Mission Impossible: Obama Taps Crack Team Of Scientists To Do The Job BP Can't
Jack Linthicum
Remember Richard Feymann, yeah, I know he was coached, but he broke
through the institutiolized bullshit.
Mission Impossible: Obama Taps Crack Team Of Scientists To Do The Job
BP Can't
Zachary Roth | May 14, 2010, 5:36PM
Scientists tapped by the Obama administration to help fix the Gulf
Coast oil spill. From left to right: Richard Garwin, Tom Hunter,
Alexander Slocum, Jonathan Katz and George Cooper
President Obama's new plan to fix the Gulf oil spill is so crazy it
just might work...
As BP's high-priced industry experts flail, the president has turned
to a rag-tag band of big-think scientific renegades, and sent them on
a mission to somehow MacGyver a way to stop up the leak -- before it's
too late.
OK, maybe that's going a bit far. In fact, the news that Obama and his
energy secretary, Steven Chu, have sent a team of leading physicists
and engineers to the Gulf to work with BP offers further evidence of
the administration's essentially technocratic approach to governance,
and its faith in knowledge-based expertise. That might seem like
common sense, but it represents a shift from the Bushies' faith in the
problem-solving power of industry, and its willingness to let science
take a backseat to the concerns of its religious base.
Still, asking one of the key inventors of the hydrogen bomb, along
with an engineer who helped develop techniques for mining on Mars,
counts as out-of-the-box thinking. Here's a quick rundown on the
president's unlikely team:
The Old Hand: Richard Garvin
In 1951, 23-year old Richard Garwin was working at the Los Alomos
nuclear laboratory,
when he was asked by Edward Teller to devise an experiment that would
demonstrate the principle of "radiation implosion." Garwin's detailed
sketch served as the basis for "Mike," an 80-ton device, that was
detonated the following year as the world's first hydrogen bomb. "I
wasn't the inventor," Garwin has said. "I was sort of the architect."
In 1952, Garwin went to work for IBM -- where he remains a fellow
emeritus -- on the understanding that he could spend a third of his
time working with the federal government on national security issues.
He's a recipient of the national medal of science, and a member of the
JASON, an elite think tank that studies complex scientific problems on
behalf of the U.S. government. In 1991, Garwin convened a symposium of
experts to discus ways to stem oil flows from Kuwait wells, set on
fire by Iraq during the Gulf War. For Garwin, now 82, could this be
his last hurrah?
The Establishment Man: Tom Hunter
Tom Hunter yesterday announced his resignation as the president of
Sandia National Laboratories, an outpost of the U.S. nuclear weapons
complex that conducts high-level research for the National Nuclear
Security Administration. He had been at Sandia since 1967, and served
as president since 2005 -- a job that reportedly paid him $1.7 million
a year. He has a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of
Wisconsin. Hunter said yesterday he had no particular plans for what
he'd be doing in retirement. That may have changed.
The Maverick Genius: Alexander Slocum
Alexander Slocum, a professor of mechanical engineering at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, teaches a world famous design
and manufacturing class that culminates in a remote-controlled robot
competition. He holds more than 60 patents for inventions relating to
biotechnology, robotics and computer science, but his research
interests also include "going faster on my snowboard, staying down
longer SCUBA diving!," according to his website. A colleague told
Bloomberg: "He has a lot of creative ideas. One in 10 are really
brilliant ideas, but nine are dumb. You can't miss that one that is
brilliant." Here's hoping genius strikes in the Gulf.
Frogwatch
wrote:
Do any of these people know ANYTHING about oil drilling? Obambi has
watched too many crappy sci fi movies.
Ray OHara
"Frogwatch" <dbo...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:dd162782-44ad-456f...@a16g2000vbr.googlegroups.com...
==============================================================================
we've seen what the "professionals" hath wrought.
look at the great work the oilmen Bush/Cheney did, ahhhh those were the
heady days :-p
Frogwatch
> "Frogwatch" <dboh...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
Frogwatch
JUst what we need, academics who do not know a drill pipe from a drill
collar and who could not tell you within a factor of 10 without
looking it up what the pressures might be and who are probably
oblivious to H2S and all the craziness that can happen on drilling
jobs. Obambi is doing SOMETHING just so he can claim to be doing
something while doing nothing useful.
William Black
> JUst what we need, academics who do not know a drill pipe from a drill
> collar and who could not tell you within a factor of 10 without
> looking it up what the pressures might be and who are probably
> oblivious to H2S and all the craziness that can happen on drilling
> jobs. Obambi is doing SOMETHING just so he can claim to be doing
> something while doing nothing useful.
Having watched from this side of the pond the dreadful mess the
professionals have made so far I wonder if they can possibly do any worse...
--
William Black
These are the gilded popinjays and murderous assassins of Perfidious
Albion and they are about their Queen's business. Any man who impedes
their passage does so at his own peril.
Jack Linthicum
It always helps to know that the "professionals" get their paychecks
from "the industry". It is often necessary to bring a different, if
non-professional view into an obviously botched situation. Admiral
Thad Allen, nearly naval, says the ops is more like the Apollo 13
rescue than the Exxon Valdez, ie the "expertise" seems to get in the
way of solving the problem. Can anyone say methane crystals?
Ray OHara
=========================================================================
yes it is what qwe need, educated people making educated plans and not
wildcatters who only care for how much money they can save.
I know the idea of a President actually trying to fix a problem is foreigh
to your Republican ideals where Presidents only do nothing except cut costs
for businesses and transfer all the costs to the workers.
but that's what we have..
Jack Linthicum
You might also add that the "de-regulation" of the regulation of the
petroleum industry had its beginnings in those little sessions that
Dick Cheney had with the oil people at the beginning of the Bush-
Cheney presidency. There is a reason why those regulations existed and
the recent examples of permits granted without the proper procedures
are part and parcel to the idea of 30 second versions of five minute
pressure tests and removing the overburden from concreted plugs even
after the pressure had been demonstrated to be dangerously unbalanced.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aJD7AbhMIHTw&pos=9
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703339304575240210545113710.html
Jack Linthicum
It should be obvious that none of the people on site know enough to
stop this leak. I have come to the conclusion that they do not want to
plug the leak, they want to recover the oil.
Frogwatch
wrote:
The problem is that these academics are likely to step on the rig and
immediately break a leg falling into the rathole. Even worse, they
will think the rathole is the well or try to use some drill pipe
knowing how strong it is and then finding that all its strength is in
tension and torsion and not compression. Maybe they will try to get
drilling mud mixed up with really high weight only to find it doesnt
mix with anything but diesel or that it has no ability to carry
plugging material, etc. These guys truly know nothing at all about
drilling so I fail to see how they can be of any use at all. Other
wildcatters ARE the people with knowledge because they have generally
solved every crazy kind of drilling problem because the average
wildcatter does not work for a well funded oil company but is
operating on his own dime.
Frogwatch
These academics will also probably propose stuff that is absurd simply
because they do not know any better. How many of them know that it is
really difficult to get an electrical connection to work in such an
environment or to get good pressure data from the bottom of the well
to the surface in real time.
Would any of you trust an academic whose expertise is in 14th century
Mongolian burial customs to advise on naval warfare technology ? The
idea is absurd.
Jack Linthicum
On the other hand they have the deep draft to make things happen and I
reminded you of Richard Feynman at the Columbia hearings. Somewhere in
that collection of toadies and yesmen is a man like the General
(Kutnya?) who showed Feyman the trick with the O-ring.
"Feynman's own investigation reveals a disconnect between NASA's
engineers and executives that was far more striking than he expected.
His interviews of NASA's high-ranking managers revealed startling
misunderstandings of elementary concepts. One such concept was the
determination of a safety factor."
You have demonstrated over and over on this news-group that you really
have no appreciation for people who think things out to the end. It is
in light of this and your various naive comments on this disaster,
that I can be assured the three wisemen will do better than all of
your embedded plumbers.
Mark Borgerson
9966cf...@q13g2000vbm.googlegroups.com>, jackli...@earthlink.net
says...
Is there some reason that they can't send down a gigantic pair
of vise-grips and simply pinch the pipe? Or would that just
move the leak somewhere upstream?
Mark Borgerson
Mark Borgerson
@m4g2000vbl.googlegroups.com>, ohar...@mindspring.com says...
Mark Borgerson
Mark Borgerson
@h11g2000vbo.googlegroups.com>, ohar...@mindspring.com says...
haven't done squat to stop the oil release in the last three
weeks. I think they'll be able to continue doing the same
while others work on different solutions.
Mark Borgerson
Jack Linthicum
> In article <330d69b1-78a1-4d49-a466-
> 9966cf434...@q13g2000vbm.googlegroups.com>, jacklinthi...@earthlink.net
That device that was supposed to "fail-safe" lacked a working battery
and an edge capable of cutting the stand pipe. I am 50 years away from
my days at the pipeline company but a 21 inch pipe would have been cut
by torch rather than snipped then. Why they had to hit the joints,
which would be welded together and IMHO stronger than the pipe, is an
unknown. Anyway, it didn't work and they still are spilling oil out
the wazoo.
"A House energy panel investigation has found that the blowout
preventer that failed to stop a huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico
had a dead battery in its control pod, leaks in its hydraulic system,
a "useless" test version of a key component and a cutting tool that
wasn't strong enough to shear through steel joints in the well pipe
and stop the flow of oil."
Stupak said the problem suggested inadequate maintenance by BP and
Transocean. He also said that the shear ram, the strongest of the
shutoff devices on the blowout preventer, was not strong enough to cut
through joints that connected the 90-foot sections of drill pipe and
covered 10 percent of the pipe's length.
In Washington, Stupak said the committee investigators had uncovered a
document prepared in 2001 by Transocean, the drilling rig operator,
that said there were 260 "failure modes" that could require removal of
the blowout preventer.
"How can a device that has 260 failure modes be considered fail-safe?"
Stupak asked.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/12/AR2010051202190.html
Jim Yanik
news:MPG.265870b15...@news.eternal-september.org:
>
> Is there some reason that they can't send down a gigantic pair
> of vise-grips and simply pinch the pipe? Or would that just
> move the leak somewhere upstream?
>
> Mark Borgerson
>
I was thinking of something to insert into the pipe and expand until it
seals it off. Kinda like a wallanchor,the kind with a screw down the
middle,that expands the outer wall of the anchor. Or like a giant Poprivet.
--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
localnet
dot com
Jack Linthicum
> Mark Borgerson <mborger...@comcast.net> wrote innews:MPG.265870b15...@news.eternal-september.org:
They have talked about golf balls and animal hair, I really think the
oil boys are torn between capping that well and getting the oil out
through a pipe or something similar. Even the "dome" idea involved
pumping the oil. Hard to imagine a substance that could be carried
down 5000 feet without doing its thing until stuffed in the pipe. The
one shown on TV is bent and crooked and I suspect might break
somewhere along the line under that level of pressure.
Jack Linthicum
This is better?
