Open Thread: Supernova

Supernova

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 at 6:46 pm and is filed under Random Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. The trackback link is: http://telicthoughts.com/open-thread-supernova/trackback/

188 Responses to “Open Thread: Supernova”

Bradford Says:
June 29th, 2010 at 6:59 pm
Secret Revealed: How Crocodiles Cross Oceans

Comment by Bradford — June 29, 2010 @ 6:59 pm

Bradford Says:
June 29th, 2010 at 7:02 pm
Darwin’s Disciples Today

Comment by Bradford — June 29, 2010 @ 7:02 pm

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
June 29th, 2010 at 7:41 pm
Speaking of Supernova's here is one that had mysterious rings flash on and off. This photo shows anomalies which should give astrophysicists pause:

http://www.datasync.com/~rsf1/...

When the Hubble Space Telescope was pointed at the supernova remnant in 1994, however, curious rings were discovered. The origins of these rings still remains a mystery.

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — June 29, 2010 @ 7:41 pm

Pez Says:
June 29th, 2010 at 8:49 pm
I always enjoy these stories about sea faring creatures.
But how did the scientists determine this with regards to the crocs?

Although scientists now know that salties seem to make long-distance journeys on purpose, "we presently do not know what these are for," Campbell noted.

Comment by Pez — June 29, 2010 @ 8:49 pm

MikeGene Says:
June 29th, 2010 at 8:56 pm
Why does neither the U.S. government nor U.S. energy companies have on hand the cleanup technology available in Europe? Ironically, the superior European technology runs afoul of U.S. environmental rules. The voracious Dutch vessels, for example, continuously suck up vast quantities of oily water, extract most of the oil and then spit overboard vast quantities of nearly oil-free water. Nearly oil-free isn't good enough for the U.S. regulators, who have a standard of 15 parts per million — if water isn't at least 99.9985% pure, it may not be returned to the Gulf of Mexico.

When ships in U.S. waters take in oil-contaminated water, they are forced to store it. As U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the official in charge of the clean-up operation, explained in a press briefing on June 11, "We have skimmed, to date, about 18 million gallons of oily water–the oil has to be decanted from that [and] our yield is usually somewhere around 10% or 15% on that." In other words, U.S. ships have mostly been removing water from the Gulf, requiring them to make up to 10 times as many trips to storage facilities where they off-load their oil-water mixture, an approach Koops calls "crazy."

The Americans, overwhelmed by the catastrophic consequences of the BP spill, finally relented and took the Dutch up on their offer — but only partly. Because the U.S. didn't want Dutch ships working the Gulf, the U.S. airlifted the Dutch equipment to the Gulf and then retrofitted it to U.S. vessels. And rather than have experienced Dutch crews immediately operate the oil-skimming equipment, to appease labour unions the U.S. postponed the clean-up operation to allow U.S. crews to be trained.

A catastrophe that could have been averted is now playing out. With oil increasingly reaching the Gulf coast, the emergency construction of sand berns to minimize the damage is imperative. Again, the U.S. government priority is on U.S. jobs, with the Dutch asked to train American workers rather than to build the berns. According to Floris Van Hovell, a spokesman for the Dutch embassy in Washington, Dutch dredging ships could complete the berms in Louisiana twice as fast as the U.S. companies awarded the work. "Given the fact that there is so much oil on a daily basis coming in, you do not have that much time to protect the marshlands," he says, perplexed that the U.S. government could be so focussed on side issues with the entire Gulf Coast hanging in the balance.

Read more: http://www.financialpost.com/A...

Comment by MikeGene — June 29, 2010 @ 8:56 pm

Pez Says:
June 29th, 2010 at 9:51 pm
Snails cross oceans riding with birds. Storms blow insects and spiders to islands. Lizards ride across on rafts. Creatures travel from the north to south pole in ice cold deep sea rivers. Elephants just swim to islands.

But maybe voyaging has been the cause more often than previously thought.
http://www.sino-platonic.org/a...

Especially since homo has been sea faring for maybe hundreds of thousands of years.
http://news.discovery.com/arch...

Comment by Pez — June 29, 2010 @ 9:51 pm

Pez Says:
June 29th, 2010 at 9:53 pm
Of course, purpose is again deduced form scientific evidence.
http://findarticles.com/p/arti...

Comment by Pez — June 29, 2010 @ 9:53 pm

Guts Says:
June 29th, 2010 at 10:30 pm
supernova

Comment by Guts — June 29, 2010 @ 10:30 pm

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
June 30th, 2010 at 10:21 am
A catastrophe that could have been averted is now playing out. With oil increasingly reaching the Gulf coast, the emergency construction of sand berns to minimize the damage is imperative. Again, the U.S. government priority is on U.S. jobs, with the Dutch asked to train American workers rather than to build the berns. According to Floris Van Hovell, a spokesman for the Dutch embassy in Washington, Dutch dredging ships could complete the berms in Louisiana twice as fast as the U.S. companies awarded the work. "Given the fact that there is so much oil on a daily basis coming in, you do not have that much time to protect the marshlands," he says, perplexed that the U.S. government could be so focussed on side issues with the entire Gulf Coast hanging in the balance.

Yup.

Even Leftists like Jon Stewart and James Carville are now bashing Obama for his incompetence and indifference:

Jon Stewart 1

Jon Stewart 2

James Carville Slams Obama

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — June 30, 2010 @ 10:21 am

Pez Says:
June 30th, 2010 at 11:52 am
Indifference?
After Spike Lee told him to Obama got "furious" and looked for some butt "to kick".

Comment by Pez — June 30, 2010 @ 11:52 am

Pez Says:
June 30th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
I think the well explosion was an inside job to galvanize the American people in common cause for the War On Oil.

Where's Bilbo?

Comment by Pez — June 30, 2010 @ 12:16 pm

chunkdz Says:
June 30th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
Al Gore's idea of romantic foreplay: Listening to an anti-George Bush Pop song.

LMAO!

Comment by chunkdz — June 30, 2010 @ 12:24 pm

SteveK Says:
June 30th, 2010 at 6:18 pm
Can science empirically show that these pictures were intelligently designed? My guess is science will attempt to do that.

Russian Spies Hid Secret Codes in Online Photos

Comment by SteveK — June 30, 2010 @ 6:18 pm

angryoldfatman Says:
July 1st, 2010 at 9:31 am
It was inevitable. We need to free all of the murderers, rapists, etc., because they are not responsible for any of their actions. It's because their brains are just meat computers following their programming.

Thank you Richard Dawkins for showing us the way. I hope none of those meat computers are programmed to break into your house and perform unspeakable acts upon you and your family.

Comment by angryoldfatman — July 1, 2010 @ 9:31 am

Pez Says:
July 1st, 2010 at 10:55 am
"He knew right from wrong. But he was incapable of making the right choices." Dugan's attorney.

"For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do–this I keep on doing." Saul of Tarsus

Comment by Pez — July 1, 2010 @ 10:55 am

Pez Says:
July 1st, 2010 at 11:47 am
Here's the one I wanted:

The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.

Comment by Pez — July 1, 2010 @ 11:47 am

kornbelt888 Says:
July 1st, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Pez, God must love sinners, because he created so many of them.

Comment by kornbelt888 — July 1, 2010 @ 4:17 pm

GringoRoyale Says:
July 1st, 2010 at 5:49 pm
Occasional guest TT poster, Dr. Jim Madden (philosophy professor at Benedictine College), is close to finishing his first book on the philosophy of the mind.

Comment by GringoRoyale — July 1, 2010 @ 5:49 pm

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
July 2nd, 2010 at 11:35 am
Here's something from the Hilary Clinton State Department regarding the offers to help with oil spill:

http://articles.latimes.com/20...
On May 5, the State Department issued a statement acknowledging that it had received several offers from countries. "While there is no need right now that the U.S. cannot meet, the U.S. Coast Guard is assessing these offers of assistance to see if there will be something which we will need in the near future," the statement said.

Yeah, and we know what an insightful statement that was. Today is July 2 and counting as more oil just keeps pouring and not enough resources are there to clean it up.

If we don't forsee plugging the leak on May 5 or any time in the near future, don't you think we need more vessels out there gathering up every bit of oil it can?

Makes me want to puke.

Also, I'd sooner say nice things about Dawkins than the morons at the EPA. We have a tanker heading out to help us (June 30) and listen to this:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/201...

By TOM BREEN and JAY REEVES, Associated Press Writers Tom Breen And Jay Reeves, Associated Press Writers – Wed Jun 30, 7:25 pm ET
The ship looks like a typical tanker, but it takes in contaminated water through 12 vents on either side of the bow. The oil is then supposed to be separated from the water and transferred to another vessel. The water is channeled back into the sea.

For instance, the seawater retains trace amounts of oil, even after getting filtered, so the Environmental Protection Agency will have to sign off on allowing the treated water back into the Gulf.

The EPA has to sign off? They have two months to decide that 10% impurities returned to the sea is a lot better than leaving 100% impurities just sitting there. Retards.

This just in:

Volunteers Ready to Help But Left Out

NEW ORLEANS — BP and the Obama administration face mounting complaints that they are ignoring foreign offers of equipment and making little use of the fishing boats and volunteers available to help clean up what may now be the biggest spill ever in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Coast Guard said there have been 107 offers of help from 44 nations, ranging from technical advice to skimmer boats and booms. But many of those offers are weeks old, and only a small number have been accepted, with the vast majority still under review, according to a list kept by the State Department.

And in recent days and weeks, for reasons BP has never explained, many fishing boats hired for the cleanup have done a lot of waiting around.

A report prepared by investigators with the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., detailed one case in which the Dutch government offered April 30 to provide four oil skimmers that collectively could process more than 6 million gallons of oily water a day. It took seven weeks for the U.S. to approve the offer.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs on Thursday scorned the idea that "somehow it took the command 70 days to accept international help."

"That is a myth," he declared, "that has been debunked literally hundreds of times."

He said 24 foreign vessels were operating in the Gulf before this week. He did not specifically address the Dutch vessels.

The help is needed. Based on some government estimates, more than 140 million gallons of crude have now spewed from the bottom of the sea since the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform, eclipsing the 1979-80 disaster off Mexico that had long stood as the worst in the Gulf.

Still, more than 2,000 boats have signed up for oil-spill duty under BP's Vessel of Opportunity program. The company pays boat captains and their crews a flat fee based on the size of the vessel, ranging from $1,200 to $3,000 a day, plus a $200 fee for each crew member who works an eight-hour day.

Rocky Ditcharo, a shrimp dock owner in Buras, La., said many fishermen hired by BP have told him that they often park their boats on the shore while they wait for word on where to go.

"They just wait because there's no direction," Ditcharo said. He said he believes BP has hired many boat captains "to show numbers."

"But they're really not doing anything," he added. He also said he suspects the company is hiring out-of-work fishermen to placate them with paychecks.

Chris Mehlig, a fisherman from Louisiana's St. Bernard Parish, said he is getting eight days of work a month, laying down containment boom, running supplies to other boats or simply being on call dockside in case he is needed. "I wish I had more days than that, but that's the way things are," he said.

Billy Nungesser, president of Louisiana's hard-hit Plaquemines Parish, said BP and the Coast Guard provided a map of the exact locations of 140 skimmers that were supposedly cleaning up the oil. But he said that after he repeatedly asked to be flown over the area so he could see them at work, officials told him only 31 skimmers on the job.

"I'm trying to work with these guys," he said. "But everything they're giving me is a wish list, not what's actually out there."

A BP spokesman declined to comment.

Newly retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government's point man for the response effort, bristled at some of the accusations in Issa's report.

"I think we've been pretty transparent throughout this," Allen said at the White House. He disputed any suggestion that there aren't enough skimmers being put on the water, saying the spill area is so big that there are bound to be areas with no vessels.

The Coast Guard said there are roughly 550 skimmers working in the Gulf, with 250 or so in Louisiana waters, 136 in Florida, 87 in Alabama and 76 in Mississippi, although stormy weather in recent days has kept the many of the vessels from working.

The frustration extends to the volunteers who have offered to clean beaches and wetlands. More than 20,000 volunteers have signed up to help in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi, yet fewer than one in six has received an assignment or the training required to take part in some chores, according to BP.

The executive director of the Alabama Coastal Foundation, Bethany Kraft, said many people who volunteered are frustrated and angry that no one has called on them for help.

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — July 2, 2010 @ 11:35 am

Pez Says:
July 3rd, 2010 at 2:43 pm
The Tealess party continues.
http://www.nationalpost.com/ne...

Comment by Pez — July 3, 2010 @ 2:43 pm

angryoldfatman Says:
July 3rd, 2010 at 6:48 pm
When I become Emperor of the World, my sentence for anarchists will be nude forest exile. Let's see how they fair without all of the things they rage against.

Comment by angryoldfatman — July 3, 2010 @ 6:48 pm

angryoldfatman Says:
July 3rd, 2010 at 6:49 pm
I will also simplify the English language to eliminate stupid homonyms like "fair" and fare".

Comment by angryoldfatman — July 3, 2010 @ 6:49 pm

angryoldfatman Says:
July 3rd, 2010 at 6:51 pm
And get a scribe to type all my posts because I can't seem to type quotation marks successfully.

Comment by angryoldfatman — July 3, 2010 @ 6:51 pm

olegt Says:
July 4th, 2010 at 5:00 am
Darwinism has been eroding the very foundations of the United States. Fortunately, the theory of intelligent design is coming to the rescue. That's the official word from the Director of Discovery institute's Center for ~~the Renewal of~~ Science and Culture:

When we celebrate our country’s independence July 4, the day may resonate with many Americans more powerfully than in other recent years. The nation’s political mood is increasingly, well, independent. Voters are fed up with incumbent politicians and reigning political parties.

This accounts for the unlikely bestselling books that keep shooting up out of what might seem like nowhere—previously obscure biographies of the Founders that pose fundamental questions about the role of our government and what direction the nation is headed. In a welcome development, Americans want to refresh their acquaintance with the sources of our rights as citizens.

Yet there is one source, more basic than any other, that so far has not received the attention it deserves. I refer to the idea that there is an intelligent creator who can be known by reason from nature, a key tenet underlying both the Declaration of Independence—and, curiously, the modern and controversial theory of intelligent design.

…

The growing evidence of design in life has stunning and gratifying implications for our understanding of America’s political history—and for our country’s future. On the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the evidence for “Nature’s God,” and thus for the reality of our rights, is stronger than ever.

Thanks for the rare moment of clarity, Stephen!

Comment by olegt — July 4, 2010 @ 5:00 am

angryoldfatman Says:
July 4th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
When I am Emperor of the World, I will destroy any idea of "men" being "created equal", since it is demonstrably untrue and ultimately leads to fanciful ideas of Happiness and Liberty (which do not exist because there is no empirical evidence of them).

I will appoint Oleg as my Minister of Truth, so that he may spread my Word to every blog he has time to access. And it is apparent that time is the only thing he has in abundance, possibly an excessive amount; he would not need a scribe as I do.

Nick Matzke could be my footstool boy and general purpose sycophant.

Comment by angryoldfatman — July 4, 2010 @ 12:43 pm

Bradford Says:
July 5th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
From The Foundary article Obama's Oil Spill To-Do List:

1. Waive the Jones Act: According to one Dutch newspaper, European firms could complete the oil spill cleanup by themselves in just four months, and three months if they work with the United States, which is much faster than the estimated nine months it would take the Obama administration to go at it alone. The major stumbling block is a protectionist piece of legislation called the Jones Act, which requires that all goods transported by water between U.S. ports be carried in U.S.-flagged ships, constructed in the United States, owned by U.S. citizens, and crewed by U.S. citizens. But, in an emergency, this law can be temporarily waived, as DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff did after Katrina. Each day European and Asian allies are prevented from helping us speed up the cleanup is another day that Gulf fishing and tourism jobs die. For more information on this, click here.

2. Accept International Assistance: At least thirty countries and international organizations have offered equipment and experts so far. According to reports this week, the White House has finally decided to accept help from twelve of these nations. The Obama administration should make clear why they are refusing the other eighteen-plus offers. In a statement, the State Department said it is still working out the particulars of the assistance it has accepted. This should be done swiftly as months have already been wasted.

Take Sweden, for example. According to Heritage expert James Carafano: “After offering assistance shortly after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, Sweden received a request for information about their specialized assets from the State Department on May 7. Swedish officials answered the inquiry the same day, saying that some assets, such as booms, could be sent within days and that it would take a couple of weeks to send ships. There are three brand new Swedish Coast Guard vessels built for dealing with a major oil spill cleanup. Each has a capacity to collect nearly 50 tons of oil per hour from the surface of the sea and can hold 1,000 tons of spilled oil in their tanks. But according to the State Department’s recently released chart on international offers of assistance, the Swedish equipment and ships are still ‘under consideration.’ So months later, the booms sit unused and brand new Swedish ships still sit idle in port, thousands of miles from the Gulf. The delay in accepting offers of assistance is unacceptable.” For more information, click here or here.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/...

Comment by Bradford — July 5, 2010 @ 12:24 pm

Bilbo Says:
July 5th, 2010 at 8:57 pm
Hi Pez,

I guess it's possible that the well explosion was an inside job to galvanize people in the war against oil. It doesn't seem like an especially strong motive compared to the motives for 9/11, though. But I guess if Obama felt that global-warming was really that big a problem, then it could be motive enough.

Comment by Bilbo — July 5, 2010 @ 8:57 pm

Bilbo Says:
July 5th, 2010 at 9:02 pm
In that case, all the delay, which seems to be the result of incompetence or zealousness for following regulations, is really to allow the spill to become a major catastrophe. Okay, I'll buy it.

Comment by Bilbo — July 5, 2010 @ 9:02 pm

Bilbo Says:
July 5th, 2010 at 9:07 pm
So now what kind of evidence can we find? Explosives residue? Higher trading on put options for BP shortly before the explosion? Secret meetings between Obama officials and nefarious figures? Has Obama limited or influenced any investigations?

Comment by Bilbo — July 5, 2010 @ 9:07 pm

Pez Says:
July 6th, 2010 at 3:07 am
Keep us updated with your findings, won't you?

Comment by Pez — July 6, 2010 @ 3:07 am

Bilbo Says:
July 6th, 2010 at 8:40 am
No, Pez. YOU keep us updated with YOUR findings. I already have a conspiracy theory with plenty of evidence that everybody ignores.

Comment by Bilbo — July 6, 2010 @ 8:40 am

Pez Says:
July 6th, 2010 at 10:12 am
Ha! I was just making it up, but I guess I should have known.
Here's something to get you started, Bilbo.

Comment by Pez — July 6, 2010 @ 10:12 am

Bilbo Says:
July 6th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
I was pretty sure you were just tongue-in-cheek. You Republicans would love to pin a conspiracy on Obama, but then you stop and realize that it would mean that you would need to take the 9/11 truthers seriously. So you hoped that a loyal Democrat would jump to Obama's defense, and then you could accuse me of hypocrisy. Sorry to disappoint you. I figure Presidents don't investigate former presidents as a matter of professional courtesy. That way they don't have to worry about the next president investigating them.

Comment by Bilbo — July 6, 2010 @ 2:06 pm

Pez Says:
July 6th, 2010 at 2:45 pm
Aww, look at you go on another conspiracy, Bilbo. You're more fun than a barrelfull of Grays.
I already got you on the hypocrisy from the get-go when you admitted that your conspiracy wouldn't be as much fun if Busg weren't your target, and when you claimed that big bad Bush and Darth Cheney were keeping the whistle-blowers quiet, but that, somehow, those whistle-blowers would remain silent even after the Republican ouster. And when you wouldn't admit, though Joy did, that your conspiracy would have to run so deep that it would roll all the way back to Clinton (and now up to Obama).
Since your conspiracy necessitates that all bets are off with regard to government you should be all over this BP spill. It would be like one domino in your whole chain. Since Obama now is complicit in the 9/11 murders you'd strengthen your case by showing that he is also in bed with his BP donors and is destroying the gulf state economies to raise taxes, increase government power and nationalize oil.
Since the motivation is more obvious, the logistics easier, and the payoff greater you should be all over this.
It should certainly be more interesting than the Mike Gene book conspiracy or the we're afraid of Matheson conspiracy.
No?

Comment by Pez — July 6, 2010 @ 2:45 pm

Bilbo Says:
July 6th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
Admitting that it wouldn't be as fun if Bush was not the target is not an admission of hypocrisy. Just the opposite. I was being honest about my emotions. I've pointed out possible lines of evidence for you to pursue, Pez. If you think there's something there, go for it. The evidence that the WTCs were brought down by controlled demolitions is overwhelming.

Comment by Bilbo — July 6, 2010 @ 3:22 pm

Guts Says:
July 6th, 2010 at 3:31 pm
The evidence that the WTCs were brought down by controlled demolitions is overwhelming.

wtf

I suppose that plane I saw with my own eyes was a hologram.

Comment by Guts — July 6, 2010 @ 3:31 pm

Bilbo Says:
July 6th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
The planes were real. Though maybe a hologram hit #7.

Comment by Bilbo — July 6, 2010 @ 3:38 pm

angryoldfatman Says:
July 6th, 2010 at 4:04 pm
wtf

I suppose that plane I saw with my own eyes was a hologram.

I personally blame the Lizard People who live underneath the Denver Airport. They are also responsible for all of your luggage going to Bahrain when you fly to Boston.

All of the Bushes, Cheney, Al Gore, the Queen of Freakin' England and most of ther vile inbred kin are Lizard People who wear human skin. And my Uncle Fred, whom I observed eating flies one day at a family reunion. Either that or he was drunk again and wasn't paying attention to what was collecting on Aunt Ethel's potato salad.

Comment by angryoldfatman — July 6, 2010 @ 4:04 pm

Guts Says:
July 6th, 2010 at 4:38 pm
lol rofl outloud

Comment by Guts — July 6, 2010 @ 4:38 pm

JJS P.Eng. Says:
July 6th, 2010 at 4:41 pm
Bilbo, you look cute in your tin-foil hat!

First, I don't think Obama, nor his administration, nor the U.S. government as a whole deliberately allowed the BP leak to get worse, and I'm pretty darn blue (up here in Canada, red and blue are flipped; it's you Yanks that got it backwards! ). What Obama, his administration and the U.S. government do deserve is blame for general incompetence and allowing U.S. regulations to get in the way of an emergency clean-up that they are clearly responsible for accomplishing. I would be 100% behind them if they did their job and sent the bill to BP. BP should and will pay for their f*** up, but it took the government and its strict adherence to regulations to make a disaster into a catastrophe.

As for your good ol' Truthers, I'm assuming part of your "overwhelming" evidence for controlled demolition is the fact the towers fell straight down, correct?

Comment by JJS P.Eng. — July 6, 2010 @ 4:41 pm

Guts Says:
July 6th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
I blame George Bush's pet lizards for the fact that none of the South American teams made it to the final world cup game.

Comment by Guts — July 6, 2010 @ 4:55 pm

chunkdz Says:
July 6th, 2010 at 6:01 pm
McCain, John (R – AZ) — Alien hybrid

I KNEW it!

Comment by chunkdz — July 6, 2010 @ 6:01 pm

Bilbo Says:
July 6th, 2010 at 6:35 pm
Hi JJS,

Yes, the falling straight down would be part of the evidence, along with the nano-thermite found in the dust, confirmed in a peer-reviewed paper, along with the melted steel beams, along with the micro-spheres of iron found in the dust, along with the hundreds of bone fragments found mixed in with the dust, found on neighboring building rooftops, along with controlled demolition expert Van Romero's original statement that the buildings must have contained explosives, before he received a gov't contract and changed his mind, along with bldg #7 falling straight down, two-and-a-half seconds of which was at actual free fall speed, plus more.

Comment by Bilbo — July 6, 2010 @ 6:35 pm

chunkdz Says:
July 6th, 2010 at 8:03 pm
Bilbo,
I think you are sincere in your trutherism. And the evidence is interesting.

But when you say things like

"You Republicans would love to pin a conspiracy on Obama."

I immediately think of the Emory University study wherein political partisans exhibited motivated reasoning, brain function patterns resembling those of drug addicts, and a marked inability to recognize their own irrational behavior.

I'm not a republican so I can't speak to the veracity of your smear. But it does sound overtly and partisanly prejudiced to me. Do you think your brain might be compromised?

Comment by chunkdz — July 6, 2010 @ 8:03 pm

Bradford Says:
July 6th, 2010 at 10:03 pm
Bilbo, conspiracy theories are as old as recorded history. They are easy to conceive of and difficult to falsify. One reason for that is they are ideologically motivated. If you hate the CIA and think the USA is the world's problem, as many do, then conspiracy theories are not only natural outcomes of that passion- they are inevitable.

