Voices from the Flats – Lessons of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster (Updated)
UPDATE: Tune in tonight to Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. Rick Steiner will be Keith’s guest during the first hour.
Lessons of the Deepwater Horizon disaster
By Professor Rick Steiner, Conservation and Sustainability Consultant, Anchorage Alaska
Member, IUCN Commission on Environmental, Economic, and Social Policy
If one of the hallmarks of intelligence is the ability to learn from mistakes, we must not be looking very intelligent these days.
Time and again over the past few decades we have been presented with the hard, brutal facts about the costs of our addiction to oil – health impacts from air pollution, wilderness lost to drilling, wars to secure oil supplies in the Middle East, vast sums of money paid to oppressive oil-dictators, and the growing and devastating impacts of climate change. And of course, oil spills. As a former oil minister in Venezuela dubbed it, oil is indeed “el excremento del diablo” – the devil’s excrement. Despite the destructive effects of our oil addiction, we still don’t seem to want to seriously change our use of it. We are all junkies looking for the next fix. As many observers have said, we need an overwhelming, clear signal of the costs of oil in order for the public and political leaders to begin to break our century-long addiction to oil.
Today, as millions of gallons of toxic crude oil continue to spew uncontrolled from the mile-deep Deepwater Horizon blowout into the Gulf of Mexico, we are hopeful that this catastrophe will the be the very catalyst we need. This may be looked at some day as Three Mile Island and Chernobyl are to the nuclear industry. Indeed, the Deepwater Horizon disaster may provide our last best chance to hasten the switch to sustainable energy in time to avert global ecological and economic disaster.
This spill disaster from the Deepwater Horizon blowout at “Mississippi Canyon 252” is like no other humanity has dealt with – it is historic in its size, depth, and potential offshore impact. Here’s what we know so far.
Cause:
While much still remains to be learned about causes for the Deepwater Horizon disaster, early indications are that like other disasters, it was caused by a combination of human error and mechanical failure. The drill rig had discovered a large oil reservoir about 18,000 beneath the sea floor, and workers were in the process of disconnecting and capping the well for a future production rig. In this process, many wells in the Gulf use a liner along with the cement casing around the well stem as it provides a better seal from gas kicks. But as this takes a little longer and costs more, BP did not install a liner in the MC 252 well. Although the rig had several dangerous gas kicks from the well in previous weeks, the rig workers were ordered to perform a dangerous procedure to expedite the disconnect. The workers removed heavy drilling mud from the well stem, and began replacing it with lighter seawater, before the concrete plugs were installed down the pipe near the top of the reservoir. Without the heavy muds and concrete plugs in place, the only safety backstop to a dangerous gas kick to the surface was the Blowout Preventer (BOP). The BOP was not built as designed, included some demonstration parts (a hydraulic ram intended to close an uncontrolled blowout), had a failed battery, and the design may not have allowed the shear ram to fully cut through the stronger well pipe.
And the well did kick gas and oil. The last entry in the well logs on the Deepwater Horizon ominously read: “10 PM 4-20-10, EXPLOSION AND FIRE.”
Stopping the blowout:
Although the BP Regional Oil Spill Response Plan for the Gulf of Mexico envisages a worst-case scenario similar to the Deepwater Horizon blowout, neither BP nor the federal government had planned for such. Blowouts are not uncommon in the U.S., and one federal study reported that 39 had occurred in a recent16-year period, half of which were caused by failed casing cement jobs. There have been catastrophic blowouts offshore as well: the 1979 Ixtoc-1 blowout in the southern Gulf of Mexico, the 1980 Funiwa No. 5 off Nigeria, the 1977 Ekofisk disaster in the North Sea, the 1980 Hasbah 6 blowout in the Persian Gulf, the Montara platform off northeast Australia just last summer, and of course the 1969 Union Oil platform blowout off Santa Barbara. And as deepwater drilling is so new (10 years or so), the reservoir pressures so high and geology so difficult, a catastrophic blowout was inevitable.
That neither BP nor the federal government had a plan for responding to this eventuality is truly outrageous. And with no plans in place as to how they would respond to this scenario, BP began engineering various potential solutions after the blowout occurred. This is a bit like building a fire truck after your house is on fire. The short-term options for ending the blowout include: the 90 ton Pollution Containment Chamber, which failed due to methane hydrate ice crystals clogging the narrow outlet at top; a smaller “top hat” that sits idle on the ocean floor and has not been deployed; the Riser Insertion Tube assembly, which is a pipe inserted into the broken riser pipe collecting 1200 bbls / day; a “top kill” attempt where heavy drilling muds will be injected into the BOP; a “junk shot” where shredded tires, golf balls, etc. would be shot into the BOP; and so on. As of this writing, none of these short-term fixes have worked.
The only real solution to this uncontrolled blowout is the two relief wells being drilled to intersect the failed well stem near the top of the reservoir, in which they will then attempt a “dynamic kill” where seawater, drilling muds, and then cement are injected to kill the failed well. These relief wells are now down over half way to the reservoir, but it will take many more weeks for them to complete this process. It is interesting to note that the Canadian government requires exploration wells in the Arctic Ocean to drill a relief well simultaneously with the exploration well, so that if there is a problem, the relief well is already in place and ready to go. This adds time and cost to an exploratory well, but would add considerable safety to the process.
Spill Size:
One of the similarities in all large oil spills is this: oil companies and government officials habitually understate the size and impact of spills, and they habitually overstate the effectiveness of their response. Estimates for the outflow rate from the Deepwater Horizon blowout range from 5,000 barrels / day (210,000 gallons) up to 95,000 barrels / day (4 million gallons). The actual volume likely falls within this range. Regardless of the final estimates of total oil outflow, the size of the Deepwater Horizon spill is huge, and perhaps has already surpasses the largest accidental oil spill in history – the 1979 Ixtoc blowout in the southern Gulf of Mexico that spilled an estimated 130 million gallons in the 9 months it took to bring the blowout under control. And the simple answer to the question of how much has spilled is this: too much.
