You have absolutely no idea of the MAGNITUDE of this gusher! This will likely go on for months and the rate of flow is likely to increase with time as the gushing oil erodes the steel (yes, crude oil can be surprisingly abrasive because it is not pure). Even the current flow rate makes your statement appear surprisingly out-of-touch.

I wish BP the best and hope they have some miraculous way to slow or stop this leak but there is no evidence to indicate that is the case. The Norwegians have a large off-shore oil industry and every well is required by law to have common sense modern safety devices in place to prevent this type of thing but Bush loaded the regulators with big oil cronies who were so cheap they lobbied against these common sense devices.

 

Excuse me? Did Bush appoint this woman to head up the MMS? Head of MMS leaves post

 

No, I didn't say that. I was talking about the decades of Bush cronyism in the Interior Department that she was hired to clean up. Bush appointee's succesfully lobbied years ago to avoid the safety devices that are required by almost all other major oil producing nations when drilling offshore and that would have prevented this sort of accident from happening in the first place.

Elizabeth Birnbaum has only been in charge less than a year.

The oil is coming out at such a fast rate that cleaning even ten percent of it up is physically impossible and it will likely keep flowing for months at this rate or above. Prevention would have been far more practical but oil cronies installed by the Bush's decided it would be more practical to let the oil companies decide what sort of preventative measures were acceptable. Remember the sex and drugs scandals at the Dept. of the Interior? Those were Bush people.

She was tasked with cleaning up those problems. Is it any wonder she didn't fix the sort of embedded problems those appointments caused in her first few months on the job?

I think she resigned because she knew she was up against far more powerful interests than herself and she didn't have the stomach to stick around through the current mess (which was not of her failing). A quitter? Yes. But this position needs someone willing to stand up to big oil interest$.

 

Terrorism was at a very high point during that time period, I wonder, could it have been terroist that blew that well out? I was in Central America during that time period, doing guess what? Well, I'm still not sure why I was there, I may have been fighting Terrorist, I may have been supplying them. That has never really been determined. But the ones of us that were there, followed the orders that rolled down the hill. U.S. history for that time period is as confusing as the Spanish American War's begining

 

So I guess you Obama worshipers have never heard of the U S Navy Deep Submergence Group. This is the outfit that has numerous deep water subs capable of extracting bodys from sunken submarines and extracting nuclear warheads from submarines. They could easily be dispatched to cut the pipe, put a cathead on it, and turn the damn thing off. Yeah, it's really that easy. But the moron we have driving the bus has refused the Navy s involvement. It's politics as usual in DC and this is making the Obama platform look good in their eyes. This ziphead has already stated he wants you driving cars that get 50 mpg and the price of gas should be $5.00 a gallon. If he lets this get big enough, no US company will be allowed to drill on this reserve. Other nations are drilling on it and are already selling us crude we could be getting ourselves, but that doesn't meet up with the Obama agenda. It just another way of Yomama pushing Gov't controls on you. But some folks are either too blind or too stupid to see this.

In regards to the acoustic regulator. Mind posting a linky to it. Nobody that I know in the industry has ever heard of it. Maybe by another name?

Real, the crude coming out of this pipe is a sweet crude, not the honey thick, black, sulfur loaded crap we get from the Arab nations. This will not erode the pipes anymore than driving a Chevy leads to AIDS.

 

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/m...-cheney-ro.php

 

What good is an acoustic regulator to trip your compromised blow out preventer? You realize the blow out preventer is working, it failed because someone pulled 15' of drill pipe through it during a pressure test 4 weeks before the blow out?

 

In the case of a deadman switch, it would not have made any difference in this disaster. If you've seen any of the video of the pipe sticking out of the bottom of the Gulf, all you see is the pipe. The BOP and anything else that was above it is gone. It most likely broke off when the rig sank. Pipe in the cold waters at that depth get brittle from the cold. I have a hunch that the cold is the reason that a defective BOP was installed anyway- it wouldn't be of much value if the rig sank. But one of the main reasons these were eliminated is that they generally don't work. Malfunctions are common with shut downs occurring for no reason. They are a lot like the anti-knock sensors from the early PCM units. Most often an engine would be running in a retarded timing condition because the sensor was picking up noise from rocks hitting the frame and exhaust pipe when running down a road. Even a boosted stereo could set one off. Piezoelectric anything has no place for safety equipment.

 

The Navy has no experience capping oil gushers and it's not as easy as you make it seem. You just don't know what you're talking about.

The thickness of the crude oil is referred to by the weight of the oil. The amount of sulfer is referred to as the "sweetness". I am not refering to either of these qualities but rather the abrasive quality of the oil. It is not uncommon for unrefined oil to have sand and heavy metals in it. And at the speed at which this gusher is flowing you can bet your sweet *** it's going to be causing abrasion/eroision over time.

 

Got back earlier today from Grand Isle where we spent the last 3 days pretty much hanging around the camp and dodging thunderstorms. My son in law and I went out to the beach Saturday evening and saw almost no evedience of any oil, both on shore and out in the Gulf. A lot of cleanup personnel were seen hanging around but none were working. Most of the beaches remained closed and no one was allowed in the water for the whole weekend. No fishing allowed either so our bay boat sat on it's trailer when we could have had a nice long weekend fishing and boatriding. Let's see no sport fishing for awhile along with no commercial fishing, shrimping, oystering. Throw in the ban on offshore drilling that ought to do in the economy of the Gulf states that are dependent on the oil industry not to mention hurricane season is right around the corner. Anybody has a copy of O'Bama's welfare plan!

 

What do you mean by "almost no evidence of any oil"?

That it must be safe to harvest commercial seafood? Good enough to swim in? Maybe you could go boating and hope the boats ignition didn't find a pocket of gaseous flammables? I guess if you couldn't see much from the shore it would have been a great day boating?

What would be your "proper" course of action? Do nothing?

 

You coulda carried some wood with you, and built a short pier. Then invited others to take a long walk out onto it.

 

That I might be but you're still my buddy

 

Whas up Habs? Thiangs goin on for ya?

 

Threadcrap much?