''We've never done such operations before and we need to take our time
to get it right,''
''Our concerns about the use of these dispersants underwater is based
on the fact that there is virtually no science that supports the use
of those chemicals,''
May 15, 2010
Latest Effort to Stop Gulf Oil Leak Hits a Snag
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:55 p.m. ET
HAMMOND, La. (AP) -- At first, BP tried to stop the oil rushing into
the Gulf of Mexico by flipping a blowout preventer switch. A week ago,
they attempted to capture the leak with a 100-ton box. Now they've hit
a snag as they try to guide a mile-long tube into the gusher to siphon
the oil.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said BP PLC had a problem Saturday with
the latest effort to stop the leak, but was continuing its work at the
ocean floor.
''There was a problem. They had to reconfigure. They are back down
again ... trying to get it inserted,'' he told reporters during a
briefing at a bird rescue facility in Louisiana, declining to offer
further information.
BP has offered scant details of its progress in trying to thread the 6-
inch tube into the 21-inch pipe spewing oil from the ocean floor.
Company spokesmen said technicians are continuing the methodical work
that began early Friday of using joysticks to guide the deep-sea
robots that are manipulating the contraption. They wouldn't elaborate
on Salazar's report.
''We've never done such operations before and we need to take our time
to get it right,'' spokesman Jon Pack said in an e-mail Saturday after
Salazar's comments.
The company planned to brief reporters on the tube work in the
afternoon. The tube is intended to suck oil up like a straw to a
tanker on the surface, while a stopper surrounding it would keep crude
from leaking into the sea.
Other efforts to fight the spill continued above and below the
surface. The company received word Friday that federal regulators had
approved spraying chemical dispersants beneath the sea, a contentious
development because it has never been done underwater.
More than three weeks after the oil rig explosion that killed 11
workers and set off the disastrous spill, President Barack Obama
assailed oil drillers and his own administration Friday as he ordered
extra scrutiny of drilling permits. He condemned a ''ridiculous
spectacle'' of oil executives shifting blame in congressional hearings
and denounced a ''cozy relationship'' between the companies and the
federal government.
''I will not tolerate more finger-pointing or irresponsibility,''
Obama said in the White House Rose Garden, flanked by members of his
Cabinet.
''The system failed, and it failed badly. And for that, there is
enough responsibility to go around. And all parties should be willing
to accept it,'' the president said.
But the president, who had earlier announced a limited expansion of
offshore drilling that's now on hold, didn't back down from his
support for domestic oil drilling.
Obama's tone was a marked departure from the deliberate approach and
mild chiding that had characterized his response since the rig went up
in flames April 20 and sank two days later. At least 210,000 gallons
of oil has been leaking into the Gulf each day, and BP has sought to
burn the crude off the surface of the water, as well as use the
chemical dispersants.
U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry said Friday that three
underwater dispersant tests conducted at the leak site proved helpful
at keeping oil from reaching the surface. Traditionally used on the
surface, chemical dispersants act like a detergent to break the oil
into small globules, which allows it to disperse more quickly into the
water or air before currents can wash it ashore.
So far more than 517,000 gallons of dispersants, most of which is a
product called Corexit 9500 previously approved by the Environmental
Protection Agency for use on the sea surface only, have been dropped
over the spill or shot undersea.
Corexit 9500 is identified as a ''moderate'' human health hazard that
can cause eye, skin or respiratory irritation with prolonged exposure,
according to safety data documents. Louisiana Health and Hospitals
Secretary Alan Levine said federal regulators dismissed state worries
about the chemicals.
''Our concerns about the use of these dispersants underwater is based
on the fact that there is virtually no science that supports the use
of those chemicals,'' Levine said.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has said she reserves the right to halt
the use of chemical dispersants at any time if new data show more
serious environmental harm is occurring.
The Obama administration insists its response has been aggressive ever
since the spill started, and the president said he shared the anger
and frustration of those affected. He announced that the Interior
Department would review whether the Minerals Management Service is
following all environmental laws before issuing permits for offshore
oil and gas development.
BP's drilling operation at Deepwater Horizon received a ''categorical
exclusion,'' which allows for expedited oil and gas drilling without
the detailed environmental review that normally is required.
Obama already had announced a 30-day review of safety procedures on
oil rigs and at wells before any additional oil leases could be
granted. And earlier in the week Salazar announced plans to split the
much-criticized Minerals Management Service into two agencies, one
that would be charged with inspecting oil rigs, investigating oil
companies and enforcing safety regulations, while the other would
oversee leases for drilling and collection of billions of dollars in
royalties. Salazar has said the plan will ensure there is no conflict,
''real or perceived,'' regarding the agency's functions.
Arved Sandstrom
>> The problem is that these academics are likely to step on the rig and
>> immediately break a leg falling into the rathole. Even worse, they
>> will think the rathole is the well or try to use some drill pipe
>> knowing how strong it is and then finding that all its strength is in
>> tension and torsion and not compression. Maybe they will try to get
>> drilling mud mixed up with really high weight only to find it doesnt
>> mix with anything but diesel or that it has no ability to carry
>> plugging material, etc. These guys truly know nothing at all about
>> drilling so I fail to see how they can be of any use at all. Other
>> wildcatters ARE the people with knowledge because they have generally
>> solved every crazy kind of drilling problem because the average
>> wildcatter does not work for a well funded oil company but is
>> operating on his own dime.
>
> These academics will also probably propose stuff that is absurd simply
> because they do not know any better. How many of them know that it is
> really difficult to get an electrical connection to work in such an
> environment or to get good pressure data from the bottom of the well
> to the surface in real time.
> Would any of you trust an academic whose expertise is in 14th century
> Mongolian burial customs to advise on naval warfare technology ? The
> idea is absurd.
"14th century Mongolian burial customs"? Constant reiteration of the
term "academic" as if that's a loathsome appellation...which I'm
thinking to you maybe it is, which is your problem and not anyone
else's. Although I think you could do worse than pick these particular
"academics"...none of them have spent their careers writing dusty papers
on 14th century Mongolian burial customs, exactly...they even have creds
in strangely apt areas like physics and engineering.
Your biases show up big time here, Frog. You busted on these picks and
called them an Obama choice right out of sci-fi movies, but here you are
falling all over yourself to nominate a Harry Stamper wildcatter team
right out of "Armageddon".
And you keep on referring to this as a "drilling" problem. Seems to me
that when things went south it stopped being a "drilling" problem real
fast. And these wildcatters you want, the ones that aren't well-funded,
they'll have oh-so-much experience of operating at 5000+ feet of water
depth. Right.
Like others have said, BP and all their hired help have tried or are
trying the obvious things. Some of which even high-school kids could
have thought of, like the containment dome attempt. So it seems like
asking a team of physicists and engineers to evaluate the situation and
think outside the box may not be the worst idea in the world. They'll
probably do much less damage than if your Harry Stamper team showed up.
AHS
Dennis
>
> Remember Richard Feymann, yeah, I know he was coached, but he broke
> through the institutiolized bullshit.
A worthy effort! However, here's a better idea.
The governor of our fair state of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, should fly
to London, stand on the desk of BP's CEO, and inform him that unless the
leak stops *immediately*, BP will never do business in his state again, and
said state will do everything in its power to sue BP into bankruptcy!
Gov. Bobby's response to Hurricane Gustav was exemplary. Our power
company said the power wouldn't be on for a month. Bobby simply said,
"This is not acceptable," kept kicking their asses, and they deployed
enormous resources, and the power was back on in 10 days! Despite 20
state-wide feeders being out of service.
Dennis
Ray OHara
"Arved Sandstrom" <dce...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:JgCHn.4160$z%6.816@edtnps83...
>
> Like others have said, BP and all their hired help have tried or are
> trying the obvious things. Some of which even high-school kids could have
> thought of, like the containment dome attempt. So it seems like asking a
> team of physicists and engineers to evaluate the situation and think
> outside the box may not be the worst idea in the world. They'll probably
> do much less damage than if your Harry Stamper team showed up.
>
> AHS
but but the "academics" are wimps. probably Harvard/Yale effete Eastern
elites types.
not MANLY MEN like good and true conservatives who could fix everything if
we just got the Govt and all its regulations out of the way
I mean helloooo the safety features failed, if the Govt didn't require
safety devices they wouldn't have failed and we wouldn't have this
disaster.it's all the regulators fault..
Frogwatch
With various advanced degrees in both Physics and engineering and
having taught at a university and having done work very much like this
on oil and gas wells, I can speak from direct experience in knowing
the lack of worth of getting an academician in physics to say much on
this topic. OTOH, your average wildcatter has seen and done it all
whereas well funded BP engineers have not. For your average
wildcatter, wood chips are an essential part of a drilling job because
they can be added to mud to plug up a sucking formation whereas the
well paid BP engineer would not consider something so lo-tech.
When I say "drilling", I mean general rig operations. Two days ago, I
was explaining the cementing process on wells to a PhD physicist who
was amazed they could pump cement down the pipe and then force it up
the outside of the casing for many thousands of feet.
I think the questions about simply sticking something into the pipe
goes right to the heart of the matter here. THat pipe is gushing
stuff at many thousands of PSI and the pipe is sort of flopping around
on the sea floor, not an easy target to hit and when youi do, how do
you fight the pressure. In normal drilling operations, you use the
weight of the drill string to set seals. In this case you do not have
any such weight because th pipe is horizontal on the sea floor.
The problem basically consists of trying to stuff a cork into a
spewing fire hose from a mile away.
I got no objections to asking people in general for ideas but these
people simply have no useful experience (neither did Feynman).
Jack Linthicum
But Feynman knew how to listen and then reason from what he heard.
tankfixer
oh...@hotmail.com says...
four whole posts before some moron pukes up bushes name
pathetic
Ray OHara
"tankfixer" <paul.c...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.2658e8f6...@news.bytemine.net...
yeah nothing that happened under them is ever their fault.
tankfixer
oh...@hotmail.com says...
news flash nimrod.. they arn't in power..
But the Obama regulators gave this rig a pass just weeks before the
accident..
Ray OHara
"tankfixer" <paul.c...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.2659040a...@news.bytemine.net...
"Obama regulatoras"?
these rigs were operating under the Bush/Cheney system.
now we will get "Obama regulators"
Mark Borgerson
@w3g2000vbd.googlegroups.com>, dbo...@mindspring.com says...
How many PSI above ambient (~2200PSI at 5000 feet ocean depth) does that
oil have to be to maintain the current flow rate through whatever
length of pipe to the leak? That's a question that involves the
diameter of the pipe, the temperature and viscostiy of the oil and
probably some factors better known to hydraulic engineers than to
an embedded systems designer like me. Does it take 5000PSI at the
blowout preventer or 2500?
Mark Borgerson
Jim H.
................
> Therein lies a good question:
>
> How many PSI above ambient (~2200PSI at 5000 feet ocean depth) does that
> oil have to be to maintain the current flow rate through whatever
> length of pipe to the leak? That's a question that involves the
> diameter of the pipe, the temperature and viscostiy of the oil and
> probably some factors better known to hydraulic engineers than to
> an embedded systems designer like me. Does it take 5000PSI at the
> blowout preventer or 2500?
>
> Mark Borgerson
The leak looks to my totally untrained eye to be at most few hundred
psi above ambient, probably less. Sea-bottom pressure would act
equally in all directions on a plug or tube being inserted into the
leak, yes? So any recovery or plugging operation just has to
overcome a smallish pressure differential, not thousands of psi. Of
course, if that's a 21 inch diameter opening, it's thousands of pounds
of total force.