Spill Response:
Something we have learned in every large marine oil spill around the world deserves repeating here — once oil is spilled, the battle is lost, and the damage is done. Oil spill response and “cleanup” has never been effective, and a 10% recovery rate is considered a “successful” response by most experienced responders. Indeed, “oil spill cleanup” is a pretentious façade, that has never worked effectively, and it seems to serve more of a palliative and public relations role. And rehabilitating oiled wildlife and ecosystems is impossible, but must be tried. The BP OSRP for the Gulf called for the deployment within 72 hours of response equipment capable of recovering over 450,000 barrels of oil per day, but obviously this didn’t happen. The plan also called for attention to “walruses, sea otters, and sea lions” which of course do not occur in the region, indicating they simply cut-and-pasted parts of the Gulf oil spill plan from other regions, likely Alaska. And the link provided for a list of equipment from their main response contractor – the Marine Spill Response Corporation – takes you instead to a comical Japanese home shopping network.
Although mechanical recovery of oil from the sea surface is the preferred method for all spill response, as it attempts to remove oil from the marine environment, it has been largely ineffective in this spill because the oil is so emulsified with sea water that its density is approximately the same as sea water, and mostly just sinks beneath the booms when contact is made. The sorbent booms along shorelines are collecting some of the oil before it reaches the shore, but the oil is still reaching the beaches. From sand beaches, it is relatively easy cleanup task – remove the contaminated sand. But as the oil enters the sensitive muddy wetland marshes along the north Gulf coast, it will not be possible to remove without causing more damage. There may be opportunity to add fertilizers to enhance the indigenous bacteria community, to aid biodegradation of the oil in the marsh muds, but even this may be of limited help.
The chemical dispersants being used on the surface and at the blowout are a particular concern. Never has there been such heavy use of chemical dispersant in any oil spill response. The product being used – Corexit 9500 – is intended to break oil into smaller droplets in order to speed natural breakdown into harmless substances. The problem is that the dispersant is itself toxic, the oil is even more toxic, and research has shown that the combination of the oil and dispersant is even more toxic than the sum of the individual toxicities alone – there is a synergistic toxicity. Further, if the dispersant works as intended, it will simply transfer the impact from the sea surface down deeper into the water column, thereby exposing the upper water column biological community to more toxic contamination. As the dispersed oil mixture is know to be very toxic, the cardinal rule in use of dispersants is to never use them in shallow water near shore as this would contaminate the productive sea bed communities. In the Deepwater Horizon, the offshore surface waters contaminated with oil / dispersant have flowed up the continental shelf, and into shallow inshore estuaries, thereby contaminating the productive inshore habitat from surface to seabed. Plus, if the dispersant is working as designed, it will make mechanical recovery from the sea surface virtually impossible.
The dispersant use at-depth at the blowout is a novel approach, having never been attempted before. This use should only be allowed if it is conclusively shown that the oil droplet size exiting the jet plume from the blowout can be significantly reduced by the addition of the chemical dispersant. I have asked both the U.S. NOAA and EPA for any data that show this, and at the time of writing, none have been provided. In fact, to date EPA’s monitoring of dispersant and oil in water, sediment and air is all conducted near shore.
Further, when the Coast Guard and EPA ordered BP to find a less toxic dispersant on May 19, BP responded essentially “no.” Their letter responding to the government directive contained a number of factual and typographical errors, and they missed any discussion of one dispersant – JD-2000 – that is not only far less toxic than Corexit and other products, but it is also far more effective on south Louisiana crude oil. In response to BP’s “no”, the U.S. government simply said: ‘well OK, then please use less of the substandard product.’
Impacts:
Despite what some oil company executives would have us believe, oil, water, fish, and wildlife actually don’t mix. BP CEO Tony Hayward’s statement that the environmental damage from the Deepwater Horizon disaster will be “very, very modest,” is simply one of the most arrogant, ignorant, callous statements I have ever heard from any corporate CEO during a crisis such as this.
The environmental damage from the Gulf spill has already been, and will continue to be, enormous. Whenever thousands of tons of toxic hydrocarbons are spilled into a productive coastal and marine ecosystem, the damage will unavoidably be serious. The State of Louisiana lists some 600 species at risk from this spill – 445 species of fish, 45 mammals, 32 reptiles and amphibians, and 134 bird species.
And as this spill is so unique, with so much oil coming into the sea at 5000 feet deep and 50 miles from shore, the impacts will be very different than in most other surface spills with which people are more familiar.
Research on other relatively deepwater oil releases has shown that these releases behave in a very different, more complicated manner than shallow water blowouts. In the deepwater blowouts, the lighter oil tends to quickly phase-separate, some dissolves into surrounding seawater, the gas forms methane hydrates and precipitates to the seabed, and the lighter components emulsify with seawater and rise to the sea surface to form the surface slicks we are seeing in the Gulf of Mexico. But the heavier components of the oil (asphaltines etc.) from deepwater blowouts have been found to rise to a “terminal depth” at which point they lose buoyancy (called the Neutral Buoyancy Level) and then hover in the water column. With this understanding, it is probable that a significant amount of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon blowout has yet to surface, and remains entrained at depth, drifting with deepwater and midwater currents beneath the ocean surface. One of the only research vessels that has studied the Deepwater Horizon blowout – the R/V Pelican – detected evidence of these deepwater plumes trending southwest from the blowout. But so far, the federal government has conducted little biological monitoring of the impacts of the spill on the offshore pelagic ecosystem. The subsurface plumes likely remain toxic longer than at oil at the surface, as the water is colder than at the surface (40 degrees), and there is no sunlight to aid photo oxidation. And if the application of dispersant at the blowout site is working as planned, there is far more subsurface oil in the water column, and less on the surface.
