Tuesday, 08 June 2010 17:15
We're at Day fifty of the worst environmental disaster in history and there is some hope. BP has put a cap on the runaway well that captures between 25-75% of the oil spewing out a mile below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. That's quite a spread. Should we believe these numbers? Even if it is capturing half of the flow, it's about the amount originally estimated right after the giant deep water drilling rig blew up. They claim to be working on a new cap which could capture more. All of the vents on the current cap haven't been closed for fear that it will freeze up and prevent the cap from working properly.
Meanwhile BP's CEO, Tony Hayward. appears on network TV spending millions of dollars trying to tell us how sorry he is for running his company in a reckless way, causing this disaster, He manages to furrow his brow and look appropriately sad, but the millions of dollars spent on TV ads should be going to help clean up the mess and reimburse those whose lives have been destroyed by his company's recklessness. The money paid to the victims is about the same paid for the TV ads. Should someone go to jail for this mess? If negligence resulted in the deaths of the workers killed in the rig explosion then yes it is possible. However, as a pundit on a recent CNN news show said, "It isn't a crime to be incompetent."
We need to pursue alternative sources of energy instead of stretching the limits of technology to squeeze every drop of oil from risky operations.