But there may be some kind of restriction near the pipe's mouth,
throttling the flow before the exit... no way to know from that little
video clip.
Jim H.
tankfixer
You really want to start a flame war over speeling errors ?
You hardly get a post out without one.
>
> these rigs were operating under the Bush/Cheney system.
Yes they were.
Safely too.
>
> now we will get "Obama regulators"
You know he is the man now..
Jack Linthicum
> In article <hsnpvi$vc...@news.eternal-september.org>, raymond-
> oh...@hotmail.com says...
>
>
>
>
>
> > "tankfixer" <paul.carr...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> >news:MPG.2659040a...@news.bytemine.net...
> > > In article <hsni6h$8i...@news.eternal-september.org>, raymond-
> > > oh...@hotmail.com says...
>
> > >> "tankfixer" <paul.carr...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> > >>news:MPG.2658e8f6...@news.bytemine.net...
> > >> > In article <hskvdn$hl...@news.eternal-september.org>, raymond-
> > >> > oh...@hotmail.com says...
>
> > >> >> "Frogwatch" <dboh...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
Depends on what you call "safely", I mean large numbers of people
weren't killed and very few places had the same accidents over and
over.
May 8, 2010
For BP, a History of Spills and Safety Lapses
By JAD MOUAWAD
After BP’s Texas City, Tex., refinery blew up in 2005, killing 15
workers, the company vowed to address the safety shortfalls that
caused the blast.
The next year, when a badly maintained oil pipeline ruptured and
spilled 200,000 gallons of crude oil over Alaska’s North Slope, the
oil giant once again promised to clean up its act.
In 2007, when Tony Hayward took over as chief executive, BP settled a
series of criminal charges, including some related to Texas City, and
agreed to pay $370 million in fines. “Our operations failed to meet
our own standards and the requirements of the law,” the company said
then, pledging to improve its “risk management.”
Despite those repeated promises to reform, BP continues to lag other
oil companies when it comes to safety, according to federal officials
and industry analysts. Many problems still afflict its operations in
Texas and Alaska, they say. Regulators are investigating a whistle-
blower’s allegations of safety violations at the Atlantis, one of BP’s
newest offshore drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.
Now BP is in the spotlight because of the April 20 explosion of the
Deepwater Horizon, which killed 11 people and continues to spew oil
into the ocean. It is too early to say what caused the explosion.
Other companies were also involved, including Transocean, which owned
and operated the drilling rig, and Halliburton, which had worked on
the well a day before the explosion.
BP, based in London, has repeatedly asserted that Transocean was
solely responsible for the accident.
However, lawmakers plan to question BP executives about their overall
commitment to safety at Congressional hearings this week on the Gulf
incident.
“It is a corporate problem,” said Representative Bart Stupak, Democrat
of Michigan, who has been particularly critical of BP’s operations in
Alaska and will lead the House committee hearing, on Wednesday. “Their
mentality is to get in the foxhole and batten down the hatch. It just
seems there is this pattern.”
The oil industry is inherently more dangerous than many other
industries, and oil companies, including BP, strive to reduce
accidents and improve safety.
But BP, the nation’s biggest oil and gas producer, has a worse health,
environment and safety record than many other major oil companies,
according to Yulia Reuter, the head of the energy research team at
RiskMetrics, a consulting group that assigns scores to companies based
on their performance in various categories, including safety.
The industry standard for safety, analysts say, is set by Exxon Mobil,
which displays an obsessive attention to detail, monitors the smallest
spill and imposes scripted procedures on managers.
Before drilling a well, for example, it runs elaborate computer models
to test beforehand what the drillers might encounter. The company
trains contractors to recognize risky behavior and asks employees for
suggestions on how to improve safety. It says it has cut time lost to
safety incidents by 12 percent each year since 2000.
Analysts credit that focus, in part, to the aftermath of the 1989
Exxon Valdez grounding, which spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil
into Prince William Sound in Alaska.
“Whatever you think of them, Exxon is now the safest oil company there
is,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy expert at Rice University.
In an interview last week, Mr. Hayward, BP’s chief executive, conceded
that the company had problems when he took over three years ago. But
he said he had instituted broad changes to improve safety, including
setting up a common management system with precise safety rules and
training for all facilities.
“You can’t change an organization of 100,000 people overnight, but we
have made extraordinary strides in three years,” Mr. Hayward said.
Ms. Reuter agrees that the company has made improvements during that
time, resulting in fewer spills and injuries.
Yet some government officials say that they are troubled by the
continuation of hazardous practices at BP’s refineries and Alaskan oil
operations despite warnings from regulators.
For example, last year the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration found more than 700 violations at the Texas City
refinery — many concerning faulty valves, which are critical for
safety given the high temperatures and pressures. The agency fined BP
a record $87.4 million, which was more than four times the previous
record fine, also to BP, for the 2005 explosion.
Another refinery, in Toledo, Ohio, was fined $3 million two months ago
for “willful” safety violations, including the use of valves similar
to those that contributed to the Texas City blast.
“BP has systemic safety and health problems,” said Jordan Barab, the
deputy assistant secretary of labor for OSHA. “They need to take their
intentions and apply them much more effectively on the ground, where
the hazards actually lie.”
BP said it was in full compliance and had contested the OSHA findings
at Texas City and Toledo. Since the 2005 blast in Texas, BP has
invested $1 billion to improve the refinery, it said.
Problems also remain in Alaska. In January, leaders of the House
Energy and Commerce Committee sent BP a letter highlighting “serious
safety and production incidents” over the last two years in Prudhoe
Bay, the nation’s largest oil field.
In October 2009, gas at the field’s central processing plant leaked
because of a stuck valve. BP operators were unaware of the leak
because a pilot flame was not lit and security cameras were not
pointed in the right direction, the committee said.
“This incident could have caused an explosion,” Representative Henry
A. Waxman, Democrat of California, and Mr. Stupak told BP in the
letter.
Mr. Hayward acknowledged that the gas leak could have been serious but
insisted “it wasn’t an incident.”
As for its Atlantis offshore platform, BP said it had found no
evidence to support a whistle-blower’s allegations that it was
operating without all the right paperwork. A spokesman for the company
said, “Platform personnel have access to the information they need for
the safe operation of the facility.”
The identity of the whistle-blower, and the exact nature of the
person’s evidence, have not been made public. The federal Minerals
Management Service is conducting the investigation.
Some analysts say the safety problems indicate that BP has not yet
reined in the culture of risk that prevailed under Mr. Hayward’s
predecessor, John Browne, who transformed BP from a sleepy British oil
producer into one of the world’s top explorers through the
acquisitions of Amoco and Atlantic Richfield.
Mr. Browne set aggressive profit goals, and BP managers drastically
cut costs to meet their quarterly targets. After the 2005 explosion in
Texas City, investigators found that routine maintenance that might
have averted the accident had been delayed because of pressure to
reduce expenses.
In 2007, an independent review panel appointed by BP and led by James
A. Baker III, the former secretary of state, painted a scathing
portrait of cultural failure at BP, finding that the company put
profits before safety.
Mr. Browne, through a representative, declined to comment for this
article.
One person brought in to address BP’s lapses was Robert A. Malone, the
chairman of BP America from 2006 to 2009.
“What I saw were breakdowns in a culture of safety,” said Mr. Malone.
“But to say there was something systemic — I couldn’t see that.”
Until the Deepwater Horizon accident, BP had not been involved in a
fatal accident in the Gulf of Mexico. But between 1996 and 2009,
according to the Minerals Management Service, BP-operated platforms
spilled a total of about 7,000 barrels of oil — 14 percent of the
amount spilled in the Gulf by any company. In that period, BP
accounted for 15 percent of the oil production in the Gulf.
Now, the government says, nearly that much oil is pouring out every
day from the current spill.
tankfixer
19dde9...@q33g2000vbt.googlegroups.com>, jackli...@earthlink.net
says...
> > > >> >> watched too many crappy sci fi movies.
> >
> > > >> >> ==============================================================================
> >
> > > >> >> we've seen what the "professionals" hath wrought.
> > > >> >> look at the great work the oilmen Bush/Cheney did, ahhhh those were
> > > >> >> the
> > > >> >> heady days :-p
> >
> > > >> > four whole posts before some moron pukes up bushes name
> > > >> > pathetic
> >
> >
> > > > news flash nimrod.. they arn't in power..
> > > > But the Obama regulators gave this rig a pass just weeks before the
> > > > accident..
> >
> > > "Obama regulatoras"?
> >
> > You really want to start a flame war over speeling errors ?
> > You hardly get a post out without one.
> >
> >
> >
> > > these rigs were operating under the Bush/Cheney system.
> >
> > Yes they were.
> > Safely too.
> >
> >
> >
> > > now we will get "Obama regulators"
> >
> > You know he is the man now..
>
> Depends on what you call "safely", I mean large numbers of people
> weren't killed and very few places had the same accidents over and
> over.
I thought we were discussing the offshore platforms.
But I forgot, this is the big bad evil oil company.
>
> May 8, 2010
> For BP, a History of Spills and Safety Lapses
> By JAD MOUAWAD
>
> After BP?s Texas City, Tex., refinery blew up in 2005, killing 15
> workers, the company vowed to address the safety shortfalls that
> caused the blast.
>
> The next year, when a badly maintained oil pipeline ruptured and
> spilled 200,000 gallons of crude oil over Alaska?s North Slope, the
> oil giant once again promised to clean up its act.
>
> In 2007, when Tony Hayward took over as chief executive, BP settled a
> series of criminal charges, including some related to Texas City, and
> agreed to pay $370 million in fines. ?Our operations failed to meet
> our own standards and the requirements of the law,? the company said
> then, pledging to improve its ?risk management.?
>
> Despite those repeated promises to reform, BP continues to lag other
> oil companies when it comes to safety, according to federal officials
> and industry analysts. Many problems still afflict its operations in
> Texas and Alaska, they say. Regulators are investigating a whistle-
> blower?s allegations of safety violations at the Atlantis, one of BP?s
> newest offshore drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.
>
> Now BP is in the spotlight because of the April 20 explosion of the
> Deepwater Horizon, which killed 11 people and continues to spew oil
> into the ocean. It is too early to say what caused the explosion.
> Other companies were also involved, including Transocean, which owned
> and operated the drilling rig, and Halliburton, which had worked on
> the well a day before the explosion.
>
> BP, based in London, has repeatedly asserted that Transocean was
> solely responsible for the accident.
>
> However, lawmakers plan to question BP executives about their overall
> commitment to safety at Congressional hearings this week on the Gulf
> incident.
>
> ?It is a corporate problem,? said Representative Bart Stupak, Democrat
> of Michigan, who has been particularly critical of BP?s operations in
Jack Linthicum
> In article <fb03793e-3ce7-4ad1-956b-
> 19dde9e25...@q33g2000vbt.googlegroups.com>, jacklinthi...@earthlink.net
> > > > >> >> watched too many crappy sci fi movies.
>
> > > > >> >> ==============================================================================
>
> > > > >> >> we've seen what the "professionals" hath wrought.
