Author Topic: BP Oil Spill... (Read 10510 times)

SegaAges · « **on:** June 03, 2010, 07:40:19 am »

I know, it's way off topic for an Electronics Engineering Blog, but being that Dave used to work under water (at least I believe that's what he said he did before?), and him, and I for that matter, being an environmentalist, and you guys (maybe even me a little) are smart, intelligent, and well rounded individuals, I thought we could discuss what could be done to stop the damn thing from leaking, and how us consumers can rip BP a new one... haha! I know Dave has done a blog about Oil already, I know, but he has not done one about poor BP CEO - "Tony Hayward"... :-P What an a$$!!

Not like I have much to bring to the table, but I'd just love to hear Dave do a rant about the whole situation...! :-)

Take care all!

-Nick

XynxNet · « **Reply #1 on:** June 03, 2010, 09:36:27 am »

I am also interested in Daves opinion on the topic.

What could be done technically to seal the oil leak, is way beyound my expertise. Unfortunatly it seem also way beyond BP's and the US's expertise.

Politically...well, for starters let's not look only at BP. They do what unfortunatly every company does, exploting as cheaply and ruthlessly as possible every opportunity they get.
My question is, why aren't there any effective regulations regarding safety and ecological impact of their activities? This whole situation is in my opinion a direct consequenz of the political fuckup, we are still producing regarding almost every conflict between economical and ecological interests.

rossmoffett · « **Reply #2 on:** June 03, 2010, 03:57:10 pm »

For all of the blame and claims of a lack of regulation.. there were safety devices in place, the same as there are on every other oil well on land or at sea, it just failed to work this time. The safety regulations weren't in place because this has only happened one other time nearly 30 years ago.

I worked in oil production last year on an internship and there are actually a few layers of safety devices (on land), the blowout preventer being the final option. Since the rig was on fire, probably they wouldn't have been able to use any of the others.

So, suppose there were two blowout preventers. If the methane gas expansion froze that one up, who is to say it wouldn't have frozen a second one up as well? What about any other equipment, would it have escaped failure under a thousand feet of water in freezing conditions with an oil/water/gas mixture flowing through it?

The last time I read about the disaster the talk had moved away from additional safety regulations and alleged that BP had simply ignored the existing ones. In that case, all of the above is irrelevant and we need to focus on scaring the safety regulations back into the oil producers. At the company I worked for, there were no problems keeping up with regulations, but it's easy to imagine that it isn't always the case when you're a hundred miles offshore with no one looking.

kc1980 · « **Reply #3 on:** June 03, 2010, 06:45:21 pm »

Let's boycott oil!!!! Down with big oil and the corporations! Down with Obama!! It's all his fault! It's the government's fault.

Oh wait....I live in Southern California so I can't get anything done without driving. Plus, every aspect of my high standard of living is attributed to the cheap energy that oil provides. And I don't know squat about how my government really works so why bother?

Hmmm...all this critical thinking and exercising foresight is hurting my head. I think I'll just bury my head back in the sand. Besides, the Laker's game tonight is much more important to me than some crap that's going on thousands of miles away. If and when the sh!t hits the fan, I'll just rely on my trusty shotgun and loot from the local businesses. Our government will take care of us. Did you know that Lindsey Lohan is in rehab again?

Kiriakos-GR · « **Reply #4 on:** June 03, 2010, 07:41:31 pm »

Quote from: kc1980 on June 03, 2010, 06:45:21 pm

And I don't know squat about how my government really works so why bother?

This is something that it can be repaired , and you will be named as citizen again.

When the Americans , had throw bombs over the Oil resources of IRAQ , and all the country was on fire from side to side , non of the American citizens was worried about that .. ( damaging the planet )

I just hope , that the pain and the disaster , of this fresh event , will educate the American society ,
in order to stop throwing their bombs, here and there ..

NiHaoMike · « **Reply #5 on:** June 04, 2010, 01:29:31 am »

Quote from: kc1980 on June 03, 2010, 06:45:21 pm

Let's boycott oil!!!! Down with big oil and the corporations! Down with Obama!! It's all his fault! It's the government's fault.

Oh wait....I live in Southern California so I can't get anything done without driving. Plus, every aspect of my high standard of living is attributed to the cheap energy that oil provides. And I don't know squat about how my government really works so why bother?

Completely eliminating oil use is difficult, but reducing it is easy. I'll give you 3 tips: obey the speed limit, check tire pressures (take the time to read the tires!), and coast to red lights or time them. (Look up hypermiling for details.)

kc1980 · « **Reply #6 on:** June 04, 2010, 02:42:04 am »

Yeah, i was being sarcastic.

I drive a car that gets 35mpg. My tires are always pumped to 34psi. I don't live in an unsustainable area such as Vegas or live in a poorly insulated home in an area that requires heating oil. I try my best to buy locally-produced foods. I'm practically a vegetarian. I don't buy useless junk that is manufactured halfway around the world.

