Diving the spill

[Nemrod]

How can anyone, Government or BP undue this type of devastation? Once again we reap the spoils of greed and poor planning. I wish I was shocked but only an ignorant person would be.
CamG

The straight up answer is that it cannot be cleaned up, no armies, no navies, no blessing from Obama, no amount of money can set this right. It will be well beyond my lifetime before this damage is fully undone by nature's hand and healing time.

All the talk of cleaning it up is just political and corporate CYA BS for the ignorant burger eating amusement park, TV educated masses.

Six dollars a gallon gasoline--now---will get the ball rolling for alternative energy and the "tariff" windfall spent to:

A. Clean up the Gulf
B. Invest in new energy development
C. Subsidize downsizing transportation
D. Reinvigorate urban centers as living centers and develop light, high speed rail.

Within a year or two nobody will remember any of this anymore than they remember Katrina or 911. It will be forgotten and the damage left to God to deal with.

And still the well spews unabated ------.

N

 

[Nemrod]

What was the alternative? Who else, besides the industry, has the technical capability to solve the problem? I suppose we could have contracted with another driller, but would they have greater expertise? Would they have greater incentive?

Hopefully somebody who really knows will chime in, but my layman's understanding is that they are a lot like detergent, and break down the oil into soluble chemicals that are presumably less toxic or less harmful once dissolved.

Two points, one is that obviously the "industry" does not have the technical expertize either, which is why the corrupt government should never have issued a permit. Several times they have said they are working 5,000 feet deep, and it is very challenging to work at that depth, OK, then don't drill at depths that you cannot meet the technical requirements to deal with any possible scenario and this scenario is not and was not remote, it should have been accounted for.

The other point is that most of the oil will eventually rise to the surface. It is as if you took a thimble full of oil and put it in a quart jar and shook it up, it is still there.

The ocean is a living thing, or at least it was in the case of the Gulf of Mexico, so where the oil goes and what it does and the eventual outcome is unknown at this time.

N

 

[doctormike]

Six dollars a gallon gasoline--now---will get the ball rolling for alternative energy and the "tariff" windfall spent to:

A. Clean up the Gulf
B. Invest in new energy development
C. Subsidize downsizing transportation
D. Reinvigorate urban centers as living centers and develop light, high speed rail.

I vote for this plan...

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I vote for this plan...

Yabbut, how many people do you think would vote for the politician who proposed it?

Too many folks are into the "Money for Nuthin'" mentality ... not too long ago a 9 cents per gallon tax increase on gasoline almost cost our governor her job ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[doctormike]

Yabbut, how many people do you think would vote for the politician who proposed it?

Too many folks are into the "Money for Nuthin'" mentality ... not too long ago a 9 cents per gallon tax increase on gasoline almost cost our governor her job ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Hey, I just said I would vote for it! I didn't say that it would win...

 

[Aigtbootbp]

The gulf will survive. Google Ixtoc oil spill, this one will not come close to that incident and yet today nobody remembers it nor did it do any permanent damage.
Don't misunderstand me, this spill is bad but it is not the end of the world.

 

[mbalmr]

Let's fix this first, then we can fix stupid later.

You can't fix stupid, but you can do your best to try to avoid it

 

[seaducer]

You can't fix stupid, but you can do your best to try to avoid it

Darwin disagrees

 

[jeffloughridge]

We don't need $6/gallon gas.

Read this speech, given Sept. 12, 1962. In just 7 years we, as a nation achieved this goal with a fraction of the knowledge we have now. We did it because we chose to.

Now read this speech again, but substitute "energy," "energy independence," or "renewable energy" for any reference to space.

All we need is a leader willing to commit us as a nation; to inspire the best in us to come out again; to motivate our collective conscience and ingenuity, to forever rid ourselves of a need for oil in all its forms.

The History Place - Great Speeches Collection: John F. Kennedy Speech "We choose to go to the Moon..."

 

[vladimir]

All we need is a leader willing to commit us as a nation; to inspire the best in us to come out again; to motivate our collective conscience and ingenuity,

...to repeal the tyrannnical second law of thermodynamics.