Any of this sound familiar?:
Sounds like an account of Deepwater Horizon, doesn't it? Nope. It's from a May 2000 offshore drilling plan for Shell Oil authored by the Minerals Management Service. So what happened?:
But before we put all the blame on the Bush administration:
So who is to blame? In a word, us. Our lifestyles. Our insatiable appetite for more, bigger, more powerful, more energy consuming everything. If we're looking for someone to blame for Deepwater Horizon we can find the responsible party in the nearest mirror.
I'm as guilty as anyone, so I'll use myself as an example. There were four of us in the 900 square foot, 2 bedroom, 1 bath, home I grew up in. We had one television, one car, the dishwasher was our hands, and the clothes dryer was the line between 2 poles in the back yard. We had one window unit air conditioner, and one wall heater. For entertainment there were no PlayStations and computers. The kids in the neighborhood, who all lived in similar houses, got together and played baseball. Or for the times when no one was around my dad put up a backboard and hoop and I shot baskets in the driveway.
Now I live in a house more than 1 ½ times that size by myself. Central air, central heat, electric dryer, dishwasher, big screen TV in the living room and a smaller TV in the bedroom, a desktop and a laptop computer. For exercise I drive several miles to the gym and back. All of what we now consider the necessities of modern life. But all these things require multiple times the energy, and that energy has to come from somewhere. So, drill they must.
Now, I'm not saying we should go back to the way things were in the 60's and 70's. The advances in technology, for example, that gave us computers allow us to have these discussions here every day and that's a good thing. What I'm saying is this. We all want renewable energy and alternatives to fossil fuels. But realistically those things are years if not decades from being developed enough to be available in the necessary quantities. For the foreseeable future we are an oil-based economy and society.
If we want to reduce our dependency on oil there are some things we can all do right now. In a word---conserve. Drive less, turn up the thermostat a few degrees in the summer, and down a few in the winter, to name just a few. I believe the statistics are that we get 20% of our domestic oil supply from wells in the Gulf of Mexico. If we cut back 20% on usage it seems to me that would at least curtail the need for exploration that keeps taking us farther out, deeper down, and riskier.
We might be a little less comfortable and have a few less electric and electronic gadgets and gizmos, but if it prevents a repeat of the current catastrophe we're witnessing, wouldn't it be worth it?
"... a major deepwater oil spill could start with a fire on a drilling rig, prove hard to stop and cause extensive damage to fish eggs and wetlands because there were few good ways to capture oil underwater.
Regaining well control in deep water may be a problem since it could require the operator to cap and control well flow at the seabed in greater water depths
Spills in deep water may be larger due to the high production rates associated with deepwater wells and the length of time it could take to stop the source of pollution.
The chemical dispersants required to clean up a major spill would expose adult birds to a combination of oil and dispersant that could reduce chick survival.
Fish eggs and larvae within a potentially large area of the northern Gulf would be killed.
...a large blowout could have severe adverse impacts for wetland areas.
Not all the spilled oil would rise to the surface, and there are few practical spill response options for dealing with submerged oil. [G]as surging from a blowout could form hydrates and remain deep underwater, a likely cause of some toxic subsea oil plumes..."
Sounds like an account of Deepwater Horizon, doesn't it? Nope. It's from a May 2000 offshore drilling plan for Shell Oil authored by the Minerals Management Service. So what happened?:
"...over the past decade, the risks faded into the background as America thirsted for new oil sources, the energy industry mastered new drilling technologies and the number of deepwater wells in the Gulf swelled into the thousands. Then-President George W. Bush ushered in the new era with an executive order on May 18, 2001, that pushed his new administration to speed up the search for oil."
But before we put all the blame on the Bush administration:
"...the MMS under the Obama administration...approved dozens of deepwater exploration plans that downplayed the threat of blowouts to marine life and fisheries."
So who is to blame? In a word, us. Our lifestyles. Our insatiable appetite for more, bigger, more powerful, more energy consuming everything. If we're looking for someone to blame for Deepwater Horizon we can find the responsible party in the nearest mirror.
I'm as guilty as anyone, so I'll use myself as an example. There were four of us in the 900 square foot, 2 bedroom, 1 bath, home I grew up in. We had one television, one car, the dishwasher was our hands, and the clothes dryer was the line between 2 poles in the back yard. We had one window unit air conditioner, and one wall heater. For entertainment there were no PlayStations and computers. The kids in the neighborhood, who all lived in similar houses, got together and played baseball. Or for the times when no one was around my dad put up a backboard and hoop and I shot baskets in the driveway.
