A good Post On the Deepwater Horizon Accident

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Josh Cryer
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Post by Josh Cryer »

Isn't gas more permeable than liquid? Correct me if I'm wrong. If it is then I'd argue it does make a case for a (small) nuke.

And FYI the "squeezing the bores shut" explanation was for public consumption, I doubt very seriously they thought "we'll just pinch the pipe closed with a nuke" it was more like "we're going to completely excavate the whole subsurface and rearrange thing so much that nothing will be able to find a direct path to the surface."
Science is what we have learned about how not to fool ourselves about the way the world is.

choff
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Post by choff »

Just wondering, but are there significant oil deposits directly under both the populated and enviormentally protected area's of the Gulf coast, it almost seems like a deliberate act.
CHoff

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

Josh Cryer wrote:MSimon, I see no contradiction in what I said and the Wikipedia article you linked. If anything it illustrates why I am an anti-capitalist. Read a contract sometime. You will not find any these days that doesn't give the contractor some major leverage in the vein of "rent seeking."

BTW, I was wrong, it does appear that Obama managed to make it so that BP pays, to the tune of at least $20.1 billion dollars. I am not really equipped to say whether or not that will cover all of the damage, but at least some of those being harmed are getting paid back. This, I did not expect in a million years.

($20 billion for the escrow, $100 million for rig workers who aren't able to drill currently.)
Well yes. The question you have to ask yourself is: can government do a better job?

The government thought it was being gouged by steel makers (armor) in WW1. So the government decided to build a plant. Net result - costs 2X what the private companies were charging.

You are looking for a perfect system. There is no such thing. The only choices are better or worse.

Note: BP (through its executives) gave millions to Obama. And his regulators slacked off on BP.
Even as oil laps ashore in Louisiana after leaking from BP PLC's well, souls are being searched in Washington about why regulators didn't or couldn't prevent the disaster, and why nobody had a good answer for coping with it once it occurred.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 00634.html
So BP bought the government in order to increase profits. Rent seeking. It would have been better if BP had been regulated by a private company (ala UL) whose interests were in opposition to BP.

The government has no skin in the game. It can always raise taxes or print money.

UL has skin in the electrical game as it is backed by insurance companies who lose if there are electrical fires or worse.

Also note: if the government gets its hands on the $20 bn it will become a giant slush fund similar to the tobacco settlement.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

The perverse incentives that accrue to government:

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/201 ... ption.html

Short version: the incentive for government is to privatize the gains (to keep the bribes and votes coming) and socialize the losses. Much harder to do if you can't tax or print money.

The government is run by people no better than those that run BP. Unlike BP they have guns.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

Josh Cryer
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Post by Josh Cryer »

BP saying the regulators slacked off is excuse making. It's likely that the regulators were just too overwhelmed by how many rigs are going up, so BP decided to skirt the law. They were 100% aware that their blowout preventer was not up to par, I can 100% guarantee that. The blame game is BP saying the guys who made the safety systems were at fault, and they're in turn blaming the regulators for not doing their job.

It always amuses me when people blame government for not being "nanny state" enough. People should be able to make their systems safe so that no harm comes to innocent civilians. They shouldn't expect the government to hold their hand the whole way.

Whether or not people will be paid has yet to be seen. We'll see. Likely a lot of fraud is going to happen, and likely the damages are going to be in excess of the $20 billion. But it is completely and utterly inconceivable that a corporation this day and age actually owned up like they did. Apparently it was actually done to alleviate the stock crash, since it is $20 billion over several years that is nothing to BPs revenue. It slows the payment of reparations so that BPs overall portfolio is not hit.
Science is what we have learned about how not to fool ourselves about the way the world is.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

You are forgetting that government provided the oil companies with limited liability ($75 million is a number I have heard) so the only way to keep them honest is regulation.

i.e. the incentives are perverse.

Instead of raising the cap and forcing companies to get insurance we will get more regulation. But regulators can be bought. Cheap.

A UL type organization run by the insurers would be a more balanced approach.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

Diogenes
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Post by Diogenes »

Josh Cryer wrote:BP saying the regulators slacked off is excuse making. It's likely that the regulators were just too overwhelmed by how many rigs are going up, so BP decided to skirt the law.

Did you miss the story about the Government Regulators Taking Drugs, Partying, surfing porn and being in Bed with BP?
A coke-snorting, meth-using, bribe-taking, porn-surfing Animal House agency that was in bed — literally — with the oil and gas industries it was supposed to regulate.