> > > > >> >> look at the great work the oilmen Bush/Cheney did, ahhhh those were
> > > > >> >> the
> > > > >> >> heady days :-p
>
> > > > >> > four whole posts before some moron pukes up bushes name
> > > > >> > pathetic
>
You said "safely", BP is not what you would call a safe operation.
Their version of a five-minute test takes only 30 seconds and they
slide the graph to reflect an entire test.
Richard
wrote:
That methodology doesn't seem to be a problem when applied for AGW
"science".
Jack Linthicum
>
> That methodology doesn't seem to be a problem when applied for AGW
> "science".
All those lines of repeat text to add a loser one liner that could be
predicted by the same five-year old that does BP's rescue ops. Play
the game or go home.
Jack Linthicum
President Obama listened to Frogwatch and names two more geniuses
The No-Nonsense Engineer: George Cooper
George Cooper might have the most relevant experience for the mission
at hand. A professor of engineering at UC Berkely, he spent much of
his career in industrial research with Britain's National Physical
Laboratory and now serves as Senior Petroleum Engineer at DOE's
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. But he can branch out too: According to
Bloomberg, he once worked with the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration to adapt mining techniques for use on Mars.
The What-Am-I-Doing-Here? Guy: Jonathan Katz
Jonathan Katz, a physics professor at Washington University in St.
Louis, is another member of JASON. But Katz's major research focus has
been astrophysics, and in an interview Friday with a St. Louis paper,
he didn't seem confident that he had been much help with the mission.
"I was honored to be invited and enjoyed the experience," said Katz.
"Did I have anything much to contribute? I think I have some ideas for
how to prevent this kind of thing from happening in the future, but I
don't have anything very specific to offer on the present problems. It
is very much in the hands of the real pros." Asked if he'd be willing
to go back, Katz said: "I'd be happy to, but someone's got to send me
an email or a phone call."
Andrew Swallow
{snip}
>
> That methodology doesn't seem to be a problem when applied for AGW
> "science".
>
Lies can fool people but do not fool God and nature. The devil is
the Prince of Lies so frequently accepts the invitation to play.
Andrew Swallow
Ray OHara
no not safely.
that's why we had this accident. their shoddy practices finally caught up to
them.
Jack Linthicum
> "Ray OHara" <raymond-oh...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >no not safely.
> >that's why we had this accident. their shoddy practices finally caught up to
> >them.
>
> back, but these days is pretty well known as one of the safest
> operators out there.
>
> For Ray, it's 'Evil Big Corporation Must Be Doing Something Wrong'
> time any time something bad happens.
>
> --
> "Ordinarily he is insane. But he has lucid moments when he is
> only stupid."
> -- Heinrich Heine
May 8, 2010
For BP, a History of Spills and Safety Lapses
By JAD MOUAWAD
After BP’s Texas City, Tex., refinery blew up in 2005, killing 15
workers, the company vowed to address the safety shortfalls that
caused the blast.
The next year, when a badly maintained oil pipeline ruptured and
spilled 200,000 gallons of crude oil over Alaska’s North Slope, the
oil giant once again promised to clean up its act.
In 2007, when Tony Hayward took over as chief executive, BP settled a
series of criminal charges, including some related to Texas City, and
agreed to pay $370 million in fines. “Our operations failed to meet
our own standards and the requirements of the law,” the company said
then, pledging to improve its “risk management.”
Despite those repeated promises to reform, BP continues to lag other
oil companies when it comes to safety, according to federal officials
and industry analysts. Many problems still afflict its operations in
Texas and Alaska, they say. Regulators are investigating a whistle-
blower’s allegations of safety violations at the Atlantis, one of BP’s
newest offshore drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.
Now BP is in the spotlight because of the April 20 explosion of the
Deepwater Horizon, which killed 11 people and continues to spew oil
into the ocean. It is too early to say what caused the explosion.
Other companies were also involved, including Transocean, which owned
and operated the drilling rig, and Halliburton, which had worked on
the well a day before the explosion.
BP, based in London, has repeatedly asserted that Transocean was
solely responsible for the accident.
However, lawmakers plan to question BP executives about their overall
commitment to safety at Congressional hearings this week on the Gulf
incident.
“It is a corporate problem,” said Representative Bart Stupak, Democrat
tankfixer
@m33g2000vbi.googlegroups.com>, jackli...@earthlink.net says...
Like this guy did huh ?
U.S. Offshore Oil Chief Quits 4 Weeks After Rig Blast
http://tinyurl.com/2dpzywd
Nothing like openess in government..
Offshore drilling agency refuses to send witness to Senate oil spill
hearing
http://tinyurl.com/2c2pl55
Jack Linthicum
> In article <676a6f25-00fd-4ce5-a56f-d4ed3c15c148
>
>
>
> > On May 17, 8:53 am, Richard <the.sar...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > That methodology doesn't seem to be a problem when applied for AGW
> > > "science".
>
> > All those lines of repeat text to add a loser one liner that could be
> > predicted by the same five-year old that does BP's rescue ops. Play
> > the game or go home.
>
> Like this guy did huh ?
>
> Nothing like openess in government..
>
> Offshore drilling agency refuses to send witness to Senate oil spill
> hearinghttp://tinyurl.com/2c2pl55
No connection, but then isn't that what I said? Play the game or go
home.
Jeffrey Hamilton
Bumped.
cheers.....Jeff
Jeffrey Hamilton
> "Ray OHara" <raymon...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> no not safely.
>> that's why we had this accident. their shoddy practices finally
>> caught up to them.
>>
>
No, as usual, Fredfreaka, has it wrong and Jack posted some very relevant
material proving such.
>BP has some bad history some decades
> back, but these days is pretty well known as one of the >safest operators
> out there.
You might want to recheck, _that_ thought process, Fredfreaka.
Hint: It's faulty, by an order of magnitude of decades.
Hint: "After the 2005 explosion in Texas City, investigators found that
routine maintenance that might
have averted the accident had been delayed because of pressure to reduce
expenses." (Jack posted this for you, Fredfreaka)
> For Ray, it's 'Evil Big Corporation Must Be Doing >Something Wrong' time
> any time something bad >happens.
No I think Ray believes, *just follow the oil slick*, Fredfreaka.
Hint: Jack has posted a number of very revealing posts about BP's
shortcomings, Fredfreaka, you might wish to read them.
cheers......Jeff
Jack Linthicum
Fred doesn't read me, literally.
Jack Linthicum
>
> >>> no not safely.
> >>> that's why we had this accident. their shoddy practices finally
> >>> caught up to them.
>
> >> As usual, Ray has it wrong.
>
> >No, as usual, Fredfreaka, has it wrong and Jack posted some very relevant
> >material proving such.
>
> not an exception to that rule.
>
>
>
>
>
> >>BP has some bad history some decades
> >> back, but these days is pretty well known as one of the >safest operators
> >> out there.
>
> >You might want to recheck, _that_ thought process, Fredfreaka.
>
> >Hint: It's faulty, by an order of magnitude of decades.
>
> >Hint: "After the 2005 explosion in Texas City, investigators found that
> >routine maintenance that might
> >have averted the accident had been delayed because of pressure to reduce
> >expenses." (Jack posted this for you, Fredfreaka)
>
> spew.
>
>
>
> >> For Ray, it's 'Evil Big Corporation Must Be Doing >Something Wrong' time
> >> any time something bad >happens.
>
> >No I think Ray believes, *just follow the oil slick*, Fredfreaka.
>
> >Hint: Jack has posted a number of very revealing posts about BP's
> >shortcomings, Fredfreaka, you might wish to read them.
>
>
> --
> "Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
> territory."
> --G. Behn
See?
Kerryn Offord
It's obviously a coping strategy.
He can't cope with you showing him up so he "ignores" you...
--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ne...@netfront.net ---
Jack Linthicum
Another one
"Several have specifically fingered BP's design for that cement job,
which used relatively little cement and relied on an unusual
configuration that made it harder to test for imperfections, they
said."
and
"Beck said BP's encasement design called for only partial coverage of
casings deep in the well. Cement did not reach the bottom of the next-
largest casing in high-pressure areas, a decision Beck called
"shocking." He also raised questions about the design's reliance on a
single, central casing instead of several for the 2.5-mile-deep well.
For technical reasons, BP's configuration would make it more difficult
later to test the cement job for leaks."
Oil spill caused by 'a confluence of unfortunate events'
Although the exact cause of the Deepwater Horizon explosion isn't
certain, at least a dozen offshore drilling experts agree that cement,
or pipes encased by cement, had to have failed first.
Globs of oil
Workers hired by BP rake up globs of oil that have come ashore on the
beaches near Port Fourshon and Grand Isle in Southern Louisiana.
(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times / May 22, 2010)
By Jill Leovy, Los Angeles Times
May 23, 2010
Flaws in a cement encasement intended to seal BP's well were most
likely the root of last month's deadly explosion on the Deepwater
Horizon drilling rig, according to interviews, government officials,
congressional hearing testimony, drilling reports and other company
documents.
The April 20 accident, which has resulted in millions of gallons of
oil being spewed into the Gulf of Mexico, is the subject of multiple
investigations that promise to be long and complex. Hearings in the
last two weeks offered multiple lines of inquiry into what one
engineer calls "a confluence of unfortunate events."
But at least a dozen experts with intimate knowledge of offshore
drilling, including one who has seen investigation documents, agreed
that, deep in the well, cement, or pipes encased by cement, had to
have failed first.
Several have specifically fingered BP's design for that cement job,
which used relatively little cement and relied on an unusual
configuration that made it harder to test for imperfections, they
said.
Cementing is supposed to form an impenetrable seal to keep the hot,
gassy oil from surging up the well. But a single flaw in that seal,
perhaps a crack the size of a human hair, can be enough to unleash a
volcano of petroleum.
The Mississippi Canyon Block 252 project had encountered problems,
including two reported gas kicks, where drillers failed to keep gas
from surging up, according to the hearings and company sources.
Government and company documents suggest the project was over budget.
But the Deepwater Horizon had struck oil, something that happens in
only about a quarter of exploration wells.
All that was left to do was to seal the well so another vessel could
produce from it later. Cementing involves standard techniques. But
"there is an art to it, and every well is a little different," said
Gene Beck, an associate professor of petroleum engineering at Texas
A&M who testified at the congressional hearings.
Halliburton, the cementing contractor, worked according to BP's
design.
An exploratory oil well consists of a series of nested pipes, or
casings, each plunging deeper into the seafloor. Crews pumped cement
into the well until it crept outside of the steel casings, forming a
bond between the pipe and the rock deep under the seafloor.
The goal was to let the cement set, add a few temporary cement plugs
within the casings for good measure, then haul up the blowout
preventer and move off.
But forming a good seal is tricky. Traces of drilling mud, a clay
substance used to tamp rising oil as crews work, can pollute wet
cement, creating weak spots. Wet cement also can drizzle into the rock
or be distributed unevenly, leaving gaps — especially if the casings
aren't properly centered in the well — which can cause the encased
pipes to collapse.
Any of these failures can give gas under extreme pressure a chance to
creep in and build up in the well bore, or between nested casings.
