Spill baby spill, slippery politics

@farmerman,

I agree. Why someone, either BP or government, didn't position a few of these ships in the area soon after the initial incident occurred is beyond my comprehension.

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BP wants twitter to shut down this account
http://twitter.com/BPGlobalPR

Name: BP Public Relations
Location: Global
Bio: This page exists to get BP's message and mission statement out into the twitterverse!

some of the tweets

This horrible spill wouldn't be happening in the gulf of AMERICA! Arizona knows what I'm talking 'bout!! #fistpound #bpcares

Of course, bp cares about the fishing industry as well. Now, all tuna from the gulf coast comes pre-packaged in oil. #you'rewelcome #yum

Just got the concession call from Exxon Valdez. They were great competitors and remarkably evil about everything. #bpwins!

They want to fine us $4,300 for every barrel of oil spilled? Umm, we're not spilling barrels, the oil is going directly into the gulf. DUH

If Top Kill doesn't work, we're just gonna toss a giant "Get Well Soon" card into the gulf and hope for the best. #bpcares

New solution: Everybody drive your cars into the gulf with your gas caps open! You'll get a full tank and we'll only charge $20 cash!

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@djjd62,

Quote:

New solution: Everybody drive your cars into the gulf with your gas caps open! You'll get a full tank and we'll only charge $20 cash!

If the hole is nuked as some have suggested it might blow a hole big enough for the whole resevoir of oil to come to the surface and displace the seawater in the gulf and then it could be pumped ashore without bothering about drilling and all the risks involved.

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barely acknowledged in the press is that top kill has failed. BP stopped everything for most of the day and is now trying the "junk shot".

Not Good.

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@hawkeye10,

"Junk shot?"

Who comes up with this stuff?

A
R
T

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@failures art,

failures art wrote:

"Junk shot?"
Who comes up with this stuff?

The SNL skit had a plan called "Dolphins with Mops", which is pretty funny, except when the real world BP is creating plans like "Junk Shot".

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@djjd62,

Some gallows humor there.

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@rosborne979,

It is not sounding like the junk shot worked either. Information has been extremely spotty, but my guess is that they have stopped the effort for now because they are needing to reformulate the junk.

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I wish the president (and others) would quit saying that BP is going to clean up every drop of oil, because I think it leaves an unrealistic impression in people's minds that this mess can ever be cleaned up to the point where the gulf will return to what is was (in our lifetimes).

It's not humanly possible to clean up every drop of this disaster, and to be realistic, it's probably not even possible to clean up most of it. Even if they stop the spill today, catastrophic damage has already been done.

I certainly think everything possible should be done to stop the leak and to clean up whatever can be cleaned up. But I think people need to start coming to grips with how bad the damage to the gulf probably is. The surface oil we can see and the death accumulating on shore are only a tiny fraction of what might be happening with the plumes of oil and dispersant below the surface. The ocean is a big place, but even a diluted linger of this stuff in the gulf might be enough to extinguish the plankton in the gulf for years.

On the bright side, that "dead zone" which appears in the gulf every year due to runoff from the Mississippi won't matter much any more because everything will be dead anyway.

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

It is not sounding like the junk shot worked either. Information has been extremely spotty, but my guess is that they have stopped the effort for now because they are needing to reformulate the junk.

I think they are starting the Top Kill again, hoping to keep more of their "heavy mud" in the system (apparently it was leaking out before).

I don't envy them their task. It's pitch black down there, freezing cold, murky and under crushing pressure. I'm amazed they can do any of this type of work.

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@rosborne979,

Quote:

I wish the president (and others) would quit saying that BP is going to clean up every drop of oil, because I think it leaves an unrealistic impression in people's minds that this mess can ever be cleaned up to the point where the gulf will return to what is was (in our lifetimes).

I was watching Cris Mathews grilling Thad Allen yesterday about the plan, Mathews has been on this kick the last few days about how we need to get super tankers out there sucking up the oil like was done in the Persian Gulf. Mathews wants to know the plan for getting the oil out of the gulf. While Allen will not come out and admit it the plan is to let it stay in the gulf and let nature do the work.

Had they not put the chemicals in the oil it would have gone to the surface and formed a glob, I think. It then could be sucked up like Mathews says. But now we have 800,000 gallons of Chemicals in the gulf, AND we cant take the oil out (because the whole point of the chemicals is to spread it out). All this to try to prevent the pictures of oil on the beach, which was only partly successful. I am not sure about this being the best plan. Hopefully the scientists are on the case, so that we can do it right the next time.

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@hawkeye10,

MOST disturbingly Allen, the guy who is supposedly "in charge", was not aware of the supertanker sucking option till journalists started asking him about it over the last few days. He told Mathews that he would "look into it". I mean WTF?

