

Oil reaches Louisiana shores - jacquesm
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/05/oil_reaches_louisiana_shores.html

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megablast
These Boston Globe photo essays are absolutely amazing. No matter what
subject, and my level of interest, I really find myself drawn into their Big
Picture expose.

This is one medium where digital really shines, I can't imagine how they
represent this in the newspaper, but an single page of high quality images is
just brilliant. Lets hope they don't feel the need to put this in a slide show
format.

~~~
jacquesm
If a picture paints a thousand words then the impact of these images is
probably larger than any of their editorial pages on the subject. That's also
a risk because by selecting the images you could make it appear more or less
worse than it really is.

This selection though, does not give me the impression that they've done that,
however that may be the art. Still, if this is 'all there is' the problem is
of an unbelievable magnitude.

People keep comparing this to the Exxon Valdez spill, and while there are
parallels I can't help but notice that that happened in a much less populated
area of the world, and even this many years on there is _still_ surface oil to
be found there, and it _still_ affects the local wildlife.

~~~
krschultz
The comparisons to the Exxon Valdez are really over wrought, there really
isn't a lot in common

\- The Exxon Valdez was a static amount of oil, we knew how much there was
immediately. We can only estimate the amount of oil leaking here and nobody
can accurately predict the date when it will finally be shut off. The whole
"we have to stop the leak" part was missing in the Exxon Valdez, frankly that
is the pressing crisis now.

\- The Prince William Sound is very enclosed compared to the Gulf of Mexico.
The concentration in the Gulf is much lower, we won't be seeing anything as
bad as the 2" thick crude oil goo covering everything in sight because the oil
is spread out relatively thinly across a huge surface. On one hand that is
good because it will break down faster naturally, on the other hand it makes
corralling really hard to do, the area is massive. June and July are very
timid months for weather in the Gulf because the water and land are very
similar temperatures, what happens in the fall when hurricanes start rolling
through the oil patch? It is going to be hitting everywhere. We lucked out
that for the first few days the prevailing wind was from the northwest, but as
soon as it turned around all hell broke loose.

\- There are marshes in the Gulf. Suffice to say cleaning the oil out from
between blades of grass is a lot harder than off of rocky beaches.

\- Exxon got a lot of blame in 1989, BP has been lucky enough to have this
widely labeled the "Gulf of Mexico oil spill" or the "Spill in the Gulf", the
gulf of mexico did not spill the oil, BP did. Make a point to correct people
who incorrectly label the spill.

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lleger
This is just absolutely heart-wrenching. Louisiana is a very beautiful place
with a wonderful ecosystem. It really, really pains me to see BP totally
destroying my home. Louisiana's coast has a hard enough time as it is, what
with erosion — this is the last thing we needed.

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darien
I think individuals should make it their business of collecting the crude oil
into drums and selling it back to BP or at market. This isn't an Exxon Valdez
situation where the oil was contained inside a tanker, this gulf oil is
spilling out of the earth. It should be anyone's oil, especially when the
spill is in the process of destroying the environment and people's
livelihoods. People should get out there and make some money... get congress
behind you.

~~~
jacquesm
If it were that easy to collect this oil in a usable form then I'm pretty sure
that it would be done already. The problem here is that the oil is spread out
and mixed in with all kinds of contaminants (or rather, there is all sorts of
clean stuff mixed in with the oil, but since you're looking at extracting the
oil let's name them contaminants), to do so cost effectively is likely
impossible.

The best you can hope for at this stage is that BP does not go bust (down
about 29% since this all started, from $60 to $43 now), and that they will be
able to pay for the cleanup.

~~~
rjett
"The best you can hope for at this stage is that BP does not go bust (down
about 29% since this all started, from $60 to $43 now), and that they will be
able to pay for the cleanup."

Does anyone know much of this cleanup is being covered by some form of
disaster (or other) insurance?

~~~
jrockway
BP does not have insurance -- they are too risky to insure. (They have their
own internal insurance division, that operates like an insurance company. But
basically, it's a savings account.)

~~~
rjett
Hmm I don't know how I overlooked that. You're right though:
<http://www.businessinsider.com/bp-jupiter-insurance-2010-5>

~~~
thefool
What happens if it does (go bust)???

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tlrobinson
A comment on that page mentions hurricanes. Anyone have any idea how
hurricanes might affect the situation?

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jrockway
A small price to pay knowing that you won't have to sit next to anyone on the
way to work.

~~~
axiom
As horrifying as this disaster is, I think painting oil as some minor
convenience that spoiled fat Americans narcissistically demand is
disingenuous.

