Am I late with this?

[Ebonbuddha]

This is really cool. You can compare the BP disaster in the Gulf with the area you live. I compared it to Vancouver and south Korea. This spill almost covered South Korea. You can see what would happen to Vancouver if there was a spill there.

http://www.ifitwasmyhome.com/#loc=V...t=49.277&lng=-123.039&x=-123.039&y=49.277&z=7

 

[Farin]

great _ people can easily build a website were you can see just how big that ******* spill is , but BP can´t come up with a way to stop it

anyway , nice find Ebonbhuddha. I compared it to Berlin...see that tiny Spot in the midle ? that´s Berlin. unbelievable.

http://www.ifitwasmyhome.com/#loc=Vancouver%2C+BC%2C+Canada&lat=49.277&lng=-123.039&x=-123.039&y=49.277&z=7

 

[airhead]

we play in a hobby that is not exactly green.
We pay to ship heavy metals around the globe.
We want lots of plastic foam packaging to protect our heavy metals.

We pay to ship liquids around the globe.
Main ingredient is water - we are paying to ship water.
Small quantities put in plastic bottles.

All of this freight and all of this plastic is dependant on oil.
The majority of your computer that you are reading and responding to this is plastic.

As long as we rely on plastics and trucking for products, we need oil and other petroleum derivatives.

As long as we need oil, we have to drill.
As long as we drill, there will be incidents: Tankers, platforms, pipelines - all mechanical with human oversight. Failure guaranteed.

Try going a week without any plastic in your life or without using anything that was freighted in to your store (local only).
Won't happen in the planet that we live on unless you are Amish.

 

[Shawn R. L.]

Interesting stats.


U.S. Geological Survey
"The amount of natural crude-oil seepage is currently estimated to be 600,000 metric tons per year, with a range of uncertainty of 200,000 to 2,000,000 metric tons per year. Thus, natural oil seeps may be the single most important source of oil that enters the ocean, exceeding each of the various sources of crude oil that enters the ocean through its exploitation by humankind."

 

[Ebonbuddha]

No one is saying don't drill. But you see the how big hte problem is. And you also see BP not fixing it. I think it is scary when you have a company that big make rigs for drilling oil, but doesn't know whato do if there is a problem.

we play in a hobby that is not exactly green.
We pay to ship heavy metals around the globe.
We want lots of plastic foam packaging to protect our heavy metals.

We pay to ship liquids around the globe.
Main ingredient is water - we are paying to ship water.
Small quantities put in plastic bottles.

All of this freight and all of this plastic is dependant on oil.
The majority of your computer that you are reading and responding to this is plastic.

As long as we rely on plastics and trucking for products, we need oil and other petroleum derivatives.

As long as we need oil, we have to drill.
As long as we drill, there will be incidents: Tankers, platforms, pipelines - all mechanical with human oversight. Failure guaranteed.

Try going a week without any plastic in your life or without using anything that was freighted in to your store (local only).
Won't happen in the planet that we live on unless you are Amish.

 

[airhead]

I agree, there should be a back up to the back up (cut off valve that didn't work).

We're talking some serious fisheries damage. Probably not long term, but the short term will suffer a lot.

But as long as we are drilling, we will have accidents. At least the oil companies are better than airlines. (major accidents per year).

Someone should face some serious criminal charges over what is slowly coming to light over all this.
Lack of tests, ignoring bad results from tests, and whatever the rest of the truth is....

 

[supervike]

They had a report on the 'oil companies' on the Daily Show the other night. Over the past three years most of the major companies were charged with 'serious safety violations'.

Exxon had one. The other major companies had some, but all in the single digits.

BP had OVER 750.

Why is BP even allowed to operate?

 

[Yves]

Well German oil rigs have a valve at the very bottom of their drilling ground... If something goes wrong they just close the valve, but BP decided against that kind of security standard a few years ago, saying that they had well educated overseers with a lot of experience and knowledge who would get the job done.
Great job on that...

 

[BarstoolProphet]

They had a report on the 'oil companies' on the Daily Show the other night. Over the past three years most of the major companies were charged with 'serious safety violations'.

Exxon had one. The other major companies had some, but all in the single digits.

BP had OVER 750.

