[Newsbot]

Filibuster Cartoons
Title: Absorbent panels (click to view)
Date: June 16, 2010
President Obama gave his first-ever "talk-to-the-nation-in-a-somber-voice-from-behind-his-desk-in-the-Oval Office" televised speech type thing yesterday, attempting to address concerns about his administration's response to the ongoing BP oil rupture.

It was not really his finest hour, in my opinion. A lot of standard Obama boilerplate, but at the same time, it has to be conceded what a difficult position this president is in. The public obviously wanted to hear how the federal government plans to stop the leak immediately, but there is no quick and easy answer to that question. The very reason the oil has been flowing continuously for over two months now is because there is no technological fix in the short term. No one knows what to do. The problem is too unprecedented.

So Obama can't do a lot other than appoint a series of fact-finding panels to "look into" various things related to the spill, such as what led to the current crisis, how we can prevent similar crises in the future, and, of course, the ongoing hunt for possible solutions. Obama called attention to a couple such commissions during the course of his speech, including a Gulf Coast restoration committee headed by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, and a special scientist task force headed by Energy Secretary Steven Chu. There's also been a special "Flow Rate Technical Group" appointed, and a fact-finding commission headed by former Florida governor Bob Graham. And of course you've got your traditional crisis subcommittees of the Interior Department, Environmental Protection Agency, and Mineral Management Service as well, who are always involved in this sort of thing.

One thing's for sure; sometime in the near future Obama is going to have a lot of reports to read.

Read the full text of Obama's speech here.

Comment on the new Facebook page!

[Voyager]

Well, technically, there was that rig back in '79 that leaked for nine months before they got it stopped.

I think what's irking people is that there are things that can be done to mitigate it, but the Federal response is such a huge tangled up mess that noone can get authorization to do any of it.

My Dad was telling about one of the recent bits, where someone figured out how to rig a ship to suck up Gulf water, filter out 95% of the oil in it, and then dump the filtered water back into the Gulf. Problem is, EPA regulations bar them from doing it, since the post filtered water would still have 5% of the original oil load in it, and the regulations ban dumping oily water into major water bodies.

Normally, it would take months for something like that to get an exception, but, theoretically, in recognized major disasters of this sort, the Executive Branch has the authority to temporarily waive those restrictions, typically for the duration of the crisis. Problem is, they aren't. The typical response has been something to the effect of, "We'll form a committee to look into it, and get back to you in six weeks." Very frustrating.

Harry Voyager

[Zipperfish]

Newsbot wrote:

Filibuster Cartoons
Title: Absorbent panels (click to view)
Date: June 16, 2010
President Obama gave his first-ever "talk-to-the-nation-in-a-somber-voice-from-behind-his-desk-in-the-Oval Office" televised speech type thing yesterday, attempting to address concerns about his administration's response to the ongoing BP oil rupture.

It was not really his finest hour, in my opinion. A lot of standard Obama boilerplate, but at the same time, it has to be conceded what a difficult position this president is in. The public obviously wanted to hear how the federal government plans to stop the leak immediately, but there is no quick and easy answer to that question. The very reason the oil has been flowing continuously for over two months now is because there is no technological fix in the short term. No one knows what to do. The problem is too unprecedented.

So Obama can't do a lot other than appoint a series of fact-finding panels to "look into" various things related to the spill, such as what led to the current crisis, how we can prevent similar crises in the future, and, of course, the ongoing hunt for possible solutions. Obama called attention to a couple such commissions during the course of his speech, including a Gulf Coast restoration committee headed by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, and a special scientist task force headed by Energy Secretary Steven Chu. There's also been a special "Flow Rate Technical Group" appointed, and a fact-finding commission headed by former Florida governor Bob Graham. And of course you've got your traditional crisis subcommittees of the Interior Department, Environmental Protection Agency, and Mineral Management Service as well, who are always involved in this sort of thing.

One thing's for sure; sometime in the near future Obama is going to have a lot of reports to read.

Read the full text of Obama's speech here.

Comment on the new Facebook page!

That's some insightful commentary there. People are spitting mad down there, and they want somebody to be mad at. BPs not good enough, not by themselves, so Obama has to take some heat. So even though there's bugger-all he can do about it he makes these gravid pronouncements. Great theatre.

Funny thing is, what do you think would have happened to the poor schmuk three months ago who went on the news and said what domestic oil production really needs is more government regulation. Poor guy would've been strung up in the current political climate.

Save yourself some reading, Obama: Complacency. Pure and simple. By everyone.

[Zipperfish]

Voyager wrote:

Well, technically, there was that rig back in '79 that leaked for nine months before they got it stopped.

I think what's irking people is that there are things that can be done to mitigate it, but the Federal response is such a huge tangled up mess that noone can get authorization to do any of it.

My Dad was telling about one of the recent bits, where someone figured out how to rig a ship to suck up Gulf water, filter out 95% of the oil in it, and then dump the filtered water back into the Gulf. Problem is, EPA regulations bar them from doing it, since the post filtered water would still have 5% of the original oil load in it, and the regulations ban dumping oily water into major water bodies.