People forget that the alternative to oil was either whale blubber or armies
of horses that left cities knee deep in shit (literally.) The fact is that oil
was a technology that substantially _decreased_ pollution. The proof of that
is that water and air quality has been improving steadily over the years since
the 1800's (partly because of legislation, but largely because of technology.
You can't legislate away horse manure - but you can legislate cars with
cleaner engines.)

So yeah, I look forward to the day when oil is obsoleted in favor of some
magic green energy source that produces no pollution (although rest assured,
people will find something else to bitch and moan about.) Until then, I'll
breathe a silent "thank you" to the grimiest oil refinery out there for making
my life that much easier.

~~~
phaedrus
It's not either-or. We can use oil, while still asking the question, do we
need to use so much, and do we need to push so hard to get more? You don't
have to stop using oil entirely tomorrow to be concerned that the returns we
get from what we're doing now are not worth the damage.

~~~
axiom
Things like conservation are about optimizing the last 5%, which in the long
run (unfortunately) doesn't matter too much. Technological development is more
of a punctuated equilibrium than a gradual upward slope.

So really the best thing to do is leave things alone until oil becomes scarce
(i.e. expensive) and an alternative will be developed. Any attempt to
legislate conservation will just result in us burning more oil for longer.

~~~
blehn
_So really the best thing to do is leave things alone until oil becomes scarce
(i.e. expensive) and an alternative will be developed._

Best thing to do for whom? You're saying that if we continue to find oil for
300 more years, we just keep burning it? That seems pretty awful. The
technology has already been developed (Denmark, for instance, is getting a
quarter of it's electricity from wind power)--why wait?

I'd argue that the _best_ thing to do would be to rapidly transition to the
cleaner, more renewable sources of energy that already exist (wind, water,
sun, even natural gas) while drastically altering lifestyles to reduce the
need for such massive amounts of energy. Maybe the economy (stock market)
get's screwed up for a little while, but hell, it's already screwed up, right?

 _Any attempt to legislate conservation will just result in us burning more
oil for longer._

How so?

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jsz0
_if we continue to find oil for 300 more years, we just keep burning it?_

Someone will, absolutely. First world nations will have the wealth and access
to innovations to convert to cleaner energy but the poor majority of the world
will increasingly create the demand. Oil is too easy and efficient to just
ignore. As I see it the only options to stop this would be to build clean
energy sources for the entire world which seems nearly impossible, destroy or
prevent access to the remaining oil sources, or occupy and repress these poor
countries to actively prevent them from burning oil. The later two options
would almost certainly start World War 3. The first option is ideal but not
very realistic. We are OK letting these same people die due to lack of basic
medical care and clean water. What are the chances we help them convert to
clean energy? Without some massive global catastrophe to change the game
letting the oil run out is the most peaceful and realistic approach in my
opinion.

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czhiddy
It's a link to Boston's BigPicture. I'm curious why you gave reddit credit for
the link.

~~~
jacquesm
Because that's where I found it. Absolutely shocking images, this really rams
home the scope of what is going on there.

I fear this is just the beginning though.

One thing I can't understand, and this is not an armchair oil spill cleanup
attempt, why are they so trying to avoid the oil coming to the surface, isn't
that the only chance you get to contain it and to deal with it? Dispersing it
underwater seems to me to make it much harder to get rid of it.

Can someone with more technical insight here explain that?

~~~
_delirium
The typical reason to use dispersants, at least as I understand it, is that
most of the damage, or at least most of the damage people care about, is done
by oil washing up on shore and coating everything, which can be partly avoided
if the oil is dispersed into a dilute mixture in the water.

~~~
jacquesm
Ok, but doesn't that mean that any chance at cleaning it up is blown and that
the oil will be spreading all throughout the eco-system ?

I can see that BP might think that's a 'cost savings' measure, if you can't
see it you won't have to clean it up, but that seems rather irresponsible.

~~~
_delirium
Well, it'll eventually get broken down by various kinds of oil-metabolizing
bacteria, so e.g. the same amount of oil in the Exxon Valdez spill would've
caused much less damage if it weren't in a big clump near shore. Typical
spills are admittedly a lot smaller than this one, though, so even dilute oil
might cause problems-- one that's been suggested is that it'll lead to a bloom
of the oil-eating bacteria, which will deplete the gulf waters' oxygen.

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jgg
The photo with the kids at the beach having to use a plastic pool was
particularly striking.

~~~
asdflkj
I didn't make the connection when I saw it, that plastic is made of oil.

