End Game?
PBS is reporting that BP could begin the final procedure next week:
BP could begin taking the final steps to try to kill its blown-out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico as soon as next week, Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said Monday. Allen gave the most specific timeline yet for the well kill procedure, a timeline that would have BP finishing the relief well and beginning the “bottom kill” by Aug. 7.
The company could start pumping mud and cement through the top of the well — the so-called “static kill” — even sooner: next Monday.
McClatchy provides some details on the “static kill”:
On Monday, BP should be able to resume drilling the relief well, the second part of the two-phase process to seal the well permanently.
Workers are simultaneously drilling a relief tunnel to reach two miles under the sea and pump in more cement and mud from the top of well, which could kill it right away. It could take as much as a week before crews begin pumping in the mud and cement, Allen said.
I’m guessing that BP thinks that there would be a problem if they attempted the “static kill” through the existing manifold at the bottom of the blowout preventer, which is why they are intercepting the well below the surface with the second relief well drilling rig. All of the seismic monitoring may have alerted them to a problem layer at the upper levels of the well.
The wording on the depth of the “relief tunnel” doesn’t make it obvious whether it includes or excludes the depth of the water, i.e. whether the tunnel will be intercepting the well at 5,000 feet [included] or 10,000 feet [excluded] below the floor of the Gulf.
21 comments
Wind farms don’t kill whales, dolphins, tuna, sharks, shrimp, oysters, red snapper, grouper, etc. and there are known techniques for avoiding the bird kills.
The figure of 1,300 is the sanitized BP number, not the real number. BP has been suppressing data on wildlife injuries from the beginning “on advice of counsel”, and slap non-disclosure provisions in all of their contracts. BP’s latest move was an attempt to hire all of the scientists in the area with contracts that require all research on the spill be kept secret for years. They don’t want people to know the real facts.
I didn’t say that BP had anything to do with the wind farm, your quote compared the wind farm figures with the oil spill figures, I said that they are suppressing the data on the number of birds killed in the oil spill, and pointed out that the oil is killing things other than birds. Again – read for comprehension, and not just me but the material you quote.
There are technologies now available to alert birds of the presence of the blades on the turbines, and there are alternate designs that avoid the problem altogether. The death of the birds is a problem, but not on the scale of global climate and greenhouse gases, or the poisoning of the Gulf of Mexico.
“Natural resilience”? Tell it to the passenger pigeon and the dodo.
It’s true that we don’t know enough to calculate or predict with confidence the effect of our actions on complex natural systems. That’s a reason to use caution, not an endorsement for blind optimism — especially in cases where money is a primary motivator.
Some people think resources are for conversion into wealth, rather than real wealth in their natural state. They look at redwoods and see lawn furniture, not ancient, majestic living things.
These are the fools that build expensive homes right on the water and are surprised when they are pulverized by hurricanes. They are at war with Nature, and Nature will always win. Individual species become collateral damage in the war, and until they are gone we don’t understand how they fitted in the system.
Mr. Duff. What can I say? Do you honestly believe only 1300 birds were killed? Think hard about that. Close to a 100 million gallons of oil but only 1300 hundred birds were killed. What is that – only one bird per 72,000 or so gallons of oil – if I have my math correct. This level of naivety is astounding. You know, it’s equally important to fact check what you read as it is to know how to read.
1300 birds. Mercy!
Juanita, he’s a conservative – facts don’t matter.
Juanita, just ignore the fool. He only comes here because he likes to annoy Bryan. He does it on purpose. *shrug* A fools is a fool, you can’t educate them, because they don’t really want to know anything. Fantasy is so much more fun than facts.
He’s a *neo-conservative* (or faux-conservative) Bryan. He probably has wet dreams about being Karl Rove. 😆
Some good advice: DON’T FEED THE TROLL!! 😉 😛
He is useful in my anger management regimen, Kryten. You have to practice controlling it, and dealing with people like Mr. Duff without tracking them down, or marking them for elimination is strengthening. It helps me deal with the people in my area without garroting anyone.
Of course I’m kidding… mostly.
