Drill Baby Drill!!!

[Pangloss]

What cost is that, and how do you know it is unrecoverable?

[ParanoiA]

Well, I thought it was obvious what the environmental cost was, but here's a sample from a quick google search:

 

http://baronandbudd.com/legal_services/gulf_coast_oil_spill/environmental_impact

 

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate-uk/2010/05/14/how-much-damage-will-result-from-the-bp-oil-spill/

 

 

Nothing that has been tried is containing this thing. It's absolutely terrible. I have no confidence they're going to get every speck of oil sludge from this spill. Which ultimately means long term, if not unrecoverable damage, regardless of significance.

 

I will concede that other energy technologies can be just as dangerous and impacting upon catastrophe, such as nuclear, but I'm trying to be careful in applying the risk/reward cost/benefit analysis. I don't think offshore drilling passes. Not when there are so many other ways to attain energy here, including coal. If they could prove some new technology or technique in this clean up, and restore confidence in their ability to mitigate such a thing, then I'd be happy to change my mind. At this point though, I don't see it.

[Pangloss]

Well maybe you're right, but it seems like thus far there's more of a fear of environmental cost than a reality. Even the media has noted the shrinkage of the slick and the fact that it may never come ashore, and surely any estimates at this point are pure conjecture.

 

I think that's a lot to hang an entire policy change upon, especially given the long history of, for example, the North Sea explorations, or other offshore US sites, which nobody has suggested closing down. Maybe it's just my separation from UK media but I don't hear any sudden discussion in UK politics about ending offshore drilling.

 

And I don't know that there ARE "so many other ways to attain energy here". Coal is the worst offender for the environmental/GCC crowd. Nuclear is absolutely the way to go, IMO, but the political battle will be absolutely monumental -- historical and utterly news-dominating. A fight that will suck absolutely all of the oxygen out of (at least) an entire legislative year.

 

This is where the airline industry usually trots out statistics about the likelihood of another accident. I realize that's not an entirely fair analogy, because I agree that the potential for damage is catastrophic. But isn't that what science is for? Is the problem here really that we've tampered with mother nature and that we should instead go back to living in caves, or is it that we just haven't done our homework and we simply need better safety equipment and planning? We can land a man on the moon but we can't safely drill for oil under the sea? Seriously?

 

This has all the earmarks of a media event that ends up setting policy due to nothing substantive or scientific, just emotional public opinion.

[ParanoiA]

We can land a man on the moon but we can't safely drill for oil under the sea? Seriously?

 

Oh no, not the man-on-the-moon appeal! There is no successful counter to the we-can-land-a-man-on-the-moon-but-we-can't-<enter your incredulous claim>. So I won't even try.

 

 

This has all the earmarks of a media event that ends up setting policy due to nothing substantive or scientific, just emotional public opinion.

 

Well, I'll admit to being a part of that emotional opinion, as I'm processing the hundreds of thousands of gallons being released every day, going on a month long now...and you just mentioned up thread about the force of the mississippi possibly preventing the spill coming ashore, as of yet.

 

Let me put it this way, if there isn't much of an ultimate environmental cost on this one, then it's a successfully dodged bullet, not a confirmation that oil spills don't harm the environment terribly. Is it that hard to imagine this same volume of oil, over the same course of time, somewhere else, without the mississippi or anything else holding it back?

[Pangloss]

No, it's not hard to imagine that at all.

 

But I think you have to take into consideration that the main scientific/technical concern here is not the safety of offshore drilling, but rather the safety of deep water drilling. That's what makes this case different -- that's why the leak hasn't been stopped.

 

What we're learning here is not that offshore drilling is bad, but that deep water development has outpaced deep water contingency planning. This accident has highlighted the need for more planning and better equipment. It is a mistake to leverage that into a larger condemnation of offshore drilling as unsafe, because there doesn't appear to be any scientific basis for that condemnation.

 

(And I think it speaks volumes that you and I are the ones having this conversation rather than certain people on this forum who claim to always place science over ideology.)

[iNow]

What we're learning here is not that offshore drilling is bad, but that deep water development has outpaced deep water contingency planning. This accident has highlighted the need for more planning and better equipment.