Still, there is only so much an individual can do. It will take a cultural revolution to reduce our consumption of oil (at least in the US anyways).

EEVblog · « **Reply #7 on:** June 04, 2010, 02:57:47 am »

I might have to do a drive time rant on it, but I suspect no one is interested!

I think the BP spill is the best thing to happen since the whole global warming beatup, really. Why? because it raises the awareness of oil and our ridiculous and unsustainable dependence on it.
It gets people (and politicians) talking about oil and that's a good thing in my book.
It's the same thing with all the global warming hoopla, it doesn't really matter a rats arse if it's true or not (overpopulation is a MUCH bigger problem, by orders of magnitude), if it scares us into working towards a sustainable energy future then it's a good thing.

I heard Obama may cancel his trip to Australia again due to the oil crisis.
Whilst I want it plugged as much as anyone I won't be disappointed if it keeps going and turns into a HUGE cluster !@#$
More visibility, more pressure - good.
Not good for the environment to be sure, but I think the bigger picture is more important.

How to stop it? I suspect they won't be able to for a long time. Doing stuff with those ultra deep wells is a real bitch.
It's probably worth trying to nuke it shut I think, can't do much worse!

Deepwater was an example of the crazy lengths the industry now goes to to get oil. 10km deep, 1200m+ water, and they still can't get it all out. As you suck more out it gets increasingly difficult and expensive to extract more. So most abandoned wells are left with plenty of oil still in them. 4C reservoir monitoring is the latest thing to try and analyse existing wells and suck out more oil. That's the stuff I last worked on.

BTW, I've read that the bedrock naturally seeps out just as much oil continuously as this spill, but because it's not concentrated it's a not a problem.

And of course I'm praying for the next oil crisis! I really do hope for $10/L petrol. I'll happily pay it if it means shocking the world into not pissing away our oil.

And yes, I do think George.W should be prosecuted for murder, and so much more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prosecution_of_George_W._Bush_for_Murder

That's my dose of politics for today!

Dave.

NiHaoMike · « **Reply #8 on:** June 04, 2010, 03:12:35 am »

How about make a drive time rant about hypermiling?

DJPhil · « **Reply #9 on:** June 04, 2010, 04:43:29 am »

I usually stay well clear of political discussions. Here where I live political discussion is usually either a shallow, mutual validation of opinion or verbal combat with blunt instruments between ideologies. I do attempt to keep up on things, but it's overwhelming to attempt to gain perspective on even a few issues for any length of time. Still, I find it eerie how much symmetry exists between the way I think and what Dave's said.

Quote from: EEVblog on June 04, 2010, 02:57:47 am

I think the BP spill is the best thing to happen since the whole global warming beatup, really. Why? because it raises the awareness of oil and our ridiculous and unsustainable dependence on it.
It gets people (and politicians) talking about oil and that's a good thing in my book.
It's the same thing with all the global warming hoopla, it doesn't really matter a rats arse if it's true or not (overpopulation is a MUCH bigger problem, by orders of magnitude), if it scares us into working towards a sustainable energy future then it's a good thing.

I heard Obama may cancel his trip to Australia again due to the oil crisis.
Whilst I want it plugged as much as anyone I won't be disappointed if it keeps going and turns into a HUGE cluster !@#$
More visibility, more pressure - good.
Not good for the environment to be sure, but I think the bigger picture is more important.

This is how I see it as well. It sucks, but if we're lucky it'll draw attention to the right things and not get shifted to the wrong ones. I can see it turning into a blame game to no real end before anything real and material comes of it, but I hold out hope.
The population issue is something I feel strongly about. When a political discussion erupts and is going nowhere, I tend to drop the problem of overpopulation in the running meat grinder to see what happens. It tends to derail the game of pong and heat up some braincells because it's an issue that's largely overlooked or outright ignored, especially here.

Quote from: EEVblog on June 04, 2010, 02:57:47 am

How to stop it? I suspect they won't be able to for a long time. Doing stuff with those ultra deep wells is a real bitch.
It's probably worth trying to nuke it shut I think, can't do much worse!

I think it might be worth considering as well. I think it will be nearly impossible to attempt, given the extent of opinion and misunderstanding of nuclear . . . well, anything. I have a hunch that some folks in the government have a sizable amount of information that would be useful in determining what the risks would be, but the information is from the nuclear testing era and still classified. If this is the case, they may not be able to justify the risks to the public, or at least the public that'd be willing to hear them try. I suspect that they'll be dome/cap/dump/shotting for months until it essentially ceases or slows on it's own.

Quote from: EEVblog on June 04, 2010, 02:57:47 am

And of course I'm praying for the next oil crisis! I really do hope for $10/L petrol. I'll happily pay it if it means shocking the world into not pissing away our oil.