What all this means is that the impacts from the Deepwater Horizon spill will largely be offshore, in the pelagic (or water column) ecosystem. There has already been significant contamination of shorelines and fragile marshes, but the greater damage will be offshore, in the water, and out of sight of traditional observations. It is perhaps a conventional chauvinism of terrestrial primates (Homo sapiens) to be more concerned about impacts we see on or near shore, but the greatest impact from this spill will almost certainly be in the pelagic offshore ecosystem.
This includes damage to what are known as “charismatic mega fauna” – dolphins, whales, sea birds, sea turtles, and so on. But significantly, the damage from this spill will be felt in the productive and critical pelagic ecosystem that to most people is out-of-sight, out-of-mind. This damage has without doubt already been enormous. The Gulf of Mexico is a critical spawning habitat for many large fish species – blue fin tuna, blue marlin, white marlin, and sailfish. The eggs and larvae from these important fish species are floating in the upper water column of the north Gulf right now, and a significant amount of these larvae have undoubtedly been exposed to the toxic underwater cloud of oil and dispersant. These larvae are known to be highly vulnerable to such hydrocarbon toxicity, and even the lightest exposure can cause death. Short of acute mortality, these fish eggs and larvae can also suffer sub-lethal, chronic injury such as respiratory, cardiovascular, nerve, organ tissue, and genetic damage that may not kill for months or years into the future. It is without question that the oil spill has caused a significant impact to these fish populations. Further, the entire pelagic zooplankton community is at risk of significant exposure and injury from the spill as well.
In the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, there are two precious seabed habitats that are at considerable risk of oil-injury as well: deepwater coral reefs and the remarkable chemosynthetic cold-seep ecosystems. There are many deepwater (cold water) coral systems across the continental shelf of the Gulf, including the well known “Pinnacles” reefs at 300-500 m deep stretching some 60 miles along the shelf edge just 25 miles inshore of the blowout. And the strange seabed ecosystems that surround natural deepwater methane seeps in the Gulf are vulnerable as well. Organisms in these cold-seep systems derive their energy directly from the methane – chemosynthesis – rather than normal plant derived energy from sunlight in surface ecosystems – photosynthesis. The cold seep systems host a variety of species new to science, and that are endemic to these isolated habitats.
The inshore and shoreline impacts of the spill will be huge as well. As the oil / dispersant mixture is scattered down throughout the water column inshore, the critical inshore habitat for the two most important commercial fisheries in the area – menhaden and shrimp – has suffered significant contamination. Oil in the marshes has already begun to kill coastal vegetation that stabilizes the ever-shifting sediment substrate, thus making coastal wetlands more vulnerable to erosion. And when the first hurricane sweeps through the coastal area this summer, any oil on the surface, in the water, or in the near shore sediment will be re-suspended and flow with the storm surge into wetlands that had not been previously contaminated.
And the oil is still on the move. It has already reached the upper lobe of the Gulf of Mexico Loop current that moves a huge volume of Gulf water southeast toward the southern tip of Florida 450 miles away. Deepwater Horizon oil will almost certainly drift around the southern tip of Florida and up part of the Atlantic coast of Florida. As well, near shore surface currents are carrying the oil west, toward Texas. And the deepwater plumes will move with deep currents, some toward the southwest as has already been detected.
We know from other oil spills that the environmental damage can be long lasting, and some of it may not be evident for years to come. The ecological injury from the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska is today still evident. Twenty one years later, two thirds of the fish and wildlife populations injured by the spill have yet to fully recover, some are not recovering at all, and thousands of gallons of toxic oil remain in Alaska beaches. A warmer environment as in the Gulf will certainly aid the natural degradation of the oil there, but the environmental damage may still last for years to come.
In addition to the environmental damage from the Deepwater Horizon spill, there has been and will continue to be extraordinary social and economic damage. Human communities may turn corrosive, with higher indices of substance abuse, domestic abuse, and emotional distress. And the economic injury due to closure of fisheries and tourism businesses will be huge as well.
Litigation:
In the early days of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, I was told by oil industry insiders that “lawyers yet to be born will work on this spill.” This unfortunately turned out to come true. The same may be the case for the Deepwater Horizon spill. Regardless, it is impossible to adequately compensate people whose lives are turned upside down by these disasters. But if money is the only thing that a large multination oil company like BP understands, then money, lots of it, should be paid. While US law limits their financial liability to only response costs and $75 million, this absurdly low liability limit will be eliminated when/if gross negligence is proven. This will be the focus of private and government attorneys in coming months and years.
Lessons:
There are many lessons from this disaster, and we owe it to ourselves, the people and the environment that have been devastated by this event to heed and apply those lessons.
Offshore drilling safety:
As long as we continue to use oil, we must insist that it be produced and transported as safely and responsibly as possible. If we are to continue drilling for oil and gas offshore, we need to everything possible to reduce the risk of such disasters. This must include more attention to safety details in every aspect of the drilling operation, including well casing liners, cement jobs, procedures for disconnecting from wells, better Blowout Preventers, and the requirement to drill relief wells simultaneously with exploratory wells. It also must include more proficient government oversight. Breaking the Mineral Management Service into 3 separate agencies is a start, but is little more than a palliative that papers over the fundamental problem. We will still have the very same mid-level managers in the Department of Interior choosing between production and revenue on the one hand, and environmental protection and worker safety on the other. Perhaps this is a good time to rekindle serious discussion of the establishment of a cabinet-level Department of the Oceans, and prioritizing safety and environment over revenue and production.
Industry should be required to install Best Available Technology in every aspect of their offshore operations – equipment, personnel, and drilling procedures – even if this additional safety margin is far more expensive. And industry and government need to get very serious about developing options for containment of deepwater blowouts before they occur, not during the crisis. Surely we can engineer more effective blowout containment technologies, construct them, and have them at the ready for any such eventuality in the future.
