The Gulf oil spill

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Originally Posted By: Shannow
LOL Bill, so you obviously know the figures for May 20th 2010...please share.

Why isn't 2007, and the rest of this decade recent enough for a statement that YOU brought into this thread.

Mate, all over this board, YOU are demanding people to provide PROOF of THEIR quips, one liners, and statements, to the point of PLEASE put "II", or "Jr" after a name for correctness, but maintain your own right to make broad statements that are to remain unchallengeable .

and your statement was more from coal THIS year than EVER from oil rigs...go read it.



READ my PM to you. I'm not going to discuss this here any more since I've EXPLAINED it earlier in this thread...

Bill
 
Originally Posted By: PandaBear
I was working in a university project for GM back in the late 90s to convert an EV1 to hybrid (and we did). The problem of EV1 isn't oil company killing it, but the battery and electronics technologies weren't ready yet.

The battery when we took it out was humongous. It is a T shape, 1200lb piece that is LEAD ACID. You are not going to be able to build it well and sell it well in this car for only 100 or so miles of range. If you put the same chasis with a 1L 3 cylinder K car engine, you can probably get 70 mpg.

Why wouldn't people buy a fiber glass car with 1L engine that weight 1800lb? Because they don't want to. So why would people buy the same thing with only 100 mile range and a huge premium (i.e. 30k in 1998 money)? Look at Tesla, they are finally able to build it when technology is ready, but that's 10 years later.


Panda, all the owners of the EV1 loved the car and wanted to buy it from GM when the lease was up. Gm said no, and scrapped them all. The battery may have weighed 1200lbs, but the car had no gas engine, transmission or differential to add weight. Lots of people can get by with a car with a 100 miles range, Use it for commuting in the city, and can use another vehicle if they travel cross country.
 
Originally Posted By: LS2JSTS
Originally Posted By: Bill in Utah



The REASON for diesels is not private. Its the EPA and their stupid rules that make them more expensive and in some cases too difficult to bring over to the US.



Exactly.

I'll never understand how GM or Ford could be party to a "plot" to keep Diesels out of the US market. They have built/sold them for years in other markets.


The auto industry has been a JOBS PROGRAM for a very long time. It reaches into more wallets than any other sector. It's governed by stuff like CAFE and EPA regulations that "channel" the market to some desired consumption model.

The EPA was giving GM time to produce their own throw away small block V8 diesel. GM abandoned the project.

They get in the way of good business.
 
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100516/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill_inspections

The well recognized as a very safe well just one year ago and there have been NUMEROUS failings by the government agency that is supposed to oversee the project.

Quote:
The problem: The federal government did not have a single fire boom on hand.

http://blog.al.com/live/2010/05/fire_boom_oil_spill_raines.html
Yet another oops on the side of the government.

Though BP and it's contractors are ultimately responsible, the government had it's head where the sun don't shine as well.
 
Originally Posted By: Tempest
Though BP and it's contractors are ultimately responsible, the government had it's head where the sun don't shine as well.


Other oil companies would very much like to have BP's head on a platter.

This will set back Gulf oil exploration a decade and result in truly onerous regulations thanks to shortcuts and plain stupidity on the part of BP.
 
Well if that BOP was damaged and they still relied on the pressure tests that were done with the possibly leaking BOP, thats pretty short sighted.

Also, pumping the mud out before the third casing plug was in place was a huge mistake aimed at optimizing time/expenses.

I still think Haliburton is in play here. We don't know the full story yet, obviously, but the cement casing and the hanger placement were in process at the time of meltdown....gotta believe that there is a connection. I've heard from some people that there were still tools down the string when the BO happened. Possibly those tools or the casing hanger or plug itself is what prevented the BOP from piching off the pipe.
 
Originally Posted By: Bluestream
Panda, all the owners of the EV1 loved the car and wanted to buy it from GM when the lease was up. Gm said no, and scrapped them all. The battery may have weighed 1200lbs, but the car had no gas engine, transmission or differential to add weight. Lots of people can get by with a car with a 100 miles range, Use it for commuting in the city, and can use another vehicle if they travel cross country.


Do you want to pay 60k to buy it with no warranty? By law they have to keep parts around for 10 years too.

All it takes is 1 class action lawsuit in this country to make GM lose its shirt on such a vehicle.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: Bluestream
Originally Posted By: PandaBear
I was working in a university project for GM back in the late 90s to convert an EV1 to hybrid (and we did). The problem of EV1 isn't oil company killing it, but the battery and electronics technologies weren't ready yet.

The battery when we took it out was humongous. It is a T shape, 1200lb piece that is LEAD ACID. You are not going to be able to build it well and sell it well in this car for only 100 or so miles of range. If you put the same chasis with a 1L 3 cylinder K car engine, you can probably get 70 mpg.