Here's a incident in the news and one around which conspiracy theories can be constructed. During the presidential election Black Panthers were filmed brandishing weapons in front of a polling place. That's illegal. The evidence was abundant. The result? An agreement that the culprits would not haunt polling places until 2012- the year of the next election. AG Holder would not prosecute. You can bet he would have had the weapons wielders been Tea Party members. Conspiracy? Easy to construct a theory based on the facts. Would I? No. There is a simpler explanation grounded in ideological blindness.

Comment by Bradford — July 6, 2010 @ 10:03 pm

Bradford Says:
July 6th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
The Transportation Security Administration is blocking certain websites from that federal agency’s computers, based on the allegation that they feature “controversial opinions,” according to an internal email obtained by CBS News. Other sites are banned for reasons that are standard business practices such as criminal activity, violence and gaming. But controversial opinions are very subjectively assessed. What is controversial to Sam may not be so to Adam. A pandoras box.

Comment by Bradford — July 6, 2010 @ 10:21 pm

Bradford Says:
July 6th, 2010 at 11:10 pm
I've been mentioning the coming pension crisis in a forum where most are a bit more savvy than the population norm in hopes that at least some in this nation awaken to the dangers of profligate spending. This may not be a message that those with unbridled faith in the legacy of the Enlightenment wish to hear. But for the rest of you:

NJ is in the forefront of a battle between those determined to advance their own greedy interests at the expense of the public good on the one hand and fiscally concerned factions on the other. This piece has a thoughtful solution, not just for this state but as a template for others as well.

Comment by Bradford — July 6, 2010 @ 11:10 pm

olegt Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 7:50 am
Bradford,

unbridled faith in the legacy of the Enlightenment

is one of the most pompous and content-free expressions you have written in a while. Blaming Rousseau and Voltaire for fiscal problems of the contemporary American states is a bit like linking Darwin to Hitler. This silly cartoon says much more about your political biases than it characterizes your opponents.

Comment by olegt — July 7, 2010 @ 7:50 am

Bradford Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 8:23 am
unbridled faith in the legacy of the Enlightenment

Olegt: is one of the most pompous and content-free expressions you have written in a while. Blaming Rousseau and Voltaire for fiscal problems of the contemporary American states is a bit like linking Darwin to Hitler. This silly cartoon says much more about your political biases than it characterizes your opponents.

Looks like I hit a nerve. It's not Rousseau and Voltaire I blame for our fiscal problems. It's greedy government workers, ambitious leftist politicians wanting to advance public union causes at the expense of the general welfare and human ostriches like you who are so wedded to false narratives about progress that you overlook a real looming crisis. I've been through this before with you. Pensions which are pegged to 50, 65 and 70 percent of ending career salaries for those able to retire after 20, 25 and 30 years of service are unsustainable. They pose the possibility of a bailout in a few years which will dwarf the last one in its deleterious effects. Obama, Reid, and Pelosi are in bed with big labor unions and it is killing this nation. The Gulf oil spill has exposed the president's lack of executive experience and his general incompetence. His faith in government is at toxic levels. Suspend the regulatory processes you freaking morons. There's an environmental crisis at hand in case you did not notice.

Comment by Bradford — July 7, 2010 @ 8:23 am

olegt Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 8:34 am
No, not a nerve, Bradford. I laughed when I read that. Keep up the good work.

Comment by olegt — July 7, 2010 @ 8:34 am

Bradford Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 8:35 am
With respect to regulatory process stumbling blocks two comments in this thread are helpful:

http://telicthoughts.com/open-...

http://telicthoughts.com/open-...

Comment by Bradford — July 7, 2010 @ 8:35 am

olegt Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 8:36 am
On the other hand, suspend the regulatory processes you freaking morons makes it sound like you're angry or something.

Comment by olegt — July 7, 2010 @ 8:36 am

Bradford Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 8:38 am
No, not a nerve, Bradford. I laughed when I read that.

You're lying Olegt. It is good to have places on the net not yet controlled by the mainstream media with the limited pabulum they are willing to dispense to readers.

Comment by Bradford — July 7, 2010 @ 8:38 am

olegt Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 8:42 am
Bradford, keep your blood pressure in check, it's only 8:41 am!

Comment by olegt — July 7, 2010 @ 8:42 am

Bradford Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 8:43 am
On the other hand, suspend the regulatory processes you freaking morons makes it sound like you're angry or something

I am angry Olegt. Angry that environmental gurus concerned about global warming effects 100 years from now will not criticize an incompetent president because of political concerns. Angry at the boundless faith in government which blinds people to the stupidity of governing processes which impede Gulf remedies.

Comment by Bradford — July 7, 2010 @ 8:43 am

olegt Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 8:58 am
Bradford,

It's not just "environmental gurus" who are worried about the warming trend. Entire scientific organizations (like the American Physical Society, of which I am a member) expressed similar concerns. And "boundless faith in government" is a silly straw man, you realize that, right?

Comment by olegt — July 7, 2010 @ 8:58 am

angryoldfatman Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 9:56 am
All my friends told me that if I voted for McCain that enviromental disasters would occur, and dammit, they were right!

Comment by angryoldfatman — July 7, 2010 @ 9:56 am

angryoldfatman Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 10:11 am
Oh, and by the way Oleg, it was I who wanted to strangle Rousseau in his crib, not Bradford. The reason for that is not because of his supposed role in the "Enlightenment", but because his naiveté has been mistaken for deep thought by the over-educated know-nothings who constantly find themselves in positions of authority since then.

No one who has been in the company of savages can honestly think of them as noble. Even Darwin figured that one out.

Comment by angryoldfatman — July 7, 2010 @ 10:11 am

Bradford Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 10:28 am
Olegt: It's not just "environmental gurus" who are worried about the warming trend. Entire scientific organizations (like the American Physical Society, of which I am a member) expressed similar concerns.

That's nice Olegt but since you seem to have some influence with that group try goading them to show some concern for an immediate environmental problem by pressuring Obama to directly intervene, suspend all regulatory impediments to Gulf clean-ups and generally show some leadership skills. We know he's a good talker but effective governing demands executive action.

And "boundless faith in government" is a silly straw man, you realize that, right?

I dunno. I'm trying connect governing failures to the governing perspective of those connected to the failures. Maybe you have a better explanation for the problems pointed to by these comments:

http://telicthoughts.com/open-...

Maybe you have a better explanation for pension systems that are short trillions of dollars and getting worse in that respect with time. Hey, let them eat cake, right?

Comment by Bradford — July 7, 2010 @ 10:28 am

Bradford Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 10:32 am
angryoldfatman:

Oh, and by the way Oleg, it was I who wanted to strangle Rousseau in his crib, not Bradford. The reason for that is not because of his supposed role in the "Enlightenment", but because his naiveté has been mistaken for deep thought by the over-educated know-nothings who constantly find themselves in positions of authority since then.

You nailed that one.

Comment by Bradford — July 7, 2010 @ 10:32 am

olegt Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 10:41 am
angryoldfatman wrote:

The reason for that is not because of his supposed role in the "Enlightenment", but because his naiveté has been mistaken for deep thought by the over-educated know-nothings who constantly find themselves in positions of authority since then.

So I take it you think college education is an impediment to effective governing? Or are you trying to say something else?

Comment by olegt — July 7, 2010 @ 10:41 am

Bilbo Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 10:41 am
Let's see. When Jimmy Carter left office, the entire government debt was about one trillion dollars.

When Reagan left office, the entire debt (if I remember correctly) was about 2.5 trillion dollars. Why? Largely because Reagan had slashed taxes (mostly for the wealthy) and increased military spending.

When the first Bush left office, the debt was up to about 4.3 trillion dollars.

When Clinton left office, the debt was about 5.3 trillion dollars. He had raised taxes, which slowed the growth of debt, and with help from the stock bubble he even had three years of surplus. But Clinton also gave China favored nation status, which would mean the end of a large part of our manufacturing base in a very short time.

When the second Bush left office, the debt was about 10 trillion dollars. He had cut taxes (mostly for the wealthy) and started two wars.

Now Obama has inherited a deep recession, and the second part of a bank bailout, and baby boomers starting to retire. So of course the national debt is all his fault.

Comment by Bilbo — July 7, 2010 @ 10:41 am

Bilbo Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 10:45 am
Hi Chunk,

Could be just my warped brain, but I think Rush and company would love nothing more than to prove the explosion and aftermath was an Obama conspiracy. And since Rush is really the heart and soul of the Republican party,,,,

Comment by Bilbo — July 7, 2010 @ 10:45 am

olegt Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 10:46 am
Dick Cheney famously quipped "Reagan proved deficits don't matter."

Comment by olegt — July 7, 2010 @ 10:46 am

Bilbo Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 10:48 am
BTW, I wanted McCain to win the Republican nomination back in 2000. I would have voted for him against Gore. Why? Because of the three major candidates, McCain had the plan that cut taxes the least.

Comment by Bilbo — July 7, 2010 @ 10:48 am

Acipenser Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 10:49 am
Bradford: That's nice Olegt but since you seem to have some influence with that group try goading them to show some concern for an immediate environmental problem by pressuring Obama to directly intervene, suspend all regulatory impediments to Gulf clean-ups and generally show some leadership skills. We know he's a good talker but effective governing demands executive action.

What regulatory impediments do you think need suspension? Surely, you aren't speaking of the Jones Act and if you are that appears to be based on a misunderstanding of the issue at hand.

http://m.factcheck.org/2010/06...

The best solution would be prevention via increased regulations on the industry. I wonder if many think it also falls to the govt. to monitor the thousands of abandoned wells (est. 27,000) for leakage as well or should that task fall to those who drilled them, drained the resevoir, and cashed in on the profits?

Comment by Acipenser — July 7, 2010 @ 10:49 am

JJS P.Eng. Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 11:08 am
*blatant self-promotion alert!*

I just posted at EE on how BP's failure to follow industry standards led to the disaster (as summed up by this nice interactive graphic).

Also a good read: BP is a victim of its own carelessness

Comment by JJS P.Eng. — July 7, 2010 @ 11:08 am

Bradford Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 11:36 am
http://www.france24.com/en/201...

The US government is now in promo mode. Yes, we're accepting assistance. Good. After the exposure and the needless delays the welcome mat is out.

Comment by Bradford — July 7, 2010 @ 11:36 am

Bradford Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 11:39 am
Acipensar: The best solution would be prevention via increased regulations on the industry.

A better one would be to control the environmental freaks who would ban drilling on land. Who thinks that makes sense while 5,000 feet below the water is deemed acceptable?

Comment by Bradford — July 7, 2010 @ 11:39 am

Bradford Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 11:47 am
True or false:

The EPA, continues to allow regulations to stand in the way of oil being removed from the Gulf. An intent to use skimmers that discharge separated water containing less than 1% oil residue is delayed by bureaucratic red tape. Locals are stopped from dredging to build protective sand berms, out of concern the dredging was too close to the shoreline.

Comment by Bradford — July 7, 2010 @ 11:47 am

Bradford Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 11:54 am
Olegt: Dick Cheney famously quipped "Reagan proved deficits don't matter."

And Obama is proving they do matter. This points out a difference between the left and conservatives. Cheney was crticized by conservatives for that remark. Along with other conservatives I criticize conservatives who err. But a coccon of silence surrounds Obama. He is criticized by leftists usually only when he is thought to be not extreme enough.

Comment by Bradford — July 7, 2010 @ 11:54 am

JJS P.Eng. Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Acipenser: The best solution would be prevention via increased regulations on the industry.

A better solution would be to enforce the current ones. I don't see how more regulation solves the problem of not following current regulations. If BP deviated from it's MMS submitted procedure, then the silliest solution to that is to have more regulation.

How about prosecuting BP for willful disregard for submitted regulatory procedures? That would have more of an effect than additional regulations.

Comment by JJS P.Eng. — July 7, 2010 @ 12:00 pm

olegt Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Bradford wrote:

Along with other conservatives I criticize conservatives who err. But a coccon of silence surrounds Obama. He is criticized by leftists usually only when he is thought to be not extreme enough.

Yeah, right. Here is your favorite source of fair and balanced news: Obama Faces Criticism on the Left and Right for Response to Oil Spill. Some silence.

Comment by olegt — July 7, 2010 @ 12:01 pm

Acipenser Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
Bradford: A better one would be to control the environmental freaks who would ban drilling on land. Who thinks that makes sense while 5,000 feet below the water is deemed acceptable?

The principle reason that BP and other companies are drilling in deepwater is because there is oil there and that means $$ for the company. That is the only bottom line that concerns them. Do you really believe that there are analagous reserves that lie under our landmass? If there were no oil (and substantial reserves at that) under the sea floor the companies would not be there at oil. They aren't making blind shots in the dark by drilling and hoping they find oil.

Comment by Acipenser — July 7, 2010 @ 12:10 pm

Pez Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
BP would love more regulations. That's how giants limit competition. That's why they spread their $ around Washington.
http://www.reuters.com/article...

Comment by Pez — July 7, 2010 @ 12:13 pm

Acipenser Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
JJS: A better solution would be to enforce the current ones. I don't see how more regulation solves the problem of not following current regulations. If BP deviated from it's MMS submitted procedure, then the silliest solution to that is to have more regulation.

How about prosecuting BP for willful disregard for submitted regulatory procedures? That would have more of an effect than additional regulations.

There are no current regulations requiring multiple blowout protectors or relief wells as other countries require. The reason being (or rationalized) is it costs too much for the companies to implement. The cost of a relief well (which should have been drilled simulataneously and not after the fact) is about a 100 million and blowout protectors run about 500 thousand. Cheap insurance given the billions needed to clean up things once they get out of control.

Prosecuting BP for failure to comply with its submitted drill plan, while a good idea, does not address the distinct lack of prevention measures that need to be in place if you are going to permit drilling where there is no access to the well head by people.

Comment by Acipenser — July 7, 2010 @ 12:22 pm

JJS P.Eng. Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 12:26 pm
Obvious statement of the year!

Acipenser: The principle reason that BP and other companies are drilling in deepwater is because there is oil there and that means $$ for the company.

Like it or not, oil is a valued commodity. It is useless in the ground. The "big, bad oil companies" have the expertise to extract the oil from the ground and upgrade and refine it to more useful (and marketable) substances. From the oil companies' standpoint, it makes no sense to risk losing massive amounts of future revenue by circumventing common industry standards.

Now if BP was in a rush to save money at the expense of losing a massive amount future revenue, one has to ask why did they do this and not other companies? It wouldn't have anything to do with BP's involvement in Europe's cap-and-trade scam, would it?

Comment by JJS P.Eng. — July 7, 2010 @ 12:26 pm

Acipenser Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
Bradford: True or false:

The EPA, continues to allow regulations to stand in the way of oil being removed from the Gulf. An intent to use skimmers that discharge separated water containing less than 1% oil residue is delayed by bureaucratic red tape. Locals are stopped from dredging to build protective sand berms, out of concern the dredging was too close to the shoreline.

Mostly false. The folks at the EPA have good reason to be skeptical of the claims made by the owners of the A Whale. It has never operated as a skimmer and there is no data to support their claims. If you run a thousand foot ship through the oil slicks and all you accomplish is breaking up the slicks so proven methods are rendered ineffective you've gained nothing and lose ground in the long run.

Dredging too close to shore can also have dire consequences and in may simply be better to allow the oil to reach the beaches where it can be cleaned up instead of potentially disrupting existing channels and their established flow of water.

There is much more to consider than simply attacking the problem like you are killing snakes.

Comment by Acipenser — July 7, 2010 @ 12:27 pm

JJS P.Eng. Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
Acipenser: There are no current regulations requiring multiple blowout protectors or relief wells as other countries require.

To the best of my knowledge, relief wells are an overly redundant requirement, and not necessary if common industry standards are followed.

The BP Macondo blowout was the result of a chain of misguided events, and summed up here and here. If these common industry standards were not sidestepped, the blowout would likely not have happened. The industry standards contain failsafe upon failsafe, implementing a multi-faceted redundancy into the drilling procedure. Drilling a relief well simultaneously is generally not required, and doesn't add much to safety.

Comment by JJS P.Eng. — July 7, 2010 @ 12:34 pm

Acipenser Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
JJS: Like it or not, oil is a valued commodity.

Second obvious statement of the year!!

It is useless in the ground. The "big, bad oil companies" have the expertise to extract the oil from the ground and upgrade and refine it to more useful (and marketable) substances. From the oil companies' standpoint, it makes no sense to risk losing massive amounts of future revenue by circumventing common industry standards.

Looking at the chronology of events leading up to the explosion, fire, and subsequent collapse of the drill platform it is fairly easy to discern the cost-cutting measures made as BP attempted the most dangerous part of the process….capping the wellhead. All of the red flags were flying but were ignored in the pursuit of short-term financial gains simply because they got away with it in the past. It seems BP's operation specialized in circumventing industry standards from ignoring the pieces of the well seal surfacing during final drilling to the use of seawater rather than drill mud in the capping process. While it makes no sense to circumvent industry standards it is clear that is exactly what happened proving once again the self-regulation by industry is a bad idea.

Comment by Acipenser — July 7, 2010 @ 12:37 pm

JJS P.Eng. Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
Bradford: True or false:

The EPA, continues to allow regulations to stand in the way of oil being removed from the Gulf. An intent to use skimmers that discharge separated water containing less than 1% oil residue is delayed by bureaucratic red tape. Locals are stopped from dredging to build protective sand berms, out of concern the dredging was too close to the shoreline.

Acipenser: Mostly false. The folks at the EPA have good reason to be skeptical of the claims made by the owners of the A Whale. It has never operated as a skimmer and there is no data to support their claims. If you run a thousand foot ship through the oil slicks and all you accomplish is breaking up the slicks so proven methods are rendered ineffective you've gained nothing and lose ground in the long run.

What is worse: letting A Whale and skimmers from other countries at least try to skim the oil, or doing nothing? Let A Whale try. If they fail, so what? Learn and move on to the next attempt. Trying to clean up the mess and failing is better than nitpicking over regulations that were meant for normal circumstances, not emergencies.

Comment by JJS P.Eng. — July 7, 2010 @ 12:38 pm

Bradford Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Acipenser: The principle reason that BP and other companies are drilling in deepwater is because there is oil there and that means $$ for the company. That is the only bottom line that concerns them. Do you really believe that there are analagous reserves that lie under our landmass?

Of course an oil company drills for $$ and that's their bottom line. That's the reason a company exists. I do not know the comparative amounts of oil but the point is the government allowed drilling below 5,000 feet of water while quashing efforts to drill on some land sites. Does that make sense to you?

Comment by Bradford — July 7, 2010 @ 12:45 pm

Acipenser Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 12:48 pm
JJS: To the best of my knowledge, relief wells are an overly redundant requirement, and not necessary if common industry standards are followed.

Relief wells are the only method that works to stop a blowout in deepwater (and shallow water as well). Trying to kill a well from the top is marginal at best given the pressures necessary to accomplish that task and the likelyhood of fracturing the casing (likely what happened in the gulf). There is no other method capable of dealing with the pressures necessary to stop the flow of oil.

Accidents happen (even if industry standards are followed) and when entire ecosystems are at risk (and the people's livelhood that depend on that ecosystem) redundancies are required to safeguard the surrounding resources. If you don't drill them at the same time the well is being drilled you risk months and months of uncontrolled spewing of oil. That saying about those who ignore history doomed to repeat it is apt in this situation. Did we learn nothing from the 1979 gulf incident?

There is no guarantee that the present relief well(s) will be successful. It may require another attempt (or two) and months more of uncontrolled release of oil into the gulf. The prospect of a November or December capping of the well is not unreasonable and hopefully not come to pass. Having a relief well in place from the git-go is cheap insurance given the established costs and impacts of large oil spills.

Comment by Acipenser — July 7, 2010 @ 12:48 pm

JJS P.Eng. Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
JJS: It is useless in the ground. The "big, bad oil companies" have the expertise to extract the oil from the ground and upgrade and refine it to more useful (and marketable) substances. From the oil companies' standpoint, it makes no sense to risk losing massive amounts of future revenue by circumventing common industry standards.

Acipenser: Looking at the chronology of events leading up to the explosion, fire, and subsequent collapse of the drill platform it is fairly easy to discern the cost-cutting measures made as BP attempted the most dangerous part of the process….capping the wellhead. All of the red flags were flying but were ignored in the pursuit of short-term financial gains simply because they got away with it in the past. It seems BP's operation specialized in circumventing industry standards from ignoring the pieces of the well seal surfacing during final drilling to the use of seawater rather than drill mud in the capping process. While it makes no sense to circumvent industry standards it is clear that is exactly what happened proving once again the self-regulation by industry is a bad idea.

I see two fallacies in your line of arguing:

1. You seem to be equating the actions of BP with the rest of the oil companies with no supporting evidence. The Macondo blowout is the result of BP's, and only BP's, reckless actions. Other oil companies perform deep-sea drilling every day without blowouts or other disasters occuring.

2. Your assumption the oil industry is "self-regulated" is so erroneous it is laughable. I suppose you think so-called de-regulation caused the housing market collapse and the subsequent financial market meltdown, eh?

Comment by JJS P.Eng. — July 7, 2010 @ 12:50 pm

JJS P.Eng. Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 12:54 pm
Acipenser: Relief wells are the only method that works to stop a blowout in deepwater (and shallow water as well)

For blowouts that have already occurred, I agree. However, it seems that BP skipped over and sidestepped many procedures during the drilling operation that would have prevented the blowout from happening in the first place. That is the point I was trying to make. BP could have prevented this by following their procedures submitted to the (at the time) prevailing regulatory body, MMS. Additional regulations would not have helped.

Comment by JJS P.Eng. — July 7, 2010 @ 12:54 pm

JJS P.Eng. Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
Acipenser: If you don't drill [relief wells] at the same time the well is being drilled you risk months and months of uncontrolled spewing of oil. That saying about those who ignore history doomed to repeat it is apt in this situation. Did we learn nothing from the 1979 gulf incident?

There is no guarantee that the present relief well(s) will be successful. It may require another attempt (or two) and months more of uncontrolled release of oil into the gulf. The prospect of a November or December capping of the well is not unreasonable and hopefully not come to pass. Having a relief well in place from the git-go is cheap insurance given the established costs and impacts of large oil spills.

I'm confused. At one point, you are arguing that oil companies should be forced to drill simultaneous relief well, yet in the next breath are saying they are no guarantee of relieving the pressure.

So it would appear you made my case for me!

Comment by JJS P.Eng. — July 7, 2010 @ 12:58 pm

Acipenser Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 12:59 pm
Bradford: Of course an oil company drills for $$ and that's their bottom line. That's the reason a company exists. I do not know the comparative amounts of oil but the point is the government allowed drilling below 5,000 feet of water while quashing efforts to drill on some land sites. Does that make sense to you?

In general yes, it may make sense to do so depending on the risk/benefit analysis and where the drilling is actually occuring. Deep water drilling has been accomplished in much deeper water than 5,000 feet. No one squalled a bit when the oil companies drill in water in excess of 10,000 feet with no safeguards in palce or gutted by administrations sympathetic to the oil industry.

Remember the Ixtoc spill occurred at a drill site in 150 feet of water and it took over 10 months to control. The same can happen on land as it has happened in shallow water and now deepwater. The industry puts as little $$$ as required to give the apearence of compentency in being able to control the situation when things go south.

Comment by Acipenser — July 7, 2010 @ 12:59 pm

Acipenser Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
JJS: I'm confused. At one point, you are arguing that oil companies should be forced to drill simultaneous relief well, yet in the next breath are saying they are no guarantee of relieving the pressure.

So it would appear you made my case for me!

Relief wells are the only way to kill a well blowout. There is no quarantee that they will intersect the existing well on the first try…which was the original point.

If the relief well is drilled at the same time there is latitude available to make sure it is on target and capable of intersecting the wellhead should a blowout event happens. If it is not then adjustments or the drilling of another relief well can be accomplished prior to tapping the reservoir and opening pandora's box. If the relief well is in place it will be capable of pumping drill mud into the the system to stop the blwoout. It is the only mechanism that works. If you know of another that works in situations like that I and many others would love to hear about it.

So no, not so much support for making your case since you had to resort to a strawman argument to do so.

Comment by Acipenser — July 7, 2010 @ 1:06 pm

Acipenser Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
JJS: I'm confused. At one point, you are arguing that oil companies should be forced to drill simultaneous relief well, yet in the next breath are saying they are no guarantee of relieving the pressure.