Beck said BP's encasement design called for only partial coverage of
casings deep in the well. Cement did not reach the bottom of the next-
largest casing in high-pressure areas, a decision Beck called
"shocking." He also raised questions about the design's reliance on a
single, central casing instead of several for the 2.5-mile-deep well.
For technical reasons, BP's configuration would make it more difficult
later to test the cement job for leaks.
Several other independent engineers agreed with Beck's assessment,
although they said more information was needed. Alfred Eustes,
associate professor of petroleum engineering at the Colorado School of
Mines, cautioned that conditions particular to the formation could
have dictated the design. BP declined to comment on this and other
issues raised in this article.
The crew of the Deepwater Horizon conducted pressure tests that assess
seals, but not the cement.
Hearing testimony suggested that the pressure tests revealed some
discrepancy. It could have been a confusing, anomalous reading that
meant little. Or it might have provided an early hint that gas had
begun to leak into the well bore, perhaps creeping up through the mud
between the casings, said Tadeusz Patzek, professor of petroleum
engineering at the University of Texas in Austin.
An official with Transocean, the company that leased the drilling rig
to BP, has cited "hearsay" accounts that there was an argument among
crew members about the readings, and survivors have said the same in
media accounts.
Regardless, it appears someone made a decision that the seal was good,
so the crew moved to the next step: pumping seawater into the riser
and taking out mud.
It was a fatal moment. The switch from mud to relatively lightweight
water decreased pressure. Deep in the well, gas surged.
Originating deep in the well, the gas probably blasted through the
wellhead sitting on the seafloor, perhaps overwhelming seals in that
device. It surged through a blowout preventer sitting atop the
wellhead, and went up the riser, expanding into multiples of its
volume in the last stretch of pipe — "an exponential process once it
starts," said Tim Robertson of Nuka Research, an Alaska consultant.
Questions remain regarding when the crew detected the gas and what
they did. Transocean has said the crew had almost no time.
Once the gas hit the rig, an explosion erupted. Eleven died.
Some crew members reportedly made a last-ditch effort to close the
blowout preventer.
This blowout preventer has seven valves. Some clasp and unclasp the
drill pipe during the course of normal work. Others close to block
rising oil. And one, used only in emergencies, shears the pipe and
pinches the column shut.
But the blowout preventer didn't close. It remains unclear why.
Small mechanical glitches, such as leaking hydraulic fluids, have also
raised questions.
But drilling specialists, and officials with both BP and Transocean,
have said a more likely explanation is that something is jammed in the
blowout preventer, or it would have responded to the multiple efforts
by robotic submarines to make it work.
The force of gas bursting through the wellhead could have thrust
casings, wellhead parts, drill pipe and other debris into the blowout
preventer, blocking the valves. A thick well pipe joint could have
also blocked it, although Transocean has said it was unlikely such a
joint would be positioned in the blowout preventer at this point of
the work.
It is possible, too, that the blowout preventer just wasn't strong
enough. The U.S. Minerals Management Service updated rules on the
device after a 2002 study of six deepwater blowout preventers found
that half the time, they couldn't shear the pipe.
The number of possible scenarios for the accident highlights deeper
issues with drilling, Patzek said. Deepwater work may, in some
conditions, involve risks that no technology can anticipate, he said.
Tolerances of the seals, riser and blowout preventer, for example,
appeared close to manufactured maximums and basic physical limits.
And in the deep sea, strange things happen. Gas randomly forms solids.
Materials behave unpredictably. In such conditions, "we are no longer
dealing with a complicated system, but with an essentially complex
system," Patzek said. "Very small factors … can create a large
response."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-causes-20100523,0,1146377,full.story
Jack Linthicum
wrote:
> On May 22, 4:37 pm, "Jeffrey Hamilton" <bberesf...@cogeco.ca> wrote:
And more, plus a former fishing boat captain on MSNBC saying BP is
employing the fishing captains and their boats in 30-40 numbers, with
the captains themselves rotating the working boats so everyone gets a
payday. Not quite what BP wants you to believe.
OrlandoSentinel.com
Documents show BP chose a less-expensive, less-reliable method for
completing well in Gulf oil spill
By Kevin Spear, Orlando Sentinel
May 23, 2010
Oil company BP used a cheaper, quicker but potentially less dependable
method to complete the drilling of the Deepwater Horizon well,
according to several experts and documents obtained by the Orlando
Sentinel.
"There are clear alternatives to the methods BP used that most
engineers in the drilling business would consider much more reliable
and safer," said F.E. Beck, a petroleum-engineering professor at Texas
A&M University who testified recently before a U.S. Senate committee
investigating BP's blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico.
He and other petroleum and drilling engineers who reviewed a log of
the Deepwater Horizon's activities obtained by the Sentinel described
BP's choice of well design as one in which the final phase called for
a 13,293-foot-long length of permanent pipe, called "casing," to be
locked in place with a single injection of cement that can often turn
out to be problematic.
A different approach more commonly used in the hazardous geology of
the Gulf involves installing a section of what the industry calls a
"liner," then locking both the liner and a length of casing in place
with one or, often, two cement jobs that are less prone to failure.
The BP well "is not a design we would use," said one veteran deep-
water engineer, who would comment only if not identified because of
his high-profile company's prohibition on speaking publicly about the
April 20 explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon or the oil spill that
started when the drilling rig sank two days later.
He estimated that the liner design, used nearly all the time by his
company, is more reliable and safer than a casing design by a factor
of "tenfold."
But that engineer and several others said that, had BP used a liner
and casing, it would have taken nearly a week longer for the company
to finish the well — with rig costs running at $533,000 a day and
additional personnel and equipment costs that might have run the tab
up to $1 million daily.
BP PLC spokesman Toby Odone in Houston said the London-based company
chooses between the casing and liner methods on a "well-by-well basis"
and that the casing-only method is "not uncommon."
Investigators and Congress have already homed in on a series of
suspected instances of recklessness or poor maintenance aboard the
Deepwater Horizon — looking, for example, at why the well's blowout
preventer failed. Those instances, taken together, may have weakened
the rig's defenses and fueled the April 20 explosion on the rig, which
killed 11 workers and caused the biggest offshore-drilling spill in
U.S. history.
Many of the experts interviewed by the Sentinel for this report,
including Beck, would not directly criticize BP's choice of well
design because some site-specific factors might still not be publicly
known. But those experts provided extensive details about, and insight
into, the company's chosen approach for completing the well versus the
alternative method that's more commonly used by drillers in the Gulf.
Several other major companies active in the Gulf of Mexico, including
Shell, Chevron and Marathon, declined to comment on their well
designs.
"We're confident that the incident is being thoroughly investigated
and findings will be communicated across the industry to prevent such
events from occurring in the future," said Shell spokeswoman Kelly op
de Weegh in Houston.
Formidable
Hunting for enormously rich deposits of oil and natural gas in
deepwater regions of the Gulf of Mexico entails some of the most
formidable drilling in the world. And BP's ill-fated Macondo
exploratory well had more than its share of trouble and warning signs,
according to the rig's activity log, or "well ticket."
Drilling began last year on Oct. 7, in water 4,992 feet deep and
nearly 50 miles southeast of the tip of Louisiana's Mississippi River
delta.
The first 4,023 feet of drilling was done by the rig Marianas, owned
by the Switzerland-based Transocean Ltd. But a month later, that rig
was damaged by Hurricane Ida and towed to a shipyard. Transocean's
Deepwater Horizon, fresh from drilling a record-deep well elsewhere in
the Gulf, arrived to take over by early February.
The rig, weighing about as much as the 900-foot-long Titanic and
considered one of the most capable drilling vessels in the world,
almost immediately encountered some of the problems for which the Gulf
is known.
Beneath the Gulf's seafloor is a mush of sand, shale and salt in
formations that are geologically young, unsettled and fragile. Coupled
with that are layers of sand that hold crude oil and natural gas under
high pressure.
For rigs such as Deepwater Horizon, drilling a Gulf well means working
between a dangerous rock and a risky hard place.
While boring into the Earth's crust, a rig pumps a chemical slurry
called "mud" down the center of the drill pipe. The mud exits through
the drill bit in a blast that washes cuttings out of the freshly cut
hole and back up to the rig.
Mud plays another critical role: It often weighs significantly more
than seawater, and so it serves as a kind of liquid plug that can hold
pressurized reservoirs of natural gas and crude oil within their
formations.
If oil and gas show alarming signs of wanting to "kick" up and out of
the well, as they did twice on Deepwater Horizon — once temporarily
and later catastrophically — drillers can call for a heavier mud.
In many of the world's petroleum regions, heavier mud will counteract
the threat of a blowout. In the Gulf of Mexico, however, it can and
often does make matters worse.
Pumping heavy mud into a deepwater well in the Gulf runs the risk of
fracturing fragile layers of sand and shale. If that happens, mud can
quickly vanish into subterranean voids and leave a rig increasingly
defenseless against a blowout.
"The deepwater Gulf of Mexico is an especially challenging place to
drill," said John Rogers Smith, a professor in Louisiana State
University's department of petroleum engineering.
Geology won
The classic and potentially perilous duel for drillers in the Gulf is
to maintain a mud weight that keeps pressurized gas and oil
underground but doesn't crack open fragile formations.
According to the Deepwater Horizon's well ticket, that struggle
defined almost every foot of progress made by the rig — until the
Gulf's geology finally won.
In late February, the rig was losing mud in a weak formation,
according to the well ticket. Among the variety of tricks drillers
have at their disposal when that happens, the most reliable is to
continually reinforce a well with permanent sections of casing or with
liner and cement. Deepwater Horizon did that nine times.
In early March, the rig experienced a double dose of trouble,
according to the well ticket: The pressure of the underground
petroleum temporarily overwhelmed the mud, triggering alarms on the
rig. At nearly the same time, the rig's drill pipe and drill bit
became stuck in the well.
Just one or the other of those occurrences would amount to a bad day
for any rig.
Deepwater Horizon recovered, but only after losing hundreds of feet of
drilling pipe — likely at an equipment cost of several million dollars
— and losing nearly two weeks of rig time.
The rig then progressed an additional 4,955 feet before again losing
mud to a weak formation.
By mid-April, Deepwater Horizon reached the well's total depth of
18,360 feet — more than 3 miles — where it again encountered a
formation that swallowed mud.
Rig workers twice lowered measuring instruments connected to steel
cable into the well. The tools should have passed smoothly to the
bottom, but instead they hit obstacles near the bottom — more evidence
of an unstable well.
Petroleum engineers who reviewed the rig's well ticket and other
documents said drilling the well appears to have been more difficult
than usual, though not beyond what current technology and extra care
are capable of handling.
After rig workers ran the final section of casing into the well, they
opted to fix it in place with cement modified to have foamlike
consistency. That makes the cement lighter and less likely to fracture
or break weak formations and, as can happen with overly heavy mud,
drain away into underground voids.
At that point, said the big-oil engineer who reviewed the ticket, rig
workers must have been "jumping for joy" at having completed a
stubborn well and discovering petroleum. Based on the array of
measuring instruments lowered into the well — and detailed by the well
ticket — the rig had most likely made a significant discovery.
But among the several possible errors and failures involving the
Deepwater Horizon well, that final cement job is widely suspected of
having broken down, allowing oil and gas to erupt up into the rig.
