Oil spill

[Grog]

I sat horrified watching this for a while yesterday:
http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_inte...ov_stream.html

Right now it's showing some large metal cage (?) but the camera view changes now and then, and for a while it was the oil gushing out of the hole. Terrifying.

[SOAP BOX]

As a civilization we are willing to get oil from more and more remote and dangerous places. And we're pretty snug about it. I read a feature about this guy that specializes in "killing" operations, who boasts that there isn't a well he's not been able to kill, and how confident he is that this one will be no exception. That kind of technical self-suffisance makes me sick. This well might teach us a lesson... but what will we learn?

I can ride my bike to work all I want - great! - but that's just the peak of the iceberg. Everything we consume heavily relies on fossil fuels, including services such as the Internet (how much energy used by a single google search? a post on TeamEstrogen?), television, health care, etc. All things we take for granted. Renewables, you say? Some guy did the back-of-the-envelope calculation to check out whether the UK could live only on renewables. http://www.withouthotair.com/ (There is a 10-page synopsis.) Bad news ladies: basically it would require 75% of the country to be covered in crops for biomass, 500 km of coast line to be used for tidal, and solar panels covering about 5 to 10% of the country. You'd also have to fill the sea with windmills, equivalent to twice the area of Wales. And that would be quite enough at current levels of use. To say nothing of the mining and destruction required to make, say, electric car batteries.

The conclusion is obvious: the only way is to drastically reduce our consumption, not just of direct energy (in our homes) but of everything. Or to keep watching live, in horror, as millions of gallons of oil transform the Gulf of Mexico into a dead sea.

[/SOAP BOX]

If you read this far, thanks for letting me vent.

[Tri Girl]

Grog- I read your soapbox and that study on using only renewables is eye-opening.
You're right- the problem is that petroleum is used in SOOOO many things. We can't just simply do without it. I wonder if we stop using so much as gasoline, if what we don't use there could be used for many more years making the things we depend upon still available to us?
I'll be gone before there is a serious crisis/shortage of fossil fuels (based on projections of how much longer it will last). It will require extreme ingenuity to figure out how to live without it- but I'm hopeful that not only technology will progress, but that humans will be smart enough to figure it out. I think we have to change our habits NOW and start doing things immediately to help future generations.

It's such a quandary...

[Bike Chick]

It sickens me more every day to watch this happening. I feel so sorry for all the folks that live on the gulf coast and depend on it for their livelihood. They have all just begun to get back on their feet after Katrina and now this has happened. It's heart breaking.

I went to get gas for the car today and purposely drove past the BP station and went elsewhere. I know that it won't make a difference in the least but it made me feel better. I am actually surprised that there hasn't been a boycott on BP.

[Tri Girl]

One of the news stations reported that the gas stations that sell BP are independently owned and operated. The owners just get their gas from BP- so it's a double-edged sword. If you boycott the stations, you hurt the individual and their livelihood. If they refuse to buy gas from the person they've contracted with (BP), they're cutting their own throat.

[shootingstar]

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Che...804/story.html
There is a fuel oil leak into the ocean waters here locally now..it's been going on slowly for over a month. But under the radar, not revealed until recently.

While petroleum is required to make some plastics, synthetic materials, etc. which are tough to eliminate completely from modern day living (otherwise we'll have to chop down more trees in lieu as a resource material or grow more cotton for textiles..), just on daily transportation alone, could reduce a noticeable amount per family, if some changes were made to reduce car usage (therefore petroleum use) per week.

It is interesting to hear directly from a person who spent their whole career in the oil industry with a major oil company. Which is what dearie did.

Fact: He worked his whole career for a Canadian national oil firm which is now at least 40% own by Exxon.

As someone with an engineering background, he is highly doubtful that any manmade structure could ever guarantee error-free, leak-free offshore/underwater oil drilling operations.

As someone who negotiated very large contracts with other firms to repair pipelines...he is aware that oil companies often do NOT retrofit their pipelines when the forecasted engineering date for pipeline longevity has been reached. Often things just go past the "maturation" date for awhile. The public has no clue....unless you do work in the oil industry or have technical knowledge of oil production and distribution operations.

He is totally against gas flaring that one sees in the oilfields..harmful.
Against oil sands development --even more intensive processing to extract the oil and leftover sludge that is an environmental concern.