Well, in point of fact, many people are learning that besides reasons of climate change and national security, there are still further reasons to switch to green energy and to do so at an accelerated pace. If money is going to be spent on R&D and planning, it would seem wisest to spend that money on the long term cleanly sustainable solution as opposed to the short term dirty one.

 

Further, it remains to be seen whether these oil companies will put forth the resources to make their contingencies more robust on their own or whether they will keep doing what they're doing until the government mandates improvements via legislation and regulation.

 

 

I think it speaks volumes that you and I are the ones having this conversation rather than certain people on this forum who claim to always place science over ideology.

Sigh.

[Pangloss]

Well, in point of fact, many people are learning that besides reasons of climate change and national security, there are still further reasons to switch to green energy and to do so at an accelerated pace. If money is going to be spent on R&D and planning, it would seem wisest to spend that money on the long term cleanly sustainable solution as opposed to the short term dirty one.

 

Not entirely an unfair comparison, but IMO ultimately invalid because deep sea cleanup is a very tangible, hands-on sort of problem, whereas replacing oil/coal with something as economical that isn't nuclear is a problem that's been vexing society for generations.

 

Nor does the money for R&D on deep sea drilling have to come from the public. BP has spent something like a week's worth of profits on this particular mess so far. I think they can afford to spend a couple more week's worth coming up with correct contingency plans instead of incorrect ones.

 

But okay, let's say that every offshore rig is a danger to the coastline. Okay, so shut them all down, right now. Every offshore rig that's licensed to drill off American shores -- close them all down.

 

And then let's deal with the economic chaos that follows. Which of course will be entirely the creation of Democrats in Congress and the White House. Not one Republican will agree with that plan, which will leave not one Republican available for blame. Not so easy a call now, is it?

 

Environmentalists have discovered a winning solution that's far cheaper than finding a solution to our energy dilemma: Playing the Blame Game.

 

 

Further, it remains to be seen whether these oil companies will put forth the resources to make their contingencies more robust on their own or whether they will keep doing what they're doing until the government mandates improvements via legislation and regulation.

 

They're required to do exactly that, and in fact their licenses depend on their ability to deal with these problems. But it looks like those regulations aren't being enforced. A Coast Guard test just this past March highlighted the inability to recover significant amounts of oil with the boom approach and yet BP's license is based on that very same ability.

 

http://www.publicintegrity.org/articles/entry/2079/

 

They need to do what they said they're going to do, and the government needs to make sure that they do instead of sleeping on the job.

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President Obama took time on Saturday to lay a portion of the blame for the oil spill on the government.

 

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/37267.html

 

The president’s admission of a breakdown in government procedures comes amid reports that federal regulators were lax in oversight and issuing permits for drilling in the Gulf. He slammed the “cozy relationship” oil companies have with the Minerals Management Services, and said the Interior Department will embark on a “top-to-bottom reform” of the agency and conduct a review of the environmental procedures for drilling.

 

Certainly there will be further finger-pointing on this, much of it justifiably aimed at Republicans, but once that's said and done there needs to be a serious focus here on the regulatory shortfall that may have been at issue here. This country is in the midst of a very public review of the concept of government regulation. We need our legislators to recognize that in order for regulation to work it has to actually be taken seriously. How can we hope to have the public agree to new regulations on banking, health care or tax reform if we're promising them that regulation will work with one hand, while the other hand is dipping into the deep pockets of corporations and other special interests?

 

I think this also underscores the problem of "too many fires" that the Obama administration has been dealing with, and may also speak to the importance of having good people in government. Right now Democrats are telling Obama to put more blame on Republicans. Excuse me? Have they been paying ANY attention to what that man has been dealing with for the last year and a half?

 

Pelosi and other House leaders told senior White House aides at a recent closed-door meeting that they felt the president was spending too much time bashing Washington without pointing the finger of blame at Republicans – a rhetorical nuance they argued could backfire by provoking voter anger at the party in charge in Congress.

 

Yeesh -- talk about just not getting it.

[iNow]

60 Minutes tonight did a first hand account from one of the last survivors to get off the rig when the explosions happened. He had some interesting first hand information to share which suggests that many warning signs were ignored... warning signs which with proper action would have very likely have prevented this mess.