I really hope this fiasco results in a slow, steady increase in gas prices until there's real interest in alternatives. I think there's some truth to the assertion that the economy can't take a steep hike in a short period, but just the same there's apparently little motivation to take the problem seriously yet. I'm not exactly a strident environmentalist, but I do dislike bad ideas when I'm certain they're bad. Trying to keep gliding along on petroleum indefinitely and fighting the innovation of alternatives is definitely a bad idea.

It renews my faith in humankind that I can stand adjacent to someone in regards to my political reflexes while living on the other side of the world. It can be difficult to keep a balanced perspective here in the suburban Midwest. The last argument I heard against electric vehicle infrastructure essentially boiled down to, "It might accidentally make Al Gore rich, and I hate Al Gore!"

kc1980 · « **Reply #10 on:** June 04, 2010, 05:59:35 am »

I agree. There are always two sides to a coin. The global economic slowdown is a blessing to our species if you really think about it.

EEVblog · « **Reply #11 on:** June 04, 2010, 07:10:39 am »

Quote from: kc1980 on June 04, 2010, 05:59:35 am

I agree. There are always two sides to a coin. The global economic slowdown is a blessing to our species if you really think about it.

Yeah, but it won't last long, the global illusionary monetary system will just pick up and race off into oblivion again. Bet your house on it, or better yet, DON'T bet your house on it!

Dave.

Polossatik · « **Reply #12 on:** June 04, 2010, 09:53:05 am »

I don't think nuking that well is a sound idea, it's been used *on land* a few (5 I think?) times by the USSR to stop burning gas wells and they stopped it because the last one went horribly wrong.
They would need to drill a hole anyway, detonating the nuke "on top" does not work, you need to melt the rock in the pipe.

If it fails with gas on land then you can ignite it and then it burns down, so the fallout is minimal, but with oil... I think the last thing you want is a radioactive oil spill contaminating the US coast...

Simon · « **Reply #13 on:** June 04, 2010, 09:35:39 pm »

I hope oil prices don't go up, it costs me a relative fortune as it is to run my car and I need to get to work, gone are the days that people worked in their home town, yes we need to get a grip and ok my car is not the smallest but I drive so carefully i beat the manufacturers estimate of fuel consumption. I wish governments would take more seriously renewable and alternative energy and the so called skeptics that really just want to plug into power and drain all they want for their greedy wasteful needs stand trial for treason to humanity. Those that deny we are damaging the planet and using vast quantities of energy should be made to live next to coal power stations while those of us that accept the truth and are not wasteful get to live in nice places for as long as we still have them.

NiHaoMike · « **Reply #14 on:** June 05, 2010, 12:14:18 am »

Quote from: kc1980 on June 04, 2010, 02:42:04 am

Yeah, i was being sarcastic.

I drive a car that gets 35mpg. My tires are always pumped to 34psi. I don't live in an unsustainable area such as Vegas or live in a poorly insulated home in an area that requires heating oil. I try my best to buy locally-produced foods. I'm practically a vegetarian. I don't buy useless junk that is manufactured halfway around the world.

Still, there is only so much an individual can do. It will take a cultural revolution to reduce our consumption of oil (at least in the US anyways).

35 MPG? The official long distance world record (in an unmodified production car) is 68MPG, or almost twice that.
http://romanreign.com/world_record_attempt.htm

Unofficially, a modified production car has got almost 300 MPG!
http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23594

kc1980 · « **Reply #15 on:** June 05, 2010, 03:44:50 am »

Dood! That's 35mpg mixed driving. And I don't claim to be a hypermiler. I live in SoCal so stop-and-go traffic is unavoidable. In the US, anything above 30mpg is considered very good. Everyday I drive along side several 5000lbs+ SUVs that get less than 16mpg -- and BTW, these are single occupant vehicles too.

djsb · « **Reply #16 on:** June 05, 2010, 01:14:10 pm »

It's all nixons fault

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_Shock

The world needs to learn to live within it's means and learn the meaning of 'enough'

Unfortunately I can't see voluntary simplicity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_living) being taken up anytime soon in the west. At some point it will be forced upon us.

Oil at one point will run out but first it will become very expensive as sweet crude will become more difficult to extract. America will suffer the most as it's a vast country far too reliant on the car. Most of europe (apart from the UK) has a reasonable public transport system and will find it less difficult to cope. Problem is almost all of modern life relies on oil byproducts and adjusting to there being no oil will be very painfull.
For my part I cycle everywhere up to 10 miles distant and use my motorcycles for longer distances. As I'm unemployed I'm going through an involuntary simplicity programme of my own and learning to live on £27 per week.

David.