Hmmmm! That’s a legitimate point… mostly. 😉
I understand, all too well unfortunately. I’ve stopped laughing at all the stupid news about stuff the USA is doing, because it’s become so repetitive, it’s just mind numbing now. Although, The Daily Show is back, and Jon is putting things into their proper perspective as always! 😆 Like the news about the thousands of pages of stolen US Military in Afghanistan’s ‘Secret’ documents. He did a sketch about the intel doc that reveled that The US is funding Pakistan who are in turn using the money to fund the Taliban who are killing American’s (and anyone else they can). And of course I was PMSL but also thinking “So, who in the World didn’t know that was happening? They did the same thing to the Soviets!”
In fact, the documents mostly reveal just how insanely stupid the US Gov actually is! If I was a US citizen… I’d be amazingly embarrassed, and angry.
I don’t see any problem with you being angry m8! You have a definite right to be. You could always emigrate… I think there are still a few places that have at least some sanity left! Don’t come here, we are no better. And the UK is even worse in many ways than the USA!
Bryan, I know you’re right. It’s just that you LIVE there, for pete’s sake. If someone wants to know what’s happening there, all they have to do is ask you. And don’t take the word of some apparatchik (or a news organization for that matter which sometimes amounts to the same thing) that has a dog in the fight.
So, someone else in another country reads a few articles, and they know more than you do about the place you live. Oh yeah, that makes sense.
Kryten may be on to something. The guy’s a troll. He just likes to wind everyone up.
I realize Mr. Duff is a troll, but I consider him a training aid. It is a very similar experience to teaching college freshmen the IT intro course. A lot of them think that using the Internet makes them computer wizards. Actually the whole reason for including binary math in the intro course is to show them what they don’t know.
He is annoyed because Tory politicians created the myth that the US was blaming Britain over the Gulf Gusher. That flies in the face of the reality that a huge mass of Americans are Anglophiles. A British accent always does well with Americans, as does the Australian accent. That should have been a tip off to how badly BP and Hayward screwed up – even the accent couldn’t save them.
As you know, Juanita, a Southern accent tends to make people deduct 20 points from your IQ, even though they will say it is “charming” to your face.
I live in Florida and don’t speak for the situation in Louisiana, but I read their local media all the time. The local papers are a better indicator of what is going on than anything in the national media because they know the local officials and can interpret what is being said.
Badtux is more reliable on Louisiana because he is from there, and his people still live there. Steve Bates knows Houston. I know other people from the South Alabama area and a few from Mississippi, although most of the people from Mississippi were forced out by Katrina and haven’t gone back. My best friend goes to Mississippi all the time, but just to the casinos, so he’s no help.
If someone writes about their local area, I’m not about to challenge them unless I have specific knowledge from a known reliable source, and even then, I would ask questions, not tell them they are wrong. As you say, the people on the scene know the situation better than I do.
Kryten, did you know that they are trying to pin everything on an Army Private First Class who worked in intel in Iraq? What kind of stupid system do they have in place that would allow one low ranking soldier sitting at a computer to raid classified documents and ship them to a third party? This is the same guy they claim uploaded the embarrassing video from an attack helicopter several months back.
If this PFC actually did it, it shows that they have networked their way into a total absence of security for classifies documents. The documents weren’t very important, generally first draft, unit level after-action summaries with minimal analysis which are marginally better than rumor, but you shouldn’t have access to them from Iraq because there would be no “need to know”.
Standards have certainly fallen.
Things are going to be marginal everywhere for a while, Kryten. It may be a matter of who figures out they screwed up first.
The man thinks we blame the British?!! Now, that’s just plain silly. For myself, I’ve been to the UK twice. Loved it. Loved the people. And, it never crossed my mind (or anyone else I know for that matter) to blame the British.
You’re absolutely right, it’s an indication of the level to which the situation has deteriorated that being our beloved Brits didn’t absolve BP altogether. Anglophiles? You betcha.
On Southern accents. It was just last week in fact that I heard what a *charming* accent I had. Oh yeah, at least minus 20 points there.