British Petroleum’s broken well was fast-tracked by the MMS, which didn’t bother to make BP demonstrate that its blowout preventer would actually work, or to adopt rules requiring backup safety systems.
http://blog.nj.com/njv_editorial_page/2 ... ulato.html

Miss Birnbaum was, until Thursday morning, director of the Minerals Management Service. The MMS is a boring, and normally obscure, unit of the Department of the Interior. Unluckily for Birnbaum, the MMS’s portfolio includes keeping tabs on the safety of offshore oil platforms.

To make matters worse for her, three days ago the inspector general’s office released a report about an MMS office in Louisiana where workers were doing crystal meth and surfing for porn on their work computers. All while taking gifts on the side from the companies they were overseeing.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and- ... n-problem/


Josh Cryer wrote: They were 100% aware that their blowout preventer was not up to par, I can 100% guarantee that. The blame game is BP saying the guys who made the safety systems were at fault, and they're in turn blaming the regulators for not doing their job.

It always amuses me when people blame government for not being "nanny state" enough. People should be able to make their systems safe so that no harm comes to innocent civilians. They shouldn't expect the government to hold their hand the whole way.

Whether or not people will be paid has yet to be seen. We'll see. Likely a lot of fraud is going to happen, and likely the damages are going to be in excess of the $20 billion. But it is completely and utterly inconceivable that a corporation this day and age actually owned up like they did. Apparently it was actually done to alleviate the stock crash, since it is $20 billion over several years that is nothing to BPs revenue. It slows the payment of reparations so that BPs overall portfolio is not hit.

Josh, you have convinced me that some companies are INHERENTLY EVIL. Those Fascist like companies that get in bed with closet communists and contribute money to people like Barack Obama are wicked, and need to be destroyed. They are vile.

Obama biggest recipient of BP cash

BP and its employees have given more than $3.5 million to federal candidates over the past 20 years, with the largest chunk of their money going to Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Donations come from a mix of employees and the company's political action committees - $2.89 million flowed to campaigns from BP-related PACs and about $638,000 came from individuals.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64420A20100505


If only these people were taught ethics or something. Maybe they should go to Church instead of hanging out at Liberal cocktail parties where no one believes in God or private property and other distinctions between right and wrong. It is a lack of MORALITY that caused these problems.

GIThruster
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Post by GIThruster »

Diogenes wrote:
Josh Cryer wrote:Whistleblowers are already coming out. They were cutting corners. There are many rigs were corners are being cut. Profit over safe engineering, baby.
The timing is suspicious. The people who benefit from this are the eco terrorists.
I haven't heard of any eco terrorists in fifteen years. When is the last time someone spiked a tree, chained themselves to it or spray painted a Hummer?

Peeps, you need to follow the money. This episode, if indeed it was orchestrated and not an accident (which I am NOT saying--there is no evidence of this yet) does not benefit the ecoterrorists. They would never do such a thing. It benefits the socialists who hate capitalism. It will turn the two strongest supporters of capitalism left, the US and the UK; against one another. It will bankrupt the UK and by extension the EU. It will empty the IMF. It will cause the world's largest panic and violent eruption--greater even than WWII, all because OBama refuses to actually put those helps from 13 other nations to work.

Who stands to gain? Not the eco-terrorists. CHINA!

Follow the money. If the Chinese had thought of this they would probably have torpedoed the well.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

ladajo
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Post by ladajo »

Using a NoK mini-sub, transported via the Panama Canal to Cuba. With a stop in Venezuela for fuel and training!

:shock:

GIThruster
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Post by GIThruster »

Yes well, until there's evidence to support intention, I'm sticking with the idea of accident. The outcome is the same either way. So long as POTUS refuses to mitigate the damage of the disaster by allowing clean-up at sea, we're looking at fantastic liability for BP and the possibility of bankrupting that company--the UK's largest employer--and the stupid wrestling that would happen trying to get them to pay what they do not have while protecting their pensions. If I were a Brit, I would certainly sacrifice any good will left between the UK and US in order to keep my country out of bankruptcy.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

Diogenes
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Post by Diogenes »

Like I said before. BP is a vile and disgusting company. It needs to be wiped out! It has hired even more Democrats!

Washington Post wrote:BP, which has garnered the bulk of public attention and contempt for the spill, has assembled a formidable team of Democrats for its Washington lobbying, legal and public-relations offensive. There is Tony Podesta, who heads one of the District's leading lobbying firms; legal adviser Jamie Gorelick, a top Justice Department official in the Clinton administration now at the law firm WilmerHale; Hilary Rosen, a former recording-industry lobbyist who heads the Washington office of the Brunswick Group, a public-relations consultancy; and Michael S. Berman of the Duberstein Group, who was a longtime aide to former vice president Walter F. Mondale before becoming a lobbyist.

