I finally took the time yesterday to read whatever I could
about this problem. Like most Americans, I've watched the
daily developments and nervously believed a solution was
imminent. Maybe not optimal, but close at hand.<p>Multinational comglomerates the size of BP have such a
large quiver of resources at their disposal that it seemed
all it would take was the desire to act and it would get done.<p>So I believed.<p>Here's one fact that has convinced me the Gulf of Mexico
is lost and that only the riskiest and most extreme measures
(a nuclear device or other such detonation) will seal the
leak:<p><i>The oil is rushing into the Gulf at between 20,000 and
70,000 psi.</i><p>Nobody's certain of the actual value, but that's the range
usually cited. This is a very different problem than capping
the wellheads in Kuwait after Sadaam retreated.<p>Anyone familiar with a waterjet cutter knows they run at
55,000+ psi and are so powerful they can cut 6" steel like
butter.<p>Imagine raw oil with sediment and impurities (similiar to
the garnet abrasive) streaming upward into the Gulf the
same way the cutting nozzle projects downward into the
water basin. All at one (1) mile below the surface.<p>There is no conventional solution that is going to stop
the flow at those psi's.<p>None.<p>If you factor hurricanes and tropical storms into the mix
it quickly becomes apparent that this is an international
crisis without parallel in our time.<p>The lack of leadership from both the private and public
sectors and the overall lack of accurate information on
the potential long term ramifications is stunning.<p>Screw the talk about alternative fuels or who's to blame. We need action now. Right now.
I can understand -- sort of -- holding up lax regulation as something blameworthy here. More to fault is BP for not taking the possibility of disaster seriously and (apparently) having a dramatically worse safety record than other large oil companies.<p>But other than that, I don't get it. Why blame Obama for taking a week to act? What could he have done? And what can he do now? Imagine the volcano in Iceland had been caused by human agency somehow. Would people still demand "action" or "leadership", especially from politicians, to magically stop the volcanic eruption? Maybe it's just not possible to stop once it's started.
"Most troubling of all, the government has allowed BP to continue deep-sea production at its Atlantis rig – one of the world's largest oil platforms. Capable of drawing 200,000 barrels a day from the seafloor, Atlantis is located only 150 miles off the coast of Louisiana, in waters nearly 2,000 feet deeper than BP drilled at Deepwater Horizon. According to congressional documents, the platform lacks required engineering certification for as much as 90 percent of its subsea components – a flaw that internal BP documents reveal could lead to 'catastrophic' errors."
People interested in this might also be interested in how Senator Obama handled a tritium leak in Illinois before he ran for president: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/us/politics/03exelon.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/us/politics/03exelon.html</a><p>(EDIT: deleted carping about moderator changing title of post.)
In 1967 the the house estimated that Medicare would cost $9 Billion a year by 1990. The real number would turn out to be $67 Billion.<p>Every week or so the rate of the oil leak is revised upwards. What was once a spill has turned into a bad spill and now is being called a disaster. This seems consistent with the way most government estimates work.<p>Ironically it is almost as if we need an independent body with no power to spend money but with complete auditing power to get the public actual numbers.