That is what apparently occurred as rig workers were pumping out the
well's costly and reusable mud — the liquid plug — and replacing it
with seawater.
The well ticket's last entry states: "10:00 PM 4-20-10, EXPLOSION &
FIRE."
More options
Engineers interviewed by the Sentinel said it's common knowledge among
drillers operating in the Gulf of Mexico that final cement jobs are
rarely perfect and often badly flawed. That's a key reason, they said,
why many of them rely on a liner to complete a well: It offers more
options for injecting, testing and repairing cement, and so is more
effective at keeping petroleum under control.
While complicated to explain, using a liner can have the additional
benefit of installing extra barriers deep in the well to prevent an
uncontrolled flow of gas and oil to the surface. Whether there were
enough, effective secondary barriers in the BP well is likely to draw
much scrutiny in coming weeks and months.
U.S. Minerals Management Service regulations leave the choice between
a liner or casing to the drillers. That may change as many industry
practices are examined by various investigators and task forces.
"I would expect there to be some pretty significant implications in
terms of blowout preventers, regulation, redundancy, safety, those
sorts of things," BP chief executive Tony Hayward said during a recent
media briefing.
Diagram of Costner's system
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-graphic-costner-oil-spill-gx,0,5183628.graphic
Time line for the day of the explosion
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-chrono-oil-spill-gx,0,3218670.graphic
Jeffrey Hamilton
You are quite correct Kerryn, Fredfreaka, does this constantly. Sometimes I
will bump them for him, but he hates it when I do it and refuses to read the
posts just out of stupid spite, LoL. What a maroon.....
cheers.....Jeff
Jeffrey Hamilton
<snipped for brevity _and_ to keep Fredfreaka stupid>
This is really fascinating, Jack, during the congressional hearings *blame
game*, Halliburton did say the well head was of BP's design and the failure
was not their fault. Similarily, the BoP was supplied by the other guys and
if it failed it wasn't due to anything Halliburton did either.
It does make one wonder why BP would attempt a _new_ or untried technique on
such a deep drill, doesn't it ?
Good find......
cheers.......Jeff
Jeffrey Hamilton
> On May 23, 5:51 am, Jack Linthicum <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net>
> wrote:
>> On May 22, 4:37 pm, "Jeffrey Hamilton" <bberesf...@cogeco.ca> wrote:
>
>
> And more, plus a former fishing boat captain on MSNBC saying BP is
> employing the fishing captains and their boats in 30-40 numbers, with
> the captains themselves rotating the working boats so everyone gets a
> payday. Not quite what BP wants you to believe.
>
>
>
> OrlandoSentinel.com
> Documents show BP chose a less-expensive, less-reliable method for
> completing well in Gulf oil spill
>
> By Kevin Spear, Orlando Sentinel
>
> May 23, 2010
>
> Oil company BP used a cheaper, quicker but potentially less dependable
> method to complete the drilling of the Deepwater Horizon well,
> according to several experts and documents obtained by the Orlando
> Sentinel.
<snipped fpr brevity>
Another good find, Jack.
I suppose if there is a light at the end of the tunnel, much more stringent
regulations will, hopefully, result from this mess.
It's clear the world can't allow large profit driven corporations, to set
the safty standards for the rest of us.
cheers.....Jeff
Jack Linthicum
$553,000 a day is a good enough reason if you aren't one of the
casualties
Jack Linthicum
add this
BP refuses EPA order to switch to less-toxic oil dispersant
Oil washes ashore on 50 miles of Louisiana shoreline as tensions mount
over how to treat the spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
By Margot Roosevelt and Carolyn Cole, Los Angeles Times
May 23, 2010
Reporting from Los Angeles and Elmer’s
BP has rebuffed demands from government officials and
environmentalists to use a less-toxic dispersant to break up the oil
from its massive offshore spill, saying that the chemical product it
is now using continues to be "the best option for subsea application."
On Thursday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency gave the London-
based company 72 hours to replace the dispersant Corexit 9500 or to
describe in detail why other dispersants fail to meet environmental
standards.
The agency on Saturday released a 12-page document from BP,
representing only a portion of the company's full response. Along with
several dispersant manufacturers, BP claimed that releasing its full
evaluation of alternatives would violate its legal right to keep
confidential business information private.
But in a strongly worded retort, the EPA said that it was "evaluating
all legal options" to force BP to release the remaining information
"so Americans can get a full picture of the potential environmental
impact of these alternative dispersants."
So far, 715,000 gallons of dispersant has been applied since the April
20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig, mostly on the spill's
surface. The chemical has also been released near the leaking pipe on
the seafloor.
Government officials have justified both uses, saying that if oil
reaches the shore, it would do more environmental harm than if it were
dispersed off the coast.
Dispersants break oil into droplets that decompose more quickly. But
scientists worry that extensive use of the chemicals in the BP spill
is increasing marine life's exposure to the toxins in oil.
"While the dispersant BP has been using is on the agency's approved
list, BP is using this dispersant in unprecedented volumes and, last
week, began using it underwater at the source of the leak — a
procedure that has never been tried before," the EPA noted last week,
acknowledging that "much is unknown about the underwater use of
dispersants."
In the company's May 20 letter to the EPA and the Coast Guard,
responding to the EPA's directive, BP operations chief Doug Suttles
wrote that only five products on the EPA's approved list meet the
agency's toxicity criteria. And only one, besides Corexit, is
available in sufficient quantities in the next 10 to 14 days, it said.
But that alternative product, Sea Brat #4, according to BP, contains a
chemical that could degrade into an endocrine disruptor, a substance
that creates hormonal changes in living creatures, and could persist
in the environment for years.
As the tensions over how to treat the spill escalated, reddish-brown
washes of oil, 2 inches thick in places, soiled Louisiana beaches.
Hundreds of workers scooped up gooey piles of sand and stuffed them
into plastic bags.
"It is worse today than on the past two days," said Darren Smith, 43,
sweating from his work raking sand at a wildlife refuge on Elmer's
Island. "There's definitely more oil, and it's just going to keep
coming."
No booms protected the Elmer's Island beach because the National Guard
had focused on building dams to divert oil from the wetlands behind
the beach.
A few miles away at Port Fourchon, plastic barriers that looked like
pompoms were strung together along the beach but did a poor job of
keeping out the oil. More than 50 miles of Louisiana shoreline has
been contaminated so far.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-20100523,0,907236.story
Jack Linthicum
wrote:
As spill grows, oil soaks delicate marshes, birds; BP says tube not as
effective as before
GREG BLUESTEIN, MATTHEW BROWN
Associated Press Writer
2:32 PM EDT, May 23, 2010
Click here to find out more!
COVINGTON, La. (AP) — The dire impact of the massive Gulf spill was
apparent Sunday on oil-soaked islands where pelicans nest as several
of the birds splashed in the water and preened themselves, apparently
trying to clean crude from their feet and wings.
Pelican eggs were glazed with rust-colored gunk in the bird colony,
with thick globs floating on top of the water. Nests sat precariously
close the mess in mangrove trees. As oil crept farther into the
delicate wetlands in Barataria Bay off Louisiana, BP officials said
Sunday that one of their efforts to slow the leak wasn't working as
effectively as before.
BP spokesman John Curry told The Associated Press on Sunday that a
mile-long tube inserted into the leaking well siphoned some 57,120
gallons of oil within the past 24 hours, a sharp drop from the 92,400
gallons of oil a day that the device was sucking up on Friday.
However, the company has said the amount of oil siphoned will vary
widely from day to day.
Engineers are working furiously to stem the growing ooze as more
wildlife and delicate coastal wetlands are tainted despite the oil-
absorbing booms placed around shorelines to protect them.
A pelican colony off Louisiana's coast was awash in oil Saturday, and
an Associated Press photographer saw several birds and their eggs
coated in the ooze while nests rested in mangroves precariously close
to the crude that had washed in. Workers had surrounded the island
with the booms, but puddles of oil had seeped through the barrier.
Meanwhile, three top Obama administration officials are returning to
the Gulf Coast to monitor the spill response.
Anger with the government and BP, which leased the rig and is
responsible for the cleanup, has boiled over as the spill spreads.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa P. Jackson was headed
Sunday to Louisiana, where she planned to visit with frustrated
residents.
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Secretary of Homeland
Security Janet Napolitano were to lead a Senate delegation to the
region on Monday to fly over affected areas and keep an eye on the
response.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs also told CBS' "Face the
Nation" on Sunday that Justice Department officials have been to the
region gathering information about the spill. However, he wouldn't say
whether the department has opened a criminal investigation.
Meanwhile, the official responsible for the oversight of the month-old
spill response said he understands the discontent among residents who
want to know what's next.
"If anybody is frustrated with this response, I would tell them their
symptoms are normal, because I'm frustrated, too," said Coast Guard
Commandant Thad Allen. "Nobody likes to have a feeling that you can't
do something about a very big problem."
President Barack Obama also has named a special independent commission
to review what happened. The spill began after the Deepwater Horizon
oil rig exploded off the coast of Louisiana on April 20, killing 11
workers, and sank two days later. At least 6 million gallons of crude
have spewed into the Gulf of Mexico since, though a growing number of
scientists have said they believe it's more.
The visits from top Obama chiefs come as BP said it will be at least
Tuesday before engineers can shoot mud into the blown-out well at the
bottom of the Gulf, yet another delay in the effort to stop the oil.
A so-called "top kill" has been tried on land but never 5,000 feet
underwater, so scientists and engineers have spent the past week
preparing and taking measurements to make sure it will stop the oil
that has been spewing into the sea for a month. They originally hoped
to try it as early as this weekend.
"It's taking time to get everything set up," BP spokesman Tom Mueller
said. "They're taking their time. It's never been done before. We've
got to make sure everything is right."
Crews will shoot heavy mud into a crippled piece of equipment atop the
well. Then engineers will direct cement at the well to permanently
stop the oil.
As the spill spreads deeper into vulnerable marshes, some have called
for federal officials to take over the response. But Allen said the
government must hold BP accountable. After the 1989 Exxon Valdez
tanker spilled 11 million gallons of oil in Alaska, Congress dictated
that oil companies be responsible for dealing with major accidents —
including paying for all cleanup — with oversight by federal agencies.
BP has tried and failed several times to halt the gusher, and has had
some success with the mile-long tube.
Engineers are also developing several other plans in case the top kill
doesn't work, including an effort to shoot knotted rope, pieces of
tire and other material — known as a junk shot — to plug the blowout
preventer, which was meant to shut off the oil in case of an accident
but did not work.
orlandosentinel.com/business/nationworld/sns-ap-us-gulf-oil-spill,
0,5645777.story
Jeffrey Hamilton
> "Jeffrey Hamilton" <bbere...@cogeco.ca> wrote:
>
>>
>> You are quite correct Kerryn, Fredfreaka, does this constantly.
>> Sometimes I will bump them for him, but he hates it when I do it and
>> refuses to read the posts just out of stupid spite, LoL. What a
>> maroon.....
>>
>
> of 'echoing' people merely to help them evade killfiles.
Silly little lying twerp that you are, Fredfreaka, you constantly snipe at
people through _YOUR_ killfiles and Jack is one of your frequent and
favourite targets.
