IDB: Slow Response To Gulf Intentional?

Danube

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Dec 10, 2009
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Many don't think it was a coincidence that Obama was off promoting solar panels (and we know how GE and others are looking to make a killing on new "green" tech) last week while the leak (and GOPs Jindal) was being ignored. All the rhetoric about keeping a boot on the neck of BP while actually ignoring the damage suggested that the Obama crew was going to use the leak as an opportunity (typical) to defame and regulate. Now it looks like the clever ones may get hoisted by their own petard.


"The Drill Is Gone"


"An administration never enthusiastic about offshore drilling is using the Gulf oil spill as an excuse to suspend Arctic exploration. Who could've seen that coming? Now we'll be more dependent on foreign oil.

Suspicions in some quarters that the administration was being deliberately lax in its response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in order to pursue a larger, anti-domestic energy agenda were met with derision. But if not deliberate, the effect is the same as the administration prepares to shut down our search for new oil.

President Obama on Thursday announced a suspension of offshore drilling in the Arctic until the causes and solutions to the Gulf spill are found. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a report delivered to the White House on Thursday that he will not consider applications for permits to drill in the Arctic until 2011. Shell Oil was poised to begin exploratory drilling this summer on leases as far as 140 miles offshore.

The irony here is that it's been the reluctance of Congress and the White House to allow more onshore development of our vast untapped oil and natural gas energy reserves that has forced oil companies such as Shell and British Petroleum to go farther and farther offshore to drill deeper and deeper in riskier waters.

"I am frustrated that this decision by the Obama administration to halt offshore development for a year will cause more delays and higher costs for domestic oil and gas production to meet the nation's energy needs," Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, said in a statement. As with nuclear power, domestic oil exploration will now be consigned to the "study forever, develop never" category.

As we noted recently, this is another energy crisis that environmentalists will not let go to waste. The nonfatal accident at Three Mile Island in 1979 and the Soviet disaster at Chernobyl conspired to deprive the U.S. of a non-polluting form of power generation ? nuclear power. The danger here is that similar overblown fears of offshore oil production will doom the U.S. to being the Bangladesh of domestic energy production.

Other nations continue to build new nuclear power plants, build new coal plants and build new offshore oil rigs (including China, in the Gulf of Mexico). They know that despite the risks and dangers, their economies and their people need the energy. The U.S., uniquely among industrial nations, will stick its head in the tundra.

A recent study by Science Applications International Corp. shows that the U.S. economy will suffer $2.3 trillion in lost opportunity costs over the next two decades, monies that would go a long way to reining in runaway deficits and creating economic growth we sorely need.

The net effect of our energy inaction will be a reduction in gross domestic product by $2.36 trillion cumulatively through 2029, or by 0.52% annually. We would also be forgoing hundreds of thousands of high-paying energy and construction sector jobs here in the U.S. as well as missing a golden opportunity to sharply cut our trade deficit.

Alaska's Chukchi Sea holds more oil and gas than anyone thought ? 1,600 trillion cubic feet of undeveloped natural gas, or 30% of the world's supply, and 83 billion barrels of undeveloped oil, 4% of estimated global resources. You can be sure the Russians won't be as reluctant.

We'll become ever more dependent on the world's petrotyrants, including Russia's Vladimir Putin, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who are all too willing to use their energy wealth as a weapon.

This will make neither our wildlife nor our country more safe and secure."


http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=535718&p=2
 

cubeless

Diamond Member
Sep 17, 2001
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and if companies want to drill they'll either come up with technology to deal with the inevitable failure, or stock up on meth and porn for the regulators and campaign contributions for their bosses...
 

Danube

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Dec 10, 2009
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President Obama doesn't care about white people.


Or black - Obama sees himself as global citizen above race and nationality. He should apologize to black people for being a radical citizen of the globe instead of first black prez
 
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Mxylplyx

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Mar 21, 2007
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This well has been flowing for 38 days now, right in the middle of one of the heaviest oil producing regions in the world, with any piece of equipment they could possibly want nearby, and they still havent stopped it. Imagine if this had happened in the arctic out in the middle of nowhere.

