THE BRITISH THREAD II

I'm not one to be uninterested in unusual explanations Rebecca so would you be so kind as to explain how your post about Fergie connects to Mac's post about his e-mails, whatever they are, being "down till next Tuesday apparently".

Well, Ionus said this:

and then Walter talked about pm'ing him here:
.
And then you tried to divert the discussion - probably because you're embarrassed for poor Fergie-
and then McTag came in with this non sequitur about his lack of e-mail until Tuesday, and I admit I got a little mixed up - I thought that he was speaking to Walter about his lack of e-mail and inability to be notified of the pm but after reading it all again, I realize that Walter was going to (jokingly) pm Ionus and not McTag about Fergie's fees, so McTag was probably not responding to Walter at all.

But anyway - my comment fits in if you overlook the fact that I clicked on McTag's post to respond to what Ionus and Walter were talking about.

That's fair enough.

Clear as Mississippi mud mixed with dissipated oil droplets, I reckon.

Speaking of dissipation, how are you these days, Spendy?

I'm okay I suppose. I don't think about it much. My joints creaking when I get off the sofa isn't noticeably worse since you were last here.

How are you? Tell us what you've bought from B&Q recently and I'll take the piss out of it as a possible way of relieving the general gloom.

What about this Lawes chappie eh? What a performance.

You have to laugh though. They put the Coalition together in order to provide us with "strong and stable government" (repeated n thousand times) and the voters had voted for weak and unstable government presumably hoping it would put an end to tackling the deficit. What debtor wants the deficit tackling?

Try to remember Mac that most of the people who work for BP in the Gulf will be Americans. Maybe 99%.

Has anyone claimed otherwise ? Yiu appear to be unduly defensive.

I think I've a right to be George when I see film of Americans stamping on the Union Jack as if we Brits are responsible for the disaster.

Welcome to the club.

Who, do you believe is responsible for the disaster ?

I've already said George. The insatiable demand for energy. The risks were known. So--I suppose the electorate joyriding taking the risk and then screaming like a stuck pig when it comes on top as it inevitable would at some point. The Alphaville risk. Nemesis after Hubris. A little one actually.

Did you not understand the Sterne quote? Conspicuous consumption is a bottomless pit. It is the obscenity of pride.

Are you a mindreader? I was in B&Q today, lining up some purchases for tomorrow. (10% off for the silver foxes Weds)

Lawnmower, Bosch , rotary
crowbar, Stanley, small (lovely tool, but pricy at £10.95)
potting compost, peat-free
dwarf geraniums, red
assorted other plants, haven't decided

Small crowbar not really needed, but desirable as I've got to do a minor repair to my front door before the paimters reach it.

The fuckup recovery method should have been at least as robust as the drilling and oil recovery method.
It clearly wasn't, and that is largely a fault of the regulatory authority.
The oil companies should have been made to DEMONSTRATE that they could work safely in all circumstances, otherwise no licence.

I think you are confusing responsibility with enforcement. We are all responsible for avoiding criminal activity or civil damages to others - whether or not the laws in question are enforced. BP was and is clearly responsible for safe drilling without major contamination to the environment and affected coastal waters. Moreover they will be held liable for the attendant cost - and that may well seriously injure the company..

Government regulatory authority sets enforceable minimum standards for their activities - specific actions that must be met before they proceed

I agree both were likely inadequate in this instance.

My impression from the investigation testimony so far is that BP was pursuing a drilling design that provided no backup to the cemented mechanical seals at the various pipe joints to contain the very high pressure gas & petroleum reserve it had reached. Moreover they failed to confirm that the cement had set properly before proceeding with the mud removal. All this implies an engineering standard well below those that apply to aircraft design or nuclear power plants, to cite two examples with which I am familiar. Frankly I don't know what are the prevailing design standards used in the Petroleum industry. However I susperct they were using procedures that had worked well for them in shallow well applications, but now in vastly different circumstances with a very deep well tapping highly pressurized reserves.

I do note that Spendi was very sensitive to some crude symbolic insults to BP and possibly the UK. We here have long since grown accustomed to similar things. some even coming from Britain. Just some unpleasant attributes of the contemporary world.

I hardly think that my off the cuff comment, which was an afterthought, could be said to show that I'm "very sensitive".

No risk--no oil.

That is already happening.
And it has implications for the whole UK economy.



Of course they are. But commercial companies work to the bottom line.
Whan oil companies started to work around Shetland in the North Sea, the authoritis made them comply with a lot of environment-focussed stipulations that they were initially unwilling to contemplate.
But they complied, and they still made huge profits.

This operation has been a bit like putting a man on the moon:
"We're pretty sure we can get you up there, and we're still working on how to get you back. But we're in a bit of a hurry, so could you be ready to leave tomorrow?"

I don't assert that the effectiveness of our government's regulation of BP in this affair is anything to brag about. Frankly I believe the notion that government brueaucrats (of any government) will be sufficiently energetic, astute, and rational to both stay ahead of and wisely regulate any commercial activity is quite laughable. At moderate levels of control they will merely provide the comfortable illusion that things are in control. At higher levels they will, instead, stifle innovation and progress. The only reliable discipline that balances the benefits of creativity with the risks of mishap is commercial liability.

We have seen about 20,000 wells sunk in our Gulf weaters, so far without major mishap. This is the first one to go wrong, and the emerging story behind it is not favorable to any of the players involved.

It's easy being wise after the event/mishap, but is it really too much for the regulators to devise a clause like

"If you wish to be licenced to drill at 5000 ft depth, you must demonstrate and have in readiness equipment which will permit you to repair a leak or break at that depth"

Surely they shouldn't have been able to get one without the other?

But that's the point George. After 20,000 wells one might understand a degree of complacency creeping in despite the one going wrong being a disaster.

If you can't take the point that if you want the oil there are risks and that you only have human beings to manage them what is that to anybody else? Anybody can talk after the event about what should be done. What price do you think risk free gas would be?

If you can't do the time don't do the crime. We are raping Mother Earth to keep up the party. Or better- the middle classes are.

Commercial liability can be got around. In fact it has to be. Unlimited liability is not for the faint of heart. Where do you find investors with unlimited liability outside of Lloyd's of London. And they can go bust. Are limited liability companies liable for other limited liability companies which they control through networks offshore. Where's the sense in breaking BP up because a pipe broke? Catharsis eh? Economically it would be insane.

I don't agree. It's not that hard to establish a standard of care in design in which the redundancy and reliability input is made to be proportional to the consequences of failure. Many industries have done that rather well - consider Britain's nuclear power plants, some (the gas cooled ones) involving fairly adventurous designs; the North Sea oil & gas extraction industries that you cited. I'm sure there are many other examples.

I was trained in Admiral Hyman Rickover's nuclear power system. He devised a regime of engineering and operational management that has worked well for a long time (our Navy is the world's largest operator of nuclear power plants, and has never had an accident. Moreover it is self-regulated.)

But with 20.000 wells drilled and pumping, just in the Gulf, it shows that the system "has worked well for a long time" also.

I hope you are not avoiding the idea that gas at $2.70 involves risk and that the risk is borne by many people who don't live your style of life and thus the risks taken on your behalf have no justification to those who don't live your lifestyle and that there are a lot more of them than there are folks like you as you never tire of pointing out. Gas is $7.50 here. Heavily taxed obviously and thus those who don't live your style of life get some benefit through welfare and free health care on demand which that tax funds.