit you misrepresented my position on the moratorium?

Or skulk away like a child?

[thaiboxerken]

The judge, in this case, realized he had stock in Exxon and sold it within hours of the trial.

[funk de fino]

The judge, in this case, realized he had stock in Exxon and sold it within hours of the trial.

Probably snapped up BP's as they dropped to a new low.

:eek:

[funk de fino]

Just grounding Airbuses will do quite nicely.

This is quite correct. That specific type Airbus that had the fail may well be grounded until the failure mode is subject to root cause analysis.

Don't tell the right wingers though.

[Sword_Of_Truth]

And it would have to be sealed away where nobody will get within a foot of it until some time after the end of the Holocene

With the waste products having an average half-life of 30 years, it's not likely you'd need to store it for more than 300 years.

Mind you, this is completely unlike the operation of coal plants where thousands of tons of long lived radioactive waste are pumped directly into the atmosphere every year.

And you can run cattle under them. Try doing THAT at a nuke plant.

You can graze cattle on the land the nuke plant isn't even touching.

Better still, unlike the thousands of acres a small wind farm would take up, you can let the land a nuke plant isn't using go completely natural again. Something you cannot do with wind and solar arrays.

Nukes are actually greener than wind and solar. Strange but true!


Fine, right. And we get rid of the radiation by...ermmmm...lemme see...

We can let it decay naturally over a century or two. Because of the tremendous energy density of nuclear fuel, it's waste products don't take up much room either. And most so-called waste is actually recyclable fuel. It can be fed through a breeder reactor and sent back to be burned again!

So really, waste management isn't a huge deal.

But if we really feel we have to get rid of the waste overnight, there's neutron transmutation. You can either bump fission products up the periodic table a notch, turning them into stable isotopes of a higher element, or turn them into radioactive isotopes with much shorter half-lives so that they turn into stable isotopes in hours or days instead of decades.

That's what they want you to think.

The mysterious "THEY" of your conspiracy theories.

[leftysergeant]

With the waste products having an average half-life of 30 years, it's not likely you'd need to store it for more than 300 years.

If something is already ten times more radioactive than it needs to be to kill you, it will take much longer than that for it to be safe.

Mind you, this is completely unlike the operation of coal plants where thousands of tons of long lived radioactive waste are pumped directly into the atmosphere every year.

Mind you, the processes of mining and refining the uranium ore ALWAYS releases high-level radioactive dust into the air.



We can let it decay naturally over a century or two. Because of the tremendous energy density of nuclear fuel, it's waste products don't take up much room either. And most so-called waste is actually recyclable fuel. It can be fed through a breeder reactor and sent back to be burned again!

But if we really feel we have to get rid of the waste overnight, there's neutron transmutation. You can either bump fission products up the periodic table a notch, turning them into stable isotopes of a higher element, or turn them into radioactive isotopes with much shorter half-lives so that they turn into stable isotopes in hours or days instead of decades.
Why are the nuclear power operators already doing that?

The mysterious "THEY" of your conspiracy theories.

Not a mysterious "they." A real "They." The oil companies.

[Sword_Of_Truth]

With the waste products having an average half-life of 30 years, it's not likely you'd need to store it for more than 300 years.
If something is already ten times more radioactive than it needs to be to kill you, it will take much longer than that for it to be safe.

Truthers like to think they know but all they do when they talk is expose their own ignorance.

You obviously don't know what the term "half-life" means or you wouldn't have said what you just did.


Mind you, the processes of mining and refining the uranium ore ALWAYS releases high-level radioactive dust into the air.

No, they don't. You don't know what the term "high level" means either.

Coal fired power plants in the US have already spewed 100,000 tons or more of uranium into the air and almost a quarter million tons of uranium.


Why are the nuclear power operators already doing that?

I assume you mean why aren't they. A democrat president forbade development of the technology. Thanks for that, BTW. You set back energy independence and carbon emission control by half a century.

Bravo.

Not a mysterious "they." A real "They." The oil companies.

The same ones who covered up the water powered car? :rolleyes:

[JoeTheJuggler]

Since these are all wildcats, that doubles or triples your chances of a blowout.
So you're saying these things aren't very safe?




Buy a bicycle and turn off your a/c.
I ride a bicycle very much, and I don't have an AC. But nice ad hominem argument.

[JoeTheJuggler]

:rolleyes:

I noticed you never answered my question. Do you think Hayward was lying when he told Congress that BP's investigations are incomplete, and the causes of the disaster are unknown?

So since you're so certain you know the cause of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, do you have a way to contain the oil and stop the leak? We know the contingency plans submitted by BP (and the other oil companies) are not viable. Since these plans were part of the documentation required for a permit, I will happily oppose the moratorium if you have a viable contingency plan.