Hell Fredfreaka, it was exactly that sort of nonsense that first really
caught my attention and made me focus on you, that time it was Vince you
were sniping at using nilita as your piggyback.
FFS it wasn't all that long ago you were doing the same thing with Arved
too, or have you conveniently forgotten that also !
cheers.......Jeff
Jack Linthicum
wrote:
Today's news: worse getting worser
May 24, 2010
Pressure Piles on BP as Gulf Spill Widens
By REUTERS
Filed at 5:24 a.m. ET
VENICE, La (Reuters) - BP sharply reduced its estimate on Monday of
how much oil it is siphoning off each day from a ruptured well in the
Gulf of Mexico that has been spewing oil for a month and threatening
ecological disaster.
The British-based energy giant said the oil captured on average by a
mile-long siphon tube was 2,010 barrels (84,420 gallons/319,500
liters) per day in the six days before May 23, less than half the up
to 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons/795,000 liters) per day the company
estimated it had been capturing. At times the capture was as low as
1,360 barrels per day (57,120 gallons/216,200 liters).
The oil group believes about 5,000 barrels have been leaking every
day, although some experts have given significantly higher estimates
for the size of the leak.
The lower estimate came as two members of U.S. President Barack
Obama's Cabinet were to visit the fouled Gulf Coast on Monday to keep
pressure on BP in hopes of averting a looming environmental
catastrophe.
The Obama administration warned the company on Sunday that it would be
removed from efforts to seal the well if it is not seen as doing
enough. But it acknowledged that only the company and the oil industry
have the know-how to stop the leak.
BP is readying new measures to try to stop the gushing torrent of oil
that began after an April 20 explosion sank the Deepwater Horizon rig,
killing 11 workers.
BP shares have taken a beating in the markets since the accident. On
Monday its share price fell 1.9 pct, with sentiment hit by renewed
pressure from the Obama administration.
But today's news on the bill and the amount of oil the company is
siphoning off remains within existing estimates. The market looks
squarely focused on BP's effort in the next few days to plug the well
completely. "We had the initial euphoria on Thursday that it was doing
5,000 (barrels) and then they revised down the numbers and there was a
bit of concern about exactly how much crude was coming out. I think
the market was very much aware of this one," said Panmure Gordon
analyst Peter Hitchens.
"Really what everyone's waiting for is the top kill operation which
should be coming up in the next couple of days hopefully. Touch wood.
That really is the key: whether they can actually kill off this well."
"We very much got a bad reaction on Friday. This is just confirmation
that they're getting some of it out but not all of it so really it's
down to this top kill."
MARRING MARSHLANDS
Oil has been sloshing into Louisiana's fragile marshlands and over 65
miles of shoreline have been tarred.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Homeland Security Secretary Janet
Napolitano, accompanied by a U.S. Senate delegation, were due to visit
the state on Monday and fly over the affected areas.
They also will discuss the latest response efforts with federal
officials and BP representatives, and meet with Louisiana Governor
Bobby Jindal and local community and industry leaders, the departments
of Interior and Homeland Security said in a statement.
Salazar said on Sunday Washington was frustrated and angry that BP has
missed "deadline after deadline" in its efforts to seal the well more
than a month after an oil rig explosion triggered the disaster.
"If we find they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing, we'll
push them out of the way appropriately," he said after visiting BP's
U.S. headquarters in Houston.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/05/24/us/politics/politics-us-oil-rig-leak.html?_r=1
Jack Linthicum
> On May 15, 10:07 am, Jack Linthicum <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On May 14, 9:16 pm, Frogwatch <dboh...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
> > > On May 14, 3:33 pm, Jack Linthicum <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net>
> > > wrote:
>
> > > > Remember Richard Feymann, yeah, I know he was coached, but he broke
> > > > through the institutiolized bullshit.
>
> > > > Mission Impossible: Obama Taps Crack Team Of Scientists To Do The Job
> > > > BP Can't
> > > > Zachary Roth | May 14, 2010, 5:36PM
>
> > > > Scientists tapped by the Obama administration to help fix the Gulf
> > > > Coast oil spill. From left to right: Richard Garwin, Tom Hunter,
> > > > Alexander Slocum, Jonathan Katz and George Cooper
>
> > > > President Obama's new plan to fix the Gulf oil spill is so crazy it
> > > > just might work...
>
> > > > As BP's high-priced industry experts flail, the president has turned
> > > > to a rag-tag band of big-think scientific renegades, and sent them on
> > > > a mission to somehow MacGyver a way to stop up the leak -- before it's
> > > > too late.
>
> > > > OK, maybe that's going a bit far. In fact, the news that Obama and his
> > stop this leak. I have come to the conclusion that they do not want to
> > plug the leak, they want to recover the oil.
>
> The problem is that these academics are likely to step on the rig and
> immediately break a leg falling into the rathole. Even worse, they
> will think the rathole is the well or try to use some drill pipe
> knowing how strong it is and then finding that all its strength is in
> tension and torsion and not compression. Maybe they will try to get
> drilling mud mixed up with really high weight only to find it doesnt
> mix with anything but diesel or that it has no ability to carry
> plugging material, etc. These guys truly know nothing at all about
> drilling so I fail to see how they can be of any use at all. Other
> wildcatters ARE the people with knowledge because they have generally
> solved every crazy kind of drilling problem because the average
> wildcatter does not work for a well funded oil company but is
> operating on his own dime.
Please note that BP had no idea that they could use high energy gamma
rays to effectively make an X-ray of the damaged valves. This was from
idea from Dr. Chu. Next time remember why these people have been sent
to solve things. They solve things.
Exclusive: How Steven Chu Used Gamma Rays to Save the Planet
May 13 2010, 4:08 PM ET | Comment
It sounds like something right out of Marvel Comics: Government
scientists suggest firing high-energy gamma rays -- GAMMA RAYS! -- to
diagnose a leaking oil well a mile below the surface of the ocean. But
that's what happened in the Gulf, when Energy Secretary Steven Chu and
his team advised BP to use the gamma ray imaging technology to finally
see the extent of the damage to the underwater blowout preventer, the
safety device that was supposed to seal the oil well.
An eternal fact of Washington is that government gets much more
attention when it performs badly than when it performs well. As an
illustration of the former, recall the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
To illustrate the latter, consider how the media is covering
government right now. By my count at least three major natural
disasters have occurred in recent weeks: the Nashville flooding, the
deadly Oklahoma tornadoes, and the BP oil spill (admittedly not
"natural" but threatening to be a major environmental disaster). Let's
throw in an attempted terrorist attack in Times Square, too. On every
front, government has performed ably--and often better than ably. And
yet it's understating things considerably to say this success has not
been widely recognized.
It should be recognized, though, because when it comes to government
disaster response, the Bush years marked a low point and right now
we're experiencing a high point. For a vivid illustration of this
disparity, look no further than the Gulf. During Katrina, FEMA
director Michael Brown secured his place history as the poster boy for
government incompetence. Now consider Chu, the Nobel Prize Winner who
has been at BP headquarters in Houston with a team of government
scientists trying to figure out how to stop the leak. According to a
government official, BP initially "dismissed" Chu's gamma ray
suggestion, but came back a week later and admitted "Chu's right."
I talked to Chu this afternoon about the government's response to the
disaster. As a mental exercise, try and imagine what these answers
would sound like if "Brownie" or some other top Bush officials were
still overseeing disaster relief in the Gulf.
I understand you just got back from Houston? What were you doing
there?
We went there Tuesday night, we were in Houston in the morning with
BP, then visited for three or four hours with the manufacturers of the
blowout preventers [the equipment that should have stopped the leak].
What advice have you been giving BP advice about gamma-ray imaging?
Can you explain in layman's terms what BP was trying to do and what
exactly you recommended?
Well, I was talking about a week and a half ago to some of the
Department of Energy folks that BP had asked us to send down there.
This was the week before last Sunday. There was a several hour phone
call Sunday where a few of the national lab directors, I, and the
people we had at the site were talking about what we can do to help
BP, and we thought that we could perhaps help them specifically by
imaging the state of the BOP, the blow-out-prevention valve, with high-
energy gamma rays. By using penetrating gamma rays you can see whether
the valves were closed.
The really important part of all this is that through our
conversations with BP, they seem to be very open to having
brainstorming sessions, having us help diagnose what the condition of
the blowout prevention valve is and helping them think through
potential solutions. The president charged me with assembling a small
team of scientists to go down there and that was what we were doing
beginning Tuesday night. The idea was to bring in very smart people
who also have great connections to the larger engineering and
scientific community. The national lab director who's been engaged in
this from the beginning, Tom Hunter, and I and four other scientists
and engineers went down there.
How is it that you know enough about gamma rays and oil spill
technology to be helpful? I wasn't aware that that was an area you'd
worked in before you were secretary?
Oil spills were not something I've worked on, but I do know about
gamma rays.
How?
Because I'm a physicist. And I dabble in many areas of physics. I did
experiments when I was a graduate student on weak interactions, which
are the forces of nuclear decay. And so I kept in my brain certain
nuclear sources and what their energies were and I knew what the
ranges were for how penetrating gamma rays could be. Very high-energy
gamma rays can penetrate several inches of steel.
And that's the challenge at the bottom of the ocean? To penetrate the
steel and see the condition of the equipment?
Yeah. Think of a dental X-ray. You have the source that can penetrate
through material and you expose something on the backside. If you want
to go through not flesh, but steel of a very high density, you need
higher energy, electromagnetic particles--the higher the energy, the
more penetrating it can be without being scattered or absorbed.
What role can the government play in helping stop the spill? I thought
BP was taking the lead on this?
Well, of course they're taking the lead. But there are many branches
of the government that are associated with the spill, its aftermath
and containment, and all those things. DOE's major assets are not in
those areas, but we do know how to image things. We do know about
mechanical things. And so I felt our major assets would be in things
like diagnosing what the BOP would do, and [thinking through the]
steps going forward--how do you decide whether Plan A, B, C, or D
would help? To the extent BP wants it, we can give advice on how to
think through these things. What you're doing in a situation like this
is dealing with probabilities--you don't know the exact state of
something. For example, in the final hours we were saying, "Well, what
if this thing happened?" There's a small probability, but if it does
happen, what do you do? And if this other thing happens what do you
do? You're chasing down answer about what to do should something
unforeseen happen, even though it might be a very small possibility.
You still want to go down those paths. Instead of approaching it as,
"Oops, this happened--now what do we do?"
That type of thinking is more in line with what we do at the Energy
Department, because DOE is part of the nuclear security enterprise of
this country for the last half century, and we have nuclear reactor
expertise as well. So that type of thinking--pushing as hard as you
can to zero-accident tolerance--is something that's been in our DNA
for half a century.
Why are the national laboratories getting involved in helping with the
spill, including a weapons lab? What exactly to they have to offer
that's germane to the problem of an oil disaster?
They have the high-energy gamma ray source! Let me be blunt. They were
the ones who supplied the Cobalt 60 gamma ray source that's being
used. [Update: BP and the national laboratories discussed having the
lab supply the Cobalt 60, but BP ultimately procured it elsewhere].
They have a very talented number of scientists and engineers.
