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Should We Nuke the Oil Well?
Blog
CBS
News, the
Christian Science Monitor, CNN,
Reuters and Fox
(and see this)
have all asked whether BP should nuke its leaking oil well.
Indeed,
some high-level Russian nuclear scientists and oil industry experts
have suggested such an approach to stop the Gulf oil gusher. Here
is archival footage of the Russians killing a gas leak with a nuclear
device.
And Obama's energy secretary and Nobel prize winning physicist Steven
Chu included
the man who helped develop the first hydrogen bomb in the 1950s as
part of the 5-man brain trust tasked with stopping the oil.
And oil
industry expert Matt Simmons proposes
the use of a tactical nuclear
device every time he is interviewed on national television.
However,
even the history of Russia's successful use of nuclear devices to stop
gushers has some important caveats.
As Reuters notes (unless new links are provided, links for all cited
articles are provided at the beginning of this essay):
Vladimir Chuprov from [Former long-time
Greenpeace's Moscow office is even more insistent that BP not heed the
advice of the veteran Soviet physicists. Chuprov disputes the veterans'
accounts of the peaceful explosions and says several of the gas leaks
reappeared later. "What was praised as a success and a breakthrough by
the Soviet Union is in essence a lie," he says.
Russian Minister of nuclear energy and veteran Soviet physicist
Viktor] Mikhailov agrees that the USSR had to give up its program
because of problems it presented. "I ended the program because I knew
how worthless this all was," he says with a sigh. "Radioactive material was still seeping
through cracks in the ground and spreading into the air. It
wasn't worth it."
As the Christian Science Monitor points out:
The Russians previously used
nukes at least five times to seal off gas well fires. … Komsomoloskaya
Pravda suggested that the United States might as well take a chance
with a nuke, based on the historical 20% failure rate. Still, the
Soviet experience with nuking underground gas wells could prove easier
in retrospect than trying to seal the Gulf of Mexico’s oil well
disaster that’s taking place 5,000 feet below the surface. The
Russians were using nukes to extinguish gas well fires in natural gas
fields, not sealing oil wells gushing liquid, so there are big
differences, and this method has never been tested in such conditions.
As CBS News reports, not all of the Russians nukes worked:
But not each use of nuclear energy did the
trick. A 4 kiloton charge set off in Russia's Kharkov region failed to
stop a gas blowout. "The explosion was mysteriously left on the
surface, forming a mushroom cloud," the paper reported.
Indeed,
several experts have said that nuking the well might make the
situation worse.
For example, Reuters notes:
There is a chance any blast could fracture
the seabed and cause an underground blowout, according to Andy
Radford, petroleum engineer and American Petroleum Institute senior
policy adviser on offshore issues.
CNN
points out that nuking the leaking well could conceivably destabilize
other oil wells miles away.
The New York Times writes:
Government and private nuclear experts agreed
that using a nuclear bomb would be ... risky technically, with
unknown and possibly disastrous consequences from radiation ....
A
senior Los Alamos scientist, speaking on the condition of anonymity
because his comments were unauthorized, ridiculed the idea of using a
nuclear blast to solve the crisis in the gulf.
“It’s not going
to happen,” he said. “Technically, it would be exploring new ground in
the midst of a disaster — and you might make it worse.”
And one of the world's top physicists - string theorist Michio Kaku -
writes:
I
think this is a bad idea, from a physics point of view. Let me say
that my mentor while I was in high school and at Harvard, Edward Teller,
father of the H-bomb, was a firm advocate of using nuclear weapons to
dig out canals and other grand engineering projects.***
Underground,
we then have a hollow sphere of vaporized gas, with walls that have
been glassified from the sand. This hollow sphere is stable from a few
hours to a few days, but eventually the weight of the rock collapses
the sphere. The result is a sudden collapse of the sphere, often
releasing radioactive gas into the environment.***
If
this takes place under the sea floor (which has never been done
before), there are bound to be complications. First, there would be the
release of dangerous, water-soluble chemicals such as radioactive
iodine, strontium, and cesium, which would contaminate the food chain in
the Gulf. Second, the "seal" created by the glassified sand is
probably unstable. And third, it might actually make the problem worse,
creating many mini leaks on the ocean floor. Determining the precise
effect of such an underwater blast would depend on crucial computer
simulations of the various layers of rock under the seafloor, which has
never been done before.
