MaxxLarge: Which oil company is behind this site, anyway? Every time there's a thread about the leak, and how BP seems to be more interested in finding ways to continue harvesting the oil instead of stopping it, some twit throws a link to this blog in there. Like this explains anything. It doesn't. It's a big quasi-earnest, supposedly-independent apologist screed about how they're really doing everything they can so please believe them.

I think people are a little tired of BP sympathizers by now.

3/10

I would rather take the word of somebody who actually knows a thing or two about sub-sea well drilling than someone who wants to politicize the explanation against BP.

Also you apparently DNRTFA. He explains about how the drillers reportedly cut corners while cementing the pipe to the well wall, leading to the precise situation you see now. Hardly an apologist.

"who cares, it's done, end of story, will probably be fine."

All we need now is a hurricane. Um.

Are people still talking about bailing out BP? Let the British do it. I'm sick of sending my money to European companies.

I hope the guy isn't right.

TigerStar: Boycott BP! Their stock is diving. Perhaps, the precious "free market" can send them into bankruptcy.

Oh not another one of you morons.
Hint: very few BP stations are directly owned by BP.

redundantman: DistendedP[...] Clinton did it.

.

Oh yeah, SEXUAL RELATIONS! My point is that MY political party is pure as the driven snow and YOURS is CORRUPT.

/and my CAPS LOCK key is BORKEN

GODDAMMIT YOUR RONG FAMILY VALUES DERP

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Sallyvolved: Are people still talking about bailing out BP? Let the British do it. I'm sick of sending my money to European companies.

Damn straight. American money should be sent where it belongs: Chinese and Indian companies.

MaxxLarge: Flab: You think this was written by a BP apologist? Seriously?

Read it again. I just did. The tone of the whole piece is mostly, "Gee, it sure does suck that this unfortunate thing is happening. Too bad all of the valiant stoppage attempts by BP that totally should have worked didn't. I guess we'd just better prepare ourselves for things to get worse before those valiant engineers find some way to make it better."

Nowhere is there any mention of their negligence, culpability, or missteps. Just a big tongue bath about how unfortunate the whole thing is, and about how there could be structural damage that makes fixing it almost impossible.

Golly, gee...tsk, tsk. Better grab your ankles and brace yourselves, folks. At least there's plenty of lube to go around.

Yes because anybody who isn't foaming at the mouth in a rage is obviously on the side of TEH EVUL OIL COMPANIES.

dead_dangler: Sallyvolved: Are people still talking about bailing out BP? Let the British do it. I'm sick of sending my money to European companies.

Damn straight. American money should be sent where it belongs: Chinese and Indian companies.

Bhopal was a gas.

rhino33: [...]s well and earlier "Well control" situations that were revieled in various internal BP e-mails. I will add several links to those documents and quotes from them below and for now, address the issues concerning the upper portion of the well and the region of the sea floor.

The Transocean investigation shows four well control events before the Big One. One was big enough to shut the whole rig down.

And then BP thought they could turn their back on it.

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Maybe now isn't a good time to laud the efficient money-making skills of MBA-carrying executives who are not burdened by the unprofitable real-world knowledge of grunt-level employees?

Funny. When I was a younger man I worked as an apprentice for a industrial plumber. Whenever he needs to plug a HPIW leak that had breached a seal, they'd insert a tool that looked liked a giant tapered cork screw. And screwed it into place. Why can't they do this?

Naturally occurring carbon deposits are leaking in to the ocean? Oh NOES!

See Page 14 (new window)

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We already kinda hashed out how silly this "informed" article is in another thread:

Link

In a nutshell, this is a scary story that bears little examination by science. It's kinda similar to that thing in Independence Day where Jeff Goldblum uses his mac laptop to infect the alien computer with a virus. If all you know about computers is that they control things, can get things called viruses that take them over, and that both the alien system and the laptop are "computers", the plot makes sense. To anyone with knowledge of computers, not so much.

Same deal here. It's like someone saying "What if the oil was hit by a hurricane, and what if that aerosolized it into the air, and then a big wind spread it over the mainland, and then what if something ignited it? If all that happened it would be just exactly like a FAE bomb because that's how they work! Imagine if there was a bomb that big, I'll bet it's bigger than a nuke! I'd better let people know. They'll think I'm smart, because no one has ever thought of this! Otherwise I would have heard."

Like a bad sci-fi movie, if you buy the premise the rest of it sort of makes sense. If you don't, it's all ridiculous.

indarwinsshadow: Funny. When I was a younger man I worked as an apprentice for a industrial plumber. Whenever he needs to plug a HPIW leak that had breached a seal, they'd insert a tool that looked liked a giant tapered cork screw. And screwed it into place. Why can't they do this?

Well there is a thing called an overshot fishing tool that they could use to fish the junk out with. But that would involve opening up the BOP all the way. And other shiat might shoot out, such as the production liner, busted drill pipe, plugs and packoffs, God knows what. After that, closing the BOP might be. . .

Do you want to risk that?

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Thunderpipes: Naturally occurring carbon deposits are leaking in to the ocean? Oh NOES!

Oh, you're good...

tl;dr

This is a wonderfully informative website for people who want to educate themselves about something they will never have any need of knowing, nor can do anything about.

MaxxLarge: Dubai Vol: Stick to limericks.

Go to hell.

At least tell him to go to hell in limerick form.

Voiceofreason01: In summary: we are FARKED

Well, we are boned either way.

After all the trauma of high energy prices and the conversion to other means of transportation, maybe we will be less boned.

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indarwinsshadow: Funny. When I was a younger man I worked as an apprentice for a industrial plumber. Whenever he needs to plug a HPIW leak that had breached a seal, they'd insert a tool that looked liked a giant tapered cork screw. And screwed it into place. Why can't they do this?