Relief wells do not relieve pressure they permit the introduction of drill mud into the well casing close to the reservoir. This is the only thing that will kill the well and using seawater rather than drill mud was one thing that started the whole spill in the first place. They use drill mud for a reason. The more pressure it is under the stiffer it gets and the more resistant it is to being blown out of the well casing allowing it to develop enough head pressure to overcome the discharge pressure from the reservoir.

If you thought the relief well is drilled to relieve reservoir pressure I can see why you are confused.

Comment by Acipenser — July 7, 2010 @ 1:11 pm

Pez Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
no safeguards in palce or gutted by administrations sympathetic to the oil industry.

No safeguards? That sounds pretty extreme. But not as extreme as implying that there are administrations not sympathetic to the oil industry,
http://www.washingtonexaminer....

Comment by Pez — July 7, 2010 @ 1:16 pm

JJS P.Eng. Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
Acipenser, thank you for the clarification. I can now see more clearly your position. However, I do not think you are fully grasping my position.

I state it was a chain of events that caused the blowout while you state that "…using seawater rather than drill mud was one thing that started the whole spill in the first place." While this may have been the straw that broke the camel's back, it was merely the final in a series of missteps, the removal of any one of them could've been enough to prevent the blowout.

I highly recommend reading the Wall Street Journal article and the American Energy Alliance pdf I linked to earlier. Reading these documents fully illustrate the point I was making: if BP followed common industry standards, the Macondo blowout would likely not have occured.

Comment by JJS P.Eng. — July 7, 2010 @ 1:25 pm

Acipenser Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 1:28 pm
JJS: I see two fallacies in your line of arguing:

1. You seem to be equating the actions of BP with the rest of the oil companies with no supporting evidence. The Macondo blowout is the result of BP's, and only BP's, reckless actions. Other oil companies perform deep-sea drilling every day without blowouts or other disasters occuring.

Given the existence of documents proving that cut & paste documents identical across companies indicates that the oil industry is in collusion on many fronts. That BP is more reckless than others only underscores the overall lack of regulatory enforecement.

JJS: 2. Your assumption the oil industry is "self-regulated" is so erroneous it is laughable. I suppose you think so-called de-regulation caused the housing market collapse and the subsequent financial market meltdown, eh?

aside from the non-sequitor the disbanding of the MMS and the supporting documentation demonstrating the industry itself, in many cases, filled out their own safety inspection reports instead of regulators is not so laughable nor eroneous. You also have to face the fact that the MMS staff members were joined at the hip to the oil industry and loath to do anything to upset the oil applecart potentially jeapordizing their future careers. It is clear that industry was regulating itself with no one checking to see if what they were claiming were actually true.

Comment by Acipenser — July 7, 2010 @ 1:28 pm

JJS P.Eng. Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
The cement job was especially important on this well because of a BP design choice that some petroleum engineers call unusual. BP ran a single long pipe, made up of sections screwed together, all the way from the sea floor to the oil reservoir.

Companies often use two pipes, one inside another, sealed together, with the smaller one sticking into the oil reservoir. With this system, if gas tries to get up the outside of the pipe, it has to break through not just cement but also the seal connecting the pipes. So the more typical design provides an extra level of protection, but also requires another long, expensive piece of pipe.

"I couldn't understand why they would run a long string," meaning a single pipe, said David Pursell, a petroleum engineer and managing director of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co., an energy-focused investment bank. Oil major Royal Dutch Shell PLC, in a letter to the MMS, said it "generally does not" use a single pipe.

…

Before doing a cement job on a well, common industry practice is to circulate the drilling mud through the well, bringing the mud at the bottom all the way up to the drilling rig.

This procedure, known as "bottoms up," lets workers check the mud to see if it is absorbing gas leaking in. If so, they can clean the gas out of the mud before putting it back down into the well to maintain the pressure. The American Petroleum Institute says it is "common cementing best practice" to circulate the mud at least once.

Circulating all the mud in a well of 18,360 feet, as this one was, takes six to 12 hours, say people who've run the procedure. But mud circulation on this well was done for just 30 minutes on April 19, drilling logs say, not nearly long enough to bring mud to the surface.

This decision could have left gas at the bottom of the well. When workers poured in cement to seal the sides, that gas would have been pushed up the outside of the well. Expanding as it rose, it would have reached the top of the well, where it either would have pushed against a massive seal on the ocean floor or might have gone even higher and reached the bottom of the pipe connecting the well to the drilling rig.

…

BP's plans for the well, approved by the MMS on April 16, called for workers to remove the mud before performing two procedures designed to make sure gas couldn't get into the well.

The first called for installing a giant spring to lock the seal at the top of the well in place after removal of the mud. There's no evidence in rig-activity logs the spring was ever installed. If gas was coming up the sides of the well, pushing against the seal, this spring would have helped prevent leakage.

Second, BP opted to remove the mud before placing a final cement plug inside the well. [emphasis mine]

BP Decisions Set Stage For Disaster, Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2010

Comment by JJS P.Eng. — July 7, 2010 @ 1:32 pm

Acipenser Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
JJS: I state it was a chain of events that caused the blowout while you state that "…using seawater rather than drill mud was one thing that started the whole spill in the first place." While this may have been the straw that broke the camel's back, it was merely the final in a series of missteps, the removal of any one of them could've been enough to prevent the blowout.

Of course I agree with this which was why I stated that the use of seawater was ONE thing that started the spill. The signs that there were existing problems preceeded this final action that permitted the methane to reach the surface. People warned of problems but were ignored and overruled to try and save money. There certainly is a very long laundry lists of violations/problems that led to this disaster.

JJS: I highly recommend reading the Wall Street Journal article and the American Energy Alliance pdf I linked to earlier. Reading these documents fully illustrate the point I was making: if BP followed common industry standards, the Macondo blowout would likely not have occured.

It may or may not have prevented a blowout but certainly strict adherence to the entirety of industry standards would reduced the probability of an accident happening in the first place. However, that in and of itself is not sufficient to deal with an event should it occur and that is my princile point. In these instances application of the precautionary principle is appropriate given the magnitude of damage that will occur in an event and the distinct lack of any capability of industry to deal with a blowout and spill.

Comment by Acipenser — July 7, 2010 @ 1:36 pm

JJS P.Eng. Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Acipenser: That BP is more reckless than others only underscores the overall lack of regulatory enforecement.

Then enforce the current rules! I don't see how adding new rules help when the current rules aren't even enforced properly.

Acipenser: You also have to face the fact that the MMS staff members were joined at the hip to the oil industry

Another failure of regulation! Adding more regulations will only ensure more "crony capitalism".

Acipenser: It is clear that industry was regulating itself with no one checking to see if what they were claiming were actually true.

Ah, here we may be coming at last to the heart of the matter: you want regulation to be proactive and preventative instead of reactionary. Good luck with that! Short of establishing a Precrime police force, letting the rule of law react and punish offenders is the best we got for an imperfect world.

Comment by JJS P.Eng. — July 7, 2010 @ 1:40 pm

JJS P.Eng. Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
[Common industry standards] may or may not have prevented a blowout but certainly strict adherence to the entirety of industry standards would reduced the probability of an accident happening in the first place. However, that in and of itself is not sufficient to deal with an event should it occur and that is my princile point. In these instances application of the precautionary principle is appropriate given the magnitude of damage that will occur in an event and the distinct lack of any capability of industry to deal with a blowout and spill. [emphasis mine]

The precautionary principle should be used with caution.

Comment by JJS P.Eng. — July 7, 2010 @ 1:44 pm

Bradford Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
Acipenser: In general yes, it may make sense to do so depending on the risk/benefit analysis and where the drilling is actually occuring. Deep water drilling has been accomplished in much deeper water than 5,000 feet. No one squalled a bit when the oil companies drill in water in excess of 10,000 feet with no safeguards in palce or gutted by administrations sympathetic to the oil industry.

What land mishap has even remotely approximated the Gulf disaster?

The regulatory talking points are irrelevant. BP disregarded both its own and those of the government. There is no regulatory remedy for that, only punitive actions.

Comment by Bradford — July 7, 2010 @ 1:44 pm

chunkdz Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
Bilbo: "Could be just my warped brain, but I think Rush and company would love nothing more than to prove the explosion and aftermath was an Obama conspiracy. And since Rush is really the heart and soul of the Republican party,,,,"

Hmm. Interesting. This actually does sound like the rhetoric of a compromised, partisan irrational brain.

Choose the most extreme polarizing personality you can find, attach the most uncharitable insult you can think of to that person, make a label out of it, then glue that label to 55 million people whether the label is accurate or not.

Sounds like behavior you might find despicable were it done to you.

Yet here you are…

And science tells us that your brain will rationalize the choice to do this despicable thing, (the researchers likened it to "turning the kaleidoscope" until the desired mental image is formed), and science also tells us that you will not even be able to recognize that you are doing it. The partisan political human brain will choose an irrational decision because it literally feels good emotionally. Much like a drug addict.

Like most things, politics itself is not a bad thing if done in moderation. But take it to excess and it can be a mind killer.

Fascinating.

Comment by chunkdz — July 7, 2010 @ 1:46 pm

Acipenser Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 1:57 pm
JJS: Ah, here we may be coming at last to the heart of the matter: you want regulation to be proactive and preventative instead of reactionary. Good luck with that! Short of establishing a Precrime police force, letting the rule of law react and punish offenders is the best we got for an imperfect world.

which is exactly the same stance that you are arguing from when you wish for enforcement of existing industry standards which by the way were designed to prevent problems in a proactive fashion rather being reactive. I differ from you in that I think existing regulations are insufficient and need to be amended to include multiple blowout preventors and relief wells as other countries already require. There is nothing wrong with adaptive management

It would be difficult to think of a way 'crony captilism' would influence the installation of blowout protectors or drilling of relief wells. Are you suggesting that the relief wells would be faked?

Comment by Acipenser — July 7, 2010 @ 1:57 pm

Bilbo Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
Hi Chunk,

You mean you don't think Rush and company would love to prove that Obama caused the explosion? And you don't think Rush is the heart and soul of the Republican party? I agree that one of us is out of touch with reality.

Comment by Bilbo — July 7, 2010 @ 1:59 pm

chunkdz Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 2:02 pm
Acipenser: It is clear that industry was regulating itself with no one checking to see if what they were claiming were actually true.

That's what happens when the party regulating the industry also gets massive royalty payments and political kickbacks from said industry.

I love it when people pretend to be upset when human nature actually manifests itself as human nature. Duh! As if party affiliation has any bearing on ethics.

Comment by chunkdz — July 7, 2010 @ 2:02 pm

JJS P.Eng. Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 2:08 pm
Bradford: The regulatory talking points are irrelevant. BP disregarded both its own and those of the government. There is no regulatory remedy for that, only punitive actions.

Well said.

Acipenser: …which is exactly the same stance that you are arguing from when you wish for enforcement of existing industry standards which by the way were designed to prevent problems in a proactive fashion rather being reactive.

You misunderstood both my point and the whole of my argument. My point was that it appeared that you yearned for a law that could prevent such a disaster. No such law exists nor will ever exist to accomplish that.

Enforcing existing regulations is a reactionary process. Following industry standards is like following advice: it's recommended but you are free to ignore. However, doing so is at your own peril and you must face the consequences of said actions. This is exactly what happened with Macondo. BP ignored "advice" at its own peril, and now faces the full fury of law to face up to the consequences.

Acipenser: It would be difficult to think of a way 'crony captilism' would influence the installation of blowout protectors or drilling of relief wells.

I think you don't quite grasp the concept of crony capitalism.

Comment by JJS P.Eng. — July 7, 2010 @ 2:08 pm

JJS P.Eng. Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 2:10 pm
chunkdz: That's what happens when the party regulating the industry also gets massive royalty payments and political kickbacks from said industry.

And thus chunky grasps the concept of crony capitalism.

Comment by JJS P.Eng. — July 7, 2010 @ 2:10 pm

JJS P.Eng. Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 2:14 pm
What is crony capitalism? It's the economic system in which the marketplace is substantially shaped by a cozy relationship among government, big business and big labor. Under crony capitalism, government bestows a variety of privileges that are simply unattainable in the free market, including import restrictions, bailouts, subsidies and loan guarantees.

Let's Take The "Crony" Out of "Crony Capitalism", John Stossel

Comment by JJS P.Eng. — July 7, 2010 @ 2:14 pm

Acipenser Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Bradford: What land mishap has even remotely approximated the Gulf disaster?

I'm not sure how this pertains to anything. Are you trying to make the case that since something hasn't happened it is impossible to ever happen?

If you want some examples of what oil spills and oil industry activities do to damage the environement they are quite numerous. For example the Guadalupe oil field and its resultant damage to groundwater and other land-based resources is but one. By far combined land-based spills far exceed even this spill and have their impact at many levels even into stormwater discharges into waterways, estuaries, and oceans.

Comment by Acipenser — July 7, 2010 @ 2:15 pm

Acipenser Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 2:25 pm
JJS: You misunderstood both my point and the whole of my argument. My point was that it appeared that you yearned for a law that could prevent such a disaster. No such law exists nor will ever exist to accomplish that.

'

It seems you misunderstood both my point and the whole of my argument. That you misunderstood my point does not mean your mischaracterization is correct or appropriate in its distortion.

I have clearly stated that accidents happen regardless of strictly following all industry standards or regulations. What I think we all should demand is that anticipation of these events is prudent and having in place the mechanisms to deal with these accidents is essential given the landscape-wide nature (let alone the decades of recovery) of the disasters related to these accidents. The use of multiple blowout protectors and relief wells are two such mechanisms that should be implemented.

JJS: Enforcing existing regulations is a reactionary process.

Only on some other planet maybe. Enforcement of regulations is done to proactively prevent accidents. The regulations are not enforced after the accident happens. That the regulations are based on accidents in the past and what we learned from them does not equate to regulation enforcement to deal with accidents in the past but rather prevent them in the future.

Comment by Acipenser — July 7, 2010 @ 2:25 pm

Acipenser Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 2:27 pm
JJS: I think you don't quite grasp the concept of crony capitalism.

If you think I don't understand 'crony capitalism" address the scenarion I presented and show how 'crony capitalism' would influence the existence/installation/drilling/use of blowout protectors and relief wells.

Comment by Acipenser — July 7, 2010 @ 2:27 pm

chunkdz Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 2:34 pm
Bilbo: You mean you don't think Rush and company would love to prove that Obama caused the explosion? And you don't think Rush is the heart and soul of the Republican party? I agree that one of us is out of touch with reality.

I really don't know what would make Rush Limbaugh happy. I'm sure there are some who really get off imagining that our government is utterly, cravenly evil to the core.

And as far as Rush being the "heart and soul"? I'm not sure how rational people measure "heart and soul", but a CBS poll found that 68% of Republicans think the party has no leader and only 2% gave the nod to Rush.

My guess is that it just feels really, really good for you to imagine that the most extremely polarizing figure in the enemy's camp is representative of the whole lot. Probably triggers a whole flood of endorphins just thinking about it.

Probably also makes some partisans feel really good to call Al Sharpton or Michael Moore the "heart and soul" of the Democratic Party.

Unfortunately, science tells us that you partisans are unable to detect your own irrationality. Apparently ignorance really is bliss after all – at least in the neurochemical sense.

Comment by chunkdz — July 7, 2010 @ 2:34 pm

Bradford Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 2:36 pm
Acipenser: Are you trying to make the case that since something hasn't happened it is impossible to ever happen?

I'm pointing out how efforts of special interest environmental groups and government regulators backfire as a consequence of their zeal. Gotta preserve that Alaskan wilderness from low risk dangers while out of sight out of mind deep sea drilling is permitted.

Comment by Bradford — July 7, 2010 @ 2:36 pm

Bradford Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Acipenser: If you think I don't understand 'crony capitalism" address the scenarion I presented and show how 'crony capitalism' would influence the existence/installation/drilling/use of blowout protectors and relief wells.

Someone (Pez?) pointed out the unforeseen effects of lobbyism. Giant corporations are often all too eager to chummy up to liberal regulatory enthusiasts. Regulators crowd out small competitors by making compliance too expensive. Ironically this empowers the bigger fish by shrinking the pond and the number of fish swimming in it.

Comment by Bradford — July 7, 2010 @ 2:47 pm

Pez Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 3:03 pm
Hi Bradford:

Someone (Pez?) pointed out the unforeseen effects of lobbyism. Giant corporations are often all too eager to chummy up to liberal regulatory enthusiasts. Regulators crowd out small competitors by making compliance too expensive. Ironically this empowers the bigger fish by shrinking the pond and the number of fish swimming in it.

It was I. Your Stossel link makes the same point.

Acipenser says:

That the regulations are based on accidents in the past and what we learned from them does not equate to regulation enforcement to deal with accidents in the past but rather prevent them in the future.

This is a good point. Not to sound glib in the face of this horrendous disaster, but this is the very scientific live and learn principle.

Is simultaneous drilling of a relief well a good idea or a bad one?
That's debatable (given the fact that it is still being debated)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com...

But live and learn applies to the profit making companies as well as the profit taking public. Does anyone think this has been in BP's best interest, as a profit making company (long term speculation about their complicity in regulating the industry)? They, and their competitors, will be just as likely to have learned from this as will the government regulators.

Human nature is human nature. Corners will be cut by private industry, "private industry" and government alike. Unsafe products will make it to market, reactors will melt-down, vaccines will kill, terrorists will board planes, people will be interrogated harshly and shuttles will blow up. There is always a balancing act between risk, cost and benefit, whichever agencies are involved and certain moves will always be deemed either over kill and draconian, or lax and insufficient. A lot of what determines how they are viewed is tied up in assessing what happened in the past and our ability to learn from it.

Comment by Pez — July 7, 2010 @ 3:03 pm

Pez Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 3:04 pm
""(long term speculation about their complicity in regulating the industry *ASIDE*)""

Comment by Pez — July 7, 2010 @ 3:04 pm

Bilbo Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Hi Chunk,

You describe Rush Limbaugh as "the most extreme polarizing personality," yet you haven't a clue as to whether he would be happy if he could prove that Obama caused the explosion. Interesting. I suggest you are either naive or dishonest on this point.

Now as to Rush"s stature in the Republican party, I suggest there is a difference between a party leader and an unofficial spokesman. Rush is an unofficial spokesman for the Republican party. Do you think there is an official or unofficial spokesman for the Republican party who has more influence on the Republican party than Rush?

Comment by Bilbo — July 7, 2010 @ 3:13 pm

Acipenser Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 3:23 pm
Bradford: I'm pointing out how efforts of special interest environmental groups and government regulators backfire as a consequence of their zeal. Gotta preserve that Alaskan wilderness from low risk dangers while out of sight out of mind deep sea drilling is permitted.

How did you come to the conclusion that drilling in the Alaskan wilderness is any more dangerous than drilling in 150 feet of water? In some regards the risk of drilling in the Alaskan wilderness could be greater due to environmental conditions causing access difficulties in mustering cleanup crews/equipment to a spill site.

Look at the continued impact that the Exxon Valdez spill continues to exert all these years later principally due to the colder weather, inaccessibility, and when compared to the damage from a much larger spill in the gulf a decade earlier.

Do you think all offshore drilling is more risky than land-based drilling?

Comment by Acipenser — July 7, 2010 @ 3:23 pm

Acipenser Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 3:26 pm
Bradford: Regulators crowd out small competitors by making compliance too expensive. Ironically this empowers the bigger fish by shrinking the pond and the number of fish swimming in it.

If the competitor in an industry is not capable of funding safety measures, let alone cleanup efforts, do you think it more appropriate for the taxpayer to foot the bill if things go south or is excluding them from operations they cannot afford a better choice?

Comment by Acipenser — July 7, 2010 @ 3:26 pm

Acipenser Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
Pez: They, and their competitors, will be just as likely to have learned from this as will the government regulators.

I certainly don't share your optimism given that Ixtoc occurred in 1979 and not only were no lessons learned but nothing has been done (industry-wide) to advance cleanup technology.

The last comment on the site you linked too says it all: Accidents: not if but when.

Comment by Acipenser — July 7, 2010 @ 3:34 pm

chunkdz Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 3:45 pm
You describe Rush Limbaugh as "the most extreme polarizing personality," yet you haven't a clue as to whether he would be happy if he could prove that Obama caused the explosion. Interesting. I suggest you are either naive or dishonest on this point.

Maybe he would. Is that a reason to assign such a morbid viewpoint to 55 million people with similar voter registration? That sounds like demagoguery to me, not rational discourse.

Now as to Rush"s stature in the Republican party, I suggest there is a difference between a party leader and an unofficial spokesman. Rush is an unofficial spokesman for the Republican party. Do you think there is an official or unofficial spokesman for the Republican party who has more influence on the Republican party than Rush?

Well, there is some data. A gallup poll last year showed that Rush had a 60% approval rating among republicans. 40% viewed him unfavorably or didn't have an opinion. Given these numbers you have wrongly labeled 20 million people with your ghastly, morbid characterization.

I see no reason to assign such a disgustingly ghoulish mindset to the remaining 35 million people either. I imagine there are plenty of republican moderates who simply support limited government and private enterprise and who do not waste their time trying to cobble together conspiracy theories about the president, nor would they relish such a thing were it true.

Demagoguery is easy, Bilbo. Critical thinking is hard. In my experience it's the hard things that are worthwhile in life.

Comment by chunkdz — July 7, 2010 @ 3:45 pm

Pez Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 3:59 pm
Hi Acipenser,
How do you account then for the fact that wells aren't blowing, burning and gushing every other day?

Comment by Pez — July 7, 2010 @ 3:59 pm

Pez Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
And why hasn't spill cleanup technology advanced incredibly over the years?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06...

Three counterpoints:

But more significant advances have been hampered by a lack of money for research and laws and regulations that make it difficult to test new ideas and introduce improved equipment. In the gulf spill, the laying of boom and the skimming of oil remain a last, and not completely effective, line of defense for coastal areas. Skimming, for instance, cannot be done in rough seas and is often limited to daylight hours because of the difficulties in detecting oil at night.

Even officials with BP, the company responsible for the gulf spill and cleanup, acknowledge that most of the equipment in use represents improvements in old technology, and cite the lack of major spills in the past two decades as one reason.
“The events haven’t driven the technology change that’s out there,” Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer, told a TV interviewer recently. “I think this event probably will.”
…
In testimony this month before Congress, Mr. Costner told of years of woe trying to market his separator, a centrifuge originally developed and patented in 1993 by the Idaho National Laboratory, for use in oil spills. One obstacle, he said, was that although his machines are effective, the water they discharge is still more contaminated than environmental regulations allow. He could not get spill-response companies interested in his machines, he said, without a federal stamp of approval.

1) regulation hampers new technology
2) spills, which are bad for business and quite costly, are rare
3) live and learn principle may advance technology

Ms. Kinner and others said that with all the attention being paid to the gulf spill, the prospects for more research money had brightened considerably. This month, for instance, the Coast Guard issued a call for research proposals related to the gulf disaster, including ideas for “innovative applications not commonly used for oil response.”

“It’s totally turned around, and there’s a kind of chaos,” Ms. Kinner said. “It’s one of those things where we’ve gone from feast to famine, and now from famine to feast.”

Hmm. Bilbo?

Comment by Pez — July 7, 2010 @ 4:09 pm

Pez Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 4:10 pm
The last comment on the site you linked too says it all: Accidents: not if but when.

Exactly.
Regs or no.

Comment by Pez — July 7, 2010 @ 4:10 pm

Acipenser Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Pez: Hi Acipenser,
How do you account then for the fact that wells aren't blowing, burning and gushing every other day?

Probably the same way you account for the non-accidents that drunk drivers aren't in everyday. Sure some screw up and either get caught or crash but many more get away with bending the 'rules' pretty much every hour of everyday.

Your argument sounds like an oil industry apologist I heard who kept on repeating that there haven't been any significant accidents in years when addressing criticism of BP and the lead up to the current tragedy. Like the chronic drunk driver that hasn't gotten caught or in an accident in his/her lifetime I don't think we can rationalize drunk driving by citing his/her record or lack thereof as proof that it is a safe practice.

Comment by Acipenser — July 7, 2010 @ 4:21 pm

Acipenser Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 4:37 pm
Pez quotes: But more significant advances have been hampered by a lack of money for research and laws and regulations that make it difficult to test new ideas and introduce improved equipment.

Please, BP was jsut prepared to disperse 10 billion in dividends to its shareholders. What was preventing them from investing in research and development….outside of greed that is. Of course there are laws and regulations that dictate what you can go out and do but as the quote indicates it only creates a perception of difficulty not impossibility as they would like you to believe.

Pez quotes: cite the lack of major spills in the past two decades as one reason.