No-drilling zones:
In systems theory there is a concept called “sub-optimization”: doing in the best possible way something that should never be done at all. This is the case for much offshore drilling. Even with the highest safety standards we can apply to this, there will always be a significant risk of another such catastrophic blowout. People will make mistakes, equipment will fail, and corporate executives will always look to cut corners and costs. Given this, we will have to be more cautious about what offshore areas we want to expose to this risk, and which areas are simply too extreme or precious to do so. I would suggest that the deep ocean and the sea ice covered Arctic Ocean are places where we should place off-limits to drilling, as it is perfectly clear that industry cannot respond to blowouts in these difficult and sensitive ocean environments.
Citizen oversight:
We have learned that effective citizen engagement and oversight is key to reducing the complacency and atrophy of vigilance in both industry and government that leads to disasters like the Deepwater Horizon. We established two Regional Citizens Advisory Councils in Alaska, funded by the oil industry but operating independently, to provide citizen oversight of oil industry operations that can affect local people and environments. These councils have proven effective, and are being used as models for the establishment of such citizens’ oversight councils throughout the world. All offshore oil regions and oil shipping ports and waterways should have such Citizens’ Advisory Councils. As well, the Gulf Oil Spill Commission to look in-depth at the current disaster is absolutely crucial in getting an independent analysis of what went wrong, and how to prevent such in the future.
Sustainable Energy:
Someone said recently that we should never let a disaster go to waste. Indeed, if all we fix out of the Deepwater Horizon disaster is offshore drilling safety and government oversight of such, we will have missed the crucial lesson of this tragedy – the we need to hasten our urgently needed transition to an economy based on sustainable, clean, efficient energy, rather than the wasteful, costly fossil fuel economy we now have.
For too long, “easy” energy (coal and oil) has made us lazy and wasteful, our governments corrupt, and industry greedy, arrogant, and sloppy. It is now time for all of us to grow up on this issue, and do the hard work necessary to wean ourselves from fossil fuel. The Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska in 1989 succeeded only in improving tanker safety around the world. It did not, as many of us hoped at the time, usher in a new push for energy efficiency and low-carbon alternative energy development. We absolutely must do better with the present disaster.
We know that we are entering the end of the age of oil, and we are on the cusp of a long-overdue transition to sustainable energy. This is not just possible, it is inevitable — it is essential. Oil and other fossil fuels are finite resources; we are at or beyond Peak Oil (more than half of available global oil has been used already), and there is no longer any room for the additional carbon from fossil fuels in the global atmosphere and oceans. Fossil fuel companies know this, governments know this, Wall Street knows this, science knows this, and all of us know this on some level. Yet we continue to act as though we know none of this, delaying our reckoning with our energy/climate crisis to some future time.
If we haven’t gotten the message by now that our addiction to oil is literally killing us and our home planet, then we can only hope this disaster will do so, once and for all. The Gulf spill is, or should be, a game-changer. There must be no more equivocation, no more double speak, no more excuses, no filibusters, no games, no back-room deals, no more slick corporate sophistry and pretend “corporate social responsibility.”
We must now collectively insist on a massive, urgent, concerted, well-funded transition to a sustainable energy economy. Not just in word, but in deed. We must now put a high price (tax) on carbon-intensive fossil fuels that reflect their true costs, and subsidize energy efficiency and clean, low-carbon energy alternatives. Those in government and industry who still don’t understand this simple fact should be called to task.
The Obama administration, which campaigned on a platform of transition to sustainable energy, needs to suspend entirely its recently released plan for more oil drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), and take full advantage of this wake up call to take us in a new direction.
So far, the signs are not encouraging that the Deepwater Horizon lessons have been recognized and will be heeded by government and industry. But there is still hope. The main question now is whether, after this disaster, we will simply return to business as usual, or use this to catalyze a transition to a new, sustainable reality. It is our choice, and let’s hope that we choose wisely.
I fervently hope President Obama seeks out your counsel.
Thank you for a comprehensive overview of this disastrous event.
We need and appreciate your voice; it is a voice that needs to be heard and taken to heart in the corridors of power.
I went to whitehouse.gov the other day to ask that President Obama ask you to be a key member of the Committee he said he was going to set-up to investigate the disaster and make recommendations. You would be an ideal candidate for the assignment.
“We have learned that effective citizen engagement and oversight is key to reducing the complacency and atrophy of vigilance in both industry and government that leads to disasters like the Deepwater Horizon.”
Sounds good, but what about the citizen engagement before the Deepwater Horizon accident, the citizen engagement that allowed for and promoted offshore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, the citizen engagement that wanted the money from that drilling and pushed their Senators and Reps to get it and to also keep the Federal Government out of regulating it as much as possible?
A good read -
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http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=329277
Louisiana touts its offshore oil drilling
“The $70 billion industry employs more than 320,000 people in the state. Unemployment rates in some coastal parishes hover around 3.5 percent, compared to 5.5 percent nationally. And the oil industry supports both the only deep-sea oil port in the United States and a Gulf of Mexico port that handles more vessels than even the Mississippi River.
While states on the east and west coasts debate whether to drill for offshore oil and natural gas, Louisiana and three other Gulf Coast states hold up their offshore drilling operations as proof that they can produce oil and gas without hurting the environment.”
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Now we all know that any information on the internet that is not porno is propaganda until verified otherwise by two independent sources:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2008-07-13-offshore-drilling_N.htm
http://www.atr.org/louisiana-gain-point-billion-offshore-drilling-a4815
Like they say in the oil industry – Yep there are tree huggers that don’t like us, but they drive their SUVs to go hug the trees and then drive their SUVs back home. As long as there are trees, there will be huggers, and we will be providing those huggers with gasoline, at pretty good profit I should add.
Troy Bakel
GREAT article. Thank you, Steiner. Second paragraph = “addiction” instead of “addition”?
thank you, sir.
I Tweeted a link to this piece via @Mudflats , and it will feed to my AKMuckraker Facebook page. I encourage anyone who engages in social media, or who have your own blogs to link to this in whatever capacity you can. Dr. Steiner is one of the most important voices out there that needs to be heard on these issues. Thanks.