 

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/16/60minutes/main6490197.shtml

The gusher unleashed in the Gulf of Mexico continues to spew crude oil. There are no reliable estimates of how much oil is pouring into the gulf. But it comes to many millions of gallons since the catastrophic blowout. Eleven men were killed in the explosions that sank one of the most sophisticated drilling rigs in the world, the "Deepwater Horizon."

 

This week Congress continues its investigation, but Capitol Hill has not heard from the man "60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelley met: Mike Williams, one of the last crewmembers to escape the inferno.

 

He says the destruction of the Deepwater Horizon had been building for weeks in a series of mishaps. The night of the disaster, he was in his workshop when he heard the rig's engines suddenly run wild. That was the moment that explosive gas was shooting across the decks, being sucked into the engines that powered the rig's generators. <

continue reading

>

 

I imagine the full video will be made available at the link above once this has aired on the west coast.

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Indeed. Here are the links to the video from the special:

 

 

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6490348n

Deepwater Horizon's Blowout, Part 1

 

Scott Pelley speaks to one of the survivors of the deadly Deepwater Horizon oil rig blast who was in a position to know what caused the disaster.

 

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6490378n

Deepwater Horizon's Blowout, Part 2

 

Scott Pelley investigates the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion that killed 11, causing the ongoing oil leak in the waters off of Louisiana. One survivor talks about his harrowing escape and what happened after he got off the burning rig.

 

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6490138n

Extra: Capturing The Disaster

 

Albert Andry, Dustin King, Ryan Chaisson & Westley Bourg describe the explosions on the oil rig Deepwater Horizon. Chaisson began videotaping the scene almost as soon as the disaster began.

[Pangloss]

I saw the report as well. I thought it was impressively technical even for 60 Minutes.

[iNow]

Not entirely an unfair comparison, but IMO ultimately invalid because deep sea cleanup is a very tangible, hands-on sort of problem

 

That sort of misses my intended point. Right now, public opposition to dirty energy is at an all time high. That opposition should be leveraged, and focus placed on what we all implicitly know is the future... clean energy.

 

We know we can't change to clean energy overnight.

We know that a huge portion of our infrastructure is reliant upon fossil fuels.

We also know that the current approach is unsustainable, and that a new approach will arrive in our collective future.

 

It's not a matter of "if," it's a matter of when.

 

 

For that reason, I stand rather firmly behind my previous point that "what we're learning here" is that there are even more reasons to get behind clean energy legislation in a big way, and to do so before the public support fizzles out. The populace in our great nation have an inherently short attention span, however, right now... They are profoundly focused on the real world impact of our oil based economy.

 

Let's use that momentum to do something for the future... to do something for our children and our children's children... and make the switch we know will be required of us anyway.

 

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/opinion/19friedman.html

No, the gulf oil spill is not Obama’s Katrina. It’s his 9/11 — and it is disappointing to see him making the same mistake George W. Bush made with his 9/11. Sept. 11, 2001, was one of those rare seismic events that create the possibility to energize the country to do something really important and lasting that is too hard to do in normal times.

 

<...>

 

Sadly, President Obama seems intent on squandering his environmental 9/11 with a Bush-level failure of imagination. So far, the Obama policy is: “Think small and carry a big stick.” He is rightly hammering the oil company executives. But he is offering no big strategy to end our oil addiction. Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman have unveiled their new energy bill, which the president has endorsed but only in a very tepid way. Why tepid? Because Kerry-Lieberman embraces vitally important fees on carbon emissions that the White House is afraid will be exploited by Republicans in the midterm elections. The G.O.P., they fear, will scream carbon “tax” at every Democrat who would support this bill, and Obama, having already asked Democrats to make a hard vote on health care, feels he can’t ask them for another.

 

I don’t buy it. In the wake of this historic oil spill, the right policy — a bill to help end our addiction to oil — is also the right politics. The people are ahead of their politicians. So is the U.S. military. There are many conservatives who would embrace a carbon tax or gasoline tax if it was offset by a cut in payroll taxes or corporate taxes, so we could foster new jobs and clean air at the same time. If Republicans label Democrats “gas taxers” then Democrats should label them “Conservatives for OPEC” or “Friends of BP.” Shill, baby, shill.

