The BP oil spill

Sierra Club executive director Michael Brunei says that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is so disastrous, with 210,000 gallons of crude oil leaking every day from a well a mile beneath the ocean’s surface where it can’t readily be stopped,—an environmental catastrophe perhaps as bad as the Exxon Valdez—that it will make it impossible for the U.S. to continue off-shore drilling because of the likelihood of future such spills. But what are his proposed replacements for petroleum? Wind, solar energy, and efficiency measures. That’s not serious.

Update: Here is a story with details on this epic disaster. How could it not be worse than the Exxon Valdez? That was one ship. This is an oil well under the ocean continually pouring forth crude oil in a flow that may not be stopped for weeks.

The New York Post says that the Obama administration’s response to the disaster has been to launch a PR offensive.

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Hannon writes:

This is the blowout preventer in place on that rig that would have averted disaster:

A story I read about a week ago said that BP had declared that the BOP had failed. This is most unfortunate and obviously they are working to bring it on-line. No “disaster planning” can foresee equipment failure such as this, but I don’t know if they test this sort of equipment periodically. The last resort, which shears off the pipe (up to 100 lbs/foot!) must result in a long recovery period or abandonment of the project.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 02, 2010 08:12 PM | Send