In other words, this would bea huge
science experiment, with unintended consequences. Furthermore, with
hurricane season upon us, and predictions of eight or more hurricanes
for this season, it means that seawater several hundred feet below the
surface of the water could be churned up and then deposited over the
South. This seawater, containing oils and radioactive fission products,
would magnify the environmental problem.
In summary, it is not a
good idea to use nukes to seal up oil leaks.
Moreover, former President Bill Clinton told
CNN on Sunday (starting 3:13 into video) that he has looked into the
issue, and that a nuke is not needed. He said the Navy can use conventional explosives to seal
the well. As the former commander-in-chief, Clinton is probably
getting such information from someone high up in the Navy.
For more on the nuclear option, see this.
»
- advertisements -
concrete,lot's and lot's of concrete
Yessir that is the ticket.
Understand that one of the key concerns for BP in designing their completion was that a column of cement would have cracked the rocks and flowed into the rock rather than up around the casing. Right now that's not looking like such a BAD thing......................................
Oh - and NONE of my comments should ever be construed as defending BP. They were in my opinion criminally negligent. Any competent risk analysis should have known they were beyond the line - I'm convinced a jackass manager was determined to get off location as cheaply as possible. We may never know the internal politics involved but I hear echoes of the Challenger disaster "take off your engineering cap for a moment and put on your business cap"......
They were in my opinion criminally negligent. Any competent risk analysis should have known they were beyond the line - I'm convinced a jackass manager was determined to get off location as cheaply as possible.
Best statement in this thread.
Amen to that, Gasmiinder.
GW RESEARCHED the issue before posting (this time). Way to go.
GW gets what he wants from posting asinine "Matt Simmons is an oil industry expert" Armageddon scenarios blown completely and utterly out of any physically possible rational outcome. What he wants are EYEBALLS people......
Once again - the solution to this problem is/was/always has been the relief wells. That is what we in the industry do to kill blowouts. We drill relief wells. Takes time. This is not a freaking half-hour sitcomm. The relief wells will kill the well. 95% probability. Nothing has happened to make experts question that. It just TAKES TIME.
And an FYI for the last post regarding "the drillpipe blowing out". Regardless of what BP said it was my assumption on April 24 that the casing (not the drillpipe) had been blown up into the BOP thus contributing to the inability of the BOP to close. Doesn't change a damn thing. The relief wells are the best/most likely option for killing the well and it was always going to take until at LEAST mid-July to accomplish that. EVERYTHING else was just WINDOW DRESSING designed to satisfy the morons who scream DO SOMETHING NOW....NUKE THE BASTARD......
A nuke in this pressure regime would cause enormous fracturing and likely make the entire system uncontainable.
+1000
"And oil industry expert Matt Simmons proposes"
EX = HAS BEEN PERT ~ Event Monger (for speaker$ fee no doubt)
At 17,000 ft nominal, John Wright of Boots and Coots claims that they have been ranging on the WW casing for about a week at a distance of less than 20 ft. Does this not imply that the lower string of casing is not stuck in the BOP?
Disclosure: I do not work for big oil. I have held a few shares of CVX and COP for 4 years or so.
This well is is without casing. Geo Wash and the oil expert have confirmed it. They must be ranging on a flowing liquid metal. Although there are oil eating microbes, these new materials are not normal in the GOM and will swallow Cincinnati.
The last long string should be "stuck" in the well head or BOP. It did not fly through the rig mast and across the GOM. It may have moved up a few feet. That has no effect on the kill mud. I hope they get the kill done before the earthquake comes to destabalize the entire continental shelf. Who knew that drilling into 65' of pay would lead to a collapse of the entire GOM?