He even wonders about chefs use the propane torches for carmelizing the brulees daily. There's petroleum particulate material coming off the butane torch flame.

He really, strongly is against wasteful oil dependency for transporation -ie. single occupant car drivers, driving daily for short distances, etc. He supports the use of petroleum for some of our man-made materials in daily living. But not overuse.

No wonder, he's probably become a very strong/vocal cycling advocate.

I think the last time he drove a car..was um..Jan. 2009, in Hawai'i when we were on vacation. He only drove for 1 day so that we could see parts of Maui in a hurry. He'll drive a rented car if it means more time efficiency..but it's been awhile. Because of his sleep disorder, he had to pull over the roadside every 2 hrs. or so. Driving makes him sleepy...which means it's dangerous for him to drive for hrs. and hrs. without stopping.

Our quality of life has not suffered. But then, we have chosen to live in the city. We are going to Europe for several wks. and don't plan to rent a car.

[Grog]

I went to get gas for the car today and purposely drove past the BP station and went elsewhere. I know that it won't make a difference in the least but it made me feel better. I am actually surprised that there hasn't been a boycott on BP.

You might want to try boycotting all gas stations - and encourage everyone you know to do the same - for lasting effects...

[Trek420]

So maybe you have to drive, or can't be car free or even car lite. Maybe you own a BP station;

I forget where I read/heard the figure on oil savings if everyone simply checked their tire pressure. Someone here will know the figures I'm sure. It was astounding.

BYOB and stop using plastic bags, yep bags. What's plastic made from? All together now, it's a petroleum product.

Same goes for bottled water. Kick the habit and use tap, maybe filtered.

Home heating oil; do an energy retrofit any way you can.

Eat/buy organic. Why organic? What are non-organic fertilizers made from? You guessed it, petroleum.

It's sad that it takes something like this but if enough people started doing things like this .... who needs an oil company!

[bmccasland]

25% of the oil and gas that North America uses comes through various ports in south Louisiana - from international sources, such as Nigeria, where they don't have the environmental restrictions that we have. Yeah we have a permitting process, which was given a Catorgical Exemption for the Deepwater Horizion, and then there were mistakes. The point I'm trying, badly, to make is that we at least have laws to protect our evironment and agencies to enforce them, where some of our oil and gas comes from the international market where what laws they have are often overlooked. They haven't had a spill of this magnitude, but things aren't pristine either.

Yes we should use less, canvas bags at the grocery, drive less, more fuel efficient cars, reuse, recycle, etc. Maybe we, as a nation, will learn something from this. But I doubt it. Seems if it isn't happening in your backyard, to someone you know, then it can quickly be forgotten.

I suppose the most fustrating thing is that there is little to nothing most of us can do about it. After other disasters, the bad event is over, and then the clean-up and rebuilding process can begin. This damn thing keeps going and going.

[PamNY]

I can't even fathom the effects of this event. With deepwater drilling and fishing/shrimping being the main industries in some areas, what are they going to do?

And as you point out the ongoing nature of the problem is a nightmare. I wish there was something outsiders could do.

[Trek420]

25% of the oil and gas that North America uses comes through various ports in south Louisiana - from international sources, such as Nigeria, where they don't have the environmental restrictions that we have.

ah, so whatcher sayin' is this could be a preview

The point I'm trying, badly, to make is that we at least have laws to protect our evironment and agencies to enforce them, where some of our oil and gas comes from the international market where what laws they have are often overlooked. They haven't had a spill of this magnitude.....

.... yet No, I think you're doing a good job. We get it. Does everyone get it? I don't think so.

Yes we should use less, canvas bags at the grocery, drive less, more fuel efficient cars, reuse, recycle, etc. Maybe we, as a nation, will learn something from this. But I doubt it. Seems if it isn't happening in your backyard, to someone you know, then it can quickly be forgotten.

IMHO I feel when it comes to the ocean it's everyone's backyard. Even if you're landlocked, even if you've never seen a beach.

We all live on the Gulf Coast.

I suppose the most fustrating thing is that there is little to nothing most of us can do about it. After other disasters, the bad event is over, and then the clean-up and rebuilding process can begin. This damn thing keeps going and going.

I've read that rebuilding from Katrina is only beginning and now this. I'm so sorry.