[AlBell]

So you're saying these things aren't very safe?

Deepwater drilling is as safe as current technology and existing MMS regulations can make it. No complex technological effort is ever 100% safe, and will not become so under any scenario of "more regulation".

Adding an additional and unneeded well offers more chance for human error to enter the effort.

And I strongly doubt MMS will be granting exceptions to existing regulations as was done leading up to the Deepwater Horizon failure.

[thaiboxerken]

It's as safe as it can be with current techs and regulations? If that's the case, we should stop all off-shore drilling until it's safe enough not to cause spills of this caliber.

[AlBell]

It's as safe as it can be with current techs and regulations? If that's the case, we should stop all off-shore drilling until it's safe enough not to cause spills of this caliber.
We can agree to disagree, and tptb will do as they will in any case.

[leftysergeant]

Adding an additional and unneeded well offers more chance for human error to enter the effort.

Bull flops. Canada does it now without incident. It is a matter of oversight.

And I strongly doubt MMS will be granting exceptions to existing regulations as was done leading up to the Deepwater Horizon failure.

Yeah, but those already wrongly granted have the potential to kill just about everything in the ocean. It is worth it to the rest of the world to see whether any improper waiverswere granted or any other inspections pencil-whipped before entering the reservoirs.

Does it cost the oil companies money? Sure, but so what. They do not have a right to prosper at the risk of greater harm to us.

The idiots act as though it was their oil. Childish.

[bit_pattern]

Damned activist judges!

Good. Now the government won't be unnecessarily putting lots of people out of work before we actually know whether there's a problem.

Except that there are no deep sea drilling projects that would have otherwise come online in the next six months so no jobs are being threatened.

[quadraginta]

Damned activist judges!

Good. Now the government won't be unnecessarily putting lots of people out of work before we actually know whether there's a problem.

Except that there are no deep sea drilling projects that would have otherwise come online in the next six months so no jobs are being threatened.

You mean ...

You mean ...

The injunction was just a political stunt??!!!?? :eek::eye-poppi:eek:

:jaw-dropp

Well shut my mouth. Who'da thunk it.

Surely you don't think that a Reagan appointee to a Louisiana District would make a judgment calculated solely to poke the Obama Administration in the eye.

Nah. That's just too far-fetched.

[funk de fino]

I noticed you never answered my question. Do you think Hayward was lying when he told Congress that BP's investigations are incomplete, and the causes of the disaster are unknown?

Were you lying when you said I was against the moratorium/halt?

[leftysergeant]

Surely you don't think that a Reagan appointee to a Louisiana District would make a judgment calculated solely to poke the Obama Administration in the eye.

Nah. That's just too far-fetched.

Not the least likely scenario in the world, I would say.

I am wondering, though, whether this case even passes one of the simplest of tests. Does the case even have merit?

The MMS has the authority to grant or deny permits for various activities. They are expected to act in the interest of public safety.

A new threat to public safety has been discovered, rooted in corruption of certain functionaries within the agency. It is known that most, if not all, permits have been issued without certain safeguards in place. The government were, then, in violation of a far greater trust to allow the drilling to go forward until it is determined that the permits were not granted improperly.

The judge is saying, in essence, that the federal government is not entitled to correct a mistake, which is possibly one of the most absurd positions that any judge not already showing symptoms of Alzheimers could possibly take.

[Lurker]

The mysterious "THEY" of your conspiracy theories.

While I am loath to agree with Lefty he is actually correct here. Oil companies are in deepwater no matter what environmentalists say. They have not been pushed there - that is where the oil is.

[Newtons Bit]

The judge is saying, in essence, that the federal government is not entitled to correct a mistake, which is possibly one of the most absurd positions that any judge not already showing symptoms of Alzheimers could possibly take.

No, he's not. The judge is saying that the government needs to prove it's case and that the current rationale used for the moratorium is not enough. The biggest "poke in the eye" regarding this is the governments claim that they had experts from the NAE peer-review their recommendations, including the 6-month moratorium. They didn't review that part of the recommendations. The government got caught lying, that's why they didn't win.

The government is welcome to try a different line of argument, such as the one you're trying to make, but the previous one was bull:rule10 and based on a fabrication.

How does it make you feel, to know that the Obama administration lied rather than use your line of logic?

[Beerina]

Just grounding Airbuses will do quite nicely.

Correct. Not other models. Same for the drilling rigs.

[JoeTheJuggler]

I noticed you never answered my question. Do you think Hayward was lying when he told Congress that BP's investigations are incomplete, and the causes of the disaster are unknown?