Simon · « **Reply #17 on:** June 05, 2010, 01:45:59 pm »

Well the yanks are size mad, I know you need a large car to travel long distances but they do rather overdo everything just because they can, i feel a little guilty at owning a 1.8L mondeo but i drive with car, service it regularly and often move stuff and when going out with friends offer them a lift so we use less petrol overall even if it means I'm the one driving all the time

Perfectphase · « **Reply #18 on:** June 06, 2010, 02:16:02 am »

kc1980 · « **Reply #19 on:** June 06, 2010, 03:54:49 am »

you feel guilty with a 1.8L!?!! wow. my car is a 2.0L and it's considered very small. I'd say that the average engine displacement in the US is over 3.0L. We are crazy.

But of course, we need the extra engine power to cart our extra fat reserves around town. i don't think the average American will fit in a typical European car. we're too damn fat.

Simon · « **Reply #20 on:** June 06, 2010, 06:47:02 am »

Quote from: kc1980 on June 06, 2010, 03:54:49 am

you feel guilty with a 1.8L!?!! wow. my car is a 2.0L and it's considered very small. I'd say that the average engine displacement in the US is over 3.0L. We are crazy.

But of course, we need the extra engine power to cart our extra fat reserves around town. i don't think the average American will fit in a typical European car. we're too damn fat.

Excuse me but my 1.8L mondeo is the mark II and guess why it is bigger than the MKI ? because the americans did not like the MK1 being so "small" ok it's not a massive car but in my view it is big and perfectly adequate for any domestic use. I'm sure my 1.8L engine can carry anyones weight especially when it's carrying only one person. at present I'm getting 9.5 mile to the litre and hope to get a bit more now that I've unblocked the pipe that fed back from the engine to the air filter (the filtering sponge covering it was soaked in oil).

The mondeo MK2 also rolls beautifully, I know all the spots around my area where i can maintain my desired speed even by rolling, I also don'y accelerate like I'm trying to do 0-100 in 1 second i let the car slowly get up speed even if it's over a mile when I'm heading out onto a main road, I generally don't do more than 60 mph, with such a size engine it copes beautifully at lower speeds (2-2500 rpm) as it has the power even at lower speeds and uses less fuel than running a 1.8L engine at over 2500 rpm just to do 70 mph

NiHaoMike · « **Reply #21 on:** June 06, 2010, 02:03:43 pm »

Quote

But of course, we need the extra engine power to cart our extra fat reserves around town. i don't think the average American will fit in a typical European car. we're too damn fat.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/156363600_3.html

Quote

This article studies the economic impact of obesity on passenger vehicle fuel consumption. Three cases are used to quantify passenger weight in a vehicle, given a driver and a number of non-driving passengers. The results indicate that nearly one billion additional gallons of fuel are consumed annually in the United States as a result of average passenger weight increases since 1960. This is nearly three times the daily amount of fuel consumed by passenger vehicles in the United States. This amount is a conservative lower bound on the total amount of fuel consumed across all modes of transportation due to increases in average passenger weight, since passenger vehicle travel accounts for approximately 67% of the total amount of fuel consumed by the transportation sector (U.S. DOT, BTS, 2006).

That is about 5 times as much oil (based on a 100,000 barrel/day estimate) as what has leaked from the BP well so far. Every year. That shows how obesity is so dirty!

Here's a few quotes I made up about obesity and fuel economy:
"If America were to eliminate obesity, we would save as much fuel as if every American were to stop driving for three days every year."

"If America were to eliminate obesity, we would save as much fuel as replacing 1 million Hummers with Allie Moore Prius." (The Allie Moore Prius is my concept of a modified Prius that gets 500 MPG. I named it after an environmentalist in my area.)

"I should have blamed Jean Ma for the high gas prices, not the neighbor's Hummer." (Jean Ma is someone I met in high school. She's fat and very mean. Funny part is that "Jean Ma" roughly means "golden horse" in Chinese. "Massive Golden Horse" spells out MGH, the formula for potential energy. And she's storing a lot of that in the form of fat!)

"I want to be more skinny like Allie Moore... For more MPGs!" (Allie Moore (the environmentalist) is very skinny. She's my best friend.)

Simon · « **Reply #22 on:** June 06, 2010, 03:02:12 pm »

I'm not sure how weight makes a difference to mpg, my car coped very well with 4 people and our luggage for a week, pretty much as well as me on my own.

I think individual cars vary, My 1.8L gets 9.5 mpl (and maybe better later), my old hyundai atoz which weighs little over half with a 1L engine still only gets 11 mpl so i think it is also down to engine design, my 1.6 ton 1.8L car can handle a variety of situations better from cruising to doodling round town coping rather well because I can run as low as 1500rpm in 4th gear at 30 mph and do just fine while at 55 mph I'm doing just 2250 rpm


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Author Topic: BP Oil Spill... (Read 10510 times)

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