

New Setback in Attempt to Contain Gulf Oil Spill - jfi
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/us/09rig.html

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MWinther
This doesn't seem to be the ideal backdrop for more offshore drilling.

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ars
It's not, but historically things like this are pretty rare.

If anything I'd be more in favor of offshore drilling, not less. After a
disaster like this people will learn from it. (Just as they have from every
previous disaster.) So offshore drilling is likely to become even safer.

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timr
_"It's not, but historically things like this are pretty rare."_

That's false. Drilling-related spills are quite common:

[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/09/weekinreview/0...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/09/weekinreview/09marsh.html)

 _"Oil regularly spills into Gulf waters....Oil companies reported that
drilling platforms alone dumped nearly 50,000 barrels of oil, or more than two
million gallons, into U.S. Gulf waters from 1996 through last year."_

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nitrogen
If you interpret "like this" to mean on the same order of magnitude, then yes,
they are rare. 50000 barrels of oil total over 14 years is the standard. This
is 5000 to 50000 barrels _per day_. I'm not saying that it's okay to spill any
amount of oil, but the present spill should be viewed in its proper
perspective as an uncommon event.

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timr
How did I know that was going to be the comeback? Of _course_ an event of this
magnitude is rare. The point is not that massive oil spills are common, but
that it's pretty common for drilling to lead to spills.

The parent comment was that he'd be _more_ in favor of drilling now that this
has happened, as if it were a situation where we'd made the one big mistake,
and now drilling is going to be safer. The reality is that drilling leads to a
lot of damage _in general_ , regardless of how rarely these major spills
occur.