 

Why is Obama playing defense? Just how much oil has to spill into the gulf, how much wildlife has to die, how many radical mosques need to be built with our gasoline purchases to produce more Times Square bombers, before it becomes politically “safe” for the president to say he is going to end our oil addiction?

[Pangloss]

Well I agree. Of course, we're already doing that with regard to wind, which has never seen such boom times, already rapidly climbing in the total output department. We can give solar the same boost.

 

But of course ultimately they can't provide the kind of energy we need to replace oil. So let's get that nuclear ball rolling.

[Double K]

But of course ultimately they can't provide the kind of energy we need to replace oil. So let's get that nuclear ball rolling.

 

Nuclear is hardly "clean". The waste from this energy source will impact the environment for much longer than we can conceive... Nuclear is not currently a sustainable nor "clean" energy and I would never support the acceptance of waste in my country, not the acceptance of a nuclear power station.

[Pangloss]

I didn't say it was perfect. Nuclear is as clean as it gets and still replace oil. So do you want clean or do you want to replace oil?

 

It may be the devil's own choice, but look at the advantages. Build a bunch of nuclear plants and get all the cars on the grid, and in one fell swoop you come pretty darn close to solving air pollution, global warming, and the oil importation problem, and even bump the economy in the process. And all it costs you is a great big underground nuclear bunker that nobody can touch for a few centuries. Seems like a pretty good price to me.

 

Sure that's a bit exaggerated, but so what? We're talking wild theories here anyway, might as well toss another one out there. But in the end that's pretty much the full set of options right there, whether you see it as Hobson's Choice or not. Everything else is just hand-wringing and finger-pointing.

[Double K]

If we're going wild theories then what about geothermal? No waste...

 

Also, I heard of an experiment of a giant "chimney" structure filled with turbines with a 'greenhouse' shade structure beneath it so as to promote wind flow thru the chimney...they made scale models of it which worked quite well...cant for the life of me remember what it was called tho I'll see what I can dig up

[Pangloss]

Geothermal plants emit CO, but certainly far less than the equivalent amount of fossil fuel power. They're depletable, localized, and (as I understand it) not usable for the majority of the US. But certainly we can build more of them.

 

-----------

 

Here's a suggestion:

 

Step 1) Calculate the number of nuclear plants needed to power 150 million electric vehicles driving an average of 40 miles per day and all the coal-generated electrical capacity currently in use in the country, and some room for growth.

 

Step 2) Calculate the cost of that number, as well as the amount of waste required for all those plants and how much it would cost to store it. Nod intelligently and pretend like we all care about the budget.

 

Step 3) Begin putting that plan into action, on the theory that if we can't have clean energy at least we can have cleaner energy.

 

Step 4) Now begin building all the solar, wind, geothermal you possibly can, concurrently with the above plan. Every megawatt of that "clean" stuff that goes in takes the place of a megawatt of nuclear that no longer has to be built.

 

Voila, the Pangloss Energy Plan. It'll actually work, people will actually support it, and the cost doesn't even matter if you simply view it as an investment in the future. Done.

[Double K]

There we go, solar updraft tower..

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower

 

The solar updraft tower is a proposed type of renewable-energy power plant. It combines three old and proven technologies: the chimney effect, the greenhouse effect, and the wind turbine. Air is heated by sunshine and contained in a very large greenhouse-like structure around the base of a tall chimney, and the resulting convection causes air to rise up the updraft tower. This airflow drives turbines, which produce electricity. A successful research prototype operated in Spain in the 1980s, and many modelling studies have been published as to optimization, scale, and economic feasibility.

[Mr Skeptic]

Double K, nuclear is not entirely clean (except in reality it actually is), not renewable (but will still easily outlast fossil fuels), but it is nearly 100% reliable, and can give power day and night 24/7. And if you consider it as a replacement for coal rather than as "clean energy" then it is clear that it is definitely clean.

[jryan]

Someone smashed out the windows of my local BP gas station the other night. It sure would be awesome if people weren't so stupid.

[bascule]

Nuclear is hardly "clean". The waste from this energy source will impact the environment for much longer than we can conceive...

 

Nuclear waste is an issue, however it can be kept indefinitely in temporary storage until a permanent facility (e.g. Yucca Mountain) can be completed.