Since you’re a cat person, I’ll leave our Duffy with the following quote:
A person who has a cat by the tail knows a whole lot more about cats than someone who has just read about them. – Mark Twain
LOL Yeah… ‘BradAss87 ‘! What a genious he obviously is! 😉 😀
If you haven’t seen Jon’s show about it, I encourage anyone to! He really does get to the meat of the matter. 😉
The Daily Show – July 27, 2010 – with guest Fareed Zakaria
You might enjoy (really) the previous episode (July 27 with William Rosen) also. 🙂 It was about why the invention of the steam engine changed the World as it did. And it’s not the reason most people think! 😉 Sometimes… Jon does get a bit ‘cerebral’ with his show. At least… as far as comedic law allows! 😆 He also get’s to the heart of Obama. He’s TRULY from Bizzaro World! Everything he does, is reversed! When he should pause, consider and investigate, he goes ahead like a Bull in heat! When he should go balls ‘n’ all, he does his ‘Timid Timothy, The Compromiser’ thing. The guy is truly ass-backwards! I have zero respect for him.
Honestly… I dunno who is worse! The Decider, or The Compromiser! I suspect this is the USA’s ‘from frying pan into the fire’ time.
Oops! Didn’t see your comment Juanita, sorry!
Hah! That’s a great quote, and ohhhhh… so very true! 😀
Great quote, Juanita. Twain’s autobiography is finally being published, and that should be interesting for students of history and snark.
If you haven’t seen much of the world, it is difficult to understand other people. I spent a lot of time in Europe when I was in the military, but I wouldn’t presume to know how their system worked, because I wasn’t in the system, I just watched from outside. I know how things work in theory, but that is rarely how they actually work.
Kryten, speaking of politics, is Labor trying to lose to the Liberals? Man, things really seem to be getting scrambled in Oz. The left seems hellbent everywhere on losing.
Bah! Don’t mention the crazy stupidity going on here m8!! I told you we are no better currently. 🙁 I said in a comment last year sometime that Gillard was a BAD mistake on Rudd’s part! How prophetic of me. *SIGH* Nobody listens to me! 😉 😆
OK. In a nutshell, the problem we now face is:
If Gillard win’s, we get someone who is a truly hopeless manager (she has stuffed up every major project she was given as a Minister, and has no track record with even medium projects before becoming Dep. PM). She also is stubborn, way too *decisive* (the current cooling of relations with what was a good Pacific Island neighbor over the ‘boat people’ even before she’s elected, simply because she didn’t know that the President is just a figure head, and the PM *IS* The Boss and if you want something done there, you deal with the PM (which is the way it is with ALL Commonwealth Nations! You’d think a PM would know that!)
If Abbott is elected, he’d be worse than Howard! He’s like your Neo-con Right Christian extremist. He has no policies he wants to reveal, I’m sure because he knows ordinary voters won’t like them a bit! He’s Pro- big business and the wealthy!
Here’s a few links for perspective:
Gillard faking it on boats: Abbott
Rudd and Gillard’s achievements, stuff-ups and unfinished business
Gillard’s reckless gamble
Yeah… Really! Me… I’m gonna vote for Bryan Dumka for PM! You’d do a lot better than either of them! And I’m not joking.
BTW, Bob Ellis is an old hand political reporter. And his track record is impeccable. *sigh*
For some reason I got the feeling that Rudd selected her because she wasn’t apt to get in his way or do anything great, as he seemed to be something of a control freak.
I don’t understand why, when they decided to change leaders, they didn’t go for.. well, a leader.
Abbott strikes me as a bit creepy, just reading about his “exploits”. I keep wondering what they have to do with running a government. They also tend to remind me of GW Bush.
I was expecting her to do something notable before calling an election, as the timing was her choice, and calling it after a win of some kind would have made more sense.
But what do I know, I’m just a guy with a web site watching a corporation destroy my community.
“I was expecting her to do something notable before calling an election, as the timing was her choice, and calling it after a win of some kind would have made more sense.”
Really?? Ya think?!! DUH! See… you know more about our Politics than our current PM does! I’m def gonna vote for you! 😆
“Abbott strikes me as a bit creepy.”