Why wouldn't people buy a fiber glass car with 1L engine that weight 1800lb? Because they don't want to. So why would people buy the same thing with only 100 mile range and a huge premium (i.e. 30k in 1998 money)? Look at Tesla, they are finally able to build it when technology is ready, but that's 10 years later.


Panda, all the owners of the EV1 loved the car and wanted to buy it from GM when the lease was up. Gm said no, and scrapped them all. The battery may have weighed 1200lbs, but the car had no gas engine, transmission or differential to add weight. Lots of people can get by with a car with a 100 miles range, Use it for commuting in the city, and can use another vehicle if they travel cross country.



This kind of stuff is scary!

In real world use the EV1 rarely went far before being in need of a charge. Definitely could not work in my world!

(slurp) Kool aid
 
Actually - Shannow look this up:

GLOBALLY - How many people died per year on oil rigs (mean say over the last 20 years or so)?

GLOBALLY - How many people died per year in coal mines (mean say over the last 20 years or so)?
 
Accidents do happen.. Regulations often have a lot of unintended consequences, some of which are good, and some that are bad. If BP is found to have been negligent in anyway, they should be severely punished. Just because the government may have missed it, doesn't mean there should be no regulations or that they don't work. The free market is a myth and can not be trusted to self regulate. There has to be a balance.
 
No such thing as "free market". Ever. So to blame the "free market" for negligence in/on an offshore drilling operation - offshore drilling being super heavily regulated - makes no sense. Sorry for coming down hard, but that really bugged me.
 
Originally Posted By: buster
Accidents do happen.. Regulations often have a lot of unintended consequences, some of which are good, and some that are bad. If BP is found to have been negligent in anyway, they should be severely punished. Just because the government may have missed it, doesn't mean there should be no regulations or that they don't work. The free market is a myth and can not be trusted to self regulate. There has to be a balance.


Buster I disagree. What there needs to be is NO rules. So if they mess up then you sue them out of business not put limits (like there is) to how much their out of pocket. Plenty of businesses pay the fines instead fixed the real problem because the max they could pay out is much less than what it would cost to fix the problem.

BP made something like 5 billion profit last QUARTER I think. This is a drop in the bucket to them as far as the possible fines and limits of payout.

Bill
 
Quote:
What there needs to be is NO rules. So if they mess up then you sue them out of business not put limits (like there is) to how much their out of pocket. Plenty of businesses pay the fines instead fixed the real problem because the max they could pay out is much less than what it would cost to fix the problem.


We had that. How do you think the EPA came into existence? Regulation is the wages of sin.


At one time hazardous waste disposal had no bona fide remedies. So what do you do with spent waste products? You lease a piece of ground and get a permit to store drums. You then charge a pretty penny to take people's hazardous waste ..no questions asked. You then fill said facility ..and quietly go bankrupt and leave.

There was nothing illegal about doing that at one time. Those who engaged in that highly profitable "no rules" environment unleashed the monster of regulation.

What makes you think that it would turn out any different otherwise?

Unless you're willing to make public execution of all principles involved ..including extended family members two stepped removed, just how are you going to prevent the bottom line from dictating behaviors?
 
Originally Posted By: Wilhelm_D
Originally Posted By: Tempest
Though BP and it's contractors are ultimately responsible, the government had it's head where the sun don't shine as well.

Other oil companies would very much like to have BP's head on a platter.

This will set back Gulf oil exploration a decade and result in truly onerous regulations thanks to shortcuts and plain stupidity on the part of BP.

I too would like to know where you got the facts. The investigation to the event is ongoing. Seems that your statement is an emotional response to the consequecne of the incident and has nothing to do with knowledge of the cause.
 
Ah ..you're gonna get the demand for a pound of flesh when these things happen. Facts really don't have much to do with it. All it requires is for a bad thing to happen and a mob that needs tranquilizing.

While I surely have no knowledge about anything in particular, the concept of doing nothing wrong and failing just doesn't fit when something like this occurs.
 
Certainly there was an error. That will come to light in the future. Wll the good will B P is actually doing and if they are to be pronounced guilty perhaps they should just drag up? Leave it to the "goverment" to fix.
 
Originally Posted By: Bill in Utah
Buster I disagree. What there needs to be is NO rules. So if they mess up then you sue them out of business not put limits (like there is) to how much their out of pocket.


In that instance, there needs to be an incident in order for your remedy to be implemented, rather than preventing the incident in the first place.

Secondly, and I'll use an example where a person I know was given a staph infection by the red cross blood donation service. He was a donor.

Their attitude was "sue us, you'll go broke a long time before we do".

Who has the capacity to sue big oil out of existence ?

Fishing boat owners who are about to be foreclosed on ?
 
Some of the recent feed is amazing......

I have questions. We see the 21" gushing. What is that other broken ~6-8" pipe? What is the rigged boom pipe doing? What is that straight skinny pipe for?
 
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