Hey Augustus - I have enjoyed reading your posts and for the most part have agreed with you. However, I think we can cut GW some slack. I went back and read two of his posts:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/secretary-energy-steven-chu-confirms-bps-oil-well-casing-has-been-demolished
and
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/methane-release-gulf-oil-spill-what-does-it-mean-how-bad-could-it-get
I found that the commmentary (if any) that he offered was pretty much on the side of logic and reason. I found his posts much more palatable upon reading them the second time that I did when I read them for the first time. I suppose that in reading his post and then in reading the following reader comments, I had attributed all of the "Art Bell Audience" comments to Geroge Washington. One thing I will say, his posts on the BP Oil Spill do seem to act as a lightning rod for some emotional (if uninformed) commentary. Perhaps that is intended, perhaps not.
Disclosure: I do not work for big oil. I have held a few shares of CVX and COP for 4 years or so.
gasmiinder, if I wanted eyeballs, I would post "we're starting a bull market!" and "everything is under control with the oil well!" type posts. Heck, if I only posted investment tips, my blog's readership would SKYROCKET.
That's what people want to read.
I'd rather hang out in my hammock than write a bunch of intense stuff.
But I have a duty as a patriotic American to tell the truth. No matter how painful (and how many readers I lose for doing so).
Thank you George Washington. BP is covering up , including on the oildrum, posts have been removed, media threatened, people sick in hospitals and much stress and fear across the nation.
We all would be more comfortable with the truth however bad than to have the added stress of knowing we are steadily being lied to and misinformed. This is quickly developing into much anger across the nation. Lying and obfuscation serves a plate of anger and mistrust
More of the cover up about getting rewarded to generate nonsense on the most current event.
There are thousands of financial web sites that every day claim that today is the beginning of the bull market. Or that today is the beginning of the crash.
You have cabbaged upon the "Extra, Extra" methods to generate profits from nonsense. Your GED in cut and paste trash is at least earning you what it cost in special education fees you must have paid.
You have demonstrated that your duty is to promote unfounded fantasies. I don't understand blogging profits, but you must be connected to the BP shorts and collecting big time from them. There is no other explanation for the continual collection of the most impossible forecasts all in one location. Has the Crammer team given you a "thank you" tip for helping the position?
I have considered it my duty as an educated American to try to present the actual facts. to demonstrate what a real education would do for a person in enabling them to dig a bit and separate the fantasy from the nonsense. Your articles are not much different from what is reported in the Kenyan press in regard to shaking hands with a devil and being changed into a goat. Or that there are people who can touch you and cause your penis to fall off. Was your reattachment surgery successful?
Dude the issue is you don't have a clue what you're talking about. Here's the key - the media you are reading to get this information doesn't understand the technical issues here any better than they understand CDS/derivatives/why the market moves. I read ZH to gain some insight on those issues because they are outside MY expertise. I do NOT go to Fox/CNBS/CNN to get info and then assume I can take that info and using a little common sense interpret what is going on with the markets. They don't have a clue about those issues and they don't have a clue about this blowout.
Sorry I don't buy your patriotism line - "Armageddon is coming" " the seafloor is erupting" "methane bubbles will destroy all life in the Gulf" "Tsunamis" - those posts DO draw eyeballs and are utterly ignorant of the physical REALITIES of the situation.
Don't misunderstand that - it is not criticism, it's what you ought to be doing but people also ought to understand what's going on.
gasmiinder,
I will accept for this post your representation that you are not trying to defend BP. I take it you're in the business, given your avatar, but that's not a negative in my eyes (there are alot of good industry insiders posting over at Oil Drum, for example).
You write:
"I do NOT go to Fox/CNBS/CNN". Yes, but many people do. So if they are saying "maybe we should nuke it", I feel like I need to respond and say "hey, not so fast ..."
You say:
"Armageddon is coming" " the seafloor is erupting" "methane bubbles will destroy all life in the Gulf" "Tsunamis" ...
But sir, if you read my posts, you would know I'm trying to DEBUNK those claims, which are widely circulating around the Internet!
In addition, just like those who know the most about derivatives know what a flimsy house of cards the world economy is built on, those who know about the Gulf spill know this is really bad.
It WOULDN'T be so bad if BP wasn't using so much Corexit, if BP had really had the containment booms they said they had, if BP were actually trying to clean up the spill, etc.
I defer to people like Professor Bea - a oil rig drilling expert and top government consultant on disasters - who says the well casing is probably shot, the relief wells might not work, etc.
