Pete
Recycles dryer sheets
- Joined
- May 9, 2008
- Messages
- 350
Anyone being, or gonna be, affected by the oil spill?
I don't mean to belittle this serious question at all, but I think it is entirely possible that things like oysters on the halfshell, and maybe even Gulf shrimp may become things of the past.
Anyone being, or gonna be, affected by the oil spill?
Yeah. There was a piece on one of the dinner-hour network news programs about the 20th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska. There is considerable areas of the coastline that, today, looks like the "accident" happened only yesterday -- still coated with an oily sludge. So we are looking at 20-years anyway of loss of seashore areas along the Gulf of Mexico. We do live in interesting times.
This is the best thing that could have happened to the California coast.
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10 years ago I passed the area on a cruise ship. If they had not announced it, I wouldn't have known. From our vantage point at least, I couldn't see any damage at all. Maybe different up close though.
I have not followed this spill closely, but I'm confused by the reports I've heard. On one hand, it sounds like a huge disaster. OTOH, I hear reports about finding a bird (singular) covered in oil, or (again singular) a bird that was killed. And the tar balls that washed up on a shore had to be tested to even determine if they were from the spill, and then they determined that they were not. That doesn't sound so bad if they can't even tell them from other (natural?) sources). I'm confused. Maybe it's just the fact that this is far from shore, the damage is widespread versus pinpoint.
Put in perspective, I imagine the cumulative environmental damage from coal mining is far worse, but I fear we will get a 'oil drilling is bad' response on this, w/o considering the alternatives.
-ERD50
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Put in perspective, I imagine the cumulative environmental damage from coal mining is far worse, but I fear we will get a 'oil drilling is bad' response on this, w/o considering the alternatives.
-ERD50
I'm nowhere near the Gulf, but I guess you could say this spill affects me because the grief from the Exxon Valdez has been stirred up all over again.
The Gulf is a different environment, the oil spewing out is not Alaska crude, etc, etc, but gee whiz, the quantities are mind-boggling.
If you get far enough out in Space, the earth looks like a big clean blue marble, too. Prince William Sound will not be fully recovered for thousands of years, if then.
On the plus side. The Nissan Leaf is coming out in December and Toyota just teamed up with Tesla to make their own electric car.
Oil Companies that do not take due care and caution are the culprit.
Yes, I hope it didn't sound like I was trying to minimize this disaster. It's just that the reports seem odd to reconcile.
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Yes, but fully recovered is not a very useful real-world term. What does that mean?
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I guess my point is (more of a question really), is that we have the occasional oil spill. Yet, every coal mine does significant environmental damage, even w/o any 'headline news' incident.
-ERD50
It's easy to reconcile. If the "scientists" are hired by oil companies (and there were some), they speak with forked tongue.
When I say "fully recovered" I mean that the wildlife that used to live there can live there again,
Granted, coal has immediate bad effects and in fact, largely due to deregulation, much of our freshwater fish are contaminated by mercury due to burning coal. It is possible to drill for oil and not make a mess if regulation is there and heavily enforced. But in this world that obviously isn't happening.
TromboneAl said:The idea that mistakes and disasters like this won't happen if only we're really careful and do things right is a dangerous one.
Human beings are incapable of not making these kinds of mistakes.
I don't mean to belittle this serious question at all, but I think it is entirely possible that things like oysters on the halfshell, and maybe even Gulf shrimp may become things of the past.
Is it the high pressure that prevents BP from just sticking some expanding thing into the pipe? Can't they put in a bigger straw?
I've wondered the same thing. Why can't they lower another pipe to draw off more of the oil coming out? Or one that has the ability to expand similar to the boom on an in air refueler to plug the hole or at least slow down the flow.
I've wondered the same thing. Why can't they lower another pipe to draw off more of the oil coming out?.
Among other issues, I imagine trying to insert a wet noodle's free end into a horizontal straw while holding said noodle with on hand. Oh and someone is blowing air through the straw. Too bad I'm not good at graphics.