Now I live in a house more than 1 ½ times that size by myself. Central air, central heat, electric dryer, dishwasher, big screen TV in the living room and a smaller TV in the bedroom, a desktop and a laptop computer. For exercise I drive several miles to the gym and back. All of what we now consider the necessities of modern life. But all these things require multiple times the energy, and that energy has to come from somewhere. So, drill they must.
Now, I'm not saying we should go back to the way things were in the 60's and 70's. The advances in technology, for example, that gave us computers allow us to have these discussions here every day and that's a good thing. What I'm saying is this. We all want renewable energy and alternatives to fossil fuels. But realistically those things are years if not decades from being developed enough to be available in the necessary quantities. For the foreseeable future we are an oil-based economy and society.
If we want to reduce our dependency on oil there are some things we can all do right now. In a word---conserve. Drive less, turn up the thermostat a few degrees in the summer, and down a few in the winter, to name just a few. I believe the statistics are that we get 20% of our domestic oil supply from wells in the Gulf of Mexico. If we cut back 20% on usage it seems to me that would at least curtail the need for exploration that keeps taking us farther out, deeper down, and riskier.
We might be a little less comfortable and have a few less electric and electronic gadgets and gizmos, but if it prevents a repeat of the current catastrophe we're witnessing, wouldn't it be worth it?
Except, of course, I don't have an SUV. (See post below)
:-)
If you want to save a bunch of oil (gasoline) then shut down the drive through windows at All these fast food restaurants. All these lazy people sitting in their cars, engines idling, ALL OVER THE COUNTRY, is unecessary. You get faster service INSIDE anyway.
Get off your fat ass and park that damn monstrous SUV while they make your food and pick it up. I DO!
..
:-(
Who is minding the Hen house? I am most upset that the US government allows a foreign corporation to drill down miles in the Gulf with no oversight. Or so it appears that way to me. Now we are hearing about all these permits and applications submitted by BP to the MMS that are riddled with errors - who is accountable?
Well, all this talk about savings in the home is just fine, but it ignores the facts that burning of oil fuels for domestic electricity generation (since that's what the post mostly talks about) is a small proportion of total oil use. Air travel is a big one, and you could likely make the same difference as a year's worth of electricity savings by taking one less flight. But noone wants to do that, right? I mean, we all like and sometimes need to move around, and what alternatives are there? And there's the rub... the state of ground-based high-speed transportation in the US is just abysmal. Take a look at the high-speed rail networks covering Europe. And these aren't rickety old trains, these are comfortable and smooth vehicles offering superior comfort and convenience to air travel. I just see so little effective action on US oil use that it's depressing.
Hey carguy maybe we can't pin the blame on that dick Cheney but how about Ronald Reagan? He's the one that loosened (hey look chron wingnut losers, I used "loose" correctly) the EPA mileage requirements on cars. For the longest time I drove a 93 Ford Escort until I drove it into the ground (actually it was put out of its misery by an idiot red light runner) at 230,000 miles. Shame as the engine was still running great. I got 35 MPG average city & highway. 45 mpg if I drove like a granny on the highway. Although my dream was to buy a Prius, even used was out of my price range. So I got a used 2001 Escort. Mileage? Barely 30 mpg straight highway with a tailwind going downhill. And it's a smaller car than the 93. Jeez.
Though in all honesty, in college I had a 73 Ford Gran Torino with a 351 cu in engine and did I enjoy that baby!
On a more positive note, I have a solar cell phone charger, solar powered flashlight & radio, solar battery charger (the radio/flashlight, duh!), CFL or LED lighting throughout the house, and have never used a dishwasher in my life. Well actually we use it to air dry the hand washed dishes to be 100% correct.
Carguy, I am damned proud of you. I feel for your wife, but impressed nonetheless. ;-)
TMI! LOL!
I really hate it when we stumble across something, like this, that we can't blame Bush for. Even that dick Cheney is, apparently, blameless. Although Halliburton/KBR may shoulder some guilt, I don't think we throw out a large enough net to catch "the dick".
No doubt the fact that we hadn't had a big blow out since that Mexican well, what was it Ixtoc or something like that, complacency at MMS and ALL the oil companies became rampant.
I guess, Tony will eventually stop the flow and we'll eventually clean up the mess. I can see the cost of a shrimp po-boy at Landry's topping $25.00 though. Every time I go to Galveston those seagulls and pelicans crap on my car. Now what I should I expect? I'm pretty sure they're mighty pissed off at us humans.
Does anybody know if they can use any of the oil they are recovering?
Lastly, I live in a small, 1,600 s/ft house and my wife and I drive less than 4 miles each way to work in our 4 cylinder cars. And sometimes, just sometimes, I wear the same underwear for two days, if I'm gonna do yard work tomorrow.