Normally, it would take months for something like that to get an exception, but, theoretically, in recognized major disasters of this sort, the Executive Branch has the authority to temporarily waive those restrictions, typically for the duration of the crisis. Problem is, they aren't. The typical response has been something to the effect of, "We'll form a committee to look into it, and get back to you in six weeks." Very frustrating.

Harry Voyager

Five percent oil is pretty toxic. Why should a private company be allowed to dump toxic waste into an international public resource like the Gulf? Clean it to .05% and we'll talk would be my answer. Technically very feasible, just costs a lot more.

[Psudo]

Voyager wrote:

Well, technically, there was that rig back in '79 that leaked for nine months before they got it stopped.

You mean this one?

Zipperfish wrote:

Funny thing is, what do you think would have happened to the poor schmuk three months ago who went on the news and said what domestic oil production really needs is more government regulation. Poor guy would've been strung up in the current political climate.

Two things: first, would 3 months have been enough to change how BP ran the rig and prevent the oil spill? That's fast moving for government bureaucracy. Second, I thought BP had already broken some regulations, leading to criticisms that the MMS didn't notice the regulation-breaking during an inspection and legitimately spreading some of the blame on government for classic failure-to-enforce. Is that not the case?

Zipperfish wrote:

Five percent oil is pretty toxic.

It's a heck of a lot better than a floating oil slick of roughly 120% oil.

[Teikiatsu]

Zipperfish wrote:

Five percent oil is pretty toxic. Why should a private company be allowed to dump toxic waste into an international public resource like the Gulf? Clean it to .05% and we'll talk would be my answer. Technically very feasible, just costs a lot more.

Remember, he said 5% dumped back into the water. By the time that amount of oil dilutes into the gulf basin the concentration would be 0.00005% or less by the time the currents make it hit dry land.

And as someone else said, 5% is a heck of a lot better than what we have now. The fact they are doing nothing and letting government regulations gum up the works is very telling, and further demonstrates why Big Government and Central Planning don't work when people really need fast action and split-second decision making.

(Of course I think BG&CP don't work to benefit the people at any time but that's a separate discussion.)

[Voyager]

Zipperfish wrote:

Five percent oil is pretty toxic. Why should a private company be allowed to dump toxic waste into an international public resource like the Gulf? Clean it to .05% and we'll talk would be my answer. Technically very feasible, just costs a lot more.

Not 5% oil, 5% of the oil that was in the water when it was sucked up.

While I'm sure it's technically feasible to clean it to 0.05%, the issue here is time. My guess is they're simply using a spinning drum to separate the oil and water, and then scraping the oil layer off the top. Setting one of those up takes a random barrel and few hours with a welder, and you can be out in the Gulf by the end of the day if you're willing to push it. To get high efficiency, you end up building special purpose centrifuges, or you end up going to fractal distillation, which means you're building a 40,000 barrel a day mobile refinery. That takes some time.

Then there is the on-going saga of the Maine boom. So, BP says if failed requirements. It's been there for over a month now, so why did BP wait until last week to actually tell anybody? It could have been fixed and deployed by now, if nobody tells you, it's kind of hard to do anything about it.

Then there are all the other companies drilling out there. Where did they go? BP is not the only company in the world with experience at deep sea drilling.

Any time anybody tries to do anything about this, the administration response seems to be, "Let's conduct a study, and we'll get back to you in six months."

[DrCaleb]

Here's a plan. Slip a wedding ring on it. That stops things from putting out, in my experience.

[Chumley]

Voyager wrote:

Well, technically, there was that rig back in '79 that leaked for nine months before they got it stopped.

I think what's irking people is that there are things that can be done to mitigate it, but the Federal response is such a huge tangled up mess that noone can get authorization to do any of it.

My Dad was telling about one of the recent bits, where someone figured out how to rig a ship to suck up Gulf water, filter out 95% of the oil in it, and then dump the filtered water back into the Gulf. Problem is, EPA regulations bar them from doing it, since the post filtered water would still have 5% of the original oil load in it, and the regulations ban dumping oily water into major water bodies.

Normally, it would take months for something like that to get an exception, but, theoretically, in recognized major disasters of this sort, the Executive Branch has the authority to temporarily waive those restrictions, typically for the duration of the crisis. Problem is, they aren't. The typical response has been something to the effect of, "We'll form a committee to look into it, and get back to you in six weeks." Very frustrating.

Harry Voyager

Hey, if you submerge the filter system into the ocean, and filter the water without removing it from the ocean, would it still be considered dumping it back if it never left?

[Quantum_Wizard]

Voyager wrote:

My Dad was telling about one of the recent bits, where someone figured out how to rig a ship to suck up Gulf water, filter out 95% of the oil in it, and then dump the filtered water back into the Gulf. Problem is, EPA regulations bar them from doing it, since the post filtered water would still have 5% of the original oil load in it, and the regulations ban dumping oily water into major water bodies.

Do you have reference for this?