AKM, Thank you for Rick’s voice here. This does need to be distributed far and wide, and I will do my share in spreading the link.
Rick, excellent! I have been so saddened and angered once again by this, yet unable to get past this very visceral reaction. You have put it in perspective, and covered the bases in your thoughtful, knowledgeable, and comprehensive manner. I missed the KO show, but will check it out on the network site. Keep up the fight, old friend, and if you need any back-up from this neck of the woods, please give me a call.
“Pursuit of Happiness Players” alumni,
CRFlats
Well said!!
Sails more sails!!!
We have to model renewable energy systems and work again with the wind and water!
Well said. Thank you.
AKM…excellent post….this just makes me sick…Very frightening, just wonder where it all will end..
Off topic. I apologize, but many mudpuppies have been wondering how that Harper’s article on Bristol went.
Here is the link to the full article and a short video clip on the photo shoot.
http://www.harpersbazaar.com/magazine/feature-articles/bristol-palin-interview-0610
I won’t discuss it here because Mr. Steiner’s posting is far too important to introduce lengthy discussions about the misrepresentations in the article.
I join AKM in hoping Mr. Steiner’s article gets a wide audience. I hope he gets invited to Keith’s or Rachel’s show to share his insights and raise his profile so the powers that be listen to him.
Please repost the first half of the comment over on the open thread so people can respond there. That way the conversation can still happen if people want it to. The open thread always remains active for the day, until it’s replaced with a new one.
I hope so too – that Dr. Steiner is interviewed by one or both of those two. He is eloquent on camera as well as in print.
Will do.
Those that cannot evolve or adapt – will surely perish.
We have been warned consistantly for 40 plus years –
and US markets still build Hummers & gas guzzling SUV’s
instead of safe – economical transportation.
Excellent piece Mr Steiner!
Thank you so much for this article. It beautifully gathers together so much information about a very complex issue. Tragic, but it will be even more tragic if we don’t finally LEARN something.
(Sorry about shouting but it’s hard not to.)
This is the most clear and comprehensive expose I have read to date of the myriad of issues swirling around this oil leak. Thank you, Prof. Steiner. I will distribute it to people I know, and I hope many, many more people will read and “grok” — including Pres. Obama.
Here’s a good article that supports what he says. viral for both of these is good.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0526/Gulf-oil-spill-the-51-minutes-that-led-to-disaster
Thank you, sir. I have learned from this.
Thank you. I have had little peace in my heart since the blow out. I worked on the Selandang Ayu cleanup for three months.
“Something we have learned in every large marine oil spill around the world deserves repeating here — once oil is spilled, the battle is lost, and the damage is done.”
I understand that quote to the point that I feel physically ill trying to wrap my head around the size of the damage. I know how helpless and hopeless it feels to throw yourself day in and day out against oil. I wanted to wretch as I watched the dispersant oil slush gently in and out of the reed mounds in LA. The damn dispersant prevents the oil from sticking to anything. It just leaves an oily, toxic residue to kill one reed, then moves with the tides and currents and coats a new set of plants.
At least I can read something from someone such as yourself and have some hope that someone near the top of the food chain has a such clear voice.
I have been having dreams of being on the bunker c soaked beaches. I can smell the rotted soy beans and the heavy oil. The water trapped in the oil from the rotting soy beans would shoot up through the brown goo like the water from a clam’s siphon. Oh, God I feel so sick. I just can’t stand the images any longer. Why in heaven would God rapture us and give us a new world in a new age when we can’t take care of the one we have. I am sorry, but this sucks.
thanks.
Wonderful article, Prof Steiner. Detailed and comprehensive but simple enough that those of us who are unfamiliar with many of the processes you discuss can still clearly understand, Thank you for putting everything together in one easy-to-digest post.
I just cannot understand, with the many people around the country who are experienced and knowledgeable like Prof Steiner, WHY we don’t have a better and safer system for dealing with these disasters? I realize that many of the regulations governing the industry were relaxed during the Bush administration, but it is simply unacceptable that our government has allowed these companies to drill in fragile ecostsyems without strict guidelines and safety measures in place BEFORE a blowout happens. From this article and from interviews I have seen on the news that support what Prof Steiner has written, BP has demonstrated clear negligence in their drilling processes and I hope that they are held accountable for the destruction they have caused.
I realize that President Obama has had his plate overflowing since he took office, trying to prevent a complete meltdown of our economy, but I sincerely hope that this catastrophe is a wake-up call to his administration to refuse to allow the oil companies to dictate policy.
@ Steiner: Wow! Very well written and informative article. Really looking forward to seeing your segment on Olbermann tonight. Tivo set.
@ Everyone else : I’d love for you to take a look at my new mashup site…
–> http://oilaholic.com <–
It's got real-time Twitter updates, Facebook updates, 10 different news feeds, a bunch of videos and pictures, dozens of links, etc all about the oil spill and oil spill cleanup process. And at least for the time being I've got the LIVE feed embedded as well.
Any feedback is greatly appreciated!
i will definitely tuning in to Keith tonight…thanks for the heads up
Thank you Dr. Steiner and AKMuckraker for publishing his words. Science is the clarion call with respect to all magical thinking on this issue. I hope that everyone takes heed wherever they might live on this fragile planet.
Sincerely,
seychelles
Terrific overview. Thanks.
This mess is so awful. Words start to fail. Jindal has said ‘its all dead’. I have no reason not to believe him, regardless of his pol. Carville said the same thing.
RobMarciano/CNN went out by boat, way out….said it is SO WORSE than people realize.
My Fla friends say they cannot watch TV, cannot see any of this anymore. Cannot cope.
Im getting to that point.
Beyond comprehension is all I know.
thank you. an excellent article by one who knows what he is talking about. the news is bad, but we need to know it.
Does anyone know why it takes so long to drill the next/new well?