Why is BP even allowed to operate?

Lots of government kick-backs, I'm guessing.

Edit: Wow... it's bigger than most (if not all) of the great lakes.. Centered on Toronto, it's sick.

 

[Farin]

U.S. Geological Survey
"The amount of natural crude-oil seepage is currently estimated to be 600,000 metric tons per year, with a range of uncertainty of 200,000 to 2,000,000 metric tons per year. Thus, natural oil seeps may be the single most important source of oil that enters the ocean, exceeding each of the various sources of crude oil that enters the ocean through its exploitation by humankind."

interesting, not a geologist, will look that fact up - but consider this: this is the annual global net amount - it says nothing about to very important facts: rate and distribution of the natural oil seepage. If the crude oil enters the maritime ecosystem with a very low rate , than it can deal with it. There are microorganisms that can process oil , but not the amount we´re seeing here and not in on such a rate/ on such a short time scale. ( How could they, they´re not adapted to it)

Also, look at the uncertainty given here, it means that some very smart people knew that they got to be careful with that number.


@Airhead: all true , and i completely agree



@supervike: ah, another Daily Show fan - watched the show too, and if these numbers are correct, somebody in charge should think about revoking BP´s licence to drill

Edit:
Oops forgot to add:

Airhead , you´re mostly right with the losses for fisheries, but let me just throw in the following thought: crude oil contains a certain amount of natural aromatic hydrocarbons and polyaromatic hyddrocarbons - while these compounds aren´t very solubly in water in general, a certain percentage will enter the ecosystem, stored in the fatty tissue of fishes ( bioaccumulation ) , and might finally land on the dinnertable - and this stuff isn´t very healthy, and doesn´t just leave your body - it get´s stored in human fat cells too. I hope that someone from the EPA remembesr to check for that periodically over the course of the next year

 

[Ebonbuddha]

I am worried about the environment too. A lot of the places affected were the places I use to swim in when I was a kid. When I was a kid, we had sea food two or three times a week. We caught most of what we ate. The only thing we didn’t catch was oysters, clams, shrimp. Stuff like that. We even had friends or neighbors who brought in some nice shark.
There is also a town called Bayou La Batre (Yes, the same place in the Forest Gump movies) that has a large Vietnamese community. They moved there during the war because they could continue their livelihood of shrimping and fishing. So families were doing this for decades. Now it’s ruined. Not something you want to hear in this financial climate.

 

[IdofEntity]

The upside to this whole debacle is that maybe more people will be encouraged to develop or refine better energy ideas.

Out of curiosity, how many major nuclear reactor accidents have we sustained, how much did they cost out GDP, how much of an environmental impact did they create, and how many lives lost?

If the numbers are comparable to or less than the oil companies have imposed, perhaps it's time to take a good hard look at Nuclear Energy. If the numbers are more in favor of oil...well then I'm somewhat stumped.

 

[generulpoleaxe]

BP has it's losses after the first $75million socialized for it's operations within US territories.
They have already spent $69 million so another $6 million and then it's the USA people that will pay for the clean up, don't you just love corperatism.

That is why they didn't bother with all the usual safety measures as it's cheaper to pay the intitial part of the clean up bill and then pass it onto the people.
socialized losses and privatised profits, it's almost as profitable as war.

 

[IdofEntity]

BP has it's losses after the first $75million socialized for it's operations within US territories.
They have already spent $69 million so another $6 million and then it's the USA people that will pay for the clean up, don't you just love corperatism.

That is why they didn't bother with all the usual safety measures as it's cheaper to pay the intitial part of the clean up bill and then pass it onto the people.
socialized losses and privatised profits, it's almost as profitable as war.

That's an interesting take on it. But BP execs had to be aware of the precedence set by retroactively holding companies accountable for grievious damages arising from business practices. Congress can simply write legislation suspending that $75 million cap and the supreme court would rule against BP even though it's retroactive so long as it's civil court and not criminal. Since the laws only addresses a monetary amount to begin with, it's inherently a civil matter and thus can be enforced retroactively.