Did you read the article? The author likened it to a leaky garden hose. Not only is the pipe under the sink leaking, there are holes and cracks in the pipes underneath. Capping will cause the pipes below to leak more, and risks rupturing them entirely. But unlike a house, the pipes underneath are inaccessible. So they are just letting it flow to relieve pressure on the compromised system.

Let's worry about what's happening on the surface first

Wow, if the rest of it is as much a car wreck as the opening paragraph, you people have my respect for trudging through that mess. Thing reads like a 7th grade current events project.

Please stop calling this an article. It's a patchwork forum post by some unnamed "oil guy". Linking to a handful of articles and pictures is a start, but we're gonna need a sh*t ton of citation for that wall of text.

acaciaavenue: This is a wonderfully informative website for people who want to educate themselves about something they will never have any need of knowing, nor can do anything about.

Basically, this.

I found TOD via Fark and have been following along ever since...their running threads in one tab, a multi-view of the ROVs in another. I didn't want to know all this stuff....it's kind of like how the world gets a geography lesson whenever we're heading into war.

Thunderpipes: Naturally occurring carbon deposits are leaking in to the ocean? Oh NOES!

Fartbongo needs to do something.

illicit: MaxxLarge: Dubai Vol: Stick to limericks.

Go to hell.

At least tell him to go to hell in limerick form.

There once was a guy named MaxxLarge
Whose piehole resembled a barge
He frothed at the mouth
On events in the south
But his screed was just toxic discharge

stryker4526: TigerStar: Boycott BP! Their stock is diving. Perhaps, the precious "free market" can send them into bankruptcy.

Oh not another one of you morons.
Hint: very few BP stations are directly owned by BP.

The owners of the stations are usually locked into 20 year contracts where the must purchase oil from BP, all their transactions via credit or debit card are also held by BP for 7 days to squeeze interest out of them.

Boycott BP

syrynxx: No amount of ass-kicking is going to stop the well from leaking, it seems. That's a pretty frightening worst-case scenario - 150,000 barrels (not gallons) per day until Christmas the reserve is emptied completely?

rhino33: really? you think this was written by BP sympathizers?! while i might be skeptical of the whole surface pipe break theory, the rest of the article is well researched and well written. there are links to the resources at the bottom if you're willing to actually take your blinders off an learn something.

Well, I don't know about "well written." It could have used an editor, I caught several annoying errors within the first quarter as it was. I'm sure the person does know what he's talking about, but I wouldn't call it a quality article. Kind of the same way office memos or forum posts aren't edited to perfection.

Informative, but not quality.

stryker4526: TigerStar: Boycott BP! Their stock is diving. Perhaps, the precious "free market" can send them into bankruptcy.

Oh not another one of you morons.
Hint: very few BP stations are directly owned by BP.

Why does BP have gas stations?

TOP KILL - FAILS:
This was probably our best and only chance to kill this well from the top down. This "kill mud" is a tried and true method of killing wells and usually has a very good chance of success. The depth of this well presented some logistical challenges, but it really should not of presented any functional obstructions. The pumping capacity was there and it would have worked, should have worked, but it didn't.

This is the point that I started being skeptical that we are reading the words of an educated, well-informed individual. If you can't pass 7th grade english, I don't need your opinion on the BP disaster.

MaxxLarge: Which oil company is behind this site, anyway? Every time there's a thread about the leak, and how BP seems to be more interested in finding ways to continue harvesting the oil instead of stopping it, some twit throws a link to this blog in there. Like this explains anything. It doesn't. It's a big quasi-earnest, supposedly-independent apologist screed about how they're really doing everything they can so please believe them.

I think people are a little tired of BP sympathizers by now.

THIS.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that when all the oil comes out, the floor will collapse. Or at least something bad will happen.

And as far as teh guy bashing rense and then suggesting we all go to oil drum.....oil drum has an article about how rense might be right.

Of course oil drum says it's speculation and rumor, and it is, but if industry insiders are even mentioning sea floor collapse, that means it's possible. Maybe not probable, but possible.

No one should take this lightly, and read articles that try to minimze what's going on, and what could happen. That's irresponsible and sticking your head in the (oily) sand.

Too long; did read. Now it will haunt my dreams. Thanks.

Put a wedding band on the pipe. It'll stop putting out almost immediately.

But everyone is telling us that Obama can just go yell at the thing and it will stop. Are you telling me that talking heads and armchair pundits had no clue what was going on?

I'm shocked.

Clearly, this is a case of a company trying to hide the facts for as long as possible from the press and government. Seriously, does anyone actually believe anything BP says anymore?

That was a depressing article...

The_Shoggoth:

This is the point that I started being skeptical that we are reading the words of an educated, well-informed individual. If you can't pass 7th grade english, I don't need your opinion on the BP disaster.

Have you dealt with many engineer-types? Most of us can't write worth a damn. It's a real problem...we should be able to communicate our thoughts and knowledge via paper and pen. But most of just cannot.

Headso: stryker4526: TigerStar: Boycott BP! Their stock is diving. Perhaps, the precious "free market" can send them into bankruptcy.

Oh not another one of you morons.
Hint: very few BP stations are directly owned by BP.

The owners of the stations are usually locked into 20 year contracts where the must purchase oil from BP, all their transactions via credit or debit card are also held by BP for 7 days to squeeze interest out of them.

Boycott BP

Ha... you think gas stations exclusively purchase their branded gasoline? Cute. Also, how does this change the fact that BP stations are not owned by BP and boycotting them will not hurt BP in any way?

We're all dead.The well will only stop gushing when the sun expands and devours the Earth.