Here's what's happening. After the [Space Shuttle] Challenger
accident, the U.S. government formed a panel of very, very bright
scientists and engineers to come together and figure out what happened
and what could be done in the future to prevent it. Most of the people
on that panel were not aeronautics experts, not rocket experts or NASA
experts. They were very smart people who had a broad range of
knowledge and experience. This is actually what you want: you want a
set of fresh eyes, people who can propose potential out-of-the-box
solutions, who might foresee what might go wrong. If you're an expert
and you're used to certain things done certain ways, that limits your
ability to cast a wider net, and so one of the most important things
that we're doing at the national laboratories is putting together
these scientific teams, many of whom would be considered non-experts.
In times like this, those are many of the people you want. BP and the
oil industry have the lion's share of the experts that are exactly
germane to this. So this is how we think we can best add value.
How long to you expect it will be before the leak is stopped?
That i couldn't say.
Days? Weeks?
Look, let's just say we know more about the blowout preventer, we know
more about its condition, there are things on it that have worked. So
I think there's a path forward. But as everyone knows, it ain't over
till it's over, to quote the great American philosopher of the 20th
century. And meanwhile oil is continuing to spill. So we are very
focused on trying to stop that as quickly as possible. And the
government is also focused on the downstream things to mitigate its
environmental impact.
There was a congressional hearing yesterday about the causes of the
spill. Will we ever know what triggered this disaster?
You know, it's under investigation. Like all other investigations of
accidents, it depends. It's very important to try and do a postmortem
as quickly as possible, because those things are very important
lessons that have to apply going forward.
Mark Test
news:7be7a77d-384a-4e82...@z33g2000vbb.googlegroups.com...
> On May 23, 5:51 am, Jack Linthicum <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net>
> wrote:
>> On May 22, 4:37 pm, "Jeffrey Hamilton" <bberesf...@cogeco.ca> wrote:
>
>
> And more, plus a former fishing boat captain on MSNBC saying BP is
> employing the fishing captains and their boats in 30-40 numbers, with
> the captains themselves rotating the working boats so everyone gets a
> payday. Not quite what BP wants you to believe.
>
Jack Linthicum
> "Jack Linthicum" <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
Yes, and you warch what?
Jack Linthicum
>
> news:7be7a77d-384a-4e82...@z33g2000vbb.googlegroups.com...> On May 23, 5:51 am, Jack Linthicum <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net>
> > wrote:
> >> On May 22, 4:37 pm, "Jeffrey Hamilton" <bberesf...@cogeco.ca> wrote:
>
> > employing the fishing captains and their boats in 30-40 numbers, with
> > the captains themselves rotating the working boats so everyone gets a
> > payday. Not quite what BP wants you to believe.
>
> You actually watchMSNBC?
Perhaps the obvious fact that you don't might explain some of your
outlandish and outright uninformed statements. You do know about Joe
Scarborough, don't you? I am always surprised at the righties that are
totally unaware that there is a conservative voice on those cable news
channels that isn't crazy and lying. He has some problems realizing it
isn't 1994, the year he was elected to the House, but he gets the
people there who use their five minutes of air time better than guests
on any other cable news channel.
Mark Test
I have tried to watch MSNBC, but there is so much hatred and blatant
mis-information by folks like Radow and Oberman. I watch CNBC mostly
and Fox business occasionally. I am proud to say that my opinions are
mine and not some anchor person's.
Mark
Jack Linthicum
CNN, that the one who said Iceland was too cold for volcanos?
Mark Test
I wouldn't be surprised that CNN would
make such a statement.
Jack Linthicum
The Most Trusted Name in News?
Jeffrey Hamilton
Had YOU _and_ FROGWATCH, been watching CNN, you wouldn't be anywhere near as
unenlightened regarding this _massive_ oilspill, as you are.
cheers.....Jeff
Jack Linthicum
Yes, I am going to watch Fox Business News more, the broads are nice
and the whole "anticipated upskirt shot" is okay, but now I can listen
to what they are saying to see if the situation in the Gulf is as rosy
as the right side seems to have decided. Notice I didn't say "think".
Jeffrey Hamilton
> "Jeffrey Hamilton" <bbere...@cogeco.ca> wrote:
>
>> Fred J. McCall wrote:
>>> "Jeffrey Hamilton" <bbere...@cogeco.ca> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> You are quite correct Kerryn, Fredfreaka, does this constantly.
>>>> Sometimes I will bump them for him, but he hates it when I do it
>>>> and refuses to read the posts just out of stupid spite, LoL. What a
>>>> maroon.....
>>>>
>>>
>>> Translation: Jif Hammy Tons routinely engages in the odious
>>> practice of 'echoing' people merely to help them evade killfiles.
>>
>> Silly little lying twerp that you are, Fredfreaka, you constantly
>> snipe at people through _YOUR_ killfiles and Jack is one of your
>> frequent and favourite targets.
>>
>
> deliberately echo people
Nope, that's a lie, Fredfreaka, you sniped first, you always snipe first and
as often as not you piggyback your sniping on my posts.
you know are in killfiles just to try to make
> people see them, just as you pat yourself on the back over leaking
> Jack, above.
Your still lying, Fredfreaka, you insisted on continually piggybacking your
flames on my messages. Jack responded to your snipping, he didn't flame you
and so I showed you his reply and I told you I would continue to do exactly
that, so long as his response wasn't a flame
If you don't wish to see his replies to your sniping, then don't phucking
snipe you moronic troll.
> And you hate that it STILL frequently doesn't get you
> what you want, again as you admit above.
I'm sure the above is supposed to mean something, I have no idea what it is
though.
> You know, Skippy, if twittwats like you didn't go around trying to
> 'leak' people through killfiles, why there wouldn't be anything for me
> snipe at, now would there?
My having a conversation with someone isn't leaking anything, you gormless
git. If _you_ could resist the urge to first PEEK and the SNIPE through me,
you wouldn't have this problem. You are the problem, Fredfreaka, not me and
not anyone else.
>
>>
>> Hell Fredfreaka, it was exactly that sort of nonsense that first
>> really caught my attention and made me focus on you, that time it
>> was Vince you were sniping at using nilita as your piggyback.
>>
>
> You mean back when Nilita and Vinnie were playing 'ping pong', don't
> you?
No they weren't playing 'ping pong' or anything else, they were merely
having a conversation that you weren't involved in, you just couldn't stand
that and so you started sniping at Vince through Nilita and in fact sniping
at both of them. Eventually they saw and commented on it. It was all _YOUR_
doing, Fredfreaka. That whole episode was of your doing and yours alone,
Fredfreaka.
>>
>> FFS it wasn't all that long ago you were doing the same thing with
>> Arved too, or have you conveniently forgotten that also !
>>
>
> Arved isn't usually in my killfile, Skippy. You see, he, unlike you,
> is frequently on balance worth reading.
No he's not usually, but when he was, you simply couldn't resist PEEKING,
could you and commenting on much of what he said in the form of SNIPPING and
piggybacking on others messages, Arved had noticed and commented on it, as
did I and others.
You took the bait and swallowed it, hook, line and sinker, Fredfreaka. When
you finally removed your head from your arse and commented that 'yeah, he
was still in your killfile, for another two days', the phucking hook was
still stuck in your forehead, you obsessive moron. And you and you alone,
brought it on yourself
cheers.....Jeff
Jeffrey Hamilton
> "Jeffrey Hamilton" <bbere...@cogeco.ca> wrote:
>
>> Fred J. McCall wrote:
>>> "Jeffrey Hamilton" <bbere...@cogeco.ca> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Fred J. McCall wrote:
>>>>> "Jeffrey Hamilton" <bbere...@cogeco.ca> wrote:
>>>>>
Piffle, you know the ground rules, Fredfreaka, I've made them very clear for
you. Abide by them or I will continue to show you up for the obsesasive,
stalking,m Phuckwit that you are.
cheers.....Jeff
Richard
>
> Piffle, you know the ground rules, Fredfreaka, I've made them very clear for
> you. Abide by them or I will continue to show you up for the obsesasive,
> stalking,m Phuckwit that you are.
>
> cheers.....Jeff
Rules...on usenet. Right.
Jack Linthicum
"Laws control the lesser man... Right conduct controls the
greater..."
Jeffrey Hamilton
Only between Fredfreaka and myself Richard and this is when he's sniping and
flaming through me, I don't give a ratz ass what everyone else does.
cheers.....Jeff
Jeffrey Hamilton
Well I make it real enough for you, Fredfreaka and that's all that counts.
cheers.....Jeff
Jeffrey Hamilton
>
> <snicker>
Going for the last post are you, Fredfreaka.
<chuckle>
cheers.....Jeff
Jeffrey Hamilton
You don't mind if I have a wee chat with Richard do you, Fredfreaka ?
> I sometimes wonder what sort of mental meltdown the >poor lad would have
> if I just binned him.
Promises, promises......I'd be willing to bet you'd merely start sniping at
my through your killfile, just like you do to so many others, Fredfreaka. By
all means though, do have a go.
cheers.....Jeff
Jeffrey Hamilton
> "Jeffrey Hamilton" <bbere...@cogeco.ca> wrote:
>
>> Fred J. McCall wrote:
>>> "Jeffrey Hamilton" <bbere...@cogeco.ca> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Richard wrote:
>>>>>> Piffle, you know the ground rules, Fredfreaka, I've made them
>>>>>> very clear for you. Abide by them or I will continue to show you
>>>>>> up for the obsesasive, stalking,m Phuckwit that you are.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> cheers.....Jeff
>>>>>
>>>>> Rules...on usenet. Right.
>>>>
>>>> Only between Fredfreaka and myself Richard and this is when he's
>>>> sniping and flaming through me, I don't give a ratz ass what
>>>> everyone else does.
>>>>
>>>
>>> In other words, Skippy is an obsessed Usenet stalker.
>>>
>>
>> You don't mind if I have a wee chat with Richard do you, Fredfreaka ?
>>
>
>
>>> I sometimes wonder what sort of mental meltdown the >poor lad would
>>> have if I just binned him.
>>
>> Promises, promises......I'd be willing to bet you'd merely start
>> sniping at my through your killfile,
>>
>
> You really are unhinged, aren't you?
I don't care if they do or don't, Fredfreaka. But if I ask for someone to
bump a post of mine, I'd be willing to bet someone will. <G>
>>
>> just like you do to so many others, Fredfreaka.
>>
>
> Where do you morons get the idea that being in someone's killfile
> prevents THEM from POSTING?
It's not being in their killfile, we were discussing, Fredfreaka, it's _YOU_
constantly snipping through your own killfile and piggybacking your snipping
on other posters that was being discussed. Do try to keep up.
>>
>> By all means though, do have a go.
>>
>
> Deal. You may now have that oh so important to you >last word, Skippy.
Thanks but I don't need your permission, Fredfreaka, I was going to have the
last word anyway.
> I'm sure you'll now go berserk, spit, fume, and lie, but >then, that's
> just you.
I never have need to lie when discussing you, Fredfreaka, but you usually
do.
> <plonk>
Buh bye.
cheers.....Jeff
Jeffrey Hamilton
> badly, Skippy?
Well I believe you plonked me elsewhere, so we'll see your level of
commitment,. here.
> <snicker>
<chortle>
cheers.....Jeff