Articles tagged with: BP
Do Government Regulations Kill Jobs?
Mit Romney, in his quest to become our next president, keeps referring to the “Day by day job killing regulations, bureaucrat by bureaucrat that (are) crushing our dream.” How many dreams were crushed by the dismantling of financial regulations over the past several administrations which caused financial ruin for millions who lost their jobs and even their homes not to mention their retirement funds and it isn’t over yet.
Worse Than BP Spill?
It’s hard to quantify, but the number of underground coal fires in this country, estimated at close to 200, and those in the rest of the world are almost impossible to estimate. China alone burns at least 10 million tons of coal in these underground infernos every year. Dan Cray brought this problem to light in a Time magazine article at http://www.time. He says every coal field in the world has these fires, with most in developed or developing countries. The amount of green house gases spewed out by these fires is staggering, with some having burned for 48 years.
How Big a Disaster is Big Enough?
Back in September of 2009 I wrote the following paragraph. It was a comment decrying the seeming inability of the public to grasp the true nature of our coming energy crisis. Here is the quote.
"What we really need is a dose of reality. A climate disaster might wake some people up, for a little while, but it would have to be catastrophic to have any real impact. The 2008 oil crisis did some good in calling attention to the energy crisis, but it didn't last. A large portion of the general public refuses to believe that climate change is anything other than a hoax perpetrated by those in power to bleed us dry and ruin our economy."
BP Is Our Wake Up Call
The horrendously expensive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is our wake up call. It will likely change how we obtain oil, where it comes from and what it costs. We know that at some future time it will cost more than it does to get it out of the ground. At that point we must be well on our way to replacing it as the cheap alternative. Oil will not totally go away, as there are many applications that really can't easily replace it, such as flying. We can make airplanes much more efficient, however. There are many promising ways to make fuel like gasoline and many alternatives to the internal combustion engine.
Keep Your Fingers Crossed
BP has its new improved cap in place for its run away oil well. In the next day or two we will know if it will contain the beast that has already caused such damage and cost so much money. The Obama Administration has issued yet another moratorium on off-shore drilling, the first one having been struck down by a federal judge. It specified only deep water wells. The new moratorium makes no such distinction. It refers to all offshore drilling, meaning no drilling company would be discriminated against.
Offshore Time Bomb?
Do we have an offshore time bomb? The Associated Press reports that there are 27,000 abandoned wells in the Gulf of Mexico. BP alone has about 600 of these. Wells are abandoned for a number of reason. They can become depleted, oil companies can shut them down waiting for a higher oil price, or they can become damaged by storms. I don't know if you had any idea there were that many wells in the Gulf of Mexico or that so many are abandoned. I sure didn't realize such numbers. Wells that are permanently abandoned are supposed to be sealed with special concrete. Wells abandoned temporarily, for a variety of reasons are typically not sealed as well as those being shut down permanently. Seals can fail for a variety of reasons. Even sealed wells on land can fail. Underwater chances for failure are even greater.
Pit Spitting Contest? Day 77
In today's Arizona daily Star, I couldn't find a single word about the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. We're in day 77 of oil gushing into Gulf waters. I guess they figure the public is tired of hearing about it and want to focus on more interesting subjects like a pit spitting contest or the voice of Disney's Cinderella passing away. There was, however, an interesting article in the online version of the New York Times by David Kocienniewski. It told of how oil companies like Trans Ocean and Deep Water Horizon have "moved" their company's mail boxes to foreign countries to avoid paying taxes in the United States, this on top of millions in tax breaks. The owners of Trans Ocean, whose headquarters were in Houston, moved to the Cayman Islands in 1999, a traditional haven for tax dodgers, then to Switzerland in 2008. BP was at this time reaping a tax break of $225,000 a day for rental of Trans Ocean's drilling rig. Spend money on safety? Not a chance.
Jonah Goldberg's "True Green Fuel" #5
Comments on Jonah Goldberg's column of June 19, 2010, in which he states that oil is the "True green fuel."
His rationale for this outlandish statement: If you remove the argument over climate change from the equation...fossil fuels have been one of the great boons to humanity and the environment.
First, you cannot remove climate change from the equation. Admittedly the age of oil has afforded many technological advancements, growing more food to allow more people to thrive and population to soar. Industry would not have been possible on the scale to which it has risen without oil. It has given us leisure time and given some of us great wealth, although not to major parts of the world's population. While It has raised the standard of living of those with oil, it has not raised the quality of life for a very large portion of the world's population to whom these benefits are denied. That which allows population to grow unfettered is not a great boon to mankind. It makes sustainability of our life styles less and less attainable by the world's growing population. Oil is a finite commodity and the population growth permitted by oil is unsustainable. Relying on oil to the exclusion of that which can become sustainable is folly.