I realize the depth, just wondering if anyone knew about drilling that deep…any way to go faster?
From what I read and hear, the distance factor is just so extreme. One mile to the seabed and 2.5 mi further into the earth’s crust. I’m not an engineer but I can certainly acknowledge that at that depth, and with all the “BP Safety Standards” in place, this can take awhile. These folks are going to be watched so closely in the next few months, unfortunately I suspect that once the blowout is eventually relieved, business will return to normal.
Don’t know where you are from Mustang, but BP has a terrible safety record in Alaska. The perception is that “Big Oil” factors it is simply cheaper to pay the fines (State and Federal). Great research project, because British Petroleum is not subject to the Freedom Of Information Act, to find the actuarial plan for this or any other offshore drilling plan, and deep water offshore drilling plan.
The depth is a big issue. The high pressure in the current well is also a factor. Sturdy thickness of pipe will need to be employed, and that is probably not as easy to come by just now. The biggest supply of the type pipe needed probably went down with the Deepwater Horizon. You do not want a repeat of what happened in the first well to occur in the second. Tender vessels have to supply everything to the rig platform and they must offload the waste products (poo and mud from the shakers which comes from the drilling). What troubles me is that no one had a chance to inspect the well head and blow out preventer that was sent when the “capture” rig began drilling operations. How could they? BP moved very quickly on that option. If you are interested in more details of deep water drilling I recommend the Shell Oil site. They actually have a very complex rig that goes online or perhaps will go online in 2010. http://www.shell.com/home/content/media/news_and_library/press_releases/2010/perdido_31032010.html
I am not shilling for Shell, but this technology has many redundant fail safes including separating oil and gas at the sea bed. I suspect that BP was in an all fired hurry to bring what they had online to compete with Shell. The Shell site has very low pressure, and the oil from the many feeder wells has to be pumped up the risers to the surface. The Shell site is deeper than the BP site. BP really seemed to think (I assume this because they kept ignoring the evidence of high pressure at the Deep water site) they would encounter the same low pressure conditions. Bad assumption.
The sad part is that rig crews have a tendency to believe that alarms are faulty, and many times they are. The high salt contact plays havoc on sensors and wiring. I have repaired what I thought were very old sensor housings then found out they were only a few months old. It was heart breaking but not surprising to learn that the methane alarms did not sound on the rig when the blow back came up the pipes. They might have had a little time. The methane alarms are usually located at the shakers (where the mud from the drill is pumped) because that is the first place it would be detected. The boys on the shaker never knew what hit them.
I’ll be weighing in long after this thread has more than 18 replies but I will do so anyway in hopes of a) bringing in a little more realism to add to the OP and b) suggest some direct actions that will have short term impacts.
Before I start my rant I would like the say thank you to Dr. Steiner for this article on behalf of the many technicians and scientists who I know must agree with him on many levels but who still have to bite their tongues to keep their jobs.
I do not intend to nitpick any of the points raised here, I tend to largely agree with all that I have any knowledge of and defer to Dr. Steiner’s expertise with respect to those of which I am ignorant but there are at least two things that I think bear mentioning. The first is the legalistic aspect of this situation and the second is effective counter action on the part of citizens.
I have seen it argued elsewhere that the correct strategy for BP et alia is to let this disaster play out until the relief well/s can be drilled regardless of how much damage is done in the interim. The reasoning goes something like this. Any effective implementation of a short term stop-gap measure that shut off most of the catastrophic release of oil would only sow doubt in litigation against the claims of the defendants. For example, in the case of the initial well capping effort, why didn’t BP
raise the containment vessel back to the surface, modify it appropriately and add to it whatever necessary components would prevent the formation of methane hydrates and try again? This form of argumentation can be applied across the board to any stop gap measure. I guess, but am not entirely sure that the issue is one of liability and culpability. Apparently it is legalistically preferable to ignore the amount of actual damage done to the environment and the innocent bystanders in order to establish a solid case of plausible deniability for the corporations. “We tried everything and nothing worked except the long term solution that just happens to result in us still being able to produce the well.” I know this sounds terribly cynical and conspiracy theory-like but would also assert that from personal experience alone find it unsurprising in terms of corporate reasoning.
That said, there are probably a number of technical issues that would mitigate against the stop-gap measures so far thought of or at least seriously entertained that would all involve the risk of considerable expense and the appearance of incompetence. But that same ‘appearance’ of incompetence is itself telling and offers further insight to why this ‘accident’ occurred in the first place and why it has not been handled well. Both of those issues relate strongly not to the current situation in government at the highest levels but rather to the institutionalization of the attitude of “we make our own reality” that has survived and mutated for decades in the very tissues of the government bureaucracy. All we know for certain is that early in the first Bush administration Dick Cheney, the just recently resigned CEO of Halliburton, held secret conclaves with secret participants to establish a ‘new energy policy’. It would appear that all the regulatory structures of the DOI were infested with the typical kind of Bush appointments and hires, ideological cronies with no particular qualifications except blind loyalty to the party line. If I may make an analogy the present administration’s problems are systemic, similar to the situation of a patriotic commander being placed in charge of a mercenary army disinterested in victory or defeat, faced with a serious crisis, and denied the gold to pay the mercenaries.
It runs deeper still. The plea of the last few paragraphs of the OP is eloquent, well stated and true, to the extent that its premise is valid, we must change, we must adapt. But in the present Kafkaesque environment of reality and self-made reality it would be a grave mistake to overlook the fact that nearly half of the population subscribes to an ideology that will oppose reflexively any action that might bring credit to their foes. Republicans en bloc are opposed to removing the ridiculous $75 million cap on liability for oil spills.
This huge disaster is just one expression of the attitude that is foundational to the ideology of NO.
