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What Impact Do You Think the Gulf Oil Spill Will Have?
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Post by
Dragoonman
Its true, there will probably be no change in corporate attitude regarding the environment.
Post by
Squishalot
But that only deals with the problem after it happens. Privatizing it would help prevent it from happening, because if someone owns property that could be damaged, they're going to work a lot harder to prevent it from happening.
Are you suggesting that the reef owners will work harder (than government currently does) to prevent the oil companies from doing things that would potentially damage the reef?
The part I bolded is the part in question, to me. If sufficient contingencies are NOT in place, and the companies actually do NOT have the financial clout, then what?
These were just hypotheticals until now, and we believed BP had them both covered. But BP has already proved its contingencies were insufficient, and it may be on its way to proving it does not have the financial clout (regardless of what the government believed).
What makes you think that BP doesn't have the financial clout? They're making 7-8 billion dollars a quarter in free operating cashflow. The estimated cost of the cleanup is currently around 5 billion, and is likely to hit 10-15 billion. Highest estimate I've heard is around 30 billion. They could pay that off in a year. Their shareholders will hate them, but I find it incredibly unbelievable that they won't be capable of paying what they're required to.
As for sufficient contingencies, they're always 'enough' until something completely unanticipated happens. There will always be a 'oops, this isn't going to work' situation, and the key thing is to learn from BP's mistake and lack of working contingencies (remember - their initial dome solution was the ideal one, and only suffered from poor execution) and ensure that it can't happen again. Until the next unanticipated event occurs.
Post by
Gnoktish
If you watched a segment of 60 minutes a couple of weeks ago about this topic. It's the Ignorance the main dude made about the chunks of platic in the oil in the first place. We seriously need to clean this up. The enviorment is starting to die out and We are to blame because of the head honcho. We are possibly on the brink of thousands of endangered species put onto the endangered list. And lets face it. The oil can also spread over to a father area from the gulf. We seriously need to actully do something other than say its getting worse. I feel this is where we start to see mroe extinct animals soon enough.
Post by
Heckler
As for sufficient contingencies, they're always 'enough' until something completely unanticipated happens. There will always be a 'oops, this isn't going to work' situation, and the key thing is to learn from BP's mistake and lack of working contingencies (remember - their initial dome solution was the ideal one, and only suffered from poor execution) and ensure that it can't happen again. Until the next unanticipated event occurs.
A failed blowout preventer is not "completely unanticipated" -- not even close. When a similar accident happened in the 70s, the exact same solutions were attempted, and they similarly failed, and in the end, the only thing that worked was the relief wells (
video of report
).
Seems no one 'learned' anything from that one.
As far as their financial clout -- I hope they have enough, I'm just saying "enough" might mean what's required to clean up 10% of the mess. I sincerely doubt they will put the entire Gulf Coast back the way it was before -- they will be released from liability or run out of money before that happens. Either way leaves the People on the hook, and BP & Co. will continue operating exactly the way they were beforehand.
Post by
Squishalot
A failed blowout preventer is not "completely unanticipated" -- not even close.
Not really - it's that the blowout preventer was put under an unanticipated pressure. If you've got a blowout, and your cap is strong enough, it'll hold, no worries. If you've got too much pressure, the cap won't hold. So if you design your caps in such a way that it deals with all anticipated pressures, plus 20%, then you deal successfully with all anticipated problems - but it won't work for the one that's too deep, as in this case.
Presumably, the reason they went for the other solutions first was because they were the cheaper options. The dome and funnel approach, again, would have been the best answer, since it would have captured all the oil as well, rather than drilling the relief well and having to go back and recap this one anyway.
I sincerely doubt they will put the entire Gulf Coast back the way it was before -- they will be released from liability or run out of money before that happens.
I'm with Hyper on this one. You're not going to be able to put things 'back the way it was before', because by definition, it's simply impossible sometimes. They'll recompensate the government (i.e. land owners) for the mess they've made, and that's the best that they can do. The recompensation will be done within certain formulas that have been developed for precisely this problem, and BP will just have to pay, whether it's a front-end fee that bankrupts them (extremely unlikely) or an ongoing fee that they'll have to pay for the next 30 years, which is easily payable.
Post by
Heckler
My point is, when the consequences of 'unanticipated' things are
this
severe (unfixable, as you just said), it's a lousy excuse that what happened was
unanticipated
. Things with consequences like this (similar to nuclear power plants) need to be overengineered far more than 20%, and need to have thought of every thinkable problem. If this was simply a over-pressure issue then it's especially lousy, clearly that should have been anticipated -- that seems like a 'no $%^&ter' in any mining situation to me. Clearly what they 'anticipated' was wrong, and that means that every one of their deepwater rigs is likely on the same brink that the Deepwater Horizon plummeted over.
The rules don't
have
to be written in blood.
And the reason they went for the other solutions first was because the relief wells will take 3 to 4 months to drill, so they'll try anything (as they should). The point is, they told congress that what's happening right now couldn't happen, and if it somehow did, that they had fail-safes. And if the fail-safes weren't enough, they had a plan ready to go to stop it. All of that was just lies.