Do you want to try to tell us you have better credentials than Bea? If you do, I will eat crow and beg you for insights. I assume you have relevant industry experience, but Bea is a heavyweight in analyzing these types of situations.
Moreover, over the years I've deleted posts and emailed everyone I sent them to saying "I was wrong, don't post it!" That's true of posts that were popular. If I cared only about eyeballs, I would have let 'em run.
Anyway, I hope that the folks drilling the relief wells are successful! Even though I routinely slam BP, I think the guys out there drilling those relief wells right now are heroes. I wish them success ...
I am in the industry and have significant offshore experience although I am currently NOT working for "Big Oil" - in fact I work for "Little Oil" and would benefit from the increased commodity prices that would result from shutting down offshore drilling due to wild fearmongering. I am not long BP or any other equity involved in this event.
Your claim to be debunking these issues surprised me to the point that I went back to the archives to review your posts. That exercise made me realize that I had mentally conflated at least some other posting with your postings. As a result I had a slightly lower opinion of the overall context of your posts than is warranted. My apologies. I would agree that this current post as well as "Methane Release From the Gulf Oil Spill: What Does It Mean?" do indeed qualify as 'debunking' of myths although they still contain misperceptions. So I would concede that your "reporting" as it were has improved.
However I would also describe "Did the BP Oil Well Really Blow Out in February, Instead of April?_How Bad Could It Get? Oil Spill Might Be Making Natural Seeps Larger_ Health Risks from Oil Spill: "Some of the Most Toxic Chemicals that We Know" , "Every Place Can be Ground Zero", CDC Advises "Everyone" to Avoid Oil_Experts: BP Lowballing Size of Leaking Oil Reservoir_We Must Remove BP from the Crime Scene and Let an International Team of Experts Fix This on BP's Dime_BP Official Admits to Damage BENEATH THE SEA FLOOR_Senator Nelson: The BP Well May Have Lost Structural Integrity Beneath the Sea Floor_Prominent Oil Industry Insider: "There's Another Leak, Much Bigger, 5 to 6 Miles Away" as cutting and pasting the most absurd gibberish from the media without any constraints on what's possible.
I'll concede you are quoting others - but what you're quoting is blatantly impossible. Just because a reporter considers someone an expert doesn't make it so. Putting "Professor" in front of a name doesn't negate the laws of physics. Multiple examples are found in the posts listed above, a few - 1) the long string of casing has likely moved upward into the BOP (a few feet), it has not exited the borehole 2) anyone positing "billion barrel" reserves has not reviewed or understood the publicly available well log, 3) complete lack of understanding to the "borehole" in the multiple references to it's 'integrity'
Further - I checked Professor Bea's bio through your link and I do not see evidence that he is a particular expert on deepwater drilling or for that matter an "oil rig drilling expert". I see lots of disaster expertise and pre-1960 industry experience. I do not claim "better credentials than Professor Bea" but I do claim a basic understanding of the physical parameters that exist in this situation. The relief wells "may" not work and the dollar "may" be good as gold but the odds are otherwise. The long string is almost certainly shot but the implications of that are not remotely what people (including yourself) are drawing.
I also would commend you for keeping a positive tone to the debate in the face of criticism.
But sir, if you read my posts, you would know I'm trying to DEBUNK those claims, which are widely circulating around the Internet!
So, when you promote the nonsense of Matt Simmons by referring to him as an "oil expert' you are really debunking him? WOW. How does that work? Did you really, really pass that GED test on your own? The first time?
I did not take it. Did you find it a challenge?
I think Matt Simmons was the first one to tell us about the other leak and that it was 100k bpd!
corect me if I am wrong
maddy
Simmons was the first one to spout the BS that there is another leak. He and Geo Wash have not substantiated that it has occurred.
for there to have been a leak at some location other than the well head and BOP, it would have to be flowing through a subsurface formation to some point where it intercepts a fault, allowing a flow to the surface. There are now two additional wells drilled within a few thousand feet of the wild well. those wells well drilled through those shallow formations and did not seem to have any problem with flowing oil at shallow depths. How did they miss that 100,000 bopd flow through those formations, if it exists? It is not occurring and the whole Simmons and Geo Wash postulation about it is BS.
ok- we have to assume they are going 10,000 ft down to intersect intact pipe, below where the blown casing was, way below. I guess when they pump mud-cement in to kill it we'll know if pipe compromised soon enough...