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

Quote:
I wish the president (and others) would quit saying that BP is going to clean up every drop of oil, because I think it leaves an unrealistic impression in people's minds that this mess can ever be cleaned up to the point where the gulf will return to what is was (in our lifetimes).
I was watching Cris Mathews grilling Thad Allen yesterday about the plan, Mathews has been on this kick the last few days about how we need to get super tankers out there sucking up the oil like was done in the Persian Gulf. Mathews wants to know the plan for getting the oil out of the gulf. While Allen will not come out and admit it the plan is to let it stay in the gulf and let nature do the work.

Had they not put the chemicals in the oil it would have gone to the surface and formed a glob, I think. It then could be sucked up like Mathews says. But now we have 800,000 gallons of Chemicals in the gulf, AND we cant take the oil out (because the whole point of the chemicals is to spread it out). All this to try to prevent the pictures of oil on the beach, which was only partly successful. I am not sure about this being the best plan. Hopefully the scientists are on the case, so that we can do it right the next time.

Yup. The dispersants fucked the whole thing.

Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

I saw some film made by Jacques Cousteau's grandson on the matter. The stuff is just awful.

I have to say, that without training in chemistry, dispersants seemed illogical. Why make the oil harder to, for lack of a better word, harvest?

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@plainoldme,

plainoldme wrote:

I saw some film made by Jacques Cousteau's grandson on the matter. The stuff is just awful.

I have to say, that without training in chemistry, dispersants seemed illogical. Why make the oil harder to, for lack of a better word, harvest?

To keep huge globs of it off of the beach, which is more important to BP, because that's what pisses people off in the end.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

To keep huge globs of it off of the beach, which is more important to BP, because that's what pisses people off in the end.

That was my guess as well. The public has a very short attention span and abstract concepts like "plume of degenerate petrol components dispersed under the surface" have much less media impact than "black scum all over the poor pelicans".

Unfortunately, even though the mess is less visible, I bet it can do a lot of damage to the foundation of the food chain in the gulf (and beyond). I'm just not sure of the concentrations here though. As I mentioned before, the ocean is a big place, so maybe if the mess is dispersed thinly enough it won't have much impact. I have my doubts that the gulf ecosystem can absorb this much chemical abuse, but maybe I'm wrong.

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The latest comments I heard about the marshes along the coast is that it would probably do more damage to their structure to try to clean them up than to simply leave the oil there and let time bury it.

So as I noted before, it isn't humanly possible to clean this up.

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

MOST disturbingly Allen, the guy who is supposedly "in charge", was not aware of the supertanker sucking option till journalists started asking him about it over the last few days. He told Mathews that he would "look into it". I mean WTF?

Jeeze hawk--what do you expect? They weren't exactly on the front row when the noggin tackle was being handed out. And he was probably 'supposedly "in charge" ' on purpose. A Lloyd Bridges type in a Leslie Nielson movie I should imagine. Whether it's life imitating art or the other way round I haven't decided yet. I'm agnostic.

I know it isn't funny but you can't expect these guys to be concentrating a priori like you are a posteriori. They are having a good time. Probably still are. It's obviously not intolerable. Dressed up job with BP on the strength of one of farmerman's student's degrees in geology. It is a simple subject. A few long names to learn and a grasp of the principles that sediments pile up on sediments, get squashed and solidify and get shoved about and oil collects in pools whenever it can.

A dry hole is put on the debit ledger and down to experience. A gusher is explained by whatever rock formations happen to be nearby in a paper which circulates around the industry.

You can almost guarantee that these chaps have risen the easy way. Go from the short pants and the pushy Mom and an IQ of 101 to when Mr Mathews asked the question. Swots. The King in the school play. Does supervised dating with the Girl's Senior Monitor. Wears denims on weekends.

Don't you think you're being a bit utopian hawk. All the guys with brains are either in finance or Media. Or freelancing. How many people do you think there are with anything other than average intelligence? 90-100 say.

He might not have heard the question due to thinking of other things. Pressure from the White House must be a bit off-putting when journalists are asking daft questions. After all, "I'll look into it" does fit very well with most questions. Put yourself in Allen's shoes. Have some empathy with a chap. It's a difficult situation. And as such--most interesting. Not quite headless chicken yet.

If you paid geologists as much as bankers, lawyers, newsreaders and weathergirls you might have some cause for complaint.

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Saturday evening (usa time): BP seems to be saying that top-kill has indeed not been successful/has failed. On to the next plan.

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"Top Kill" didn't work. Time to move on says BP.

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Spill baby spill, slippery politics

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