[Zipperfish]

Psudo wrote:

Two things: first, would 3 months have been enough to change how BP ran the rig and prevent the oil spill? That's fast moving for government bureaucracy. Second, I thought BP had already broken some regulations, leading to criticisms that the MMS didn't notice the regulation-breaking during an inspection and legitimately spreading some of the blame on government for classic failure-to-enforce. Is that not the case?

In my experience, in incidents this size, there is plenty of blame to go around. They tend to result from cascading failures, as opposed to a single, critical error. The MMS seems to be in a state of what economists call "regulatory capture." From wiki

Quote:

Regulatory capture occurs when a state regulatory agency created to act in the public interest instead acts in favor of the commercial or special interests that dominate in the industry or sector it is charged with regulating. Regulatory capture is a form of government failure, as it can act as an encouragement for large firms to produce negative externalities. The agencies are called Captured Agencies.

This state of regulatory capture would have become evident had their been responsible management or an effective audit.

My point was that, even if someone who realized what was going on went to the media--and I imagine there were a few of them--and called for tighter regulation of domestic oil production--they would have been laughed off the set in a country veering towards government vehemence

Psudo wrote:

It's a heck of a lot better than a floating oil slick of roughly 120% oil.

Yes but since 0.05% is as technically attainable as 5%, why settle for 5%. If you're the government, you are supposed to represent the public resource.

[Psudo]

Zipperfish wrote:

Psudo wrote:

It's a heck of a lot better than a floating oil slick of roughly 120% oil.

Yes but since 0.05% is as technically attainable as 5%, why settle for 5%. If you're the government, you are supposed to represent the public resource.

I thought the argument was that everyday people could achieve 5% with tools lying around, if government would let them. Then, when government finally gets it's act together and gets the 0.05% equipment out there, the private do-gooders can go home. But environmental regulation restricts average folks from helping unless they can achieve something like the industrial quality 0.05% effectiveness, thus preventing grassroots aid in the disaster.

That's what the third paragraph in Voyager's first post sounds like to me.

[Pseudonym]

There's irritation over the government not filling out waivers or building berms or what have you quickly enough, but I don't think reasonable people are in any way holding Obama responsible for the disaster.

[Teikiatsu]

Psudo wrote:

I thought the argument was that everyday people could achieve 5% with tools lying around, if government would let them. Then, when government finally gets it's act together and gets the 0.05% equipment out there, the private do-gooders can go home.

I don't think there is such a thing as 'everyday tools to clean 95% of oil spills' or this situation wouldn't be nearly as bad as it is, nor is there 0.05% equipment that the government just has lying around. The best hi-tech seperators I'm aware of are Costner's centrifuges which can go down to 3%. Last I heard, BP made a request for 32 of them, they need to be built. I want to say there are maybe 5 prototypes built but not 100% sure.

Right now I think Jindal's barges are oversized turbocharged wet-vac sucking up the most bouyant sludge at the surface, storing them in tanks, then heading to the mainland when full to unload and either dispose or reprocess.

[Crosshair]

Zipperfish wrote:

Five percent oil is pretty toxic. Why should a private company be allowed to dump toxic waste into an international public resource like the Gulf? Clean it to .05% and we'll talk would be my answer. Technically very feasible, just costs a lot more.

No offense, but you are completely oblivious to what is being said. I find it hard to believe that you are not just trolling. Please stop posting until you properly understand.

The problem is quality vs quality. Your head is stuck on perfection. The problem is that the "perfect solution" you want is not available in the quantity needed.

Lets say that this "cheap" method can hypothetically take a sludge that is 20% oil as input and output a mix that is 1% oil. (95%) It can skim 30,000 barrels a day and be out and working in a week.

Your "perfect" method will hypothetically take two months to deploy and can skim 5,000 barrels of oil a day.

Do you see how silly you are sounding?

The goal here is to skim as much total oil as possible. The percentage of oil removed in a sample of water is irrelevant unless it is quantified with the quantity of oil it can remove over a period of time.

We don't have to do one or the other. The correct choice would be to get the cheap, mas produced methods that can only remove 95% of the oil out ASAP. Yea there is still 5% of the oil left, but that's better than having 100% of the oil in the water. That 5% will do a fraction of the damage than sitting around waiting for the "perfect" solution to come online.

While the 95% barges are out there you get the .05% barges mobilized and put together. By the time they are ready, the 95% barges will have cleaned up the vast majority of the oil and the .05% barges can then focus on cleaning up what is left.

I have no idea if the claims of the EPA getting in the way are true or not, but it would not surprise me. I've been on a job site where work stopped in one section while the State Electrical inspector, the OSHA inspector, and the Fire Marshall debated on whose regulations should be followed over something that really did not matter. (The only way it would have been a problem is if a cook decided he wanted to rewire the kitchen on a moments notice and happened to pry open the cable box above the ceiling.) All three contradicted the others in some way. Following one would violate the rules of another. I thankfully didn't have to deal with that, but it's just one example of the government passing regulations just for the sake of passing regulations.