There are spills all the time in industry (on average worldwide about a billion gallons are spilled each year) that could be used to test new technologies…but new technologies can only be tested if they are developed and not before.

Pez quotes: In testimony this month before Congress, Mr. Costner told of years of woe trying to market his separator, a centrifuge originally developed and patented in 1993 by the Idaho National Laboratory, for use in oil spills. One obstacle, he said, was that although his machines are effective, the water they discharge is still more contaminated than environmental regulations allow. He could not get spill-response companies interested in his machines, he said, without a federal stamp of approval.

Why is this a surprise? The centrifuge method has limited uses and efficacy and in some instances may create more problems (formation of colloids for one) than cleaning up the oil by traditional methods. In the gulf the use of dispersant will negatively effect the efficacy of the centrigfuge. However, a number of the centrifuges have been put into use but that is no reason to give Costner, or anyone else, blanket approval for anything without the supporting data…all whining aside.

Comment by Acipenser — July 7, 2010 @ 4:37 pm

Bilbo Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 4:39 pm
Hi Chunk,

I'd like to go back to something else you wrote and do some of that "critical thinking" you like so much:

I'm sure there are some who really get off imagining that our government is utterly, cravenly evil to the core.

"Governments are neither good nor evil. It's the people who run them who are good or evil. But power corrupts, and our forefathers knew this from experience. They tried their best to design a government of checks and balances that would make sure that no one person or group of people would ever have too much power. But no system is perfect, so it seems the healthiest state of mind, when it comes to those in power, is a suspicious one. And the unhealthiest is a trusting mind.

Now back to Rush. So "the most extreme polarizing personality" has a 60% approval rating among Republicans? I would call that extremely influential. Now if Rush presented a substantial case that Obama had caused the explosion — explosives residue, stock trading, meetings with nefarious people who could be connected to the incident, what do ya' think? Do the ditto heads follow along or ditch Rush?

Comment by Bilbo — July 7, 2010 @ 4:39 pm

Pez Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
Hi Acipenser,

Probably the same way you account for the non-accidents that drunk drivers aren't in everyday. Sure some screw up and either get caught or crash but many more get away with bending the 'rules' pretty much every hour of everyday.

Your argument sounds like an oil industry apologist I heard who kept on repeating that there haven't been any significant accidents in years when addressing criticism of BP and the lead up to the current traged

You account for it poorly, then. The answer is, it is bad business. You don't return dividends to shareholders (Mom and Pops, by the way) by wrecking ships, burning wells, losing millions of gallons of oil and paying huge damages.

Please, BP was jsut prepared to disperse 10 billion in dividends to its shareholders. What was preventing them from investing in research and development….outside of greed that is.

"Please"?
Please is not an argument and is a waste of letters.
The lack of research is a government problem, not a corporation problem.
The government, ie, the people, charge royalties and make a profit on the use of its land and sea and the extraction of its natural resources. In times of political and public will the government and people represented, those profiting from the royalties, spend on research. When they don't want to, they don't.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/201...

Why is this a surprise? The centrifuge method has limited uses and efficacy and in some instances may create more problems (formation of colloids for one) than cleaning up the oil by traditional methods. In the gulf the use of dispersant will negatively effect the efficacy of the centrigfuge. However, a number of the centrifuges have been put into use but that is no reason to give Costner, or anyone else, blanket approval for anything without the supporting data…all whining aside.

You know all about why technologies aren't being developed and used, then. So why are you saying more money should be spent on new technology? If you can't test and develop technology why should money be thrown at doing so?

but new technologies can only be tested if they are developed and not before.

And they can't be tested or developed on real spills so we are back to the problem elucidated in the article I cited.

Comment by Pez — July 7, 2010 @ 4:47 pm

Acipenser Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Pez, think about the Costner quotes and the underlying whining from him.
No inventor needs federal approval for marketing their inventions. However, if the Feds were to require oil companies to have these devices on hand that would certainly be a boon to his and his brother's company. The underlying issue is not the level of contaminant in the discharge water but that the oil companies did not feel compelled to purchase his product and the
feds did not require them to purchase the centrifuges.

Comment by Acipenser — July 7, 2010 @ 4:51 pm

angryoldfatman Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 5:03 pm
olegt wrote:

So I take it you think college education is an impediment to effective governing?

No, over-education is. I expect my future Minister of Truth to have better reading comprehension… unless you too happen to be ove…

Or are you trying to say something else?

Rousseau, mon ami, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his laughable "noble savage". The idea that human beings will be wonderful and perfect and peaceful if they simply cast off the horrible burdens of civilization. I presume such burdens would include your vaunted institutions of higher learning.

Funny how that works. It's amazing to me how many self-contradicting worldviews you leftists hold dear.

Comment by angryoldfatman — July 7, 2010 @ 5:03 pm

Acipenser Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 5:20 pm
Pez: You account for it poorly, then. The answer is, it is bad business. You don't return dividends to shareholders (Mom and Pops, by the way) by wrecking ships, burning wells, losing millions of gallons of oil and paying huge damages.

But you do accumulate the $$ for the dividends by cutting corners to shave costs and as with the drunk driver many times you can get away with it so much and so often that it seems impossible that anything will ever go wrong.

Pez states (and what a waste of letters): The lack of research is a government problem, not a corporation problem.
The government, ie, the people, charge royalties and make a profit on the use of its land and sea and the extraction of its natural resources. In times of political and public will the government and people represented, those profiting from the royalties, spend on research. When they don't want to, they don't.

Why is it the taxpayers responsibility to do industry research into how to cleanup industries messes?

Pez: You know all about why technologies aren't being developed and used, then. So why are you saying more money should be spent on new technology? If you can't test and develop technology why should money be thrown at doing so?

Who says you can't test new spill technologies? There are ample opportunities to do just that worldwide the only impediment is the lack of will of industry to make the investment. In the paragraph you addressed the point was that if you have a hammer not all problems are nails. In some cases you need a different tool. So goes the issue (mine at least) of the centrifuge and the far too much use of dispersant in the gulf.

Pez states: And they can't be tested or developed on real spills so we are back to the problem elucidated in the article I cited.

It is a false problem. There are plenty of spills of all orders of magnitude on a yearly basis that technology could be tested on and there are even labs that can do constrained testing, i.e., not landscape wide emergencies. Costner purchased the patent for existing technology way back in 1993. His complaint is that his marketing hasn't been as successful as he would like. That is not the fault of regulations it is because oil companies aren't interested in purchasing the produce but I suppose we could advocate that the govt. require the companies to purchase them but is that really the road you think we should travel?

Comment by Acipenser — July 7, 2010 @ 5:20 pm

Bradford Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 5:57 pm
A True Moderate Muslim And Why Obama Sides Against Him

There's a reason President Obama is uninterested in the Choudhury case: Choudhury represents the true face of moderate Islam. He doesn't shilly-shally on terrorism — he condemns it. He doesn't waver on Sharia law — he opposes it. He doesn't support the jihad against Israel — he stands with Israel. That isn't the kind of Muslim Barack Obama likes. He's more fond of the two-faced Muslims who pretend to oppose terror while secretly aiding and abetting it. He likes Muslims who seek Israel's destruction while babbling about apartheid. Choudhury is an unpleasant inconvenience for Obama: He tells the truth about the nature of political Islam and offers a realistic way forward. Obama prefers to live in Cloud Cuckoo Land where radicals are moderates and moderates are outcasts.

Comment by Bradford — July 7, 2010 @ 5:57 pm

Pez Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 6:00 pm
Acipenser,

Pez, think about the Costner quotes and the underlying whining from him. No inventor needs federal approval for marketing their inventions.

I'll give that thinking thing a try. thanks.
Don't get me wrong, I certainly think Costner is grandstanding and whining. But he didn't say he needed government approval to market the unit. Nor was the quote about marketing it to oil companies but rather to spill-responders.

But you do accumulate the $$ for the dividends by cutting corners to shave costs and as with the drunk driver many times you can get away with it so much and so often that it seems impossible that anything will ever go wrong.

And when you cut them too much you fail and you lose money for you and your shareholders. So you learn your lesson. It is human nature to cut corners and everyone does it – government inspectors no less than anyone else. As I said, it is risk management and cost/benefit. Governments don't impose certain regulations until something extreme happens and you decide it is worth the new regulation. For the companies, you think that some procedures are superfluous until you find out otherwise. Some people don't check their tire pressure enough, some roll stop signs. Regulations aren't necessarily the answer because they already exist.
How is this disaster helping BP's stock and profit margin?

 

Why is it the taxpayers responsibility to do industry research into how to cleanup industries messes?

Why isn't it? The government is already charging the companies for the right to drill, the government is profiting from the royalties and the taxpayer wants the product. The bidding process involves safety assurances from the companies already. Why shouldn't that profit be spent on assuring your own safety and sustainability, rather being funneled into other good time projects?

 

Who says you can't test new spill technologies? There are ample opportunities to do just that worldwide the only impediment is the lack of will of industry to make the investment. In the paragraph you addressed the point was that if you have a hammer not all problems are nails. In some cases you need a different tool. So goes the issue (mine at least) of the centrifuge and the far too much use of dispersant in the gulf.

We've got a great opportunity to test products right now. But something seems to be standing in the way.

 

That is not the fault of regulations it is because oil companies aren't interested in purchasing the produce but I suppose we could advocate that the govt. require the companies to purchase them but is that really the road you think we should travel?

Once again,it's got nothing to do with the oil companies. They are not the responders and they already route money to the responders.

Comment by Pez — July 7, 2010 @ 6:00 pm

Pez Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 6:14 pm
Regulation and entrepreneurs.
http://docs.google.com/viewer?...

Comment by Pez — July 7, 2010 @ 6:14 pm

Pez Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 6:18 pm
http://www.goldwaterinstitute....

While regulatory boards and commissions are frequently defended on the grounds of alleged health or safety concerns, the principal effect of many occupational licensing schemes is to promote the vested interests of those already engaged in regulated professions, creating government-sanctioned cartels. To the extent that regulation adds marginal protections for consumers, that protection comes at a significant price in lost productivity and lost economic dynamism. When government regulation is necessary, regulations should be highly circumscribed, easily understandable, and narrowly tailored to achieve legitimate goals such as preventing fraud.

Comment by Pez — July 7, 2010 @ 6:18 pm

Acipenser Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 7:31 pm
Pez: But he didn't say he needed government approval to market the unit. Nor was the quote about marketing it to oil companies but rather to spill-responders.

Yes, he did. He stated (paraphrased) that he was not able to market his product with out a federal seal of approval. In other quotes I've read about Costner's appeals have him lobbying the govt. to require his technology to be purchased by the oil industry.

Pez: Regulations aren't necessarily the answer because they already exist.

There is no regulation requiring relief wells to be drilled simultaneously nor is there regulation requiring multiple blowout protectors above and below the sea floor. Don't you wonder what the gulf might look like today had these regulations been in place and implemented. It is not unknown in the oil industry that relief wells are the only escape clause in situations like this the question is why don't we require them to prepare for such an event proactively.

Pez: Why isn't it? The government is already charging the companies for the right to drill, the government is profiting from the royalties and the taxpayer wants the product.

Why that sounds like socialism to me! The taxpayer pays for the product at the pump and receives no relief from the oil company. How much are the royalties BP pays compared to the profit it generates? Are there any other industries you think the govt. should prepare to proactively cleanup…say coal mining for instance?

Pez: We've got a great opportunity to test products right now. But something seems to be standing in the way.

Which products aren't being tested? Costner's centrifuges are being deployed into the spill so that one is out. What else is there?

Pez: Once again,it's got nothing to do with the oil companies. They are not the responders and they already route money to the responders.

Of course it has everything to do with the oil companies. Do you think the subcontracted oil response teams put together the oil spill response protocols for the oil company for submission to the MMS and other govt. agencies? It is industries responsibility to clean up its own messes not you and I.

Comment by Acipenser — July 7, 2010 @ 7:31 pm

chunkdz Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 7:36 pm
Bilbo,

…so it seems the healthiest state of mind, when it comes to those in power, is a suspicious one.

Agreed.

Now back to Rush. So "the most extreme polarizing personality" has a 60% approval rating among Republicans? I would call that extremely influential.

Yup. Does that mean all republicans would love to hear that their president orchestrated an ecological disaster? I doubt it.

Now if Rush presented a substantial case that Obama had caused the explosion — explosives residue, stock trading, meetings with nefarious people who could be connected to the incident, what do ya' think? Do the ditto heads follow along or ditch Rush?

The issue was not whether people would believe it. It was whether or not they would receive such news with joy. Personally, I would be distraught, and angry. I don't get the mindset that would love to hear that Bush blew up the towers or that would love to hear that Obama blew up an oil well. It all seems like pathetic partisan demagoguery to me.

There is a difference, Bilbo, between healthy skepticism of our elected officials – and being so emotionally invested in the partisan game that you would love to see our nations presidency tarnished with murderous, bloody scandal.

I don't have the kind of pent-up negative energy it takes to sustain that frame of mind. And even if the conspiracies turn out to be true I can't imagine ever taking joy at the news.

How you are able to attribute this mindset to 55 million people simply because they register under a different party than you do – well, that's a question for Emory University's research department.

Comment by chunkdz — July 7, 2010 @ 7:36 pm

Acipenser Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 7:38 pm
Pez: Regulation and entrepreneurs.

Pez, do you actually believe anyone should be able to conduct any business/activity that has the potential for landscape-wide consequences without the necessary funds/technology to cover the worst case scenario or do you believe the taxpayer should bear the burden of the 'mistakes'?

I know we wouldn't want to stifle free enterprise but I do wonder what those gulf cost businesses think about bearing the costs of BP's mistake. Or even the seafood suppliers (and their employees) in places like Las Vegas who are losing thousands of dollars in business everyday due to lack of product.

Comment by Acipenser — July 7, 2010 @ 7:38 pm

Pez Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 8:34 pm
Hi Acipenser,
 

Pez: But he didn't say he needed government approval to market the unit. Nor was the quote about marketing it to oil companies but rather to spill-responders.  Yes, he did. He stated (paraphrased) that he was not able to market his product with out a federal seal of approval.

Right. That's not the same thing. He did not need the government to approve his marketing. He needed the government to approve his product so that it would be marketable. To spill responders.
 

Pez: Regulations aren't necessarily the answer because they already exist.  There is no regulation requiring relief wells to be drilled simultaneously nor is there regulation requiring multiple blowout protectors above and below the sea floor. Don't you wonder what the gulf might look like today had these regulations been in place and implemented. It is not unknown in the oil industry that relief wells are the only escape clause in situations like this the question is why don't we require them to prepare for such an event proactively.

Nor is there evidence that the relief wells are the best way to go. They are expensive and are dangerous to drill simultaneously while developing a well.
Do I wonder what the gulf would look like? From your reference earlier to Ixtoc it appears within a few years it looks exactly the same as it did before. This is not to be glib about the environment, which I love and protect with all my power, but to point out that it is resilient and that those involved have been aware of and comfortable with the risks. This includes the voting public.

Why that sounds like socialism to me! The taxpayer pays for the product at the pump and receives no relief from the oil company. How much are the royalties BP pays compared to the profit it generates? Are there any other industries you think the govt. should prepare to proactively cleanup…say coal mining for instance?

It sounds like capitalism to me. The public owns a resource and it deserves a fair value for it. It has a right to protect its interests, and one of those is its own safety – which it can do with the funds it receives when it sells the rights to its raw product. It also has an interest in actually extracting that product and gaining value for it, which it can do by not making the cost of doing so prohibitively high.

Which products aren't being tested? Costner's centrifuges are being deployed into the spill so that one is out. What else is there?

You tell me. Let's see all the new technology. What great brains have come up solutions so advanced over the past 30 years that just need a testing ground? They didn't need the government's help to develop, obviously, so they must be out there just waiting.

Of course it has everything to do with the oil companies. Do you think the subcontracted oil response teams put together the oil spill response protocols for the oil company for submission to the MMS and other govt. agencies? It is industries responsibility to clean up its own messes not you and I.

The product is being marketed to be sold to clean-up agencies, not to oil companies.
Yes, it's the industry's duty if that is part of the deal they sign and something they take on. If they aren't willing to sign contracts and live up to them then they will not be awarded contracts. It is the public's duty if the public is a partner in the venture and assumes that responsibility.
But just calling for more regulations is not the answer. As above, if the regulations already in place were followed this likely would not have happened. Yes, you can decrease the odds by slapping more regs on (theoretically), but you can also eliminate the odds of an accident by eliminating the drilling altogether. That is not a feasible balance, and maybe just clamouring for more regulations isn't either. 

Pez, do you actually believe anyone should be able to conduct any business/activity that has the potential for landscape-wide consequences without the necessary funds/technology to cover the worst case scenario or do you believe the taxpayer should bear the burden of the 'mistakes'?
I know we wouldn't want to stifle free enterprise but I do wonder what those gulf cost businesses think about bearing the costs of BP's mistake. Or even the seafood suppliers (and their employees) in places like Las Vegas who are losing thousands of dollars in business everyday due to lack of product.

Good comment, except for your panic about what I actually believe.
No, we shouldn't prepare for the "worst case"scenario. We should prepare for possible scenarios. Having had this scenario several times it would appear that everyone involved was comfortable with the preparation and risks. Of course that will be rethought now – live and learn.
Are more regs necessary, or did BP violate existing laws such that they ought to be held criminally responsible? Should they pay compensation for lost revenue, as they are obliged and are doing (at cost to share holders and the bottom line – again, good live and learn incentive to do better next time) or should their negligence cost other oil companies the right and ability to do the work properly?

Comment by Pez — July 7, 2010 @ 8:34 pm

Acipenser Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 10:09 pm
Pez: Right. That's not the same thing. He did not need the government to approve his marketing. He needed the government to approve his product so that it would be marketable. To spill responders.

No, there was/is nothing stopping oil response companies (or anyone else for that matter) from purchasing and using one of his centrifuges. The reason no one has been interested is that the companies are content with their current technology (they pay no fines for the spill only rewards for working to clean it up) and aren't willing to invest in a new product. If Costner were to establish that his product is better than others he might get a different reaction. You received worldwide rejection of his product at least from every agency/govt. he claimed to contact. There is a reason for that and it isn't the EPA.

Pez: Nor is there evidence that the relief wells are the best way to go. They are expensive and are dangerous to drill simultaneously while developing a well.
Do I wonder what the gulf would look like? From your reference earlier to Ixtoc it appears within a few years it looks exactly the same as it did before. This is not to be glib about the environment, which I love and protect with all my power, but to point out that it is resilient and that those involved have been aware of and comfortable with the risks. This includes the voting public.

There is no other technology capable of stopping the flow from a blowout, such as this one, outside of relief wells. There certainly is a risk to drilling a relief well simultaneously as there is a risk in having nothing available to stay the flow of oil. The question is which one is the better route to go to safegurd the environement from disaster.

While there are simlarities between Ixtoc and the BP spill there are also major differences. The Ixtoc spill never threatened large marsh and wetlands and impacted (for the most part) sandy beaches. Beaches are relatively easy to clean up and recover quite quickly. Wetlands are a different story and when they are impacted with oil the effects take much longer to recover from and some areas may not recover for decades. We also have the prospect of what is going to happen in the fall when migratory waterfowl start shwoing up.

Pez: It sounds like capitalism to me. The public owns a resource and it deserves a fair value for it. It has a right to protect its interests, and one of those is its own safety – which it can do with the funds it receives when it sells the rights to its raw product. It also has an interest in actually extracting that product and gaining value for it, which it can do by not making the cost of doing so prohibitively high.

I guess your definition of captialism and socialism differ by a large degree . I asked before what percentage of the oil revenue oil companies pay for exploiting the publics natural resources and it is a pittance to say the least. No one is arguing if US citizens as a entire entity has the right to take action the question is why should a minority stake holder be responsible for the screwups of the majority stake holder.

How much is 'prohibitively high'? Is it $500,00 per well? A hundred million per well? What cost crosses this prohibitively costly line? Lat time I chcked the US govt. is not in the business of refining and marketing oil. Is there a govt. entity analagous to Pemex?

Pez: You tell me. Let's see all the new technology. What great brains have come up solutions so advanced over the past 30 years that just need a testing ground? They didn't need the government's help to develop, obviously, so they must be out there just waiting.

It is your claim but if you want me to answer for you the answer is none.

Pez: The product is being marketed to be sold to clean-up agencies, not to oil companies.

And said companies are able to purchase as many of them as they want as are other countries but no one wants to do that. BP just bought 32 of them.

Pez: But just calling for more regulations is not the answer. As above, if the regulations already in place were followed this likely would not have happened. Yes, you can decrease the odds by slapping more regs on (theoretically), but you can also eliminate the odds of an accident by eliminating the drilling altogether. That is not a feasible balance, and maybe just clamouring for more regulations isn't either. 

Calling for specific regulations that address the safety of the well head and natural resources which impact milllions is certainly a prudent thing to do. Otherwise, you are left with the status quo which has been demonstrated multiple times to be a recipe for the failure we see today.

Pez (wth a waste of words): Good comment, except for your panic about what I actually believe.

Pez: No, we shouldn't prepare for the "worst case"scenario. We should prepare for possible scenarios. Having had this scenario several times it would appear that everyone involved was comfortable with the preparation and risks. Of course that will be rethought now – live and learn.

You are contradicting yourself when you say we shouldn't prepare for the worst case scenario and then state that living and learning are appropriate responses to something that is not only happening now but has happend in the past. Not so much learned and it wasn't a matter of comfort is was a matter of neglect and complacency.

Pez: Are more regs necessary, or did BP violate existing laws such that they ought to be held criminally responsible? Should they pay compensation for lost revenue, as they are obliged and are doing (at cost to share holders and the bottom line – again, good live and learn incentive to do better next time) or should their negligence cost other oil companies the right and ability to do the work properly?

Yes, yes, and yes. Paying a fraction of lost revenues is not cutting it and how do you compensate businesses in Las Vegas which are losing revenues over the spill? How would requiring multiple blowout protectors and relief wells 'cost companies the right and ability to do the work properly'?

This type of accident can occur whenever a new well is drilled.

Comment by Acipenser — July 7, 2010 @ 10:09 pm

Pez Says:
July 8th, 2010 at 12:05 am
Acipenser:
but new technologies can only be tested if they are developed and not before.
Pez: And they can't be tested or developed on real spills so we are back to the problem elucidated in the article I cited.
Acipenser:
Who says you can't test new spill technologies?
Pez:We've got a great opportunity to test products right now. But something seems to be standing in the way.
Acipenser:Which products aren't being tested? Costner's centrifuges are being deployed into the spill so that one is out. What else is there?
Pez: You tell me. Let's see all the new technology. What great brains have come up solutions so advanced over the past 30 years that just need a testing ground? They didn't need the government's help to develop, obviously, so they must be out there just waiting.
Acipenser: It is your claim but if you want me to answer for you the answer is none.

Hmm.

To whit:

Apart from the massive European skimmers not being allowed in to help because of EPA standards, there are other new technology solutions not being tested in the GUlf.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/f...

The EPA hindering efforts:
http://netgreennews.com/ngn-da...

Costner on testing in an actual spill scenario:

Within the community of private sector oil spill responders responses to our
equipment tended to be favorable. Indeed CINC impressed audiences across the
board. Notwithstanding these positive reactions and experiences, oil spill
response teams were bound by various regulatory policies and rules of testing
that effectively stonewalled even the possibility of new technologies entering the
market. For the purposes of their own protection, these co-ops and companies
were not interested in any technology or method of cleanup that had not received
the federal stamp of approval. In order to receive approval, technologies must be
tested on actual spills, but the agencies charged with approval will not deploy
untested equipment in a spill scenario. We were dealing with a classic and very
unfortunate example of a Catch 22.

http://webcache.googleusercont...

There is no other technology capable of stopping the flow from a blowout, such as this one, outside of relief wells. There certainly is a risk to drilling a relief well simultaneously as there is a risk in having nothing available to stay the flow of oil. The question is which one is the better route to go to safegurd the environement from disaster.

That's exactly the question. And when you couple that risk with the added time and expense it makes throwing this regulation on top of others questionable.

I asked before what percentage of the oil revenue oil companies pay for exploiting the publics natural resources and it is a pittance to say the least. No one is arguing if US citizens as a entire entity has the right to take action the question is why should a minority stake holder be responsible for the screwups of the majority stake holder.