 

Nuclear is clean in that it is a zero emissions technology, and that all waste produced by the process can be safely contained. While there have been accidents where the environment has been contaminated with nuclear waste, by design nuclear reactors do not emit any form of waste or pollution into the outside environment. The only way nuclear power is in any way dirty is if something goes horribly, horribly wrong.

 

Compare to a truly dirty energy source like coal, which emits both CO₂ and exhaust smoke directly into the atmosphere.

[Mr Skeptic]

Compare to a truly dirty energy source like coal, which emits both CO₂ and exhaust smoke directly into the atmosphere.

 

Coal also emits radioactive wastes; from what I understand, far more than if you were to grind up exhausted reactor cores and throw them into the atmosphere.

[iNow]

Don't forget coal ash, and the resulting sludge.

[bascule]

Don't forget coal ash, and the resulting sludge.

 

And while we're at it, how about the mercury which enters the water supply and can accumulate to toxic levels in sea fish.

[Double K]

Oh I'm by no means saying that coal is a better option.

 

My main concern with nuclear is that the half life of the waste is really a legacy for many many future generations to have to store and deal with.

 

There was a recent documentary about a reactor waste storage facility in a European town (Ukraine or something?) where water was seeping into the (now very old) storage facility. If this water is contaminated, and then makes its way to groundwater, you have a very large problem if the groundwater is contaminated, this is really a very very bad situation. The problem with Nuclear, is not it's emissions whilst it's running but that the contamination is far far more immediately deadly, and far longer for the environment to recover from. It essentially salts the earth for 50-80 years, causes mutations and cancers, and all sorts of nasty nasty.

I am also old enough to remember Chernobyl and although technology and safety/reliability of nuclear reactors has advanced greatly, the price of a catastrophic failure is simply an unacceptable risk (in my opinion)

 

The only way that this would be acceptable is to launch the waste into space, but then what happens if the launch goes wrong and we scatter irradiated cooling rods across half a state...that's also not good.

[Mr Skeptic]

My main concern with nuclear is that the half life of the waste is really a legacy for many many future generations to have to store and deal with.

 

And what do you think is the half-life of mercury released by coal plants? That is going to be around for quite some time. None of those silly thousands or millions of years -- it will probably be around hundreds of billions of years later, long after the sun dies.

 

Again, nuclear power plants could solve their pollution issues by grinding up waste and blowing it into the atmosphere or dissolving it in the sea, like with coal. The emissions will become too dilute to cause much problem, especially since they are far less than that of coal and will decay quicker.

 

Just to drill it in better (or was that drill baby drill it?), a chemistry proffessor at Dartmouth College, Karen Wetterhahn, died of mercury poisoning after spilling one drop of dimethylmercury on her latex glove (some went through the glove and through her skin). Fortunately, the mercury released by the coal plants is in a less toxic form than dimethylmercury, but then again they release it by the ton, not by the drop. Mercury is nasty nasty stuff and it will never decay into a safer element.

 

The point I'm trying to make is that most people have no idea just how much nastier coal is than nuclear -- simply due to dilution of the pollution, not that it is any less or any less toxic.

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Don't forget coal ash, and the resulting sludge.

 

You mean the ingredient in concrete? Would you like to buy our pollution? It's perfectly safe, we swear.

coal ash in concrete, is it safe?

Edited May 20, 2010 by Mr Skeptic
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[bascule]

There was a recent documentary about a reactor waste storage facility in a European town (Ukraine or something?) where water was seeping into the (now very old) storage facility. If this water is contaminated, and then makes its way to groundwater, you have a very large problem if the groundwater is contaminated, this is really a very very bad situation. The problem with Nuclear, is not it's emissions whilst it's running but that the contamination is far far more immediately deadly, and far longer for the environment to recover from.

 

This is true. If nuclear waste is improperly stored it can lead to environmental disaster. However, that's the exception, not the rule, versus technologies like coal where polluting the environment is business as usual.

 

I am also old enough to remember Chernobyl and although technology and safety/reliability of nuclear reactors has advanced greatly, the price of a catastrophic failure is simply an unacceptable risk

 

There will never be another Chernobyl. Chernobyl had an unsafe design which is not employed by any other operative nuclear reactor in the world.