About 17,000 ft. actually. Here is a good summary of it: http://www.drillingahead.com/forum/topics/bp-relief-wellswhat-is-a
Disclosure: I do not work for big oil. I have held a few shares of CVX and COP for 4 years or so.
George Taylor: We finally really did it. [screaming] You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!
Clenis also gets info from waaaay down ... close to the deck.
oopsie
Thanks for posting this GW. I feel like I'm caught in some episode of Twilight Zone (no, I wasn't old enough to catch it before it went to reruns). It's just too fucking bizarre. Can people hear themselves when they talk about this option? Nuke the Gulf of Mexico. It's a bad joke. Common sense alone would tell you it's a bad idea.
And, as I've said before elsewhere, it is not politically viable.
The articles of Geo Wash are exactly from the fictional Twilight Zone. You are starting to make the connection.
I was personally asked if I might use my immense and beautiful penis to plug the hole. I politely declined.
beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Be sure they wear glasses
I don't know about the size of that head, but your post indicates that you could not plug a MOSQUITO BITE with the brain contained in your other head.
Take it to Yahoo!...
Quoting greenpeace as a source on nuclear technology is like quoting the vatican on using stem cells.
And FWIW, its laughable that you would suggest there are dangerous radioactive concerns from a 4 kiloton device on the ocean floor.
Or altar boys
S'where the phrase "Happier than a Bishop in Boy's Town" comes from.
Geo Wash:
I was all for it, until I started researching the issue ... Yowheee !!!! Isn't that the way you have developed nearly all of the posts about this blowout well. Write fantasy without facts? Find the most extreme nutter and present the suggestions as if there was some real basis? Has the BOP fallen over? Are we seeing a mud volcano? Where is the methane cavern that you suggested would fracture the seafloor? How many miles away from the bore hole did you and Simmons agree that the leak was? Do you believe that BP has located those two drill ships for the kill wells several miles from the leak? Have you informed them of their error. What have you concluded is down in that well that they are able to get those "soundings" from in directing the intercept well since you claim the casing is several miles away? Maybe you can check to see if this oil is really a liquid metal. The nuke the well plan was a joke from the first mention. That crap will simply generate more leaks. You might find that in the early years of oil well drilling they used nitroglycerin to stimulate flow and cause cracks, not close them. That is if you did some research.Augustus, i am often a dumm fuck, i admit, but you are truly a bitch. I dont like name calling and am certain to be junked. But you deserve it and i would be less than honest to call you anything else. In the future i wont call you. I bet you are on the oildrum too, the style is familiar
Fuck you BP
Dumb and ignorant are two different things.
If you read and follow what I write here I can help with your education and cure your ignorance.
I'm not your daddy so I am not responsible for you being dumb, IF you are. Just try to work harder to catch up. Good luck to you.
We need to know if the casing is blown 10,000 ft below where the relief wells intersect. Is the pipe intact?
It is impossible to know for certain the condition of the long string of casing that was the last one run into the hole. However, the casing strings and liners placed into the well and cemented before that one are very likely just as they were intended to be. It is not exactly clear to me at this point where the intercept target will be. It will be near the bottom of the hole, but is it 200 ft high or 1,000 ft high? I don't know.
The condition of that last string is not really important. It is going to be screwed up but it does not really matter. When the mud goes into the bottom of the well it will overbalance the hydrostatic of the formation slow. If there is some casing junk in the middle it won't make much difference. But that is the casing string that Geo Wash and the oil expert Matt Simmons claim are no longer in the hole anyway and are lying in the GOM seven miles away from the bore hole with the BOP attached to them. I guess time will tell if Geo Wash knows anything about oil wells and flying casing. Maybe a ROV will locate it.
This well was controlled all the way down by the mud weight that overbalanced the formation fluids. Final BHP was about 12,500 psi. That is normal for the depth, maybe a bit low. A failed cement job followed by removing the mud caused a blowout. Restoring the hydrostatic pressure with mud from the bottom will control and kill the formation flow. They fill the hole with 15,000 ft of mud at xx ppg to give a bottom hole pressure greater than the flowing formation pressure. That is the same method that had the well under control before they created the underbalanced that blew out the cement.
