Cyrus said:
While that is a fair enough statement, I'd need some sort of verification to the statement: "it is more vulnerable now in ways it has not been in the past," as it is not immediately clear to me if this is indeed the case or not.
Fair enough; the link I provided Evo as well as NOAA, USN data are very reliable compared to independent research in this field which is often skewed to the environmentalist view, or an industry view.
Cyrus said:
Again, wait until the damage is done before making premonitions.
I can't imagine a scenario in which strong inland waves and winds blowing 200,000 gallons of oil per day towards the coastlines anything but damaging. As Evo said, first you get big tar-balls from the oil that has had a chance to congeal in the water and evaporate some volatiles. Then you get thicker soupier slugs, and then slick. It's not as bad as 87 million gallons just dumped on the surface (a la Exxon-Valdez), but it's still going to have a serious effect.
Examples off the top of my head:
1: All filter feeders, such as bivalves are going to be effected. Eat an oyster from the gulf after they spend some time sucking crude, and you can taste it. Now, filter feeders tend to be build to handle crap, but the fish, crustaceons, cephalopds, et al do not.
2: Sea birds. This has been, sadly, very well studied.
3: Whales
This wouldn't be so terrible if they could perform more controlled burns, but there's too much chop and wind! I'm not saying this is the end of world, but while the magnitude is unusual, the event itself is not.
Cyrus said:
That's exactly right, we don't know all the facts - which is why I have asked people to hold off and wait until the situation is assessed to the damages (or lack thereof). As for the predictability argument, I don't buy it. Again, show me statistically how common this type of problem is, and then we can make statements about the "predictability" of it occurring.
It's predictable, not the failure, but the need for the valve to prevent this kind of disaster. Whatever happened to actually blow the rig sky-high, that valve should still have failed SHUT. That's not to say that someone with a black hat stood there twirling their mustache; I doubt that rig workers or owners wanted to lose that investment, and lives, not to mention all of this oil. I'm not placing blame, but drilling into unpredictable pressure vessels is inherently risky, and disaster is predictable. Planes will crash, boats will capsize, and pipes will fail. You're being very sensitive to this issue, maybe you work in oil, either way I understand. Please know that I'm not placing blame anywhere, but that doesn't mean that such risks cannot be predicted. These companies don't spend half a million USD on a safety valve for fun, they do it because accidents and disasters occur.
You can ask people not to speculate, but that's never going to happen. The best I think we can hope for is that this isn't used an excuse to slam oil in general, but that it DOES highlight inherent risks beyond the pollutant issue.
No, I simply said - you have not made a case for nuclear power. Period. Nuclear power has its own waste issues. Simply waiving your wand and saying "see, this is why we need nuclear" leaves much to be desired.[/QUOTE]
The problem with nuclear waste is political, not practical. The technology exists to create a central dump for it, with dedicated rail if we made the choice. It's a NIMBY issue, like wind-farms, only radioactive. Yucca Mountain was just foolish given the location, but that doesn't mean the basic idea isn't sound. At some point we have to tackle that issue... why not now?