We are all, collectively, immersed in a complex, rapidly changing, impossible to predict, let alone control, milieu. Our collective effect on the environment that sustains us, has grossly outgrown our collective understanding of how to coexist with it in something approaching a state of equilbirium. Moreover, during the past decades, perhaps unknowingly, we have collectively ceded the grasp of our own destinies willingly to the Oligarchy. The castrophe of the gulf is just another example of how cost is socialized and profit is privatized. Across the world, speculators are looking for the smart play, the bet that will come in and be a windfall. Literally millions of individuals will either lose their livelihoods altogether or be impoverished by the consequences of the desecration of the gulf, but a few will make millions or billions.
What can we really do that will have any effect? To contradict myself bluntly, words alone are not adequate. Since my present circumstances do not really apply since I am living outside the US almost all the time, my perspective may be flawed, but from prior experience I offer the following.
Production of gasoline from crude oil is flexible, so the greater the demand for gasoline, the more the incentive to produce a larger fraction of it from the crude. Use of gasoline is a pretty well established set of principles. There are ranges of velocity that correspond to maximum efficiency
in the burning of fuel. In the simplest possible terms, the maximum velocity achievable by the minimum RPMs is the most efficient mode of operation. Given what it is, if the roughly 200 million vehicles burning gasoline would slow down just 10 mph, it would result in an enormous drop in the demand for fuel. If I slow down 10 mph, what exactly does that mean? Well if I have an appointment
550 miles away I might have to allow an extra hour to get there. If I have an appointment 10 miles away it might mean I have to allow an extra 17 minutes to reach my destination driving at 25 instead of 35 mph. Of course I would also have to cope with that 47% of the population that thinks their time is so precious that everyone in the world shold get out of their way.
Realistically, if only 1/2 of the population slows down a bit and drives less frequently, the effect will still be profound. The gist of this I guess is simply that the only way you can get the attention of a corporation is to cut into their profits.
We can do that, as individuals without an collaboration at all. Just make do with less.
The old Shaker adage I cite again -
Use it up
Wear it out
Make it do
Do without
Krubozumo Nyankoye, thank you for another well reasoned presentation. It is obvious that you, too, are giving careful consideration into various solutions to the crisis in the Gulf. What I also appreciate when reading your postings is that you also give great thought into solutions that each of us as individuals can have a hand in producing. Thank you for your suggestions and observations.
I hope everyone heeds your advice. I know my husband and I will. We’ve been taking stock of how we live our lives, our material possessions, and rethinking what we really need. For too long, we focused on what we wanted or thought we needed. Now, we have relaxed about acquisitions – worrying about what we’d like to have or don’t have. We have enough. We can even do with less.
We will be slowing down. We have already switched to using a motorcycle for my husbands’ trips to and from work most of the time (weather permitting). We’ve even fitted the cycle with a trunk and ample saddlebags and straps for the top of the trunk so that we can go out on weekends and do our shopping. Sometimes we look a bit odd to some folks with our bundle of Costco toilet paper rolls or paper towels strapped on top of the trunk, but it works – and it’s fun. I love taking off my helmet after dismounting from the ‘Queen Seat,” and seeing the expression of folks as my silver hair fluffs out in the wind. It elicits smiles and nods and many comments of “you know, if you feel safe riding one of those, maybe we should give it a try.” Our gasoline bills have plummeted thanks to the cycle.
We’ve switched to electric mowers and snow blowers (we are not in great enough shape or young enough any more to do this kind of work with hand-powered tools), but we hope we have saved a little bit by doing go with rechargeable lawn tools. We certainly find these tools quieter and less polluting.
We buy increasing amounts of our clothing at thrift stores because we are lucky enough to live in an urban area with several wealthy enclaves that donate each season’s treasures to good causes. It is amazing how many wonderful and almost new items you can find to replace worn out items at a fraction of the cost of buying new. We realize that could mean impacting some manufacturing jobs, but it is a trade-off. Our thrifty purchases help charities as well as our own budget. We simply can no longer afford brand new items for every thing we need, and really there is no need. We’d rather use these second-hand, gently used items than see them in a land-fill.
I agree that little changes aggregate into larger ones, and each of us doing something contributes to the whole. Doing something makes us feel less hopeless and more hopeful. Thank you for taking the time to remind us.
BTW, the Shaker adage is a favorite of ours as well.
KS sunflower,
We are the engine of the economy. The rich may have all the wealth, but all the wealth in the world cannot move a shovel full of earth unless someone is willing to put their hands to the
shovel.
I have lived an austere life, and I am the better for having done so.
Cheers,
Neither your reasoning nor your soul are austere.
A bit of follow up.
The WSJ of all places (they still apparently have some good reporters) today published a lengthy article on the events leading up to the blowout, explosion and fire on the Deepwater Horizon that precipitated this disaster. It establishes two salient facts: #1 more than 12 hours before the blowout “negative pressure tests” indicated that the well was at risk. #2 about 11 hours before the blowout a “skirmish” occurred between the rig operator (Transocean) and the Contractee (BP) over whether or not to proceed with pumping the mud from the riser (the ~ 5,000′ of drill string between
the floating rig and the BOP on the sea floor), Transocean opposed doing so but were overruled by the contractee.
The article has a variety of shortcomings, not the least of which is that a number of other pertinent factors are mentioned but never discussed in detail with respect to how they might have affected the ultimate crisis. Admittedly these are quite technical points concerning the configuration of the drill pipe over its “in rock” depth and the use of centering devices that maintain the drill pipe within the bore hole on center such that the concrete casing effectively seals the *outside* of the hole. The two factors are intimately related but poorly explained.
It is further explained that the well was behind schedule and over budget. The implication is that there was pressure from BP to complete the well, cap it and move on to the next project. There are references to log data recorded even after the blowout had occurred but no details are provided of what that log data shows.
I would like to make one more observation that is not strictly technical but I think is pertinent. I have seen more than a few mentions in the press that one way to move towards less oil dependency would be to impose a tax on gasoline. I think this is a very poor solution. In the first place the tax would impact those who can least afford it the most. Secondly it would not in any sense guarantee that most people would alter their driving behavior therefore it might not decrease demand significantly. Finally, there is no assurance that the revenue generated by such a tax would be applied to the development of renewable or even more sustainable technologies.