That’s about the best succinct summation of Abbott I’ve seen. Yup!
Sadly, our current Political system is much the same as yours. We have no leaders in either party. Zero. Zip. Nada.
And yeah, Rudd was a control freak. But he was a very good Diplomat. He got us out of the sh*t after Howard. Australians now have, officially IMHO, the same memory as Americans! *SIGH*
You can welcome us to your club if you wish. It’d be appropriate.
Like the USA, we deserve what we get.
People fixate on one or two issues and ignore everything else. They also fail to look at the system to see where the change needs to be made to fix the problems in their lives. They never seem to make the connections.
I have no idea how convince people to go beyond slogans and figure out why things are screwed up, and who is to blame. There is so much propaganda being spewed, much of it to ensure that people don’t figure out what is going on.
How hard is it to figure out that “conservatives” keeping doing the same things, and those things keep failing.
I just watched Tony Abbott’s press conference, and as much as I can’t stand the guy, he’s way ahead of Gillard on points! He *sounds* like a real Politician, he sounds very reasonable and made good points. Gillard is sounding like a female version of Rudd, but only in terms of arrogance. She’s not the diplomat or politician Rudd was.
Yesterday, in her press conference, Gillard made a bad tactical mistake and let slip answering a question from the press that they were *now* seeing the *real* Julia Gillard. Of course, Abbott today was all over that, and made the point everyone has known, but not wanted to think much about, that if Gillard is elected… Who do we actually get? Nobody knows who here real backers are and who helped her kick Rudd out. People are worried about that.
Some of todays headlines include:
Crikey Says: Crikey says: we’re asking for it
Crikey Subscriber / Monday, 2 August 2010
As we go to press, Sky News is discussing whether Day 1 of the Really Real Julia Gillard is any different to Days 1-15 of Not Very Real, Not Fake, but Sort of Watered Down and Possibly on Prozac Prime Minister.
Shanahan: Julia hits the panic button
The Australian / Monday, 2 August 2010
It’s no wonder that Julia Gillard has brought out a scare campaign against Abbott: she can no longer win off her own personal appeal, says Dennis Shanahan.
Keane’s Talking Points: this election is now the Liberals’ to lose
Crikey Subscriber / Bernard Keane / Monday, 2 August 2010
The first two weeks of this campaign evidently started with Gillard being given ground Valium on her cereal every morning. As of today, she’s off the meds…
Not your usual Cabinet leak
Crikey / Bernard Keane / Wednesday, 28 July 2010
Julia Gillard gave her best performance of the campaign this morning in response to Laurie Oakes’ damaging leaks story, but the problem isn’t going to go away.
Leaks tarnish Gillard’s shine
Crikey / Amber Jamieson / Wednesday, 28 July 2010
Daily Media Wrap Another night, another Laurie Oakes bombshell. Last night the Nine Network stalwart revealed the allegation that Julia Gillard opposed the government’s paid parental leave and a rise to the pension during cabinet meetings when she was deputy.
As can be seen, the focus is currently on some damning leaks about Gillard when she was Dep. PM. The bookies are currently favoring Rudd as the leaker. Payback is such a bitch! 😆
If the election were this weekend, Abbott would win. For Gillard to win, she’d have to take a page out of the GOP Playbook and start a major war with someone! *sigh*
This is why I thought she should have waited until she scored a win of some kind. She is in the absurd position of trying to run on the record of the guy she ousted, which is a terrible place to stand.
Actually, a Rudd supporter is a more likely source than Rudd himself. A lot of people lost power in the change, and politicians really hate losing power. Family fights are much nastier than feuds between families. It will be years or decades before people finally know what the real cause was for removing Rudd, and it will probably turn out to be some petty perceived slight that Rudd wasn’t even aware off.
Answering “domestic dispute” calls is dangerous because you can’t tell who is on what side, and you have to be able to suspend logic so you don’t say something like “you were going to kill him over damage to an ugly lamp?” When you step back, World War I really was a “domestic dispute”. The people in charge on all sides were first cousins, grandchildren of Queen Victoria.