Were you lying when you said I was against the moratorium/halt?

My question was directed to Newton's Bit (not you) who several times claimed that we already know all we need to know about the causes of the Deepwater Horizon disaster to guarantee the safety of the other rigs in the Gulf, contrary to what Hayward told Congress.

To answer your question: I don't think I ever claimed you held any particular position on the moratorium. If I did, perhaps you can quote where I did so. If I said that (and I don't believe I did), then I take it back. I think in one of your first posts on the thread you said the moratorium was probably a good idea (or something like that).

[JoeTheJuggler]

It's as safe as it can be with current techs and regulations? If that's the case, we should stop all off-shore drilling until it's safe enough not to cause spills of this caliber.

It does sound like attempted arguments against the moratorium generally support the position that it actually didn't go far enough!

I think the lack of viable contingency plans alone is reason enough to revoke all licenses granted based on bogus contingency plans.

Legally, it's a no-brainer. If one of the requirements for a permit wasn't met, then no permit. By analogy, if someone lies about their age to get a driver's license, and then is found to be underage, you revoke the license (at the very least).

[Newtons Bit]

It does sound like attempted arguments against the moratorium generally support the position that it actually didn't go far enough!

I think the lack of viable contingency plans alone is reason enough to revoke all licenses granted based on bogus contingency plans.

Legally, it's a no-brainer. If one of the requirements for a permit wasn't met, then no permit. By analogy, if someone lies about their age to get a driver's license, and then is found to be underage, you revoke the license (at the very least).

And if someone lies about the facts in issuing a moratorium you revoke the moratorium? :confused:

[JoeTheJuggler]

And if someone lies about the facts in issuing a moratorium you revoke the moratorium? :confused:

Only if the requirements to get the permits are complete. If one of the requirements is a viable contingency plan in the event of a blow out, and BP and the other companies still have no such plans, then we should at the very least suspend those permits temporarily. Seems like a prudent move that doesn't go as far as it could, legally.

I notice you still haven't answered my question. Hayward told Congress he couldn't answer their questions about the causes of the Deepwater Horizon disaster because investigations aren't complete and the causes are not known.

You claim we know all we need to know to guarantee the safety on other rigs operating in the Gulf.

Was Hayward lying?

[DC]

Nukes are actually greener than wind and solar. Strange but true!

evidence?

[Lurker]

I notice you still haven't answered my question. Hayward told Congress he couldn't answer their questions about the causes of the Deepwater Horizon disaster because investigations aren't complete and the causes are not known.

You claim we know all we need to know to guarantee the safety on other rigs operating in the Gulf.

Was Hayward lying?

I would say that Hayward is doing what any CEO would do in his circumstances and what his lawyers probably told him to do. Until the investigation is complete, not comment on causes. Surely you see the wisdom in that, don't you?

So Hayward wanting to wait until ALL the facts are in is understandable. Meanwhile, as facts have come dribbling in we can assess those facts ourselves without fear of biasing investigations against ourselves.

[Newtons Bit]

Only if the requirements to get the permits are complete. If one of the requirements is a viable contingency plan in the event of a blow out, and BP and the other companies still have no such plans, then we should at the very least suspend those permits temporarily. Seems like a prudent move that doesn't go as far as it could, legally.

I notice you still haven't answered my question. Hayward told Congress he couldn't answer their questions about the causes of the Deepwater Horizon disaster because investigations aren't complete and the causes are not known.

You claim we know all we need to know to guarantee the safety on other rigs operating in the Gulf.

Was Hayward lying?

He was dodging. And so are you. You're making an appeal to perfection. It's the difference between knowing why WTC1&2 collapsed on 9/11 and knowing exactly which columns were overstressed.

[Newtons Bit]

I would say that Hayward is doing what any CEO would do in his circumstances and what his lawyers probably told him to do. Until the investigation is complete, not comment on causes. Surely you see the wisdom in that, don't you?

So Hayward wanting to wait until ALL the facts are in is understandable. Meanwhile, as facts have come dribbling in we can assess those facts ourselves without fear of biasing investigations against ourselves.

That, and if he were to answer honestly he'd have to say, "Well, Senator, the spill was caused by a bunch of dumb:rule10's who repeatedly ignored safety standards. Which is why I'm calling them dumb:rule10's. Furthermore, mr. Senator, since I am their boss, I am also a dumb:rule10 for letting the corporate culture get to the point of allowing dumb:rule10's to make decisions as important as the ones that they :rule10'd up."