Augustus,
As I am completely ignorant on oil wells, I am trying to figure out how the rig sank in the first place.
While I understand there was an intense uncontrolled fire topside, I have not read anywhere a solid theory as to why it actually sank. It was steel. Would a blown out well actually produce 2500 degree heat?
Looked around Red Adair's website and didn't come up with an average temp for blown wells.
Any thoughts on this?
I am trying to figure out how the rig sank in the first place.
On theoildrum.com there was some informed speculation that the pontoons holding up the platform were not completely sealed. Water from fighting the fire above the pontoons ran down into the pontoons and caused the platform to list too far and it fell over. Note that this is presented as informed opinion, not fact. But there was a rather lengthy discussion about this and the "experts" felt pretty confident about the conclusions reached.
That makes sense...the unsealed pontoons.
I responded to you on the "Fed Economist Slams Econ Bloggers" thread, see if I made my position clear to you or I maybe misunderstood your question.
Gotta cut out for awhile...if we don't chat have a Happy 4th.
SeeYa
Thanks for the heads up. I would not have returned to that topic otherwise. I responded to your response. In a nutshell:
The down-to-the-bone definition of a priori is "before experience". If you toss experience into a decision model, and use the term a priori, it confuses me. I take the restatement of your thoughts directly above to be a refined statement of your position. And since you allow for making future choices based on an examination of past results, I no longer have an issue.
nmewn-above ground wells made sand into glass in Kuwait, but that was above ground with long time (weeks) burning. So that was north of 2300 DegF. I'm wondering why there was such a fire topside, plus the problem a mile below them. The safety design of the platform couldn't have been that compromised. I've read that the "blowout preventers" were defeated to put down some kind of instrument package.
How can management be so clueless? Feynman traced out the issue with NASA before he died. Wonder if there will be a Feynman-like person on one of the panels? (Steven Chu need not apply).
http://www.fotuva.org/feynman/challenger-appendix.html
- Ned
Friendly Fire-isn't.
Blowout Preventers-don't
Thanks for that. Seems hot enough to do it...just don't know if 36hrs. would be enough to compromise it.
I guess I can strangle my "just sink the damn thing to put out the fire theory" in it's crib...LOL...I've seen people under stress do some pretty stupid things so it did cross my mind.
It's my understanding they cut alot of corners on this puppy. The government oversight on it left alot to be desired as well, watching porn and taking favors from those they were regulating. An all around cluster from appearences.
I was all for it, until I started researching the issue ...
...of sleeping with hookers with AIDS without a rubber in that I would get HIV.
...of running with scissors would probably be an awful idea.
...touching the shiny, red button labeled "doom" would cause doom to everyone on board the spaceship
...eating glass while not being a sideshow carnival act would result in my bowels being lacerated to ribbons and I bled out my ass.
...chewing gum and eating peanuts don't mix.
...people actually paid good money to see the Rolling Stones at 65 years of age.
I was expecting drama myself with a bit of action, after reading through I understood there was no lost love or ninja side plots just a guy understanding how nuts the idea of throwing a nuke at the problem was.
Augustus,
Here's the difference between me and you:
You ALWAYS and ONLY write to support the oil industry and the government.
My only agenda is to find out and spread the truth. If I make a mistake (have you ever made a mistake?), I correct it and admit it.
If the conclusion I end up after researching an issue contradicts my previous assumption, I DROP my previous assumption and go with what the facts are.
Happy 4th of July, sir ...
+1 de-junk, gladly provided. . .
most of us understand this is a brand new territory being mapped, that what is being proposed has never been done, and that the people "in charge" believe they will be protected from any "fallout" - nuclear or otherwise. . .
that you are willing to read and report from many opinions / sources, and share your posts here, is appreciated George Washington.
only posts from propaganda / gov't. sources will promise 100% fail-safe solutions - because we can't know the outcome until we experience it. . .
"... we can't know the outcome until we experience it. . ."
That statement is only partially true, and misleading. Those who know physics and chemistry know what outcomes cannot happen. Those who don't know physics and chemistry don't know what outcomes cannot happen. Because this is true, the first group can give informed opinion. The second group cannot; they can only speculate.
