1000 barrels a day spilling into the Gulf 90 miles out from my home beach and they are saying minimum of thirty days to be able to cap it. You don't see much about it on the national news. Major disaster coming.
Rand,
You have me all wrong, well sort of. I am a nice guy but Im not bitter or a sore loser at all. I just enjoy stirring the pot on the internet when I'm bored in front of a computer. I enjoy the banter. As for my original post about the spill, it was written in the early days of the incident. At that time it was not quite clear what had happened. The government obviously thought it possibly could have been terrorism too. We had learned that SWAT teams had just been dispatched to protect neighboring wells.......from what exactly??? What I do have is an extreme dis-trust of government on all sides of the aisle (all politicians are dirtbags), the media and just about any dire claim made by environmental groups. Have a nice day.
PS. Once I get my Hitachi set up the way I want it my 100 may be available. One of the two planers will have to go. I'll let you know what I end up doing.
noel its all over mate the mushroom brigade
and the money hungry overlords dont give a fig
discussion on this thread should be bigger than ben hur
** but you watch just the same old silence
**
**and if it does hot up it will get locked **
cheers huie
**this spewed oil all the way to indonesia
**
What do you mean by “national news”? Fox?
I’ve seen coverage on NBC both morning and night since it happened.
I prefer these accidents happen in third world countries with no environmental laws.
[quote="$1"]
noel its all over mate the mushroom brigade
and the money hungry overlords dont give a fig
discussion on this thread should be bigger than ben hur
but you watch just the same old silence
and if it does hot up it will get locked
cheers huie
this spewed oil all the way to indonesia
[/quote]
Big business is destroying my country and paranoia about Drill more so the mean old terrorist can't get us helps it along. This thing stands to completely destroy a huge segment of the National Sea shore in my area. Much of this is pristine and untouched. There are a few endangered species that only exist on the barrier islands between Mississippi and the Florida panhandle. This thing is huge. I hear they just set the Gulf on fire to see if they can burn it up. How symbolic.
Fire on the water
I don't wish this type of thing on any country or area.
If we get into the politics of it, it will get locked.
Until oil hits land, the situation in the body of water isn't considered real ''news'', unfortunately. That's the sad truth.
If the Loop Current picks up significant amounts of the spill and takes it around the corner and into the Gulf Stream, the Keys and southeast Florida (and who knows where else) could be affected as well as Gulf beaches.
Pray.
There's been no shortage of coverage out here. TV, radio and press. It's not good, but they seem to have a handle on it and so far it's contained. The bad part is that the Govt. is in charge. Whatever happened to skimming. The biggest oil spill in the Continental US was in San Luis Obispo, Ca , took three or four years to clean up and got little if any National or Worldwide press. The Coast Guard(?) is going to do the burn. No known cause yet. Let's see; How many people died in that exsplosion and subsequent fire? Ah yes; Eleven I believe.
Yes, 11 dead and BP is trying to wash their hands of it saying it was the platform contractor’s fault. So much for accountability.
The original estimates of 1000 barrels (42,000 gallons) a day have just been revised to 5000 barrels (210,000 gallons) a day and the wind is supposed to switch hard out of the South tomorrow. The slick is only 18 miles from LA shores now so tomorrow will likely see some landfall. This is devastating news. These areas have pristine beaches and lots of nature preserves.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/04/28/louisiana.oil.rig.fire/index.html
The problem is the source of this leak is 5000 feet deep and there are secondary and tertiary leak sites as well. Doing ANYTHING in 5000 ft of water is a serious effort.
In related, but more positive news - Nation’s first offshore wind farm approved for Nantucket Sound:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/04/28/cape.cod.wind.farm/index.html
Yes…some of us know some of the families of those injured and killed. Some of our other friends are fighting it. The politics of this thing ( and I’ll not enter into a discussion any of it other than this statement ) and others like it is not left vs right or capitalism vs whatever. At some point…us humans are going to have to make a decision that we are not the only inhabitants of the planet and our desire for more, better, quicker and easier living are not the most important things. In fact,the self centered desires we humans have had for a long while and especially since the beginning of the industrial revolution might go a long way to making our own existence perilous.