[Lurker]

That, and if he were to answer honestly he'd have to say, "Well, Senator, the spill was caused by a bunch of dumb:rule10's who repeatedly ignored safety standards. Which is why I'm calling them dumb:rule10's. Furthermore, mr. Senator, since I am their boss, I am also a dumb:rule10 for letting the corporate culture get to the point of allowing dumb:rule10's to make decisions as important as the ones that they :rule10'd up."

Agreed.

[AlBell]

That, and if he were to answer honestly he'd have to say, "Well, Senator, the spill was caused by a bunch of dumb:rule10's who repeatedly ignored safety standards. Which is why I'm calling them dumb:rule10's. Furthermore, mr. Senator, since I am their boss, I am also a dumb:rule10 for letting the corporate culture get to the point of allowing dumb:rule10's to make decisions as important as the ones that they :rule10'd up."
for example:

A letter to the editors of the Wall Street Journal:
In response to Tony Hayward's June 4 op-ed "What BP Is Doing about the Gulf Gusher": It is time that the publicity spin that BP is putting on this disaster is put into perspective. What is alarming about the content of the article is not so much what it says, but what it does not say. Mr. Haywood, chief executive officer of British Petroleum, asks, "How could this happen?"

The answer has largely to do with BP's inability to follow its existing well-construction policies and those of the industry generally. The BP testimony to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on May 25 says it all, but perhaps that material needs to be explained.

From looking at that evidence, this is what we know:
1) When cementing the production casing the cementing crew, which was being supervised by BP, had difficulty landing the top plug into the casing shoe. This was the first "red flag" because a satisfactory cement job to the production string is fundamental to the safe operation on a go forward basis. The fact that the cement job did not go as planned should have caused the testing operation that followed to be carefully scrutinized, it clearly was not.

2) As is normal practice, the integrity of the pressure tight seal was tested by pressuring up on the casing and observing the pressure response. If pressure bleeds off there is clearly a problem with the pressure integrity of the shoe, However, industry practice dictates that a positive test, that is no pressure drop, is not diagnostic, simply because the reservoir pressure is sufficient to retain the pressure being applied. A negative test is useful because it is diagnostic of a failed cement job. In this case the test was positive.

3) Again, as is normal industry practice a negative pressure test was run, with pressure released from inside the casing and the pressure response was measured. In this case evidence has been bought before the committee that there was a 1,400 psi pressure response. This response is highly diagnostic and is therefore the second "red flag" and at this point the BP supervisors should have concluded that they had what the industry calls a "wet shoe." That is that the cement job had failed to form a seal at the casing around the reservoir which we know contains high pressure oil and gas.

4) At this point a decision should have been made to do a remedial cement job; this is an expensive operation, but having seen a 1,400 psi response, there was no choice.

5) The BP engineers then proceeded with the balance of the operation to temporarily abandon the well. This meant replacing the 14-pound-per-gallon mud that was in the wellbore with 8.5-pound-per-gallon sea water. The denser mud had been, up until this time, the primary pressure control and was keeping the hydrocarbons in place despite the lack of an adequate cement job at the casing shoe. Given the two red flags that had been thrown up previously, one would have expected that as a precaution a cement plug would have been placed somewhere in the wellbore as a secondary pressure seal before this primary pressure control system (heavy mud) was evacuated from the wellbore. But at the very least the mud replacement operation should have been heavily scrutinized. Clearly it was not.

6) Evidence provided at the hearing, including the pressure data transmitted from the rig for the last two hours before the explosion, is diagnostic. At 8:20 p.m. on the day of the explosion the pressure data suggest there was a constant flow of sea water being pumped into the drill pipe that was displacing the heavier mud system which was the primary pressure control for the well. The rate going in was 900 gallons per minute, but the flow data of mud coming out was steadily increasing from 900 gallons a minute at 8:20 p.m. to a rate of 1,200 gallons per minute at 8:34 p.m. During this 14-minute period one can conclude that hydrocarbons were flowing and pushing more fluid from the wellbore than was being pumped in. This is what this data is supposed to monitor, but the well flow evidence would appear to have been ignored, because at this point the BP rig supervisors should have gone to a well kill operation and started to pump heavy mud back into the well bore to restore the primary control mechanism. Instead the mud continued to be evacuated.

7) At 9:08 there was another piece of evidence that is very clear cut. The sea water pump was shut down presumably to check the well stability. However, with the pump shut down a pressure increase was seen in the standpipe (SPP). This pressure response has to be associated with the reservoir flowing hydrocarbons and again at this point kill operations should have been initiated by the BP engineers.

8) From 9:08 p.m. to around 9:30, despite the sea-water pump either running at a constant volume or shut-in, the SPP continued to increase; again this is evidence that the well is producing hydrocarbons and should have caused a kill operation to be initiated.