The minority stake holder (I don't think developing your own natural resources leaves a nation so disinterested as you seem to) is not left responsible. BP is paying, as they are obligated to, and as oil companies do in other countries, for their clean-up and damage. I am talking about the government using its royalties to develop these presumed new improved technologies that you think the oil companies should have been developing. While they do spend on new clean-up technologies and fund clean-up agencies it is admittedly a very small amount. But neither is the government, which is also profiting in many ways from drilling, developing such technologies or even getting out of the way of development. The companies winning contracts to drill obviously have suitable enough plans when awarded the contracts.

How much is 'prohibitively high'? Is it $500,00 per well? A hundred million per well? What cost crosses this prohibitively costly line?

I don't know. But too big to fail monstrous companies already in bed with government will do just fine and the will oust their competitors from the market.
When oil prices drop, or costs go up, exploration and production drops. Increasing the cost in the U.S. will decrease America's ability to provide its own fuel.

You are contradicting yourself when you say we shouldn't prepare for the worst case scenario and then state that living and learning are appropriate responses to something that is not only happening now but has happend in the past. Not so much learned and it wasn't a matter of comfort is was a matter of neglect and complacency.

No contradiction. You can't just imagine possible worst case scenarios and then say we should prepare for them. You have to take scenarios that actually happen and weigh the cost against the benefits. You can only be complacent if you are comfortable – that's what it means.

How would requiring multiple blowout protectors and relief wells 'cost companies the right and ability to do the work properly'?

It can drive smaller companies which aren't cutting corners and don't have the huge bankroll of BP out of the market – leaving more share to BP and its cronies.

Comment by Pez — July 8, 2010 @ 12:05 am

Acipenser Says:
July 8th, 2010 at 11:00 am
Morning, Pez,
let's start with your last comment first:

Pez: It can drive smaller companies which aren't cutting corners and don't have the huge bankroll of BP out of the market – leaving more share to BP and its cronies.

If a company cannot afford the 1.5 million for three blowout protectors or the 100 million to drill a relief well how are they to be expected to pay for the costs of cleanup and punative damages to the people dependent on the environment for their livelyhood? In order for these marginally secure companies to function and compete the US taxpayer would be placed in the position of picking up the tab for the cleanup. If a company does not have the resources to meet its financial obligations in the event of a blowout they don't belong in the business.

Pez: No contradiction. You can't just imagine possible worst case scenarios and then say we should prepare for them. You have to take scenarios that actually happen and weigh the cost against the benefits. You can only be complacent if you are comfortable – that's what it means.

The worst case scenarion (short of the seafloor collapsing or blowing up) is a well blowout. That has happened before and nothing has been done to address this issue as evidenced in the gulf today. So weighing the costs and benefits is it more costly to dril relief wells (100 million) or to pay for cleanup and compensation (30-40 billion at least in this case)? Seems like the numbers suggest relief wells are the cost effective means to minimize the damage to all parties. Many were not comfortable with what was going on with that well. In fact many reported it to be the 'well from hell' due to all the problems that were present. Their concerns were overridden by the minority and the minions (fearing for their jobs) were told to shut up and keep working.

Pez: I don't know. But too big to fail monstrous companies already in bed with government will do just fine and the will oust their competitors from the market.
When oil prices drop, or costs go up, exploration and production drops. Increasing the cost in the U.S. will decrease America's ability to provide its own fuel.

The US can only supply a small portion of it's fuel requirements regardless the cost of oil. If alleged competitors cannot pony up the costs for blowout protectors and/or relief wells they are not able to provide the resources necessary for cleanup and compensation and do not belong in the business at all.

Pez: I am talking about the government using its royalties to develop these presumed new improved technologies that you think the oil companies should have been developing.

Waht roylaties? The Bush administration continued and advanced a long policy of reduction in royalty payments by oil compnaies. In fact deepwater production is expect from paying royalties and instead do 'payment in kind' supply oil to the federal reserve if and when it needs it. The taxpayer is taking a screwing with this policy and the govt. cannot take a barrel of crude down to the local university and use it to fund research. It is no presumption that new technologies have not been developed. The exact same technology is being used on todays spill as was used in 1979. Nothing has changed in all those years and no new inovations have been developed. When a blowout happens the process is dispersants, skimmers, top hat (or sombrero if you refer), top kill, and finally relief wells. this process takes 9-10 months to complete and in that time oil flows unabated into the environment. If leui of new technology if the final solution were in place (relief well) at the time of drilling that 9=10 months may be severely truncated and the damage minimized.

Pez: That's exactly the question. And when you couple that risk with the added time and expense it makes throwing this regulation on top of others questionable.

From a financial standpoint it is a better investment to have relief wells in place than to have to pay for combatting a near-year long spill event.

There are plans to open deep water drilling in the Arctic. The NEB wants to require oil companies to have the ability to drill relief wells in the same seson they are drilling the producitono well. the oil companies are fighting this saying that the season is too short. What that means is that if they get their wish and a blowout happens the well will puke oil uncontrolled (no resource accessability inwinter) until the following seson (and beyond) until a relief well could be drilled. To me that is unacceptable and the solution is easy if you cannot manage the drilling and spill prevention cleanup in the same season you aren't going to be allowed to drill there given the potential adverse impacts which far exceed the revenues from that well.

Pez from second link: Fifteen parts per million became the elusive bar for CINC. To prevent pollution inoceans and freshwater, EPA rules became a factor. However, we would learn,some rules do not apply in emergency situations where clean up is occurring.Obviously you cannot compare the 0.1% oil being discharged from a CINC
——————————————————————————–
machine to any other amount of pollution being dumped off a boat. It’s a commonsense calculation. And yet, this technology was not embraced by industry

As you see with Costner's own words the 15 ppm for ship discharges do not apply in emergency situation. His entire presentation is "why won't anybody buy my product" and pleading to get his technology put in place everywhere. As an entrepeneur that would be a good thing however, no one wants his product as he outlined. His numbers are also specualtive and being able to process 200 gallons per minute does not equal collectign 200 gallons of oil per minute. Yield will be much less. It is clear that there is no EPA regulation impeding his progress but a simple market rejection of his product. Tough luck for him and as far as I can tell no great loss to the oil recovery efforts. Look at the criticisms that Japan provided him with. There is a reason no one wants his product on a global basis and it is not EPA regulations.

Oez, the first two links you provide are clearly contradicted by the third link you provided with Costner's own words. No regulatory impediments just no one wants his product. In a free market place that is how it works and there is a reason no one wants his product after all these years of marketing….companies and govt. agencies worldwide don't think it is worth the investment. At 24 million dollars each with minimal capacity I can understand their reluctance to invest in CINC technology.

Comment by Acipenser — July 8, 2010 @ 11:00 am

Pez Says:
July 8th, 2010 at 11:16 am
Hi Acipenser,
I don't have time to read your comment through but see that your first question is about the cost damage of being required to drill at least one $100 million relief well preemptively.
I figured you'd start there, so have some chew ready for you.
http://charnello.newsvine.com/...

Andy Radford, an American Petroleum Institute senior policy adviser, said the cost of relief wells, which can exceed $100 million, could effectively end most deepwater drilling in the Gulf.

"It certainly would be a huge added cost that would be difficult to surmount," he said. "It would likely require a very sizable oil reserve to make drilling economically feasible."

Richard Charter, a senior policy adviser at the nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife who has monitored offshore drilling practices for 40 years, said mandatory relief wells are "not something you hear discussed in conservation circles."
…
Rex Tillerson, chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil, said requiring relief wells would mean "you just doubled your risk."

"If you look at the history of well-control problems and blowouts, most of them have occurred on the way down to the objective, not once they reached the objective," he said Tuesday during a hearing before the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment. "… So if you have two wells going down at the same time, it just means you have now increased your risk of having a problem on both of them."

Comment by Pez — July 8, 2010 @ 11:16 am

Acipenser Says:
July 8th, 2010 at 11:58 am
Pez: I don't have time to read your comment through but see that your first question is about the cost damage of being required to drill at least one $100 million relief well preemptively.
I figured you'd start there, so have some chew ready for you.

Of course the oil industry is against drilling relief wells it cuts into their profits. These are the same industry giants that wish to rescind the requirement of having the ability to drill a relief well in the same season as drilling in the Arctic. Instead they consider it acceptable to allow a spill, should it occur, to continue abated through the winter and the majority of the following season as a relief well is drilled.

The notion that most of the problems occur while drilling down is tenuous at best. The most dangerous portion of the project is during cementing the well after it is drilled. Some due to the nature of the job and others to skimping on protocols.

I'll look for original reports later but here is some chew for you:

"Reports by MMS, a branch of the Interior Department, also provide evidence of the role bad cement work has played in accidents. One study named cementing as a factor in 18 of 39 well blowouts at Gulf rigs from 1992 to 2006. Another attributed five of nine out-of-control wells in the year 2000 to cementing problems."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Comment by Acipenser — July 8, 2010 @ 11:58 am

Pez Says:
July 8th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
Hi Acipenser, I have a few minutes so here you go …

If a company cannot afford the 1.5 million for three blowout protectors or the 100 million to drill a relief well how are they to be expected to pay for the costs of cleanup and punative damages to the people dependent on the environment for their livelyhood?

This does not work at all. Do you have enough cash on hand to pay for any and all damages, including compensatory and punitive in the case that you crash your car? Of course not. Do you demand that the bus company for the local school have enough start up cash to compensate every family of every child and every pedestrian and bystander if something goes wrong with his bus? Again, no.

If a company does not have the resources to meet its financial obligations in the event of a blowout they don't belong in the business.

I love making these hardline statements as well. Any driver who can't push his own car off the road in the case of a break down, and pay every driver for the inconvenience of his breaking down in a roadway, and meet the requirements above has no business driving.
Anyone building a house who can't compensate, out of pocket, any worker injured, has no business building. Anyone with a sidewalk who can't pay any compensation to anyone who might injure themselves on his walkway has no business residing in a dwelling.

 

That has happened before and nothing has been done to address this issue as evidenced in the gulf today.

Much has been done. Huge advancements in drilling safety has been made over the past few decades. The plugging technology has improved,cementing has improved the protections have improved and the technology for drilling your gold standard, the relief well, has advanced tremendously.
Live and learn.
You lament the lack of resources spent on clean up but the best protection is safer drilling procedures and technologies, and those continue to advance.

So weighing the costs and benefits is it more costly to dril relief wells (100 million) or to pay for cleanup and compensation (30-40 billion at least in this case)? Seems like the numbers suggest relief wells are the cost effective means to minimize the damage to all parties.

It doesn't seem like that at all. It may seem a cold comparison but we are talking cost so think of the way the motor companies dealt with failures. It was cheaper to pay fines and suits than to recall and repair. Tacking $100 million start up cost to every single project is probably far more costly to the industry than cleaning up the rare spill. Of course the damage to the entire industry in PR may make it worth their implementing such a procedure, but if they do it will be because it is good business. This is the same reason they are so careful now; it is business. Blow outs are bad business. They cost millions to billions in lost oil, in clean up and bad PR. Not to mention the cost to everyone when a disaster occurs and the knee jerk reaction is to impose more costly regulations.
 

The US can only supply a small portion of it's fuel requirements regardless the cost of oil. If alleged competitors cannot pony up the costs for blowout protectors and/or relief wells they are not able to provide the resources necessary for cleanup and compensation and do not belong in the business at all.

You miss the point. It is not the cost of oil I am talking about in terms of losing the American ability to move toward self-sufficiency, it is the shutting out of drilling opportunities by making it cost prohibitive. And the awarding monopolies to companies like BP – which is what government interference and the lobby do.
 

The exact same technology is being used on todays spill as was used in 1979. Nothing has changed in all those years and no new inovations have been developed.

Lots has changed, as oulined above.

When a blowout happens the process is dispersants, skimmers, top hat (or sombrero if you refer), top kill, and finally relief wells. this process takes 9-10 months to complete and in that time oil flows unabated into the environment.

No it doesn't. It is abated by skimmers, dispersants, plugs, booms, berms, and bacteria. What else is out there?
The relief well is a planned contingency from the onset of the drilling and is being implemented virtually simultaneously with the other options.
There is much to be worked out regarding its placement and the operation that can't be planned for until there actually is a blow out.

If leui of new technology if the final solution were in place (relief well) at the time of drilling that 9=10 months may be severely truncated and the damage minimized.

It may be a few months less. And more blowouts would occur because drilling relief wells in virgin territory is just as risky as drilling the main wells. And they wouldn't necessarily be well placed or useful anyway.

And the oil companies would have a lot less money to put into exploration and new technologies. Systems develop because there is profit to be made, not because businessmen are in the mood to do charity. You do not help any industry or advancement by bleeding the people who make it work.

From a financial standpoint it is a better investment to have relief wells in place than to have to pay for combatting a near-year long spill event.

You might be right, though I doubt it. If that is the case then the big brains at the evil oil companies will figure that out and will implement the procedure themselves in satisfaction of their greed. If it really is a better risk then the professional risk-assessors, their insurers, will demand it and cut them premium deals for drilling two wells side by side instead of just one.
 

There are plans to open deep water drilling in the Arctic. The NEB wants to require oil companies to have the ability to drill relief wells in the same seson they are drilling the producitono well. the oil companies are fighting this saying that the season is too short. What that means is that if they get their wish and a blowout happens the well will puke oil uncontrolled (no resource accessability inwinter) until the following seson (and beyond) until a relief well could be drilled. To me that is unacceptable and the solution is easy if you cannot manage the drilling and spill prevention cleanup in the same season you aren't going to be allowed to drill there given the potential adverse impacts which far exceed the revenues from that well.

Yeah, I already linked to the Canadian discussions. This is apples and oranges. Nobody is saying that relief wells are not the way to go when all else fails. The Canadian situation is addressing the problem that will occur when relief wells are not an option because of the short drilling season. I'm not suggesting that because mandating simultaneous relief wells during initial drilling is draconian and counter-productive that we should sit on our hands for an entire year after a blow-out before drilling one. If nothing else works it would be ridiculous to say, that's cool, we'll drill a relief well next year. When BP gets licensing for wells in the gulf part of the procedure is an outline of their plans for relief wells in the event of a failure. I guarantee they aren't saying that they'll come back in a year to get started on it. ——-
Re Costner. As you can see, when BP took his product on, which never received EPA approval, because of the PR of the emergency they reported back that it worked and that they would buy more.

—-

The notion that most of the problems occur while drilling down is tenuous at best. The most dangerous portion of the project is during cementing the well after it is drilled. Some due to the nature of the job and others to skimping on protocols.
I'll look for original reports later but here is some chew for you:
"Reports by MMS, a branch of the Interior Department, also provide evidence of the role bad cement work has played in accidents. One study named cementing as a factor in 18 of 39 well blowouts at Gulf rigs from 1992 to 2006. Another attributed five of nine out-of-control wells in the year 2000 to cementing problems."

I guess I'll find out if Big Oil is just lying again, but I don't see that in my preliminary searches.
What I see is your quote from Huff. doesn't address the issue. Cement is used during every stage of the drilling procedure, from the platform to the BOP to the casing constructed as the drilling advances. Saying that the cementing was involved says nothing about whether or not it was involved while going down or while capping off.

Comment by Pez — July 8, 2010 @ 2:23 pm

Acipenser Says:
July 8th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Pez: This does not work at all. Do you have enough cash on hand to pay for any and all damages, including compensatory and punitive in the case that you crash your car? Of course not. Do you demand that the bus company for the local school have enough start up cash to compensate every family of every child and every pedestrian and bystander if something goes wrong with his bus? Again, no.

I have insurance to immediately cover those expenses as does our local school district.

Pez: I love making these hardline statements as well. Any driver who can't push his own car off the road in the case of a break down, and pay every driver for the inconvenience of his breaking down in a roadway, and meet the requirements above has no business driving.
Anyone building a house who can't compensate, out of pocket, any worker injured, has no business building. Anyone with a sidewalk who can't pay any compensation to anyone who might injure themselves on his walkway has no business residing in a dwelling.

Apples and oranges, Pez. the damage caused by oil spills can be landscape-wide and continue to adversely affedt the ecosystem for decades. Nothing comparable to the temporary inconvience of a broken down auto blocking traffic.

Pez: It may be a few months less. And more blowouts would occur because drilling relief wells in virgin territory is just as risky as drilling the main wells. And they wouldn't necessarily be well placed or useful anyway.

And the oil companies would have a lot less money to put into exploration and new technologies. Systems develop because there is profit to be made, not because businessmen are in the mood to do charity. You do not help any industry or advancement by bleeding the people who make it work.

It could be many more than a few months. It took 10.5 months to stop Ixtoc and may take as long, or longer for BP's spill. From your own citation the oil companies have not spent anything to improve blowout protectors in decades. The technology with BOP and cleanup is at a virtual standstill and has not advanced in decades. Too much profit is desired and, evidently cannot be wasted on R&D.

Pez: You might be right, though I doubt it. If that is the case then the big brains at the evil oil companies will figure that out and will implement the procedure themselves in satisfaction of their greed. If it really is a better risk then the professional risk-assessors, their insurers, will demand it and cut them premium deals for drilling two wells side by side instead of just one.

You are assuming that the companies have insurance to cover their costs of cleanup. That assumption may be in error. Human nature is to strive for short-term gains not planning for the long=term. Which is why so many shortcuts and problems were ignored with this well.

Pez: Yeah, I already linked to the Canadian discussions. This is apples and oranges. Nobody is saying that relief wells are not the way to go when all else fails. The Canadian situation is addressing the problem that will occur when relief wells are not an option because of the short drilling season. I'm not suggesting that because mandating simultaneous relief wells during initial drilling is draconian and counter-productive that we should sit on our hands for an entire year after a blow-out before drilling one. If nothing else works it would be ridiculous to say, that's cool, we'll drill a relief well next year. When BP gets licensing for wells in the gulf part of the procedure is an outline of their plans for relief wells in the event of a failure. I guarantee they aren't saying that they'll come back in a year to get started on it. ——-
Re Costner. As you can see, when BP took his product on, which never received EPA approval, because of the PR of the emergency they reported back that it worked and that they would buy more.

Pez, you evidently don't understand the situation with the Arctic. There can be no driling in the winter. Access is cutoff for teh necessary vessels and supplies and if it blows out at the end of the season that is it until the winter ice disappears. Your guarantee is hollow and devoid of facts. If they were able to drill all year round there would be no 'season' to worry about.

Of course BP is buying more they have enough PR nightmares to deal with let alone adding another one to that long list. It isn't that they were impressed by the technology, which they knew of all along, it is a propaganda move.

Pez: I guess I'll find out if Big Oil is just lying again, but I don't see that in my preliminary searches.
What I see is your quote from Huff. doesn't address the issue. Cement is used during every stage of the drilling procedure, from the platform to the BOP to the casing constructed as the drilling advances. Saying that the cementing was involved says nothing about whether or not it was involved while going down or while capping off.

Pez, cementing in the well is the final proceedure prior to capping and/or attachment of a production rig. During drilling the drilling mud is what is used to control the escape of gas/oil from the well.

You need to go back and reread (or read for the first time) the link you posted of Costner's transcript at the hearings. IN it he clearly states that the EPA requirements are only for applications of general cleanup on a day-to-day basis of ship discharges into waterways and he clearly states that it does not apply in emergency situations. His own words refute your assertions that he is the victim of the EPA regulations in this scenario. Go bakc and read my previous post you didn't have time to read.

Bp had no plan for a relief well for this well. It was developed in the weeks after the spill which is one of the criticisms. They did have plans in place to save the gulf walruses and sea otters though.

Comment by Acipenser — July 8, 2010 @ 2:47 pm

Pez Says:
July 8th, 2010 at 10:40 pm
Hi Acipenser,

I have insurance to immediately cover those expenses as does our local school district.

Good, so you get the point. So does the U.S. Government and so do the oil companies for these spills and clean-ups. They do not have to have the wherewithal to fund the clean-up from their coffers.

Apples and oranges, Pez. the damage caused by oil spills can be landscape-wide and continue to adversely affedt the ecosystem for decades. Nothing comparable to the temporary inconvience of a broken down auto blocking traffic.

No apples, no oranges. You can kill people and you can ruin the lives of others for decades. But that doesn't mean you don't drive. And it doesn't mean you don't drive if you don't have the millions of dollars to compensate them for loss you might cause when you have an accident. And it doesn't mean you heap redundant features together to ensure you never can kill somebody with your car.

The technology with BOP and cleanup is at a virtual standstill and has not advanced in decades. Too much profit is desired and, evidently cannot be wasted on R&D.

The technology is not at a stand-still. There are 4,000 wells in the gulf today and they are not blowing out. The industry is advancing greatly in technology.

You are assuming that the companies have insurance to cover their costs of cleanup. That assumption may be in error. Human nature is to strive for short-term gains not planning for the long=term. Which is why so many shortcuts and problems were ignored with this well.

Yes, that's why so many regs already in place may have been ignored or why corners were cut; in fact, we've already appealed to human nature, which will operate no matter how many costly regulations are put in place (I'm sure you've rad the garbage blogged with regards to the MMS staffers?). Yes ,indeed, I am assuming they have insurance. I bet it is a provision of their being awarded the license to drill in the gulf.
—
I'll just highlight in here a little to help your reading of this section of mine that you quoted:

Pez: Yeah, I already linked to the Canadian discussions. This is apples and oranges. Nobody is saying that relief wells are not the way to go when all else fails. The Canadian situation is addressing the problem that will occur when relief wells are not an option because of the short drilling season. I'm not suggesting that because mandating simultaneous relief wells during initial drilling is draconian and counter-productive that we should sit on our hands for an entire year after a blow-out before drilling one. If nothing else works it would be ridiculous to say, that's cool, we'll drill a relief well next year. When BP gets licensing for wells in the gulf part of the procedure is an outline of their plans for relief wells in the event of a failure. I guarantee they aren't saying that they'll come back in a year to get started on it. ——- Re Costner. As you can see, when BP took his product on, which never received EPA approval, because of the PR of the emergency they reported back that it worked and that they would buy more.

You, in response:

  Pez, you evidently don't understand the situation with the Arctic.

Oh, to be sure I'm not as expert as you, but it certainly isn't evident from that comment nor from your response to it.

There can be no driling in the winter. Access is cutoff for teh necessary vessels and supplies and if it blows out at the end of the season that is it until the winter ice disappears.

Right. See what I said about the short season and waiting until the next year?

Your guarantee is hollow and devoid of facts. If they were able to drill all year round there would be no 'season' to worry about.

Right. See what I said about the short season and waiting until the next year.

You can't point to that situation, where a blow out which cannot be plugged might be unaddressable for a year, and claim that this makes a good argument for mandatory relief wells in the gulf, or elsewhere. Here we do have the apples and oranges, you see. The Canadian agency wants an assurance that if nothing else works the relief wells can be operational that same season. Because if they are not it will be a full year before the will be. But nobody would say that you can sit around for a year in any other clime before drilling a relief well. The Canadians are just trying to get the assurance that the problem will be dealt with in the same kind of timely manner as it would be elsewhere, and that the harsh winter does not serve as an excuse for not doing so.

This does not make any argument that other regions require the same provision; much less that they should mandate simultaneous relief wells. 

Of course BP is buying more they have enough PR nightmares to deal with let alone adding another one to that long list. It isn't that they were impressed by the technology, which they knew of all along, it is a propaganda move.

Of course it's a PR move. I already said that as well. But when BP tested the machine in a live situation they saw it worked.

Pez, cementing in the well is the final proceedure prior to capping and/or attachment of a production rig. During drilling the drilling mud is what is used to control the escape of gas/oil from the well.

Acipenser, I didn't say the cement was used to keep the downward pressure on the gas/oil. The casing, for instance, is cemented as the drilling progresses. Cement is used throughout the process – as I said already. If the reference is to the specific procedure known as cementing after the drilling then note that your official source has less than half, 11/39, occurring at that time. But your own reference is not just to the single closing procedure known as "cementing" as it lists failures in all kinds of cement work done on wells.
So, I stick with the assessment that most of the blowout occur when drilling down and that this means drilling two wells is twice as risky as drilling one.

 You need to go back and reread (or read for the first time) the link you posted of Costner's transcript at the hearings.

Oh, "read for the first time". Look out, I'm laughing milk right out my nose! You are a wit.

IN it he clearly states that the EPA requirements are only for applications of general cleanup on a day-to-day basis of ship discharges into waterways and he clearly states that it does not apply in emergency situations. His own words refute your assertions that he is the victim of the EPA regulations in this scenario.

