'Toontime': We Don't Need Regulation!

Update Day 30: The slow motion disaster [satellite photo], thanks to the befuddled dithering of the so-called oil experts, has reached the wetlands of Louisiana, and is entering the Loop Current. Louisiana officials want temporary sand berms erected around 80 miles of critical wetlands and coasts. The request should be granted immediately instead of "studied" to death by the Army Corps of Pencil Twirlers. The Secretary of Interior is rearranging bureaucrats, but he might as well be playing checkers.  It is the big one folks*, so stop staring at it like a deer in the headlights, if you want to save the state of Louisiana. The latest estimate from scientists examining undersea video and the surface extent of the slick is between 76,000 and 104,000 barrels of oil a day.

British Petroleum skipped the most effective test for the soundness of the well lining according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune.  The "cement bond log" which uses an acoustical device to test for voids and weak spots was never requested by BP despite the contractor Schlumberger being on board the platform and ready to perform the test. It is considered the gold standard for testing the soundness of well linings, but the government does not require it unless pressure tests indicate a problem.  The status of pressure tests on the well is unclear at this time.  A graphic with the linked article shows an annulus above the well bottom left unplugged with mud. Experts think this is the gap by which natural gas shot to the surface, exploded, and destroyed the Deepwater Horizon platform.  For more about BP's past alleged criminality read this article because you will not find the information in the corporate owned media (COM). BP, with the help of the government, is strictly controlling information and access to the site of the disaster.  Paging Benito!

*senior administration official to Politico: “I don’t think any of the [worst case] predictions are crazy anymore,” the adviser continued. “That’s why you’ve seen that nobody is making predictions anymore. Nobody wants to be wrong anymore. They have to be demonstrating forceful leadership in throwing everything they have at the problem.”  US Person suggests they are not succeeding in the demonstration.

[credit: Jim Morin, Miami Herald]

{5.14.10}The Minerals Management Agency, reduced to party-time redundancy under the Regime regularly issued offshore drilling authorizations without first obtaining permits under the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The Center for Biological Diversity has notified the agency and the Department of Interior of its intent to sue for non-compliance with the two important environmental protection laws. The notice says the agency authorized over 300 drilling permits including the one for the Deepwater Horizon, three large lease sales, and over 100 seismic surveys without the reviews required when oil exploration could harm endangered species or marine mammals. The practice of ignoring the laws intended to protect ocean life has continued under Forty-four's administration. A federal appeals panel approved Shell's plans to drill exploratory wells in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas on Thursday.

The retired chairman of an energy investment banking firm told the National Geographic magazine that the subsea gusher could spew oil into the Gulf for years. He said the company's engineers nor military engineers have any idea how to contain the well. Conventional attempts to plug it will be prone to failure because of the high pressures at 5,000 feet down. The size of the reservoir feeding the well is huge, and it could take years to deplete it. National Public Radio said that the outflow based on subsea videos of the broken riser (particle image velocimetry±20%) is now estimated to be 70,000 barrels a day, or one Exxon Valdez every four days. The Coast Guard is still operating under the assumption that a puny 210,000 gallons of crude a day is entering the water.

It is no joke Stephen; the Russians claim to have successfully buried five runaway wells using nuclear blasts of about 20-30 kilotons or the size of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. If Americans have run out of ideas, Russian engineers should be consulted about the use of a subsea nuclear device to seal the well. A nuclear denotation forty miles offshore and 5,000 below the surface may still cause fallout to reach shore. Certainly there will be massive destruction of sea life. The alternative is an entire sea and the surrounding coastline transformed into a toxic "national sacrifice" zone. As Ed Markey (D-MA) pointed out, "If you do not understand the scope of the problem the capacity to find the answer is severely compromised." He will hold hearings to determine the actual size of the spill.