im under the impression that the kevin costner option has never been tested outside an aquarium. i like that we're just calling it the kevin costner option though.

which is probably more testing than the dispersant has undergone.

nacho, read the thread.

1) there was an oil spill in the gulf in '79. they attempted to stop it with several methods (chemical, floating boundaries, big ass cone, etc), but failed. and here we are in '10 trying the SAME SHIT. didn't work then, doesn't work now. kinda boneheaded.

2) we have not tried bringing in Saudi and/or Robin Hood Prince of Thieves technology.

Guys, BP didn't want to stop the leak until now because they didn't want to lose the well. The question really should be why wait to do "top kill" until now. The Obama administration should have made it clear from day 1 that stopping the leak was the first priority and not trying to contain the spill with domes and pipes in order to use the well again.

I looked up the ingredients in that dispersant/detergent.
It's antifreeze ("non-toxic" type), sulfonic acid (related to sulfuric acid) and ironically, a petroleum distillate.

Sounds pretty benign to me.


here's the MSDS on the Corexit 9500:
http://lmrk.org/corexit_9500_uscueg.539287.pdf

source?

"we're working on a technology now that will get us the other 3 percent"

You know dude is probably sitting on a PILE of Dances with Wolves laserdiscs.

Considering that the well was leaking about 150 gallons a minute for around a month diluted into billions of gallons of ocean water in three dimensions, these machines make for some nice press without really being any sort of solution. Similar to processing the water of an entire olympic-sized swimming pool for a drop of urine times several millions. Two hundred gallons a minute ain't gonna cut it; but you'll always be my bodyguard Kevvy. Plus this separation technique works well when there's a shit load of pollutant to water but there are certainly diminishing returns once you significantly dilute the substance and the precision of the instrument decreases.

Most of the visible surface impacts everyone associates with an oil spill are the result of it coming ashore and coating and killing everything. The only way to get that shit off it to use a pressure washer. Grass and mud and other living entities don't hold up real well to 3000 psi. (I know there's engineered bacteria to break down the oil too but I don't think it's commonly used.)

...and then there's the fact the there's still a shitload of diluted oil out in the Gulf that continually dilutes and expands making containment less and less feasible.

With all that oil and all that seafood just sitting there, I say we get a nice controlled nuclear reaction and have the country's biggest shrimp fest.

Or in the case with every other oil spill, clean up what everyone can see, then watch and wait for the next several decades until the ecosystem rebounds.

I grew up in the parish most effected by the spill. Knew some of the people killed in the accident. My dad worked offshore. My friends work offshore. My friends parents worked offshore. BP's gulf operations is headquartered in my hometown. Suffice to say, I have lots of contacts in the industry.

Do you really think BP just came up with this top kill solution? This was on the table from day 1.

tanner, i grew up in terrebonne parish, and like you, have friends and fam in the oil business. this is unbelievably sad and infuriating. obama better bring the pain to this fucking company. totally agree that salvaging that well was priority number one for bp.

You're going to have to explain to me why a "top kill" would result in losing the well.
I would think that you could cap the leak site and then re-drill to access the same deposit from another site.

And, GREAT reason not to even fucking try it!

They are doing this so that they A) don't have black beaches and B) only have to cap/top kill the well as a last resort.

As it stands, the lawsuits will drag on for YEARS because the BP folks will win the PR battle in places like Alabama where the beaches are still white sand.

The whole thing is a goat fuck, and really the only thing the government could have done to help would have been to force them to do the top kill the day after the explosion, not 2 months later. Now, Obama just stuck his hand into the tar baby, and won't ever get it out. So, they failed on two fronts. Good job.

This was what I heard also. The only way to stop this leak was to drill a relief well nearby, which was reportedly underway, but going to take 3 months. I would think top-killing it should have been their plan from the start and dealing with the delay in retrieving the oil. They are just losing more oil and making a bigger mess every minute.

They had some news reports from the early 1980's the other night following another spill in the Gulf and all of the solutions were exactly the same as the ones they are presenting today.

As for Barry, I'm with Loogs that this is a no win situation: Even if they had perp walk footage of BP executives being led away in their tighty whities by US Marshals followed by the seizure and subsequent selling off of all BP-related business interests in the US, it wouldn't put the toothpaste back in the tube, but guess what? This is the job you fucking wanted and you should be smart enough to know that sometimes you will have to take some blame no matter the cause or solution.

To be totally honest though I've been really trying hard to avoid this story--not that I don't care, it's just such a massive bummer.

I agree with you. The only things I think Barry could have done were: 1) Fly down immediately for a presser in Grande Isle (wouldn't have accomplished anything but it's better marketing); 2) Force the hand of BP in regards to the options for stopping the problem; 3) Order the national guard to come down and assist in the clean up instead of sending them to Arizona.

Of course that's hindsight, he could have done all of those things and we would still be in the same mess.

It's a massive bummer and if I could I would avoid the story too. But you can't escape it living here. It's like Lady Gaga, in that it's unavoidable.

The real irony here is that BP just built a massive state-of-the-art facility in Terrebonne Parish that led to some serious investment by other oil companies. Everyone was pretty excited about the economic development. Now, they may have just crushed the oil and gas industry in the area and certainly crushed the other major industry, the seafood industry.

ugh.

Yeah, I know and that sucks. Of course my family's beach house is on the Gulf and I spend a good many of my vacations either there or fishing in Appalap. Bay (not to mention my love of Louisiana) so it's not like it's out of sight out of mind...

Top kill failed.

This is a big problem. Indicative of the fact that no one really thought it would fail, and didn't give a shit if it did



It's 1500 troops to the border right? I mean, they could mobilize another 500 or so -- the rest are on their 4th tour in Iraq or Assramistan.

The real way to handle it, in hind sight, was to have the presser in Terrabonne and say "you stop the leak by X" or we will. Then bring in the Saudi supertanker (even if you never use it, tell Ibn-bin-Ahmed-Bush-Jr-III to send that fucker) and bring in Costner and his centrifuges and Frank Darabont as the Director of Photography to get Costner in his Bull Durham uniform, covered in oil, riding a fucking sea turtle armed with a centrifuge for the 6 O'clock news.

What I mean is - there is no substitute for action, and what will kill Barry's presidency is his cool calculation, if it results in stuff like disengaging on healthcare negotiations, then giving every single deal to every single yes vote, and caving on finance reform because it's too hard.

Bush won a second term because he understood the Patton thing: A good plan violently executed today is better than a perfect plan next week. He lost Congress in 06, and any chance of a McCain presidency by forgetting the same thing.

Fuck the politics of it. This shit is a fucking disaster and man made at that.

Corporations understand one thing: money

The minute it became apparent how bad this was they should've startng fining them 1 Billion a day until it was fixed. (although some reports have a civil fine of more than what that works out to be)

Again, inaction is the problem. SOMEBODY FUCKING DO SOMETHING. Even if it doesn't work, they shoulda been trying this top kill shit from HOUR 1. Not Day 1, HOUR 1.

And then done everything else they could, including parking a USS Submarine on top with a cork glued to the bottom.

What has everyone frustrated is that fact that they have basically been trying containment, not eradication.

Agreed. I guess the point I was trying to make was nothing moves a multi-national corporation to action like losing a billion a day.