He was a victim of the EPA long BEFORE this scenario played out. Now, because of the emergency and his celebrity access to the media he has been able to get his product tested and put into use by BP. – without the approval for want of which he was previously stymied. As you see from my links, there are thousands more proposals which have gone nowhere to this point. Of course I would readily admit that most of them do not deserve to go anywhere – maybe Costner's doesn't either (I'm no fan of celebrity grandstanding during emergencies) but the fact remains that he has a product that works and the EPA stood in his way.

Go bakc and read my previous post you didn't have time to read.

I read it long ago .Remember that long period that elapsed between my saying I had no time and my returning with a detailed response to it? No?  Bp had no plan for a relief well for this well. It was developed in the weeks after the spill which is one of the criticisms. They did have plans in place to save the gulf walruses and sea otters though.Of course they did not yet have a drilling path or a target area on the main well picked out yet. Of course they already knew and had provisions for drilling a relief well if this scenario played out. Their stated job was to contain and stop the source of oil. Do you think they can't Google to find out that relief wells are useful for this kind of thing?

It's beyond the pale (of normal rational dialogue) to pretend I didn't read your comment since half of my response was in quotation of it, but I did leave this until I could get back to it:

Waht roylaties? The Bush administration continued and advanced a long policy of reduction in royalty payments by oil compnaies. In fact deepwater production is expect from paying royalties and instead do 'payment in kind' supply oil to the federal reserve if and when it needs it.

Oh, that Bush again. What did that rascally ne'er-do-well do this time?
Oh, he took payment in kind. Did you think government transactions werecompleted with a paper bag full of cash? Whether the government was paid in gold, oil, electronic transfer or crisp twenties, it was paid its royalties. It has oil to sell and it has oil on hand which it does not have to allocate funds to acquire. Therefore, it has received its royalty payments and it could have spent them on R&D, just as the congressmen are now saying they will do.

Comment by Pez — July 8, 2010 @ 10:40 pm

Acipenser Says:
July 9th, 2010 at 12:22 am
Pez: Good, so you get the point. So does the U.S. Government and so do the oil companies for these spills and clean-ups. They do not have to have the wherewithal to fund the clean-up from their coffers.

BP is selling off assets to cover the cost of cleanup. Where is their isnurance provider to process the claims? Since you think BP has an insurance policy covering this spill how about providing the name of the agency that holds the policy?

Pez: No apples, no oranges. You can kill people and you can ruin the lives of others for decades. But that doesn't mean you don't drive. And it doesn't mean you don't drive if you don't have the millions of dollars to compensate them for loss you might cause when you have an accident. And it doesn't mean you heap redundant features together to ensure you never can kill somebody with your car.

Is this really what you are reduced to in this debate? My car cannot cause any landscape-wide damages that would threaten any ecosystem with potentially irreparible damage. It is apples and oranges.

Pez:The technology is not at a stand-still. There are 4,000 wells in the gulf today and they are not blowing out. The industry is advancing greatly in technology.

Having wells drilled and wells in production is no evidence of new technology. Old technology can drill wells just fine. Your own citation (if you read it) states that blowout protection devices have not changed in decades despite the repeated failures. Go figure.

Pez: Yes, that's why so many regs already in place may have been ignored or why corners were cut; in fact, we've already appealed to human nature, which will operate no matter how many costly regulations are put in place (I'm sure you've rad the garbage blogged with regards to the MMS staffers?). Yes ,indeed, I am assuming they have insurance. I bet it is a provision of their being awarded the license to drill in the gulf.

What insurance provider paid for the Exxon Valdez claims? Next obvious question already asked is which company is on the hook for payment for B's spill?

Pez: I'll just highlight in here a little to help your reading of this section of mine that you quoted:

I really didn't need any help in understanding your point in fact I recall that you stated this:

If nothing else works it would be ridiculous to say, that's cool, we'll drill a relief well next year. When BP gets licensing for wells in the gulf part of the procedure is an outline of their plans for relief wells in the event of a failure. I guarantee they aren't saying that they'll come back in a year to get started on it. ——-

Which is exactly what BP and other oil companies are advocating to do in the Arctic since they are lobbying to get that requirement rescinded. Also your assertion that BP had a plan in place for a relief well is false. As I pointed out tbefore BP had no plan for a relief well and the plans were drawn up weeks after the explosion and spill. It is one of the major criticisms of the entire situation. BP did however, have plans in place to save the gulf walruses and sea otters. Good for them!

Pez: He was a victim of the EPA long BEFORE this scenario played out. Now, because of the emergency and his celebrity access to the media he has been able to get his product tested and put into use by BP. – without the approval for want of which he was previously stymied. As you see from my links, there are thousands more proposals which have gone nowhere to this point. Of course I would readily admit that most of them do not deserve to go anywhere – maybe Costner's doesn't either (I'm no fan of celebrity grandstanding during emergencies) but the fact remains that he has a product that works and the EPA stood in his way.

He was not a victim of EPA and he states that clearly in his testimony that in emergency situations the 15 ppm does not apply. In otherwords it is not an impediment to anyone wanting to purchase his product. Look at the number of countries ( I count 17) that also have shown no interest in his product despite his claim that 'we showed them it works'. As far as his mention of expanding his market then yes, he should be able to conform to standards as does any one else who wishes to enter the marketplace. Should we suspend any piece of legislation designed to reduce pollutant inputs into the enironment to appease some entrepenuer with a product to market?

Pez: Of course they did not yet have a drilling path or a target area on the main well picked out yet. Of course they already knew and had provisions for drilling a relief well if this scenario played out. Their stated job was to contain and stop the source of oil. Do you think they can't Google to find out that relief wells are useful for this kind of thing?

Yes, in their plan they said they were prepared to handle a spill 10 times the current one. If following current regulations and industry guidelines make the likelyhood of a blowout neglible than drilling two wells is equally neglible then we are left arguing over the issue of the oil industry bearing the burden of costs for the additional well and nothing else.

Pez: Oh, that Bush again. What did that rascally ne'er-do-well do this time?

Do your knees ever hurt form those violent reactions? I clearly stated that the Bush administration continuted a long line of policy reducing the royaltiy payments of the oil industry. The screwing of the US public over oil payments go back through many administrations.

The Bush administraton, among other things, did continue the royalty exemption for deepwater wells in the gulf.

the problem in 1998 and then 2008:

http://www.allbusiness.com/spe...

http://www.pogo.org/pogo-files...

Comment by Acipenser — July 9, 2010 @ 12:22 am

Pez Says:
July 9th, 2010 at 12:32 am
http://www.reuters.com/article...

Comment by Pez — July 9, 2010 @ 12:32 am

Pez Says:
July 9th, 2010 at 1:41 am
Hi again Acipenser.

Is this really what you are reduced to in this debate? My car cannot cause any landscape-wide damages that would threaten any ecosystem with potentially irreparible damage. It is apples and oranges.

Aww, now I'm "reduced". You are starting to become emotionally unhinged.
But the parallel is perfect. You can't carry the cost of liability yourself (although you can cause irreparable damage) and so you have insurance. We don't stop you from driving because you can't personally carry the cost.
Likewise, an oil company need not be shut out of the drilling business because it hasn't the cash on hand to deal with an environmental disaster; it's carries insurance for that.
That you are all riled up about the scale doesn't change the fact.

Having wells drilled and wells in production is no evidence of new technology. Old technology can drill wells just fine. Your own citation (if you read it) states that blowout protection devices have not changed in decades despite the repeated failures. Go figure.

Oh yes, I'll figure. Thanks for more timely advice. Now you've got me reading, thinking harder and even figuring. This is good for my brain.
The technology and practices have made the drilling itself safer: these include better knowledge of the earth layers they are drilling through, better sensors, better mud technology and better knowledge of how to operate a well, etc.
One example:
http://docs.google.com/viewer?...

What insurance provider paid for the Exxon Valdez claims? Next obvious question already asked is which company is on the hook for payment for B's spill?

Why do you think insurance premiums for other oil companies are going up if there is no insurance coverage?

I really didn't need any help in understanding your point

Yeah you did. In fact, you need help again, I see.

in fact I recall that you stated this:
Pez:
If nothing else works it would be ridiculous to say, that's cool, we'll drill a relief well next year. When BP gets licensing for wells in the gulf part of the procedure is an outline of their plans for relief wells in the event of a failure. I guarantee they aren't saying that they'll come back in a year to get started on it. ——-
You:
Which is exactly what BP and other oil companies are advocating to do in the Arctic since they are lobbying to get that requirement rescinded.

Can you see where I was talking about the GoM there? Sure you can.
Even after it is spelled out twice you can't get it. Yes, their foolish plan is to not guarantee they will get at an Arctic relief well until a year later. They would never say that in the GoM. Therefore, the Canadian agency has a right to demand provisions that they tend to their wells in the same season in the Arctic. This is a different case and is in no way an argument for mandatory relief wells.

Also your assertion that BP had a plan in place for a relief well is false. As I pointed out tbefore BP had no plan for a relief well and the plans were drawn up weeks after the explosion and spill. It is one of the major criticisms of the entire situation. BP did however, have plans in place to save the gulf walruses and sea otters. Good for them!

Say 'walruses' again; it really raises your rationality points. If you clap your hands and use more exclamation marks it helps as well.
Indeed, they did have a plan for relief wells. They probably know as much as you, almost, anyway, about oil wells, and they mandated in their spill plan that they stop the source of an oil spill. If a relief well is required then that is in their plan. The fact that they didn't have government permits and a drilling route until after the blow-out is beside the point.

He was not a victim of EPA and he states that clearly in his testimony that in emergency situations the 15 ppm does not apply. In otherwords it is not an impediment to anyone wanting to purchase his product.

Not every spill is an emergency.

Should we suspend any piece of legislation designed to reduce pollutant inputs into the enironment to appease some entrepenuer with a product to market?

Not at all. But quit pretending it had not impact. Maybe it was good that it had the impact, but the impact was there nonetheless.

Pez: Oh, that Bush again. What did that rascally ne'er-do-well do this time?
Acipenser:
Do your knees ever hurt form those violent reactions?

Oh my, look at my violent reaction. Little projection there, I see.

I clearly stated that the Bush administration continuted a long line of policy reducing the royaltiy payments of the oil industry. The screwing of the US public over oil payments go back through many administrations.

You didn't clearly say anything about other administrations. You also said the deep water wells were exempt from paying royalties but that they paid royalties in kind – that's paying royalties.

The Bush administraton, among other things, did continue the royalty exemption for deepwater wells in the gulf.

It's not an exemption. Even though that Bush rascal did it.
http://www.allbusiness.com/nor...

So I see that MMS employees are being charged with corrupting themselves with the big oil companies. That's what we're talking about, crony capitalism. And that's exactly what we get from regulators and that's exactly what we can expect. Who's going to regulate the regulators?

Comment by Pez — July 9, 2010 @ 1:41 am

Pez Says:
July 9th, 2010 at 1:43 am
Oops. Sorry for that last bold-face.

Did you ask somewhere about the Exxon Valdez and its insurers?
I think you did.
http://jomiller.com/exxonvalde...

Comment by Pez — July 9, 2010 @ 1:43 am

Pez Says:
July 9th, 2010 at 2:17 pm
“We are, without question, in a period of decline, particularly in the business world,” Zuckerman said. “The real problem we have…are some of the worst economic policies in place today that, in my judgment, go directly against the long-term interests of this country.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/b...

Comment by Pez — July 9, 2010 @ 2:17 pm

Bradford Says:
July 9th, 2010 at 10:30 pm
We're making progress:

Among the ships that continued to work the spill off the coast of Louisiana was a converted oil tanker called "A Whale." Its makers, Taiwan's TMT, say the craft can process up to 21 millions gallons of oil-fouled water a day. The vessel was undergoing tests in a patch of water close to the wellhead over the weekend as the government was trying to determine if the vessel is effective. The ship is also awaiting approval from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Take your time regulators. Gotta cross those tees and dot the eyes while the oil gushes.

http://www.miamiherald.com/201...

Comment by Bradford — July 9, 2010 @ 10:30 pm

Bradford Says:
July 9th, 2010 at 10:35 pm
BP is Not the Only Responsible Party

http://renergie.wordpress.com/...

Comment by Bradford — July 9, 2010 @ 10:35 pm

Bradford Says:
July 9th, 2010 at 10:43 pm
Cut the red tape:

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-...

Comment by Bradford — July 9, 2010 @ 10:43 pm

Bradford Says:
July 10th, 2010 at 7:55 am
There's a pattern to Katrina II. Obama eventually gets around to doing the right thing after inexcusable delays. Regulatory processes have a sacred aura to leftists ideologues. It's just not right to curtail them even in an emergency.

Comment by Bradford — July 10, 2010 @ 7:55 am

Acipenser Says:
July 10th, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Pez: Aww, now I'm "reduced". You are starting to become emotionally unhinged.

Nice projection there, Pez.

Pez: We don't stop you from driving because you can't personally carry the cost.
Likewise, an oil company need not be shut out of the drilling business because it hasn't the cash on hand to deal with an environmental disaster; it's carries insurance for that.

You keep saying that the oil companies have insurance to cover the costs of leanup, environmentla damage, and compnesatory payouts but you fail to supply the name of any insuror who has made such payments. Perhaps you find it difficult to document since they don't exist. Exxon id reover the cost of the vessel (Exxon Valdex) but all payments came out of their coffers.

Pez: Can you see where I was talking about the GoM there? Sure you can.
Even after it is spelled out twice you can't get it. Yes, their foolish plan is to not guarantee they will get at an Arctic relief well until a year later. They would never say that in the GoM. Therefore, the Canadian agency has a right to demand provisions that they tend to their wells in the same season in the Arctic. This is a different case and is in no way an argument for mandatory relief wells.

There really is no difference between a well spilling out of control for 10 months or more in the gulf with one doing the same in the Arctic during the off 'season'. The continued unabated spewing of oil with a relief well being the only option for control is the only argument necessary for the placement of releif wells prior to an accident.

Pez: Say 'walruses' again; it really raises your rationality points. If you clap your hands and use more exclamation marks it helps as well.
Indeed, they did have a plan for relief wells. They probably know as much as you, almost, anyway, about oil wells, and they mandated in their spill plan that they stop the source of an oil spill. If a relief well is required then that is in their plan. The fact that they didn't have government permits and a drilling route until after the blow-out is beside the point.

Where in their drill plan (page, section, ect) submitted to the MMS does it state their plans for a relief well? I'd be interested in reading that section since the only thing I've read states that BP has the financial reserves to drill a relief well and nothing more.

Pez: Not every spill is an emergency.

How insightful, Pez. Regardless of your stunning insight there are no impediments for any company who wishes to purchase his product. No one is interested in this country or the others.

Pez: Not at all. But quit pretending it had not impact. Maybe it was good that it had the impact, but the impact was there nonetheless.

Pretending? That is more along your line of reasoning when Costner's own words in your cite state differently. Do you also pretend that the 15 ppm EPA regulation influenced those 17 other contries who also demostrated no interest in Costner's centrifuges?

Pez: Did you ask somewhere about the Exxon Valdez and its insurers?
I think you did.

I did but you've failed to supply anything that indicates payment for anyting other than the loss of the vessel. Nothing about insurance covering the cost of cleanup. Nothing about insurance covering the costs of financial loss to the people whos livelyhood were adversely impacted by the spill. Hve you found the name of the insurance company who is responsible for BP's spill in the gulf? I wonder why BP keeps lying when they say they will be paying for the costs of cleanup and they will be responsible for making finanacial restitution to the folks in the gulf who have had their livelyhood trashed? You'd think they would be saying that their insurance policy will be picking up the tab at least in an attempt to calm their shareholders about the potential loss of their investment. But not a word along those lines.

Comment by Acipenser — July 10, 2010 @ 2:43 pm

Pez Says:
July 10th, 2010 at 5:22 pm
So as you've highlighted the tremendous costs to BP and the industry in general, as well as the insurance providers they rely upon think about this: was it worth the risk?
The market damage to BP far outweighs the threat of government fines. Capitalism itself will continue to cause the improvements in technology and safety (notice that all the incidents being replaced on the top ten list by this spill are 24 years old and older) for the very reason that it is very costly to make such mistakes.

Comment by Pez — July 10, 2010 @ 5:22 pm

Acipenser Says:
July 10th, 2010 at 8:25 pm
Pez: I'm glad to see you've at least admitted the validity of insurance. So we now agree that an oil company need not have its own cash on hand to guarantee clean-up costs and need not be barred from drilling (as you proposed) because of this. They can carry insurance, as you can as a driver, to cover the amount the government deems necessary.
As you well know, having Googled on the subject for the past day or so, they are now discussing a higher liability requirement and insurance companies are raising their rates.

Validity of insurance? I'm puzzeled by your need to construct strawmen out of my positions. I guess you think it makes your arguments stronger but it doesn't.

Current insurance coverage is severely inadequate to cover the costs of srilling and leaves the taxpayer holding the bag. If liability limits are raised to cover the entire costs of cleanup minor market players will not be able to meet their finanacial liabilities in the event of a spill. It seems you think this would create an unfair position while I do not.

Pez: Of course you won't get your wish of shutting them all down because the American government has a huge interest in the drilling taking place. What you'll probably get are mergers, acquisitions and bigger monopolies with government even more snugly in bed with the oil companies they are supposed to be policing.

Another strawman, Pez? Why the obsessive need to create false positions that you try to attribute to me? It doesn't make your argument any stronger in fact it makes it weaker as it appears you cannot address the issues at hand.

Pez:

Well, yeah, there is. If the company returned the next year to start drilling a relief well and it takes the three months (not 10) estimated for BP's wells then you'd be looking at up to 15 months of spill. BP was drilling their relief well in under two weeks. Because they had a plan.

It appears math is not your strong suit. They started drilling their relief wells in two weeks because they had rigs already in the area working on other projects. It certainly was not laid out in their drill plan that a spare rig be on hand to start drillin ASAP if it proved necessary. Heck, they didn't even have a fire boom on hand (that was outlined in their plan) to deal with the spill early on.

Pez: en you've read enough. If BP provided assurance that it had the wherewithal to drill a relief well if necessary they obviously planned to drill a relief well if necessary.

I will assume that if you had actually read the drill plan you would be able to point me to the pertinent sections. Apparently you have not. OK.

Pez: Yes there are. Without approval they are liable for penalties from the EPA if they use the machines.

Why should EPA approve a substandard product that does not meet day-to-day requirements? The fault of Costner's technology is his problem alone. If he wishes to market it then it is up to him to make sure it is up to snuff and can meet all regulations/requirements just as you and I would if we wished to enter the market place.

Pez: There were lots of factors. Yes, the fact that Costner couldn't get approval in his own country likely was part of the thinking process.

Principally that the technology is expensive with limited efficacy. Do you have anything to support your assertion that the EPA regulations influenced Japan, Norway, or any of the other countries listed?

Pez: That's not what you asked for regarding Exxon. You asked which insurer paid their claims – as though there was no such thing as insurance for oil companies.

Yes, it was what I asked about Exxon.

Pez: The market damage to BP far outweighs the threat of government fines. Capitalism itself will continue to cause the improvements in technology and safety (notice that all the incidents being replaced on the top ten list by this spill are 24 years old and older) for the very reason that it is very costly to make such mistakes.

Yes, we've seen how far the market has gone in improving blowout prevention, well control, and cleanup technology. That it looks identical to that used in(and before) 1979 is merely an illusion.

Comment by Acipenser — July 10, 2010 @ 8:25 pm

Pez Says:
July 11th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Hi Acipenser,
Good use of the I'm-rubber-you're-glue defence. I like it. A lot.

Pez: We don't stop you from driving because you can't personally carry the cost.
Likewise, an oil company need not be shut out of the drilling business because it hasn't the cash on hand to deal with an environmental disaster; it's carries insurance for that.

Acipenser: You keep saying that the oil companies have insurance to cover the costs of leanup, environmentla damage, and compnesatory payouts but you fail to supply the name of any insuror who has made such payments. Perhaps you find it difficult to document since they don't exist. Exxon id reover the cost of the vessel (Exxon Valdex) but all payments came out of their coffers.

I'm glad to see you've at least admitted the validity of insurance. So we now agree that an oil company need not have its own cash on hand to guarantee clean-up costs and need not be barred from drilling (as you proposed) because of this. They can carry insurance, as you can as a driver, to cover the amount the government deems necessary.
As you well know, having Googled on the subject for the past day or so, they are now discussing a higher liability requirement and insurance companies are raising their rates.

http://www.garp.com/resources/...

BP, of course, has insurance through Jupiter (yep, its own company – Google told you that, too) and was, in essence, self-insured. Other companies are not rich enough to do this (but are not barred from drilling) and use outside insurers. They are upset, of course, because now their liability will go up along with their premiums.
Of course you won't get your wish of shutting them all down because the American government has a huge interest in the drilling taking place. What you'll probably get are mergers, acquisitions and bigger monopolies with government even more snugly in bed with the oil companies they are supposed to be policing.

Firms can meet those requirements with their balance sheet, if they have enough capital, or through a special form of insurance coverage. But observers say the market for Oil Spill Financial Responsibility Certification coverage is small and likely would not be able to provide enough capacity if the requirements were raised.
Current capacity for such coverage is no more than $200 million, Mr. Baron said.
Financial ability test
Current requirements are designed based on the company's estimate of the amount of pollution its facility would cause in the worst-case scenario. For example, if the worst-case total discharge estimate were for less than 35,000 barrels of oil on the outer continental shelf, the firm would have to demonstrate financial ability to pay $35 million. If it were more than 105,000 barrels, the requirement would be $150 million.
Those requirements probably are reasonable for one-time spills, said the risk manager who asked not to be named. But he wondered if the Deepwater Horizon incident would prompt regulators to revise the way the worst-case estimates are computed.

http://www.garp.com/resources/...

Here you can learn a little bit about the kinds of insurance the oil companies carry.
http://www.iii.org/presentatio...

More BP insurance:

BP self-insured its risks through a captive insurer, Jupiter Insurance Ltd., with $6 billion in capital, but no reinsuranceprotection. Jupiter‘s per occurrence limit on physical damage and business interruption is $700 million and unlikely tocover environmental and third party liability. BP Shipping has $1 billion in marine liability pollution coverage through mutual insurance associations.

http://webcache.googleusercont...

There really is no difference between a well spilling out of control for 10 months or more in the gulf with one doing the same in the Arctic during the off 'season'.

Well, yeah, there is. If the company returned the next year to start drilling a relief well and it takes the three months (not 10) estimated for BP's wells then you'd be looking at up to 15 months of spill. BP was drilling their relief well in under two weeks. Because they had a plan.

Where in their drill plan (page, section, ect) submitted to the MMS does it state their plans for a relief well? I'd be interested in reading that section since the only thing I've read states that BP has the financial reserves to drill a relief well and nothing more.

Then you've read enough. If BP provided assurance that it had the wherewithal to drill a relief well if necessary they obviously planned to drill a relief well if necessary.

How insightful, Pez. Regardless of your stunning insight there are no impediments for any company who wishes to purchase his product. No one is interested in this country or the others.

Yes there are. Without approval they are liable for penalties from the EPA if they use the machines.

Do you also pretend that the 15 ppm EPA regulation influenced those 17 other contries who also demostrated no interest in Costner's centrifuges?

There were lots of factors. Yes, the fact that Costner couldn't get approval in his own country likely was part of the thinking process.

That's not what you asked for regarding Exxon. You asked which insurer paid their claims – as though there was no such thing as insurance for oil companies. Now that you understand that there is insurance and it has been a government requirement since Exxon (at least) that it be able to cover clean up costs (but no all law suits) you are left with nothing else on the subject.

Comment by Pez — July 11, 2010 @ 5:18 pm

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
July 11th, 2010 at 5:52 pm
I've had physics professors skeptical of the Big Bang as well as knowledge of their colleagues being skeptical.

Here is a claim from University of Alabama that casts doubt on the Big Bang. I accept the universe had a beginning, but have doubts as to whether the Big Bang cosmology is the correct historic description of events.

The following article has a really nice conceptual picture of the problem along with the narrative. I encourage interested readers to see illustration that the artist drew that brings to life the issue the UAH research put forward.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/re...

The apparent absence of shadows where shadows were expected to be is raising new questions about the faint glow of microwave radiation once hailed as proof that the universe was created by a "Big Bang."

In a finding sure to cause controversy, scientists at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) found a lack of evidence of shadows from "nearby" clusters of galaxies using new, highly accurate measurements of the cosmic microwave background.

A team of UAH scientists led by Dr. Richard Lieu, a professor of physics, used data from NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) to scan the cosmic microwave background for shadows caused by 31 clusters of galaxies.