No thanks.
 

jackschmittusa

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Apr 16, 2003
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Danube

The ease of the task of brainwashing you is amazing. It may even be be a mental defect rather than a simple character flaw.
 

JEDI

Lifer
Sep 25, 2001
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This well has been flowing for 38 days now, right in the middle of one of the heaviest oil producing regions in the world, with any piece of equipment they could possibly want nearby, and they still havent stopped it. Imagine if this had happened in the arctic out in the middle of nowhere.

No thanks.

why not just light a match and set the whole oil spill ablaze?

whatever happened to that plan?
 

JSt0rm

Lifer
Sep 5, 2000
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why not just light a match and set the whole oil spill ablaze?

whatever happened to that plan?

I'm sure they didnt think of that...

You better go tell them your plan dude. Go to Washington.
 

Patranus

Diamond Member
Apr 15, 2007
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why not just light a match and set the whole oil spill ablaze?

whatever happened to that plan?

Well they didn't have the equipment outlined in the 1994 government plan to carry out that operation.
 

her209

No Lifer
Oct 11, 2000
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tin-foil-hat.jpg
 

Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
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If we can't drill all we want *right now!*, then it'll be the end of the world as we know it, right?

And it's all Obama's fault, of course...

Intentionally slow response? by the govt? or by BP? WTF did you think the govt was supposed to do after the fact, anyway? Convene a panel of "experts" to wring their hands and pontificate as if they were rightwing commentators? Nuke the oil spill? Bring in an armada of super-sekrit oil sucking dirigibles? What?
 

Lemon law

Lifer
Nov 6, 2005
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Now is the time for the GOP to ride to the rescue, they already have a pile of big mouths, and its time for them to all swim out the the gulf, open their mouths, and start sucking up all the oil.

And when the GOP swallows up all the oil that has thus far leaked, I too shall vote GOP.

But in reality, when Obama starts proposing ways to effectively regulate deep sea drilling, we can bet the GOP will lead the fight to prevent those regulations.
 

ProfJohn

Lifer
Jul 28, 2006
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This well has been flowing for 38 days now, right in the middle of one of the heaviest oil producing regions in the world, with any piece of equipment they could possibly want nearby, and they still havent stopped it. Imagine if this had happened in the arctic out in the middle of nowhere.

No thanks.
The spill in the gulf is 5000 feet below the surface of the gulf making it insanely difficult to do anything to stop it.

A spill in Alaska would be on the surface where you could easily bring in the right equipment and stop the leak in a few days.
 

Jhhnn

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Sclamoz

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Sep 9, 2009
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The spill in the gulf is 5000 feet below the surface of the gulf making it insanely difficult to do anything to stop it.

A spill in Alaska would be on the surface where you could easily bring in the right equipment and stop the leak in a few days.

The 2nd worst spill in history was the Itoxic well in the gulf of Mexico that exploded in '79. That took 9 months to seal and it was only in 200 feet of water.

The Montara well off the coast of Australia last year in 250 feet of water took 5 months to seal.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/23/1644742/spill-has-perfect-precedence-in.html
 

Danube

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Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
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The arctic drilling was in shallow water which is very different than drilling in a mile deep canyon.

and it's still not as you offered earlier wrt to it being on the surface, where leaks are easier to stop.
 

Lemon law

Lifer
Nov 6, 2005
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Our problem with such a deep well leak lies in the simple fact that oil is simply not a homogeneous same stuff mixture.

And while the leaking oil may come out of the well head at a well mixed 25-50 degrees C, it immediately encounters an Ocean of surrounding deep sea water of a uniform temperature of 2-4 degrees C. as the oil then transform it to at least three things. The heavy hydrocarbons turn into tar balls, the medium weight ones assume the density of sea water, and only the light weight hydrocarbons pop right up to the surface to form an oil slick vulnerable to chemical dispersants and oil booms.

Its the former two that pose the greatest excremental dangers, because while slow moving, they will eventually reach shallower and much warmer water, and turn back into very nasty purely liquid oil.