Decade-old report cited failure of oil rig safety system

[kpete]

Source: McClatchy

Decade-old report cited failure of oil rig safety system



By Les Blumenthal | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — A 1999 report commissioned by the federal agency that oversees offshore drilling suggests failures of underwater blowout preventers designed to stop oil spills like the massive one threatening the Gulf Coast were far from unknown, the chairwoman of a key Senate panel said Friday.

Citing a Minerals Management Service report, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said there were 117 failures of blowout preventers during a two-year period in the late 1990s on the outer continental shelf of the United States.

"To find out the ultimate failsafe weapon doesn't work is surprising," said Cantwell, who as chairwoman of the Senate Commerce Committee's oceans, atmosphere, fisheries and Coast Guard subcommittee will play a roll in any congressional investigation of the Gulf oil spill and the drilling rig fire that caused it.

The unclassified version of the 1990 report said the failures involved 83 wells drilled by 26 rigs in depths from 1,300 feet to 6,560 feet.




Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/04/30/93250/us-report-found-failure-of-offshore.html

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. We really need to shut down the rigs all together. Period.

Can we afford "just one" catastrophe with a nuke plant or another rig?
Can we trust any of the for-profit, unregulated energy companies to be honest about the dangers?

[boppers]

2. How much production would be lost?

What's the total economic impact of such a move?

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. Waht's the total economic impact of losing the fishing

and tourism and related jobs along the coasts of the Gulf AND now they are saying the Atlantic states?

[elocs]

9. There is nothing simple about this, nothing happens in a vacuum,

and the economic impact would be huge.

Imagine if somehow next month all of these oil rigs are shut down (for those of us who live in the real world we know this will not happen, not next month or next year or the next decade). Imagine then as the economic impact of that ripples across the nation as gas goes to $5 and $6 and higher a gallon with people waiting in lines to fill their tanks.

Imagine who the American electorate would punish in November and then in 2012. Welcome to Republican America.

There is also an economic impact of oil rig disasters, but the reality is that however bad that is for the region or the ecology there its tentacles would not reach out to severely strike average Americans all across the nation.

Ultimately there is no simple or simplistic solution to this problem.

[Psephos]

3. I fully agree with you about (mis)trust of corporations.

What I don't understand is why you trust government any more than corporations. I see just as much power lust, dishonesty, and ineptitude in big government as I see in big corporations.

I am deeply skeptical about any concentration of money and power. Trust is not given, it's earned, incrementally. Which means one starts by withholding trust until sound evidence accrues.

To speak directly to your point about energy companies: they are like the banks. They have so much $$ that they can easily buy favored treatment from any legislature or regulatory body. Or flip it around: our esteemed legislators and regulators are powerful enough and craven to know they can extract amazing amounts of money and power from the corporations they oversee. Which is exactly what they do.

Decentralization is the only answer for the inevitable corruptions that accompany concentration of either money or political power. Authoritarianism is just as despicable as corporatism.

[madokie]

7. If it wasn't for 'Government'

we'd still be driving autos that got 10 miles per gallon spewing all kinds of pollutants into the air. For just one 'for instance.'

[dixiegrrrrl]

10. II made no statement about trusting government.

I agree with what you said.

I know in the real world there can be no instant pulling of the switch.
And I know there are 30,000 oil wells in the Gulf ( according to Salazar yesterday).

I also know we do not live in a forward planning world, and do not seem to respond to anything
except being slammed into the brick wall of reality.

At the end of it all, somewhere down the line, there may be a few old old people who will
say, " See? Told you we shoulda listened to that Carter feller back in '79".

More likely, all that people my age learned and yelled about that led up to the FIRST Earth Day
will be gone and forgotten as soon as we are gone and forgotten, because we seem to have no
institutionalized memory either.

[Psephos]

12. A good and insightful response.

More karma to you. :)

[DetlefK]

5. Concerning technology we are a few decades away from an oil-free world.

Research centers for fusion reactors are currently being built. By my estimate the first of those will go online in 20-30 years.
-> only passively radioactive materials as waste

hydrogen fuel cells: currently in development, but still not efficient enough for their weight; alternative idea: instead of recharging battery, installing a full battery

solar power: on the roofs of many newly-built houses (either converting sunlight into electricity or heat)

wind power: right now, dozens of off-shore wind-parks are being built or planned

water power: using river-flow to run a dynamo (almost no press coverage, from traditional water mills a more efficient design has been developed; only a handful of prototypes installed so far)

[madokie]

8. I sure hope that fusion is figured out

but it doesn't look like it will be in my lifetime. I see it more as a carrot and stick thing with the nuclear power industry using it to convince us to let them continue with their very dangerous ways. Oh but we've got this new shiny thing that will be here by the end of the decade that will use up all this radioactive waste to make it a not issue. No I don't think we'll have fusion anytime soon. Been hearing about fusion for a long time now and its always about a decade or more away.

[DetlefK]

11. google for "ITER"

that's a european research center on fusion technology that will soon be operational.

And such a reactor will work on deuterium (an isotope of hydrogen, which has to be filtered out from normal water), not on radioactive waste.

It sure looks like a carrot on a stick, as progress is painfully slow. (I hope they have at least figured which design would be best.)

[madokie]

6. We can trust that they will not be honest nor forthcoming

if their past is any indication of their future. Nationalize all of them is the ticket right along with the big banks