"These shadows are a well-known thing that has been predicted for years," said Lieu. "This is the only direct method of determining the distance to the origin of the cosmic microwave background. Up to now, all the evidence that it originated from as far back in time as the Big Bang fireball has been circumstantial.

"If you see a shadow, however, it means the radiation comes from behind the cluster. If you don't see a shadow, then you have something of a problem. Among the 31 clusters that we studied, some show a shadow effect and others do not."

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — July 11, 2010 @ 5:52 pm

Pez Says:
July 11th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
Hi Acipenser,
Sorry for the delay. Your comment somehow leapfrogged my previous one and I'm just now noticing it.

Current insurance coverage is severely inadequate to cover the costs of srilling and leaves the taxpayer holding the bag.

I don't know quite what this says but yes, the insurance coverage for the oil companies themselves is lower than the now estimated costs of paying out liability claims. They were set at clean-up costs and since liability was limited where negligence was not involved the tens of billions forecast were not previously an issue. The taxpayers also have their own insurance that covers a lot of those. And the U.S. government has a fund, gleaned from the oil companies, to pay for (and be reimbursed) clean-up.

If liability limits are raised to cover the entire costs of cleanup minor market players will not be able to meet their finanacial liabilities in the event of a spill. It seems you think this would create an unfair position while I do not.

They have enough for clean-up. They don't have enough for the litigation to follow. It's not me who thinks this is unfair. The analysts I linked to, after reasonably inferring the situation myself, say that the small companies will be eaten up in acquisitions and mergers because they won't be able to compete – and the increased insurance will still cost less than your proposal to drill two wells simultaneously.

Another strawman, Pez? Why the obsessive need to create false positions that you try to attribute to me? It doesn't make your argument any stronger in fact it makes it weaker as it appears you cannot address the issues at hand.

Oh, then I should stop doing it. You are a fantastic advisor. Except you advised that if a company can't afford to cover all clean-up costs and liabilities out of its own war chest it should not be in the business of drilling. That means shutting them down.
Even with hiked insurance rates and the fallout from this disaster there are analyst predictions that gulf drilling is dead.
 

It appears math is not your strong suit. They started drilling their relief wells in two weeks because they had rigs already in the area working on other projects.

What's this got to do with math? I said:

Well, yeah, there is. If the company returned the next year to start drilling a relief well and it takes the three months (not 10) estimated for BP's wells then you'd be looking at up to 15 months of spill. BP was drilling their relief well in under two weeks. Because they had a plan.

Yeah, big maths there.

It certainly was not laid out in their drill plan that a spare rig be on hand to start drillin ASAP if it proved necessary. Heck, they didn't even have a fire boom on hand (that was outlined in their plan) to deal with the spill early on.

Nice logic. They didn't have an extra rig sitting ten feet from the original one, so that is evidence they had no contingency plan for a relief well.
They DID have in their plan a fireboom, but that wasn't on hand, either. So, by your logic, the fireboom was not planned for.

I will assume that if you had actually read the drill plan you would be able to point me to the pertinent sections. Apparently you have not. OK.

Your assumptions are as weak as possible. I read every page. They planned for the worst case scenario, according to their plan, which was a complete blowout. Do you think when they found it had blown out they started scratching their heads and asking what kinds of solutions might work? Since they are currently in negotiations in Canada over mandated relief wells do you think they'd never heard of them or didn't know how to drill them? How do you account for DD3 being on the move to start the well within a few days of the blowout then? Do you think BP had no idea where other rigs were located in the area and no knowledge of their own future drilling plans? 

 

Do you have anything to support your assertion that the EPA regulations influenced Japan, Norway, or any of the other countries listed?

No, I don't. They rejected the unit for whatever reasons they rejected it – including the international regulation of 15 ppm. But the lack of a government stamp, along with the same international standard, helped prevent it from being in use.  

Yes, it was what I asked about Exxon.

Nope, you said:

What insurance provider paid for the Exxon Valdez claims?

Just as I stated:

Pez: That's not what you asked for regarding Exxon. You asked which insurer paid their claims – as though there was no such thing as insurance for oil companies.

====

Yes, we've seen how far the market has gone in improving blowout prevention, well control, and cleanup technology. That it looks identical to that used in(and before) 1979 is merely an illusion.

Indeed we have. The top ten disasters that BP is now supplanting are none younger than 20 years, your big example is 30 years old, and many are 40 or more years ago.
You can't not find that new technology, paid for by the oil companies themselves, has increased safety and diminished the chance of blowouts.

Comment by Pez — July 11, 2010 @ 6:17 pm

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
July 11th, 2010 at 10:15 pm
The prestigious Sigma Xi organization (which has many Nobel Prize winners among its members) has a publication which was very critical of Big Bang Cosmology

Modern Cosmology: Science or Folktale?

The issues are above my paygrade and knowledge base, but I post it here for interested readers. I'm skeptical of the Big Bang cosmology, but I'm not really in a position to provide any more criticism than that offered by scientists much more qualified than I (a mere science hobbiest):

…What one finds, in my view, is that modern cosmology has at best very flimsy observational support.

A Short History of Cosmology
Almost a century ago, Einstein's general theory of relativity posited that matter and energy could bend spacetime. This idea was philosophically attractive because it removed the need to worry about cosmic boundaries if the universe closed back on itself.

Unfortunately (or so Einstein then thought), general relativity implied that the universe would have to either collapse or expand. So in 1921 he found room in his theory for a new free parameter, the so-called "cosmological constant," an arbitrary antigravity term that would put a stop to all that. Ironically, the observers who were examining faint nebulae (distant galaxies) at the time discovered that their spectra were dramatically redshifted—hinting that on its largest scale the universe was expanding after all.

In 1965 Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson stumbled accidentally onto the cosmic background radiation, a microwave whisper arriving from all directions of the sky. As cosmologists interpret it now, they were observing optical radiation emitted by the gas of the universe when it was hot (3,000 degrees Celsius), opaque and relatively young (300,000 years old), redshifted through the enormous factor of a thousand by subsequent cosmic expansion. They were looking into the past with a vengeance and seeing the remnants of what astronomer Fred Hoyle dismissively called the "Big Bang." From then on, the expanding universe was accepted, usually without question, as a natural explanation for the microwave background.

At the same time, astrophysicists sought to understand the origin of the elements. It seemed that most had formed from the fusion of pristine hydrogen inside stars and then had been expelled into general circulation when those stars exploded as supernovae. However, some of the lighter elements, in particular helium, deuterium and lithium, would have had to form much earlier, during the first minutes of the Big Bang. The theory of Big Bang nucleosynthesis did a fair job of predicting the relative amounts of most of these substances, lending more support to the notion of an expanding universe.

Robert Dicke meanwhile noticed a worrying paradox in the Big Bang model: Opposite sides of the cosmos look very much the same, even though they had never been sufficiently close to equilibrate—indeed they had never been sufficiently close for any kind of information (which is limited to the speed of light) to travel between them. This difficulty was virtually unadmitted until 1981, when Alan Guth suggested a vague conceptual solution called "inflation": a slow start to expansion, followed by a rapid acceleration. The necessary causal contacts could then have taken place when the universe was young but not yet flying apart too fast. If inflation actually happened, sufficient stretching during that period of rapid acceleration would have lowered the local curvature today so that it would look flat to the observer, even if it wasn't so on a much larger scale (just as the Earth looks flat to someone with a limited horizon).

At about this time in Holland, Albert Bosma discovered that spiral galaxies are spinning far too rapidly to be held together by the mutual gravitational tugs of their observable contents. Astronomers concluded that there had to be far more dark than ordinary, visible matter around to keep galaxies (and galaxy clusters) together. Most cosmologists welcomed the possibility of such dark matter, because it might be lumpy enough to get the galaxies formed in the early universe—another serious problem for theorists. The apparent uniformity of the cosmic background radiation had cosmologists struggling to figure out how the present uneven structure of galaxies and clusters evolved out of such a smooth beginning.

They thus posited the existence of primordial "seeds" of unknown origin, which somehow survived the early, hot era when radiation would tear material things apart. Cosmologists argued that these seeds would grow over time, finally collapsing into the galaxies seen today. A type of dark matter that ignored radiation ("cold dark matter") would be the ideal stuff for such seeds. It could condense into lumps, thereafter dragging the much lesser amounts of ordinary matter in afterwards, matter that would eventually light up as stars. By the 1980s the theoreticians' universe was entirely dominated by such invisible material.

Meanwhile, observations of distant supernovae in the late 1990s told an astonishing, almost shocking, story. The results suggested that the expansion, far from being slowed by gravitation, as was expected, had instead accelerated. Moreover, this acceleration had started only in comparatively recent times (7 billion years ago). The physics responsible for this seeming acceleration is entirely unknown and goes under the deliberately inscrutable name "dark energy," which may or may not have something to do with Einstein's cosmological constant.

The Significance of Cosmology
The currently fashionable concordance model of cosmology (also known to the cognoscenti as "Lambda-Cold Dark Matter," or lambda-CDM) has 18 parameters, 17 of which are independent. Thirteen of these parameters are well fitted to the observational data; the other four remain floating. This situation is very far from healthy. Any theory with more free parameters than relevant observations has little to recommend it. Cosmology has always had such a negative significance, in the sense that it has always had fewer observations than free parameters (as is illustrated at left), though cosmologists are strangely reluctant to admit it. While it is true that we presently have no alternative to the Big Bang in sight, that is no reason to accept it. Thus it was that witchcraft took hold.

The three successful predictions of the concordance model (the apparent flatness of space, the abundances of the light elements and the maximum ages of the oldest star clusters) are overwhelmed by at least half a dozen unpredicted surprises, including dark matter and dark energy. Worse still, there is no sign of a systematic improvement in the net significance of cosmological theories over time.

Where Do We Stand Today?
Big Bang cosmology is not a single theory; rather, it is five separate theories constructed on top of one another. The ground floor is a theory, historically but not fundamentally rooted in general relativity, to explain the redshifts—this is Expansion, which happily also accounts for the cosmic background radiation. The second floor is Inflation—needed to solve the horizon and "flatness" problems of the Big Bang. The third floor is the Dark Matter hypothesis required to explain the existence of contemporary visible structures, such as galaxies and clusters, which otherwise would never condense within the expanding fireball. The fourth floor is some kind of description for the "seeds" from which such structure is to grow. And the fifth and topmost floor is the mysterious Dark Energy, needed to allow for the recent acceleration of cosmic expansion indicated by the supernova observations. Thus Dark Energy could crumble, leaving the rest of the building intact. But if the Expansion floor collapsed, the entire edifice above it would come crashing down. Expansion is a moderately well-supported hypothesis, consistent with the cosmic background radiation, with the helium abundance and with the ages inferred for the oldest stars and star clusters in our neighborhood. However, finding more direct evidence for Expansion must be of paramount importance.

In the 1930s, Richard Tolman proposed such a test, really good data for which are only now becoming available. Tolman calculated that the surface brightness (the apparent brightness per unit area) of receding galaxies should fall off in a particularly dramatic way with redshift—indeed, so dramatically that those of us building the first cameras for the Hubble Space Telescope in the 1980s were told by cosmologists not to worry about distant galaxies, because we simply wouldn't see them. Imagine our surprise therefore when every deep Hubble image turned out to have hundreds of apparently distant galaxies scattered all over it (as seen in the first image in this piece). Contemporary cosmologists mutter about "galaxy evolution," but the omens do not necessarily look good for the Tolman test of Expansion at high redshift.

In its original form, an expanding Einstein model had an attractive, economic elegance. Alas, it has since run into serious difficulties, which have been cured only by sticking on some ugly bandages: inflation to cover horizon and flatness problems; overwhelming amounts of dark matter to provide internal structure; and dark energy, whatever that might be, to explain the seemingly recent acceleration. A skeptic is entitled to feel that a negative significance, after so much time, effort and trimming, is nothing more than one would expect of a folktale constantly re-edited to fit inconvenient new observations.

The historian of science Daniel Boorstin once remarked: "The great obstacle to discovering the shape of the Earth, the continents and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge. Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments and contradictory witnesses." Acceptance of the current myth, if myth it is, could likewise hold up progress in cosmology for generations to come.

I began to be sympathetic to the criticisms of the Big Bang in part since skepticism was roaming the halls of my Alma Mater George Mason. An MIT trained physicist and department chair, Menas Kafatos, was the foremost critic at Mason of the Big Bang. An advocate of the Big Bang, James Trefil, expressed some reservations and was not prepared to say it is the correct theory, though he is sympathetic to it. I studied under Trefil, and in 2004 he said he thought evidence for the Big Bang was improving. His colleagues like Kafatos are not so sure.

I suppose we'll know more in 50 years.

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — July 11, 2010 @ 10:15 pm

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
July 12th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
Michael J. Disney is emeritus professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy at Cardiff University. He has done research on stars, pulsars and quasars, but his main interest has always lain in galaxies and in designing novel instruments to observe them at many wavelengths. He has worked on the development of Hubble Space Telescope instruments since 1976

I quote Robert Gentry's characterization of the Tolman problem:

In his recent discussion about observational astronomy and how it is all
about the contrast between a celestial object and the background — both
that of the local universe as well as instrumental noise — Disney [19] notes that galaxies being just marginally brighter than the night sky is either extraordinary good fortune or that something else is involved which is not presently understood. He comments in particular on how unusual it is to see galaxies at z = 2, since — as per Eq. (12) — in big bang theory their apparent brightness should be dimmer by the inverse of the Tolman factor, which is (1+z)4 ∼ 100. But if this is unusual, what is to be said about the highest redshift galaxy reported thus far, for which z = 5.74 [20]? Here the inverse of the Tolman dimmingfa ctor is (1+z)4 ∼ 2000, far in excess of the 100 which Disney considered unusual [19].

Here is Tolman's own words as recorded in the Cornell Archive:
The Case Against Cosmology

When you think that the galaxies at a redshift z of 2 should be
dimmer by (1 + z)^4 ~ 100, and by another large but uncertain factor for
the k-correction [i.e. band-pass shifting], it is more than a wonder to me
that we can see anything of them at all. Ordinary galaxies at that redshift
should be hundreds of times dimmer per unit area than our sky!

Disney has some other comments

It is argued that some of the recent claims for cosmology are grossly
overblown. Cosmology rests on a very small database: it suffers from
many fundamental difficulties as a science (if it is a science at all) whilst
observations of distant phenomena are difficult to make and harder to interpret. It is suggested that cosmological inferences should be tentatively
made and sceptically received.

Given statements emanating from some cosmologists today one could be forgiven for assuming that the solution to some of the great problems of the subject, even “the origin of the Universe” lie just around the corner. As an example of this triumphalist approach consider the following conclusion from Hu et al. [1] to a preview of the results they expect from spacecraft such as MAP and PLANCK designed to map the Cosmic Background Radiations: “. . .we will establish the cosmological model as securely as the Standard Model of elementary particles.

We will then know as much, or even more, about the early Universe and its
contents as we do about the fundamental constituents of matter”.
We believe the most charitable thing that can be said of such statements is
that they are naive in the extreme and betray a complete lack of understanding of history, of the huge difference between an observational and an experimental science, and of the peculiar limitations of cosmology as a scientific discipline. By building up expectations that cannot be realised, such statements do a disservice not only to astronomy and to particle physics but they could ultimately do harm to the wider respect in which the whole scientific approach is held. As such, they must not go unchallenged. It is very questionable whether the study of any phenomenon that is not repeatable can call itself a science at all. It would be sad however to abandon he whole fascinating area to the priesthood.

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — July 12, 2010 @ 2:13 pm

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
July 12th, 2010 at 3:26 pm
From Misner, Thorne, Wheeler as quoted by Gentry:

http://www.orionfdn.org/papers...

“Of all the disturbing implications of ‘the expansion of the universe,’
none is more upsetting to many a student on first encounter
than the nonsense of this idea. The universe expands,
[but] …Only distances between clusters of galaxies and greater
distances are subject to the expansion. No model more quickly
illustrates the actual situation than a rubber balloon with pennies
affixed to it, each by a drop of glue. As the balloon is inflated
the pennies increase their separation one from another but not a
single one of them expands!” (p. 719)

Gentry points out this hypothesis is riddled with ad hoc justifications, not a real theoretical basis even assuming space expands, worse even assuming space expands, this does not make sense! Students of science are right to be skeptical!

Gentry comments:

This difference over the essential features of the balloon illustration shows
that something of extraordinary importance is missing from the preceding
discussions. Physics is built on equations, not illustrations; illustrations
simply give insight to the equations, and these are absent from the pennies-on-a-balloon illustration. It is presented as justification for constant galaxy sizes without any scientific substantiation whatsoever.
This lack of substantiation leads to the fundamental question: Is there
any tangible experimental evidence that would prove that the universe is
governed by spacetime expansion? More specifically, are there any experimental test results that would confirm that the relativistic structure of the universe is consistent with the Friedmann-Lemaitre expanding spacetime solution to the field equations? This is a prerequisite for the pennies-on-a-balloon illustration to have any meaning in affirming big-bang cosmology as the correct theory of the cosmos.

It is certain that Schwarzschild’s static solution to the field equations is
consistent with the relativistic properties of the universe because, as further discussed in Part 5, it has become the general relativistic basis for the successful operation of the GPS [7]. And since the Schwarzschild static solution does not include the Friedmann-Lemaitre hypothesis of time-dependent spatial coordinate expansion, it cannot be used to justify the expansion concept as portrayed in the balloon illustration.

The Big Bang relies on Friedmann-Lemaitre, but Friedmann-Lemaitre has been experimentally refuted in favor of Schwarzchild.

Gentry outlines the Schwarzchild static solution here:
http://www.orionfdn.org/papers...

Indeed, such
was their confidence that the big bang continued to be promoted even
while contradictions presented by the relativistic operation of the GPS
were ignored. That operation long ago showed unambiguously that the
universe is relativistically formatted in accord with the Schwarzschild
static spacetime solution of the field equations, not the Friedmann-
Lemaitre expanding spacetime solution. That one of the preeminent
theories of science is now discovered to have fatal flaws in its cornerstone
postulate is a circumstance that is unequaled in modern times. It
may yet become known as one of the greatest faux pas in the history of
science. And it raises the question of whether other prominent modern
scientific theories likewise have undetected flaws in their cornerstone
postulates.

General Relativity admits the possibility of two cosmologies:

1. Static (non-expanding solution to space)
2. Expanding

Einstein originally proposed the Static solution. The Expanding Friedman-Lemaitre solution came into vogue as part of the Big Bang Movement. Here are the experimental results that refute the expanding solution and go back to Einstein's original hypothesis for the Static solution to general relativity.

Alley’s result — showing unambiguously that gravity operates during
photon emission, without producing any in-flight change in λ whatsoever,
together with Moller’s theoretical justification of it [12] — is the death knell
of big bang cosmology. It conclusively tells us the universe is precisely
formatted according to Einstein’s static spacetime general relativistic prediction of the effect of gravity on emission processes — namely, “An atom absorbs or emits light of a frequency which is dependent on the potential of the gravitational field in which it is situated” [3(b)] — and not F-L expanding spacetime general relativity, which predicts that relativistic effects cause in-flight wavelength expansion.

Also important which is rooted in Planck-Einstein equation for photon energy:

E = h nu

Also, since GPS operation shows photons do not exchange energy with
the gravitational field when passing through a potential gradient [13,14], this excludes all possibility of attributing expansion’s nonconservation-of-energy loss to an exchange of energy with gravity, and hence negates any attempt to reconcile expansion’s energy loss with energy conservation. Thus, as discussed above, if expansion had been a real characteristic of the universe, it would have resulted in monumental nonconservation-of-energy losses, both past and present.

If the universe were expanding, then universally all light waves would be decreasing in frequency and thus energy as stated by this equation:

E = h nu

This would be violation of a cherished conservation law. Of course one could redefine what energy means, but we would need a definition consistent with observation, but observation supports the mainstream interpreatation of the conservation of energy, not the Big Bang!

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — July 12, 2010 @ 3:26 pm

olegt Says:
July 12th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
Salvador T. Cordova wrote:

The Big Bang relies on Friedmann-Lemaitre, but Friedmann-Lemaitre has been experimentally refuted in favor of Schwarzchild.

O, really?

Comment by olegt — July 12, 2010 @ 4:54 pm

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
July 12th, 2010 at 5:54 pm
O, really?

Thank you for responding.

I posted the assertion in hopes you would offer a contrary opinion.

Was Gentry's GPS argument flawed?

Seriously, the secular dissent against the big bang does not seem completely without merit.

If we have expanding space, light waves are constantly losing energy from the Planck-Einstein relation:

E = h nu

E= energy
h = planck's constant
nu = photon frequency

Changing energy of photons over time due to expansion doesn't seem very wholesome. Honestly, this deviates from most elementary textbook physics I'm familiar with, and as far as I know, there is not a universal agreement on the proper way to reconceptualize the concept of Energy in an expanding space. Ned Wright offered some ideas, but they seemed only in their infancy.

Regarding GPS and Schwarzchild, I would welcome info. If Gentry is wrong on these points I would welcome info.

1. Gentry argues invariance of E=h nu
2. Schwarzchild solution to General Relativity

If I'm not mistaken (and I don't have a background in general relativity), Gentry is referring to this solution described in Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

Finally, are you aware of any laboratory evidence that suggests space is expanding?

Thanks in advance!

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — July 12, 2010 @ 5:54 pm

olegt Says:
July 12th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
Sal, you claimed that the FLRW metric was experimentally refuted in favor of the Schwarzschild metric. Tell us which experiment did that. If you rely on this Gentry, he does not seem like a reliable source.

Gentry received a masters degree in physics from the University of Florida, and thereafter worked in the defense industry, in nuclear weapons research.

Comment by olegt — July 12, 2010 @ 10:21 pm

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
July 12th, 2010 at 11:07 pm
Olegt,

Thank you for reviewing the matter. I'll outline my understanding as best as I can, and I sincerely welcome corrections, and I freely admit I may not understand. I have had only passing exposure to General Relativity.

There is an important subtlety regarding the
Pound Rebka and Pound Snider experiments.

Wiki describes it as:

It is a gravitational redshift experiment, which measures the redshift of light moving in a gravitational field, or, equivalently, a test of the general relativity prediction that clocks should run at different rates at different places in a gravitational field. It is considered to be the experiment that ushered in an era of precision tests of general relativity.

Does the redshift occur at emission or does it gradually happen in flight.

For example, when I throw a ball up in the air, the kinetic energy decreases as it flies higher.

The question is whether light behaves in a similar manner as it is emerging out of a gravitational field, losing energy. There are two possible interpretations.

1. The standard mainstream interpretation: light slowly loses energy as it passes upward from the gravitation field much like a ball being thrown upward

2. The non-standard : the light loses its energy at the emission point, not during flight, it is already red-shifted at the time of emission.

Both views will result in the same experimental results for Pound-Rebka, however, I suppose in principle there could be an experiment that distinguishes the actual evolution of the photon.

Gentry quotes Moller:

[12] C. Moller, The Theory of Relativity, (Clarendon Press, Oxford, Second Edition, 1972) On pp. 405-406 Moller states: "In the preceding considerations, the Einstein effect has been explained as an effect of the loss or gain of kinetic energy of the photon in its free fall from point 1 to point 2. Another, perhaps even simpler interpretation is obtained by considering the coordinate frequencies instead of the standard frequencies . Since hv is a constant of the motion, no change of the coordinate frequency of the photon occurs on its way from 1 to 2. . . . Therefore, the coordinate frequency emitted in a definite transition of the atom depends on the gravitational potential at the place of emission. . . . According to this interpretation, the Einstein effect is due to the change in the spectrum of total rest energies Ho when the atom in question is moved adiabatically from one place to another with a different scalar potential. . . . [T]he change of Ho in each stationary energy state is equal to the non-gravitational (coordinate) work that has to be performed during the adiabatic transfer of the atom in this state. Since this work depends on the proper mass of the atom, it will be different for the different stationary states. This is the physical reason for the dependence of ΔHo = Ho − H_bar_o, and therefore of vo, on the position of the source in the gravitational field." [Here Ho and H_bar_o are the rest energies of the atom in the gravitational field for the initial and final stationary states respectively.

If the non-standard interpretation is correct, shouldn't we be able to measure the photon frequency at various points after the emission along the gravitational field to see if the frequency is different?

Gentry claims GPS affirms the non-standard view. Setting aside whether Gentry is correct, is my characterization of the important questions correct?

Moller seems to have a respectable view of the matter (the non-standard view).

If my characterizations of the questions at hand are correct, we can then look at Gentry's claims.