It’s not looking good for my beach and others along the gulf. Many of us have formed groups to get out on the beaches should this come ashore. There will be thousands of birds, and other animals affected. If not millions.
Bummed.
seriously ? ? ?
it might help to remember how the roman empire rose & fell. this is precisely the sort of thinking that gets the US into the sort of trouble it doesn’t need
cheers,
Just heard the same bad news on late night radio "Coast to Coast" who broke this story nationally last week. Five times bigger than expected, 5000 barrels a day. The platform rig has collasped upside down on top of the well head. A topside slick already as big as the state of Virginia. Could go on for weeks. BP (that's British Petroleum) has been slow to step up in their effort to stem the flow of oil. Oil could come ashore in four gulf states by this weekend. Whole thing is completly out of control at this moment. The situation doesn't look to improve any time soon.
On the technical side - as has been mentioned, this is 5000 feet down. Rough rule of thumb, the pressure there is ~2500 lbs per squae inch, so sending somebody down isn't gonna happen, submarines of any kind either and the Remotely Operated Vehicles are going to have some issues. Some of the other schemes for containing the oil are...well, flaky, as I see it.
The blowout preventer, which is supposed to be stopping this, that's not working and no real way to get at it. Same thing goes for secondary shutoffs. Somebody will figure out something and make it work, but not too soon - as has been said, it's a major undertaking. The people in the oil business are not fools, they have some good engineers, but getting the gear together and getting it out there and in place takes time.
I kinda think that, without laying blame anyplace in particular, the stuff they are trying to do to get oil is maybe ahead of the technology. The demand for oil is pushing things into places that maybe they shouldn't be, at least not yet.
So, here we are, where we usually talk about our ( petrochemical derived) surfcraft, or where we go with them ( in oil-fuelled vehicles of one sort or another), our tools ( which run off of electricity, which is generated by.....) and I kinda wonder.
We can talk about materials that ain't petrochemically derived, but they have to be shipped and processed. We can alk about hand tools, muscle powered, but while they are fun and don't use oil, they are not that hot for doing production work and overall the efficiency isn't necessarily there. We're dependant on oil, and someday that will run out - so what are we gonna do?
doc....
Hydro-electric plants, nuclear plants (other problems in sight…), waves and tide-powered plants (more problems in sight…), wind and solar powered plants… There will be solutions but none without any kind of disadvantage, at least for some people…
I do sympathize with all concerned by this Gulf disaster. France (Britany in particular) has had its share of “black tides” in the past few years and it ain’t fun…
I hear you. It has made the news here, but not in a huge way. Burning the oil may be symbolic, but lets hope it works - the Australian Broadcasting Company news said the burn was just a small test to see if it would work. On Australian TV they showed a plan being considered is to drill a relief hole, but that would take a long time. Yes this sort of thing is bad anywhere, the Queensland spill that Huie posted last year was big news here.
of course not seriously. my point is that this is all very very complicated and we should look no further than the mirror to assign the blame.
Some may see that as a “positive”. Many do not. Private enterprise has been handed a stretch of pristine coastal waters to build an eyesore and an obstruction to fishing and navigation. There are many land-based locations where a wind farm would do just fine. The choice to put it in coastal waters is an abomination. The amount of energy it will create is miniscule. The benefits do not justify the negatives.
BTW, the lead story on NBC right at this moment is about the oil leak in the Gulf.
The students in my school are studying it from multiple angles… in a course called “Environment and Society;” an interdisciplinary, project-based course of study that combines environmental sciences and social studies.
We’re trying to teach them from our mistakes so all is not lost.
Agreed. Of course… I’m particularly fond of those sweet little nuggets found nowhere else in the world - the Nantucket Bay scallop. I visit Nantucket for a week every year to just surf and relax. At one time considered living there. I think the wind farm is a good idea in a bad place… but better than looking at oil rigs.