Gorelick, who also served as a member of the 9/11 Commission, proved critical in coaching the company during tense negotiations with President Obama over the creation of a $20 billion escrow fund for spill damages, according to several sources close to the talks. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that the administration "forced" BP to set up the fund and to intensify its efforts to contain the spill.

By the way, Jamie Gorelick has never touched anything that didn't end in major disaster. She was the one who created the "wall of separation" between the CIA and the FBI which prevented them from sharing terrorist information about the Al Quaeda plot to attack the twin towers. She was deeply involved in Fannie Mae, that other major disaster which we are still paying for.
magine playing a central role in the biggest national defense disaster in 50 years. Imagine playing a central role in one of the biggest economic disasters in your country's history. Imagine doing both as an un-elected official. Imagine getting filthy rich in the process, and even being allowed to sit self-righteously on a commission appointed to get to the bottom of the first disaster, which of course did not get to the bottom of that disaster or anything else for that matter.
Without so much as one scintilla of real estate or finance experience, she was appointed as Vice Chairman of Fannie Mae in 1997 and served in that role through 2003, which is when most of the systemic cancers that came home to roost today happened. She was instrumental in covering up problems with Fannie Mae while employed there and took multiple millions in bonuses as she helped construct this house of cards.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/ ... e_gor.html


Perhaps she will cause the Destruction that BP so richly deserves. :)

Diogenes
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Post by Diogenes »

GIThruster wrote:
Diogenes wrote:
Josh Cryer wrote:Whistleblowers are already coming out. They were cutting corners. There are many rigs were corners are being cut. Profit over safe engineering, baby.
The timing is suspicious. The people who benefit from this are the eco terrorists.
I haven't heard of any eco terrorists in fifteen years. When is the last time someone spiked a tree, chained themselves to it or spray painted a Hummer?

Peeps, you need to follow the money. This episode, if indeed it was orchestrated and not an accident (which I am NOT saying--there is no evidence of this yet) does not benefit the ecoterrorists. They would never do such a thing. It benefits the socialists who hate capitalism. It will turn the two strongest supporters of capitalism left, the US and the UK; against one another. It will bankrupt the UK and by extension the EU. It will empty the IMF. It will cause the world's largest panic and violent eruption--greater even than WWII, all because OBama refuses to actually put those helps from 13 other nations to work.

Who stands to gain? Not the eco-terrorists. CHINA!

Follow the money. If the Chinese had thought of this they would probably have torpedoed the well.


China owns Bill Clinton, they don't own Barack. I think he's owned by the Saudis or something. The current evidence points to BP bribing Democrats and government employees, coupled with lazy and incompetent government employees, though I still have my suspicions that skulduggery might be involved.

This moratorium (which NOBODY except the eco loons called for), is the work of Barack Obama. The people who benefit from this are the Oil exporting nations like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Brazil, etc.

I don't see how the Chinese get anything out of this.

GIThruster
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Post by GIThruster »

" The current evidence points to BP bribing Democrats and government employees. . ."

Lets see the evidence? I don't think you have any or there would be warrants filed by now.

You're allowing anger to blind your observations. The 18 million workers in the Uk who's pensions are at risk had nothing to do with any sort of chicanery that MIGHT have gone on in the choice of setup BP used. You need to think about the consequences of all the anger. Our nation is acting like a lynch mob, led my the morons in Congress. Instead of looking for and mobilizing solutions, we're looking for scapegoats and sending lawyers. This is MADNESS.

What we need to do is mobilize the thousands of solutions to the problem that have been put aside by those in power, and impeach every public servant who has contributed to this mess through action and inaction. First is clean up the mess. Forget blaming., This is just childish nonsense!

Dio, I like most of your posts, but do you have ANY idea what it will mean to the entire world if the UK goes bankrupt? Any at all?
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

My gut feeling is that Obama is owned by Iran.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

Thruster,

The UK was already in trouble before GOM Spill. The spill is just the nail in the coffin.

The whole Eurozone is going down with the possible exception of Germany and France.

And China? Their real estate bubble has yet to pop.

And the US? Our books are not yet cleared. And the Democrat government keeps adding weights to the economy. Hopefully a Republican Congress in November will reign in the spending.

My hope is that Polywell, DPF, or some other device will be a game changer. Or maybe replacing copper with carbon nanotubes will give the economy a boost. Except we are years away from any effect on the economy even if the technology was available today. Which it is not.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

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