I'm sure BP was aware of that, so either one of two things happened. Either they made the decision to eat the $75 million in damages in the event something happened based on some less than sound advice from an incompetent legal department, or the BP execs were unaware their safety department wasn't operating in accordance with federal safety measures. In the first scenario the execs can claim bad legal advice, not face criminal charges, and only end up losing a monstrous amount of money. In the second scenario those execs could be charged with criminal negligence, and face an arraignment on top of paying up a monstrous amount of cash.

At least that's my take on it. I could be completely wrong. Actually on second thought, they could probably be charged with criminal negligence in either scenario.

BP is going to be officially boned, which is somewhat appropriate considering they completely boned the Gulf.

 

[generulpoleaxe]

That's an interesting take on it. But BP execs had to be aware of the precedence set by retroactively holding companies accountable for grievious damages arising from business practices. Congress can simply write legislation suspending that $75 million cap and the supreme court would rule against BP even though it's retroactive so long as it's civil court and not criminal. Since the laws only addresses a monetary amount to begin with, it's inherently a civil matter and thus can be enforced retroactively.

I'm sure BP was aware of that, so either one of two things happened. Either they made the decision to eat the $75 million in damages in the event something happened based on some less than sound advice from an incompetent legal department, or the BP execs were unaware their safety department wasn't operating in accordance with federal safety measures. In the first scenario the execs can claim bad legal advice, not face criminal charges, and only end up losing a monstrous amount of money. In the second scenario those execs could be charged with criminal negligence, and face an arraignment on top of paying up a monstrous amount of cash.

At least that's my take on it. I could be completely wrong. Actually on second thought, they could probably be charged with criminal negligence in either scenario.

BP is going to be officially boned, which is somewhat appropriate considering they completely boned the Gulf.

Large corperations that bankroll politicians and parties never get boned, one or two people get hung out to dry that is all. Take a look at the subsidies the oil companies get from various goverments for alternative energy research. You are paying for their future revenue creation (still think they are going to get boned, you have effectively contributed to their fines through your taxation already.)

Pork barrel politics is innocent compared to the lobbying that goes on (why do you think regulations that benefit certain corperations get put into place!)
It doesn't matter which coloured rosette you vote for, the large corperations have bought them all!

 

[pate]

Christ, that's insane!

 

[Shawn R. L.]

Large corperations that bankroll politicians and parties never get boned, one or two people get hung out to dry that is all.

HOPEFULLY, this one will be different - BP (NYSE: BP) Stock Price Down Almost 40% Since Oil Spill Began

 

[IdofEntity]

HOPEFULLY, this one will be different - BP (NYSE: BP) Stock Price Down Almost 40% Since Oil Spill Began

Ouch, I'd say that's a significant spank to the stockholders.

 

[generulpoleaxe]

Ouch, I'd say that's a significant spank to the stockholders.

only if they are needing to sell at this current time, in the long run it makes no difference (unless a shit load of rich hippies were thinking of a takeover!)

 

[PegaZus]

The upside to this whole debacle is that maybe more people will be encouraged to develop or refine better energy ideas.

Out of curiosity, how many major nuclear reactor accidents have we sustained, how much did they cost out GDP, how much of an environmental impact did they create, and how many lives lost?

If the numbers are comparable to or less than the oil companies have imposed, perhaps it's time to take a good hard look at Nuclear Energy. If the numbers are more in favor of oil...well then I'm somewhat stumped.

Just checked Wikipedia. The new sarcophagus for Chernobyl was estimated to cost $1.2 billion in 2006. I don't think they've started that. So, if that's just the number to contain the damage, and BP is almost up to $69 million, I think that there isn't much of a comparison. Of course, we're not comparing apples to apple here. What are the costs for human life and animal life? But I think the scale is good enough to show that they're far apart in costs.

However. I've heard that pebble type reactors would not have been able to do the damage that Chernobyl had, so again, probably not comparing right.

only if they are needing to sell at this current time, in the long run it makes no difference (unless a shit load of rich hippies were thinking of a takeover!)

Yup. Remember when McDonald's had to recall all their meat a couple of years ago? That's when I jumped in and bought the stock. Doubled my money if I'm not mistaken. Ford was the same, only I've done 4x on my money. I'm seriously looking hard at putting some money into BP, but I don't think I'd have enough to buy the amount I'd want.