What is so difficult to understand about just driving as efficiently as possible?
In response to Krubozumo, I must assert that our problems with oil usage have blossomed far beyond the issue of the use of gasoline, which is but one component of the distillation process of oil. The crude in a barrel of oil, be it sweet or heavy such as what we produce in Alaska, can be distilled down to wide variety of fuel products. We know many of these products by name, but amazingly enough, many people do not know that they all originate from the same product. Examples would be kerosene, diesel grade 1 & 2, Bunker C (the heaviest distillate and dirtiest), and of the course the heavy sludge that gets processed into a product that will be the subject of my next point, plastics.
When oil was first pumped up from the depths, it was gas that was predominantly utilized, then the heating fuels. Consider it the top distillate of the age. The civilized world with most money generally got the lions share of that product. As competition for resources increased and the push to find more of the sweet stuff became intensified, more barrels of oil were produced. The gas was distilled off the top leaving the heavier stuff behind. What a shame to waste all that extra stuff, so technologies were developed to utilize the heavy stuff. Down at the bottom, the sludge that didn’t seem to have a use was siphoned off and invariably someone develop the ability to exclude plastics from this seemingly useless resource.
That seemingly useless resource and the heavier oils that once were considered by product of the need to obtain gasoline and av gas, have begun to dominate and dictate the use of that barrel of oil from whence it was distilled. No longer do we view the gasoline as the prime product, and sell the residue of at t a cheaper cost. Every product that comes out of that barrel is in high demand.
If we look around us, we can see the truth in the statement above. See the plastic products, observe the cargo container traffic across our oceans, feel the heat emanating from your floor registers, and you will begin to comprehend the size of the task we have only just begun to set for ourselves as a developed nation. Step back and observe the budding industrial nations around us, following the same path of destiny laid down by the industrialize nations who went before them, and you further feel the enormity of the problem.
Curbing our thirst for gasoline, redesigning the combustion engine and turning down our thermostats will be but one step in our eventual journey towards planetary homeostasis (balance).
I like the article because it explores the full scope of the problem, but I would take it further into the realm of my personal existence and therefore all our personal existences. I must be fully aware and educated about the products I use that pertain to those millions of barrels of oil whose escapement from the earth threatens to unravel an ecosystem. If I do not, I cannot hope to reduce or eliminate them from my life.
I have touched oil from its release from the earth to its use as a cup from extruded plastic. I have marveled at its versatility, now I must see it for its potential to harm as well as help humanity.
We have a great deal to rethink my fellow planeteers. I still think all the oil execs and the higher ups in mineral management should be asked to form a conga line and spend a day bagging, taping and passing along in a human chain thousands upon thousands of bags which invariably will be collected off all those beaches (if we are lucky enough to use that tactic with this dispersant thinned oil). I would like to see them form a line of oil spill techs cutting down acres of saw grass using only fishermen fillet knives that have to be resharpened constantly to remain effective. I would like to see them spend another hour or two folding poly bags in preparation for the next day of use after they spent ten hours on their knees collecting oil. It is a sobering experience, and I mean sobering in the true sense of “a return to perceiving reality.”
a heartfelt thank you professor Steiner.
Yes, thank you professor. Good job on Keith’s show tonight!
6:52:
Ive heard about it being ‘cheaper’ to pay fines than do repairs; its criminal.
As for the FOIA, and info re drilling plans…wow, hadnt even thought of that.
What a nightmare. Many of us will pass on before much of this is settled, or cleaned up.
If it ever is….
sorry pinwheel, didnt see the name, just the time.
Thank you, Prof. Steiner, for your informed, articulate and passionate voice and for this article. I hope our government is listening and responsive.
Great article on a heartbreaking subject. Thankyou.
http://na.oceana.org/en/our-work/climate-energy/offshore-drilling/gulf-oil-spill-response-center/overview
Oceana has set up a page for all that would like to and can help, somehow.
I hope we learn from this entirely man-made catastrophe, but doubt it will happen.
I have a neighbor who has a “fishing camp” on an island in LA, and when I saw him a few weeks ago to ask how his area was affected, he said the current looked like it would take it east of where his place is and “unfortunately, this is going to push offshore oil drilling back 10 years.” Spoken like the big-money Republican that he is.
Meanwhile, his island HAS suffered the ill effects already, but after he said that. I may see him this weekend, but in Jan, he’d invited me and another neighbor to go there (I’m a vegetarian, and I don’t fish, but had hoped to go to New Orleans).
If we’re going to drill, we need do it right. Without cutting corners. The entire g0dd@amned industry made obscene profits for the past few years as prices were manipulated, and BP still needed to cut corners!?!? WTF?
BP cheated and lost in inept combination with their two other stooges (no offense to the real Three Stooges).
Obviously, I’m disgusted.
The more I read about Ken Salazar, the more I think he needs to get ‘unloaded’ aka FIRED!!! Yes, he makes wimpy, after the fact moves to FINALLY improve MMS – but he’s clearly in Big Oils’ pockets. Probably he was the person pushing Obama’s statements a couple of months ago to push for more off-shore drilling. I think Salazar is dangerous.
Democrats and environmentalists push to kill Shell’s Arctic drilling project
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/26/shell-alaska-drilling-oil-gas
..snipped..
“The interior secretary, Ken Salazar, is due to give final approvals this week to a Shell exploration project in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas off the northern coast of Alaska. He told Congress today that new regulations would help assure greater safety. “We need to move forward with oil and gas development,” he said. “Nothing in life is risk-free … How do you create a program that does in fact minimize those risks?”
Work on the Shell project could get underway as early as July, and environmental groups say the administration has approved nearly 700 other projects in the Arctic. ” ..snipped..
Marvellous article.