9) At 9:30 p.m. the seawater pump was again shut-in to presumably observe what the well was doing, and again there is a notable increase in the standpipe pressure.

10) At 9:49 the SPP showed a very large increase and the explosion followed -- this is obviously the point at which the gas and oil reached the drill floor and found an ignition source.

Mr. Hayward and BP have taken the position that this tragedy is all about a fail-safe blow-out preventer (BOP) failing, but in reality the BOP is really the backup system, and yes we expect that it will work. However, all of the industry practice and construction systems are aimed at ensuring that one never has to use that device. Thus the industry has for decades relied on a dense mud system to keep the hydrocarbons in the reservoir and everything that is done to maintain wellbore integrity is tested, and where a wellbore integrity test fails, remedial action is taken. This well failed its casing integrity test and nothing was done. The data collected during a critical operation to monitor hydrocarbon inflow was ignored and nothing was done. This spill is about human failure and it is time BP put its hand up and admitted that.

Terry Barr
President
Samson Oil and Gas
Lakewood, Colo.

[rwguinn]

Only if the requirements to get the permits are complete. If one of the requirements is a viable contingency plan in the event of a blow out, and BP and the other companies still have no such plans, then we should at the very least suspend those permits temporarily. Seems like a prudent move that doesn't go as far as it could, legally.

I notice you still haven't answered my question. Hayward told Congress he couldn't answer their questions about the causes of the Deepwater Horizon disaster because investigations aren't complete and the causes are not known.

You claim we know all we need to know to guarantee the safety on other rigs operating in the Gulf.

Was Hayward lying?
You're absolutely right. We cant "guarantee the safety on other rigs operating in the Gulf."
We also can't guarantee the safety of aircraft, automobiles, dish washers, surgery, food, water supplies, or crossing the street, even with the "walk" light.

[thaiboxerken]

Right, but we can actually clean up thos other accidents swiftly, thus impacting the environment and other people minimally.

[AlBell]

The point is Moratoriums, Regulations, Commissions, etc are not going to guarantee either 100% safety, or any real ability to plug another blowout, or clean up a massive spill.

What do you propose? You really wish to stop US oil extraction efforts? The 6 months gains nothing useful.

[rwguinn]

The point is Moratoriums, Regulations, Commissions, etc are not going to guarantee either 100% safety, or any real ability to plug another blowout, or clean up a massive spill.

What do you propose? You really wish to stop US oil extraction efforts? The 6 months gains nothing useful.
ken has shown that people mean nothing to him. "The Environment" is all-encompassing (except people)

[Ziggurat]

Oh Kenny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From gulf to gulf, and down beneath the waves
The drilling's stopped, but all that oil's still leaking
Tony Hayward must go and O' must bide.
But come ye back when billions are in escrow
Or when the regulators need some blow
t'is oil in there in deep water and shallow
Oh Kenny boy, oh Kenny boy, I told you so.

Sorry, I got stuck on the second verse.

[thaiboxerken]

The point is Moratoriums, Regulations, Commissions, etc are not going to guarantee either 100% safety, or any real ability to plug another blowout, or clean up a massive spill.

What do you propose? You really wish to stop US oil extraction efforts? The 6 months gains nothing useful.

Nothing will guarantee safety, so let's just stop regulations or even caring about safety at all. Let's dismantle OSHA.

OR, we can stop oil drilling until the industry develops technology to deal with eruptions like this.

If I made a widget that made money, and even prospered my neighbors, but didn't have the ability to stop that widget from destroying the neighborhood if that widget malfunctioned, should I keep making widgets?

[rwguinn]

ken has shown that people mean nothing to him. "The Environment" is all-encompassing (except people)

Nothing will guarantee safety, so let's just stop regulations or even caring about safety at all. Let's dismantle OSHA.

OR, we can stop oil drilling until the industry develops technology to deal with eruptions like this.

If I made a widget that made money, and even prospered my neighbors, but didn't have the ability to stop that widget from destroying the neighborhood if that widget malfunctioned, should I keep making widgets?
ken also has a problem with "cause and effect" it appears.
Let's stop drilling until we develop the "technology to deal with eruptions like this."
Why would we develop it, if we aren't going to need it? And how will we know it'll work?
Every disaster like this is a prototype.- one of a kind.Every one, thus far, has also been a chain-reaction of human error (or malevolence)
Ken's solution-back to the stone age?

[thaiboxerken]

So you're saying the reason the tech hasn't developed is because there isn't a history of spills like this? That a need hasn't been shown?