Bet you could decrease your use of electricity by 30% by spending about $100.00 and two half weekends.
Did it myself and know dozens of others who have as well.
Well said.
The enemy is hubris and our human failing to 'just do it'; to not be a panty-waisted rules-follower.
BUT in highly-organized, highly-specialized First World economies highly dependent on specialized engineering and highly-specialized market economies with flattened hierarchies to 'empower employees' on the line, procedures are created and employees are trained to follow them EXACTLY in order to avoid disasters.
There are many examples of this, ranging from airline security procedures to the litany of BP's own mis-adventures.
Corporate internals today are different than they were 20-30 years ago; they are different this week than last week, and they will change even faster going forward.
We must remember - If you sweat the small stuff, there ain't no big stuff !
The corporate watch-phrase should always be: what could go wrong ?
Many of us could live in the way that T. van Esch describes. I used to as a young adult, and would probably be a happier person if I did today (or at least would have one less thing for residual Catholic guilt to attach to).
Of course, having our cities centralized, with good, reliable public transport, as they have in Belgium, is a critical component of this. My workplace is far from where I live, and I drive to it. It would be unsafe and very time consuming to walk from where I live to shops and other businesses. These things ought not to be the case. But appropriate urban planning would require the razing or abandonment of much of suburban, exurban, and even urban America.
My youngest daughter lived in Dominica for a year - just moved to Michigan in January. In Dominica - very high heat and very high humidity - electricity is extremely expensive. They have meters you can turn on and off to save electricity costs. The meters have large red lights on them that flash when you are consuming electricity. She said it took almost no time for her to train herself to monitor the flashing red light.
I've seen, and I'm sure ya'll have too - those bicycles you ride to generate the electricity to watch the teevee. Maybe what we need is a requirement that all teevees be operated that way. I can just imagine faux news enthusiasts pumping away!
The man in the mirror has always been the scariest monster, IMO.
I read this somewhere earlier: the change that is most successful is incremental, not radical.
If we all begin to make some subtle changes, it can truly make a difference. Although I'm not opposed to breaking a few eggs now and then! (Sorry for the mixed metaphors)
Your childhood sounds very similar to mine. Except there were 6 of us in a two bedroom one thousand sq. ft. home. One TV, one bath, one gas space heater that we all huddled around in the winter and one window A/C unit that did not cool the entire house down so we would take our sleeping bags and crash on the living room floor to keep cool.
And I agree 100% with you about our lifestyle. My A/C is currently set at 74, my home is almost twice as large as the one I grew up in with 1/2 the number of occupants. Multiple laptops, an office where the computer stays on almost 24/7 and two cars in the driveway.
None of us our guilt free. However a long term energy policy that totally revamps how we travel and generate electricity needs to be the national focus.
It is certainly true that we all shoulder some of the blame.
The first step toward mitigating damage caused by this activity is to admit our guilt in being part of the problem. The next step is to do something about it.
We are (my husband and I) certainly more guilty than you, although we are getting better.
We don't have the solar power that I would love to have as it is not affordable to us. We are turning up the air conditioning to a much higher setting than in the past and we keep the setting very low in the winter. I do less loads of dishes and clothes, but still have a long way to go.
I think that Des was totally correct in his post that we are all going to have to start giving up many of the comforts that we currently enjoy in order to cut back on our consumption of energy - and it all starts with each of us.
Now, if I could just figure out a way to get to the grocery store from where I live without having to drive...
Well, me for one is less guilty than you present you are.
I still live, with my girlfriend, in a relatively smaal house with only heating on the places it should heat. And cold sleeping rooms. Gives us space to heat it ourselves, at night. We get our electricity from a 100% green supplier: www.ecopower.be. They create it out of wind, sun, water and compost.
We don't have a dishwasher; by hand gives us a meditational moment, most of the days. Of course we have a laundry washer, and no, we don't have a dryer. Line-dried clothes in the outside smell better than heated clothes from those blowers.
Yes, we have computers and no we don't have big televisions. We never watch that bullshit, only movies with a projector. And, like I said, we use our electricity 'green'.
We have 2 second hand stores, running on green electricity, off course, and selling Big Brands (Armani, Versace, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Hermès, Delvaux, you-name-it)
So, no, I'm not as guilty as "modern living" demands. "Modern Living", as you present it, is for me "Fossil Living", with fossil banks and a fossil economy consisting of glue-based "wooden furniture" from Ikea. I'm not a fossil to be tapped, I'm a living and breeding person.
"Blowout control options in ultra-deepwater are very limited. Blowout prevention is of paramount importance. "
Larry Flak
Boots & Coots
January, 1997