For the record I accept the results of Pound-Rebka, but I'm curious whether the Pound-Rebka experiment refutes Moller's interpretation (I presume Moller publishing much later also accepted the Pound-Rebka experiment).

Thank you again for taking time to offer your expertise.

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — July 12, 2010 @ 11:07 pm

olegt Says:
July 12th, 2010 at 11:52 pm
Sal,

The Pound-Rebka experiment has nothing to do with distinguishing between the Robertson-Walker and Schwarzschild metrics of spacetime. I am not even sure that the question makes sense.

The Schwarzschild metric is that of a spacetime around a spherically symmetric, neutral gravitating object, e.g. a star or a black hole. The Robertson-Walker metric is that of a uniform and isotropic space filled with matter at a constant density. On small scales (as in the Pound-Rebka experiment), both metrics appear flat, just like the Earth appears flat on scales much less than its radius.

Comment by olegt — July 12, 2010 @ 11:52 pm

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
July 13th, 2010 at 1:00 am
Sal,

The Pound-Rebka experiment has nothing to do with distinguishing between the Robertson-Walker and Schwarzschild metrics of spacetime. I am not even sure that the question makes sense

I can see where it seems irrelevant, and I share your concern for the relevance. But if you could indulge me a little more with my elementary questions…..

Assuming General Relativity is correct, we have two separate questions:

1. Does gravity cause the red shift during emission or does the redshift occur gradually in-flight (and did Pound-Rebka really settle the issue, or did Pound-Rebka merely affirm General Relativity without settling the issue)?

2. Does Friedman-Lemaitre depend on the answer to the above question of photon "redshift immediatly at emission" or photon "redshift gradually in-flight"?

Pound-Rebka uses atoms to detect and emit. The problem is that the absorbing atom is also in a potential field at a different potential, thus does it really settle the question of "redhift at emission" vs. "red shift in-flight".

Gentry is not disputing the fact that Pound-Rebka affirms General Relativity, he is disputing whether it settles the question of "redshift at point of emission" or "redshift gradually in-flight".

To settle the question, Gentry argues other experiments must come to bear on the question and he also argues Einstein and Moller have advocated red-shift at emission, not a gradual change as it passes through the gravitational gradient.

Careful reading of the Pound-Snider article [5] does not confirm the foregoing descriptions of photons changing energy in passing through a potential gradient. The Pound-Snider article reveals these experimenters made no such claim. On the contrary, they stated that comparison of coherent sources — meaning atomic clocks — at different potentials would have to be made in order to decide whether gravity caused photons to change energy in transit or whether the change in energy detected in the experiments was instead due to the emission energy being affected by local gravity [5].

The latter possibility was actually predicted by Einstein in 1916, before expanding spacetime solutions of the field equations were known. At that time Einstein predicted [3(b)], "An atom absorbs or emits light of a frequency which is dependent on the potential of the gravitational field in which it is situated." Clearly, it has always been a matter of importance for cosmologists to test Einstein's description of the gravitational redshift because his description predicts gravity affecting light during emission, in contrast to causing in-flight wavelength change, as required by the expansion hypothesis. In what appears to be one of the most significant lapses in the history of science, there appears to be no record where cosmologists ever sought to determine for a certainty whether photons actually do experience an in-flight change in wavelength while passing through a gravitational potential gradient.

This failure to test expansion's prediction is unusual, considering that Moller's 1972 theoretical analysis [12] showed the gravitational redshift could be interpreted as resulting from the general relativistic effects of gravity operating only during the processes of emission and absorption, and not during a photon's flight, as required by the spacetime expansion paradigm.

Gentry argues that C.O. Alley's work with GPS indicates the red shift happens at the point of emission not over the course of propagation. I'm not saying Gentry is right, but that is his argument.

Compounding this failure has been the failure to recognize that Moller's alternate interpretation was very forcefully confirmed over two decades ago during the setup of the GPS by the principal investigator, C. O. Alley [13]. Quoted now are Alley's results in his own words [13]:

"A common mistake in dealing with relativistic time was also made by one of the Air Force contractors in relation to the GPS. This is the notion that electromagnetic radiation changes frequency (or a photon changes energy) as it propagates through a gravitational potential difference. If the physical clock adjustments have been made as described above so that all clocks are keeping a common coordinate time, then there is no effect on the frequency of radiation as measured in that coordinate time. However, the contractor had included in the computer programs to operate the system just such a correction, effectively correcting twice for the relativistic effects. Actual experience with test GPS equipment in orbit was required to persuade some engineers and physicists of their error."

"We should not be surprised at such lack of understanding of some of the fundamental concepts of General Relativity since the subject is almost never taught to engineers and rarely even to physicists. Also confusion about these concepts is not restricted to engineers and others who must deal with ultra-stable clocks, but is widespread even among eminent physicists."

Getting back to this objection:

Olegt wrote:

On small scales (as in the Pound-Rebka experiment), both metrics appear flat, just like the Earth appears flat on scales much less than its radius.

Agreed! However, Gentry is making a more subtle argument. I will concede the possibility that his premise (redshift occurs at point of emission) may not clearly imply his conclusion (the Big Bang is false). But that does seem to be his line of reasoning:

Alley's result — showing unambiguously that gravity operates during photon emission, without producing any in-flight change in λ whatsoever, together with Moller's theoretical justification of it [12] — is the death knell of big bang cosmology. It conclusively tells us the universe is precisely formatted according to Einstein's static spacetime general relativistic prediction of the effect of gravity on emission processes — namely, "An atom absorbs or emits light of a frequency which is dependent on the potential of the gravitational field in which it is situated" [3(b)] — and not F-L expanding spacetime general relativity, which predicts that relativistic effects cause in-flight wavelength expansion.

As to whether the question of red-shift at emission vs. redshift in flight has bearing on Friedman-Lemaitre, I will leave to others. I also share your concern about the relevance of Pound-Rebka and Alley's experiement.

Even supposing that I and Gentry are amateurs (and for sure I'm an amateur), this claim stills seems worth answering:

the universe is precisely formatted according to Einstein's static spacetime general relativistic prediction of the effect of gravity on emission processes — namely, "An atom absorbs or emits light of a frequency which is dependent on the potential of the gravitational field in which it is situated" [3(b)] — and not F-L expanding spacetime general relativity, which predicts that relativistic effects cause in-flight wavelength expansion.

I do not know for a fact that Friedman-Lemaitre requires that photons suffer wave expansion as they go out through a gravitational gradient. If so, then Alley's experiment does have relevance. So there are two outstanding questions:

1. Does redshift occur at the point of emission vs. in flight?

2. Does Freidman-Lemaitre require gradual in-flight redshift vs. at the point of emission?

To those questions I have no answer, but they seem important to the question of the Big Bang.

Thanks again for reading and responding.

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — July 13, 2010 @ 1:00 am

olegt Says:
July 13th, 2010 at 7:21 am
Salvador T. Cordova wrote:

1. Does gravity cause the red shift during emission or does the redshift occur gradually in-flight (and did Pound-Rebka really settle the issue, or did Pound-Rebka merely affirm General Relativity without settling the issue)?

2. Does Friedman-Lemaitre depend on the answer to the above question of photon "redshift immediatly at emission" or photon "redshift gradually in-flight"?

The gravitational red shift in this type of experiment is proportional to the distance h traveled in the gravitational field. (See the last equation in the Wikipedia article.) This indicates that the red shift is accumulated along the path.

Even supposing that I and Gentry are amateurs

LOL. Amateurs is not the right word, Sal. Dilettantes.

Comment by olegt — July 13, 2010 @ 7:21 am

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
July 13th, 2010 at 10:49 am
LOL. Amateurs is not the right word, Sal. Dilettantes.

From wiki:

dilettante (plural dilettanti or (rarely) dilettantes)

1.An amateur, someone who dabbles in a field out of casual interest rather than as a profession or serious interest.

Ok, I'm a diletante and I make no money from science, I only make trouble.

The gravitational red shift in this type of experiment is proportional to the distance h traveled in the gravitational field. (See the last equation in the Wikipedia article.) This indicates that the red shift is accumulated along the path

Agreed the equation states the redshift is accumulated over the path travelled, and that is the mainstream view. It appears that view is what is being challenged by Gentry.

Does Moller's description disagree with the characterization of the Wiki article in your view? I'm not saying Moller is correct, but he does seem to dissent. Have I misread his article. Sorry for the elementary question but that is the extent of my dilletante understanding.

Thank you again for looking into the matter.

PS
I just found out Dr. Alley teaches at University of Maryland and he does indeed works with GPS. He's still alive!

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — July 13, 2010 @ 10:49 am

olegt Says:
July 13th, 2010 at 11:08 am
Salvador T. Cordova wrote:

Agreed the equation states the redshift is accumulated over the path travelled, and that is the mainstream view. It appears that view is what is being challenged by Gentry.

It's not just "the mainstream view." It's an experimental fact. The red shift is proportional to the distance in the Pound-Rebka experiment as well as in Hubble's empirical law.

It's ridiculous to suggest that a photon is emitted with just the right red shift proportional to the distance it will travel. Photons emitted at the same point can travel different distances. Imagine the Pound-Rebka experiment done with receivers on different floors. If the red shift were determined at the point of emission they would all show the same red shift. They don't.

Does Moller's description disagree with the characterization of the Wiki article in your view? I'm not saying Moller is correct, but he does seem to dissent. Have I misread his article. Sorry for the elementary question but that is the extent of my dilletante understanding.

I am not going with you on your Gish gallop tour. If you wish to educate yourself, read some textbooks, not silly creationist sites.

Comment by olegt — July 13, 2010 @ 11:08 am

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
July 13th, 2010 at 11:51 am
The red shift is proportional to the distance in the Pound-Rebka experiment as well as in Hubble's empirical law.

It's ridiculous to suggest that a photon is emitted with just the right red shift proportional to the distance it will travel.

Imagine the Pound-Rebka experiment done with receivers on different floors.

If I can restate the issue:

Say the emitter A is closer to the Earth at height 0.

The absorber B is farther from the Earth at height 24,000 miles.

A has a slower running clock and B has a faster running clock.

B with the faster running clock perceives what it absorbs as having a lower frequency (or thus a red shift)?

Is that correct?

Thanks again.

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — July 13, 2010 @ 11:51 am

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
July 13th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
Say the emitter A is closer to the Earth at height 0.

The absorber B is farther from the Earth at height 24,000 miles.

A has a slower running clock and B has a faster running clock.

B with the faster running clock perceives what it absorbs as having a lower frequency (or thus a red shift)?

My understanding is this is the mainstream view.

The other view is that we are dealing with ability of the atoms to emit and absorb based on their position in the gravitational field. According to some, this view would predict the same outcomes of the Pound Rebka.

This paper in 2001 from Internation Cosmic Ray Confrerence archived by NASA seems to be relevant:
Red shift atomic and nculear levels and the problem of energy spectru shift of photos (gamma-quanta) in the gravitational field

It is shown, that the radiation spectrum (or energy levels) of atoms (or nuclei) in the gravitational field has a red shift since the effective mass of radiating electrons (or nucleons) changes in the field. This red shift is equal to the red shift of the radiation spectrum in the gravitational field measured in existing experiments. The same shift must arise when the photon (or gamma-quanum) is passing through the gravitational field if it participates in gravitational interactions. The absence of the double effect in the experiments means that photons (or gamma quanta) are passing through the gravitational field without interactions.

Alley seems to allude to the issue of the abscence of the double effect. Moller by the way was not a creationist. The passage quoted appeared to be from a textbook he published through Oxford.

and

From the general point of view the shift of the radiation spectrum can be cause by:

a) Changing of the radiating spectrum of atoms because of influence of the gravitational field on the characteristics of the radiating particle;

b) changing of the potons (or gamma-quanta) apectrum while they're passing through the gravitational field for their interactions;

c)the contribution of these both cases

The paper argues against the energy of the photon changing en-route. The formula in Wiki for Pound-Rebka-Snider holds, not because of the photon loss of energy at differing potentials but because of the effect of gravity on the emitter and absorbers sitting in different gravitational potentials. That is how I read it anyway. I concede I could be mistaken in my reading and I welcome a correction.

This paper would seem to highlight the question at hand whether the red shift occurs at emission (with a corresponding adjustment made at the absorbing end based on the position of the absorber in the gravitational potential).

The photon doesn't really lose energy en-route, it is more a matter of the observational devices being affected by the gravitational field. If the photon did lose energy en-route there would be a double effect which is not detected.

As I stated above, I share the concern about the relevance to the Big Bang. But I suppose I'm permitted to misunderstand since I'm a mere dilletante.

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — July 13, 2010 @ 1:43 pm

olegt Says:
July 13th, 2010 at 5:43 pm
Salvador T. Cordova wrote:

The other view is that we are dealing with ability of the atoms to emit and absorb based on their position in the gravitational field. According to some, this view would predict the same outcomes of the Pound Rebka.

That does not make sense. In a uniform gravitational field, physical conditions are exactly the same everywhere, so the emission frequency is exactly the same on any floor of Jefferson lab.

The frequency of light changes as it travels up or down.

Comment by olegt — July 13, 2010 @ 5:43 pm

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
July 13th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Olegt,

Sincerest thanks again for responding.

My understanding is that if the Emitter A is close to Earth and the Absorber B is 24,000 miles above in the sky, the clock of absorber B is running faster than the clock of Emitter A on the ground. That is Gravitational Time Dilation.

I'm fine with that.

If Emitter A sends a light beam ( x number of Hz in it's reference frame and clock) I will observe it having a lower frequency if I'm at the altitude of Absorber B since my clock at 24,000 miles above is running slightly faster. The light beam will thus appear red shifted from the emission frequency as measured down on Earth a x number of Hz.

If I can slowly move the Absorber B up or down, Absorber B will see a frequency change in the observed frequency of the light beam which can be accounted for by Gravitational Time Dilation.

The frequency of light changes as it travels up or down.

Isn't that equivalent to saying the clock rates of the observers change as we move up or down? At least, experimentally speaking we get the same result in terms of measuring the light frequency? Is that correct?

Thanks again for your forbearance.

the emission frequency is exactly the same on any floor of Jefferson lab.

it will be measured the same on any floor of the lab provided the clock used to measure the emission frequency is at the same gravitational potential height.

From Wiki:

The existence of gravitational time dilation was first confirmed directly by the Pound-Rebka experiment.

Thanks again.

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — July 13, 2010 @ 6:50 pm

olegt Says:
July 13th, 2010 at 7:40 pm
Isn't that equivalent to saying the clock rates of the observers change as we move up or down? At least, experimentally speaking we get the same result in terms of measuring the light frequency? Is that correct?

Um, no. If you physically move up or down the stairs you will discover that your colleague's clock runs at the exact same rate as yours.

However, if the two of you synchronize your clocks on the first floor, you walk upstairs, spend some time on the second floor and come back then you'll discover that your colleague's clock is behind.

Now you ask your colleague to shine some laser light in your direction. When you examine the frequency of that light, you find that it is lower than the frequency of the laser you have. So on the basis of your previous experiment with clocks you say: time flows slower down there, so his laser probably emits light of a lower frequency.

How can you check that? You walk downstairs and compare the two lasers. Sure enough, they emit light at the same frequency.

Confusing enough?

Comment by olegt — July 13, 2010 @ 7:40 pm

olegt Says:
July 13th, 2010 at 7:45 pm
Anyway, Sal, before you come up with the next round of questions, I'd like you to answer the question I asked here.

Sal, you claimed that the FLRW metric was experimentally refuted in favor of the Schwarzschild metric. Tell us which experiment did that.

Thanks.

Comment by olegt — July 13, 2010 @ 7:45 pm

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
July 13th, 2010 at 11:12 pm
Anyway, Sal, before you come up with the next round of questions, I'd like you to answer the question I asked here.

Thank you for responding. The experiment of Alley was offered by Gentry as a refutation. In the course of the discussions in this thread, your critique seems to indicate that Alley's observation is an insufficient experiment, and I have to agree with your critique and admit my error. So I agree with your skepticism that FLRW has any experiment to date that directly over turns it. I hope that clarifies the matter.

Further, there are other methods of measuring frequency. If one can measure wavelength (such as through diffraction grating or some far more exact method), using the from the known speed of light one does not have to uses clocks to measure redshift, even though the timedilation is there, we can measure frequency indirectly by measuring wavelength. This would imply as the photon goes upward from Earth, it's wavelength does increase in flight. Dr. Gentry's choice of words was unfortunate, and as I said I share your concern about the relevance.

So clearly my understanding was in error and you correctly pointed out where I was mis-stating the mainstream view.

Um, no. If you physically move up or down the stairs you will discover that your colleague's clock runs at the exact same rate as yours.

However, if the two of you synchronize your clocks on the first floor, you walk upstairs, spend some time on the second floor and come back then you'll discover that your colleague's clock is behind.

Now you ask your colleague to shine some laser light in your direction. When you examine the frequency of that light, you find that it is lower than the frequency of the laser you have. So on the basis of your previous experiment with clocks you say: time flows slower down there, so his laser probably emits light of a lower frequency.

How can you check that? You walk downstairs and compare the two lasers. Sure enough, they emit light at the same frequency.

Confusing enough?

Agreed.

Yes, I see, I was most certainly in error.

Thank you sincerely for taking time to explain.

Apologies for the elementary questions and misunderstandings. Thank you however for taking time to review some of the fringe speculations that I found interesting and pointing out where they are flawed.

That's about the 5 time at TT you've pointed a severe misunderstanding on my part regarding physics and helped me learn. Thank you again.

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — July 13, 2010 @ 11:12 pm

olegt Says:
July 14th, 2010 at 8:42 am
Salvadr T. Cordova wrote:

esponding. The experiment of Alley was offered by Gentry as a refutation.

This is a comedy of errors.

(1) Alley did not conduct a new experimental test of general relativity. He simply warned some confused engineers against double-counting the gravitational red shift by including both the slowing down of clocks at lower gravitational potential and the lowering of the frequency of the photon coming from the potential well. You should do either one or the other, but not both. This is a well-known error. Sure enough, when the system was launched, Alley was right.

(2) There is no way to spin Alley's argument against double-counting into a refutation of the FLRW metric in favor of Schwarzschild's. Gentry appears to argue that "what really happens" is the slowing down of the clocks and not the red shift along the path. He is wrong: you can use either approach to describe the effect. If you watch from the distance, using your own clock, things will appear slowed down at the bottom of the gravitational well, but if you come down yourself they will look normal. Neither of these viewpoints is wrong and the formalism of general relativity provides a way to describe things from both (or any other) perspective. On the other hand, FLRW vs. Schwarzschild metric is a physical question. One can do measurements (at least in principle) that allow to distinguish between the two.

(3) Gentry has been corrected a number of times by astrophysicists. Sadly, he is not even able to understand their criticisms, let alone answer them coherently. Energy Conservation in Big Bang Cosmology is a dialog between Gentry and Brian Pitts, whose Ph.D. work was in gravitational physics.

That's about the 5 time at TT you've pointed a severe misunderstanding on my part regarding physics and helped me learn. Thank you again.

Some people never learn.

Comment by olegt — July 14, 2010 @ 8:42 am

Guts Says:
July 14th, 2010 at 9:03 am
Olegt:

The Schwarzschild metric is that of a spacetime around a spherically symmetric, neutral gravitating object, e.g. a star or a black hole. The Robertson-Walker metric is that of a uniform and isotropic space filled with matter at a constant density.

Isn't it more accurate to say that the spacetime around a spherically symmetric source such as a star is described by the Schwarzschild exterior solution. The maximally extended Schwarzschild solution describes a spherically symmetric black hole, both the black hole exterior and interior region. The Robertson-Walker metric describes homogeneous and isotropic spacetimes of constant curvature. Information about the density is contained in the energy-momentum-stress tensor which goes in the right hand side of Einstein's equations. One usually assumes that the universe is filled with a perfect fluid and then makes other simplifying assumptions depending on what epoch of the universe they are trying to model.

Comment by Guts — July 14, 2010 @ 9:03 am

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
July 15th, 2010 at 2:29 am
Brian Pitts, PhD PhD is an awesome guy.

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — July 15, 2010 @ 2:29 am

kornbelt888 Says:
July 16th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
FYI for the admin:

My anti-virus (Kasperskt) is detecting a Trojan.JS.Redirector.cq on this site.

Comment by kornbelt888 — July 16, 2010 @ 1:17 pm

fifth monarchy man Says:
July 17th, 2010 at 4:46 pm
Perhaps here is somthing we can all agree on.

This should not happen in america

peace

Comment by fifth monarchy man — July 17, 2010 @ 4:46 pm

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
July 19th, 2010 at 10:12 pm
Cat fight:

Megyn Kelly vs. Kristin Powers

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — July 19, 2010 @ 10:12 pm

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
July 21st, 2010 at 1:57 pm
Cold Fusion At American Chemical Society 239th

George Miley Goal is to Produce Power

We are aimed at a power-producing unit. We do this by creating nano voids within the metal lattice where we create deuterium clusters—a sub-lattice of tightly packed deuterium. To do that, we have to do nano manufacturing of material to create the places for it to react, and then we have to create the engineering necessary to control, get the heat out, and convert that to electrical output.

One thing that frustrates me to no end, is that I don’t know how to convert this energy directly. It looks like it will have to be a thermal conversion—that makes it not quite as easy as if I could get a direct conversion to electricity. If I produce heat and then convert, I’ll have to do some really clever elements to be competitive.

and

19 – Ultra high density deuterium clusters for low energy nuclear reactions

George H Miley, Prof. Xiaoling Yang, Dr. Heinz Hora, Prof. . Department of Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering University of Illinois Urbana IL United States, Department of Theoretical Physics University of New South Wales Sydney Australia

Our low energy nuclear reaction research (LENR) has embedded ultra high density deuterium “clusters” (D cluster) in Palladium (Pd) thin films. These clusters approach metallic conditions, exhibiting super conducting properties. [1] They represent “nuclear reactive sites” needed for LENR. The resulting reactions are vigorous, giving the potential for a high power density cell. Clusters are achieved through electrochemically loading-unloading deuterium into a thin metal palladium film creating local defects which form a strong potential trap where deuterium condenses into “clusters” of ~100 atoms. Research now focuses on nano-manufactured structures to achieve a high volumetric density of these trap sites. Alternately condensed deuterium inverted Rydberg 2.3-pm deuteron spacing is being studied. [2] To initiate reactions in these ultra high density deuterium clusters, efficient ways are needed to excite the deuterium via a momentum pulse. One is through pulsed electrolysis to achieve high fluxes of deuterons hitting the clusters. [3] Another method uses ion bombardment from a pulsed plasma glow discharge. [4] Electron beam and laser irradiation represent other approaches to be explored.
[1] AG Lipson, BJ Heuser, CH Castano, A Celik-Aktas, Physics Letters A. 339 (2005) 414-423.
[2] Holmlid, Hora, Miley Yang, Laser and Part. Beams 27, 529 (2009)
[3] X. Yang, G. H. Miley, H. Hora, 2009, SPESIF-2009, AIP Conf. Proceeding, 1103, pp. 450-458
[4] A.G. Lipson, A.S. Rusetskii, A.B. Karabut, and G. Miley, J. of Experimental and Theoretical Physics, Vol. 100, No.6, pp. 1334-1349, (2005)

and

Vladimir Vysotskii (Kiev National Shevchenko University, Ukraine) will present experimental evidence that bacteria can undergo a type of cold fusion process and could be used to dispose of nuclear waste. He will describe studies of nuclear transmutation of stable and radioactive isotopes in biological systems.

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — July 21, 2010 @ 1:57 pm

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
July 23rd, 2010 at 12:45 am
George W. Bush blamed for Al and Tipper Gore's divorce by CBS reporter:

CBS Decies Al and Tipper's Seperation Fault of George W Bush

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — July 23, 2010 @ 12:45 am

kornbelt888 Says:
July 23rd, 2010 at 1:00 am

Comment by kornbelt888 — July 23, 2010 @ 1:00 am

Pez Says:
July 23rd, 2010 at 1:53 am
Nice song. I used that exact video to learn it for our worship team.

Comment by Pez — July 23, 2010 @ 1:53 am

GringoRoyale Says:
July 23rd, 2010 at 5:06 pm
What would you do?

You have a home that you've been in for just over a year.
Over the past summer you've got water in your basement 3 times (now, this is the summer after the summer you've been living there).
You look back at the condition report for the house and it is check "No" to the previous home owners knowing about water getting in the basement.

Do you have any legal recourse?

Comment by GringoRoyale — July 23, 2010 @ 5:06 pm

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