When informed opinion addresses uninformed speculation head on, it is doing so in the service of facts, not in service of the government or BP. But there is this funny thing about knowledge, and the lack of it: those who don't know are not able to recognize the truth when another speaks it. So we end up with folks throwing mud at Augustus when, in fact, he has been spot on with all of his challenges to GW.
But doesn't knowing what cannot happen still leave an awful lot of could happen?
One of the problems is that BP has not, and probably never will, release most of the information needed to really render an informed opinion. That's not unusual in the industry, though I don't think many people appreciate the pervasive secrecy employed to keep proprietary information under wraps in even normal circumstances. So, I question just how informed anyone can be at this point. All we've gotten are snippets of information and some murky underwater video that leave us estimating, guessing or SWAGing.
I took basic high school and college physics and chemistry. It's a bit rusty, but the basics are still there. Just how well do you think we need to 'know' physics and chemistry to understand this stuff?
I hope you're not pulling an 'Fed-Economics-PHDs-know-all-just-trust-us-and-don't-listen-to-any-one-else'.
Responding to shill/trolls is beneath you George.
Thank you for the article!
Cistercian, you may be right. I tried to delete my comment, but - for some reason - I'm locked out. If one of the admins can delete my comment, please...
Whup...hold on der George...I have a tingle in my libertarian leg ;-)
"Augustus,
Here's the difference between me and you:
You ALWAYS and ONLY write to support the oil industry and the government.
My only agenda is to find out and spread the truth. If I make a mistake (have you ever made a mistake?), I correct it and admit it.
If the conclusion I end up after researching an issue contradicts my previous assumption, I DROP my previous assumption and go with what the facts are.
Happy 4th of July, sir ..."
You have made an accusation without commenting on just what Augustus wrote "to support the oil industry and the government." I for one would like to know what you refer to...without censor.
Glad you might have noticed.
Telling people that Geo Wash is full of BS when he claims that this well will lead to a mud volcano is not supporting the oil industry.
Telling people that Geo Wash is full of BS when he claims that this wellhead being shown on the ROV feeds is seven miles from the borehole is not supporting the oil industry.
Telling people that Geo Wash is full of BS when he claims that this well has drilled into a cave bigger than Mt Everest full of methane under 100,000# pressure is not supporting the oil industry.
Telling people that Geo Wash is full of BS when he claims that this well has a BOP that is swaying and leaning 15 degrees is not supporting the oil industry.
Telling people that Geo Wash is full of BS when he claims that this well is leaking 100,000 bopd through underground leaks that will spread throughout the GOM is not supporting the oil industry.
I wonder why Geo Wash failed to thank me for correcting those errors in what he posted. He writes that he always clears up anything with a later correction. When did he clear up the nonsense I've referenced? Was it on Before it was News? That must be why I missed it.
I have no idea to, and no really compelling reason to find out the reason for your viewpoint. Perhaps you work for (ex)MMS, perhaps you are long BP since it dropped 25-30%, perhaps you are a bona fide BP employee, perhaps you are indeed merely a sober-minded concerned citizen of the web, calling out inconsistent/incorrect view points when and where you see them. That's all fine. BUT there are 2 major differences: GW posts his opinion/conclusions as just that - his opinion. He goes out of his way to note that the scenarios are possibilities, as opposed to 'facts'. And he ALWAYS provides the sources for said opinion so you can judge as to whether it is well-founded. You show up and trump ANY negative claim as BS, without providing any substantiation other than the indisputable wisdom of your own fountainhead. When specific facts or sufficiently documented findings are presented, you disappear -- waiting for the next chance to dispel any route of thinking/conversation/speculation that you may deem averse.
The whole problem (beyond the potential for truly catastrophic damage to human and natural environments in and around the Gulf) is the obfuscation, half-truths, lack of transparency, always preferring avoidance of the possibility of causing panic over telling the truth that is really worrisome. I truly hope you are right, that this is a routine procedure, that the dispersants are safe, the oil will decompose, the well will be capped. From your lips to God's ears. But it would be really great if you showed half the respect for others' opinions and ideas that you demand for YOUR version of the truth.