Post by
Squishalot
And the reason they went for the other solutions first was because the relief wells will take 3 to 4 months to drill, so they'll try anything (as they should). The point is, they told congress that what's happening right now couldn't happen, and if it somehow did, that they had fail-safes. And if the fail-safes weren't enough, they had a plan ready to go to stop it. All of that was just lies.
i.e. the other solutions were less costly. The thing is, they do have fail-safes, they do have a plan. They executed the fail-safes, they're executing their plan. There aren't any lies, it's just not fast / effective enough for your liking, no?
Post by
Heckler
i.e. the other solutions were less costly. The thing is, they do have fail-safes, they do have a plan. They executed the fail-safes, they're executing their plan. There aren't any lies, it's just not fast / effective enough for your liking, no?
They were lies, because the solution in their plan didn't involve the death of the gulf coast while it was being executed (if it had, they would not have been granted license). A less costly solution in trade for this, hardly seems like a legitimate excuse. Unless you're saying that it wasn't legitimate, in which case, I agree.
A more plausible explanation is that BP lied, Congress and the D.o.Interior knew they were lies, but granted the license anyways.
Post by
Squishalot
i.e. the other solutions were less costly. The thing is, they do have fail-safes, they do have a plan. They executed the fail-safes, they're executing their plan. There aren't any lies, it's just not fast / effective enough for your liking, no?
They were lies, because the solution in their plan didn't involve the death of the gulf coast while it was being executed (if it had, they would not have been granted licence). A less costly solution in trade for this, hardly seems like a legitimate excuse. Unless you're saying that it wasn't legitimate, in which case, I agree.
I disagree. The solution in their plans did, but the people approving the plan figured that the risk / damage forecasts weren't high enough to warrant holding up the project. Damage forecasting would have been undertaken by a separate party to BP. Can you honestly tell me that a plan involving how to deal with an oil well blowout doesn't involve polluting the environment?
Post by
Heckler
i.e. the other solutions were less costly. The thing is, they do have fail-safes, they do have a plan. They executed the fail-safes, they're executing their plan. There aren't any lies, it's just not fast / effective enough for your liking, no?
They were lies, because the solution in their plan didn't involve the death of the gulf coast while it was being executed (if it had, they would not have been granted licence). A less costly solution in trade for this, hardly seems like a legitimate excuse. Unless you're saying that it wasn't legitimate, in which case, I agree.
I disagree. The solution in their plans did, but the people approving the plan figured that the risk / damage forecasts weren't high enough to warrant holding up the project. Damage forecasting would have been undertaken by a separate party to BP. Can you honestly tell me that a plan involving how to deal with an oil well blowout doesn't involve polluting the environment?
For four months? Yes, that's why other countries require relief wells to be drilled beforehand. Exactly why, actually.
Post by
Squishalot
For four months? Yes, that's why other countries require relief wells to be drilled beforehand. Exactly why, actually.
How many other countries? I don't think that Australia is one of them.
Anyway, considering the cost clean up, a thought occurred to me last night. Why is it that we insist that BP foots the bill for the public cleanup cost, but in the case of search-and-rescue (consider the 16 yr old sailor lost at sea), we don't?
Post by
Heckler
Canada for one, I will try to find definitive proof of others and not rely on the other's I've only 'heard' about without verifying. BP actually lobbied Canada's gov't to get around the relief well requirement.
Post by
Squishalot
Canada for one, I will try to find definitive proof of others and not rely on the other's I've only 'heard' about without verifying. BP actually lobbied Canada's gov't to get around the relief well requirement.
Yep, a bit of Google uncovered that for me too.
I would imagine that relief well drilling would significantly increase the cost of development, generally speaking though, making most projects uneconomical to proceed if you weren't allowed to rely on cheaper capping options.
Post by
Dragoonman
This just in.
The coast guard told BP "OMG WTF ARE YOU DOING HURRY UP! COME UP WITH A BETTER PLAN BY MONDAY TO CLEAN UP THE OIL OR U DIE!"
And BP said, "We have a plan that will be ready to implement in mid-July."
And then the coast guard said, "MOTHER F@*!ER, WE ARE GONNA RAPE YOU. THAT ISN'T SOON ENOUGH, WE KILL YOU NOW!"
Post by
Heckler
I would imagine that relief well drilling would significantly increase the cost of development, generally speaking though, making most projects uneconomical to proceed if you weren't allowed to rely on cheaper capping options.
They already
ARE
uneconomical -- just because it takes something like this to reveal that doesn't make it less true! And by allowing the externalization of costs like this, we're simply promoting this behavior, AND these consequences!
Post by
Squishalot
Hold on, what's uneconomical? The disaster cost, or the project cost generally?
Post by
Heckler
Hold on, what's uneconomical? The disaster cost, or the project cost generally?
The net average cost of oil exploration, drilling, refinement, and use in general, when all factors are considered (including environmental and health costs). If we spend 5 dollars on 1000 wells to prevent a 6000 dollar problem in one well, then we've saved money. If we spend any finite amount of money to prevent an unfixable problem from occurring, we've saved... something.
Post by
374287
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Dragoonman
Anyway, I read the 1 quart of oil contaminates 250,000 gallons of water and makes it toxic, especially to fish.
I think we are going to see tons of dead wild life... not to mention the impact on fishing families.
Post by
148723
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
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