BP definitely understands, better than anyone else who pretends to what is going on. The problem is that what is really going on is incredibly scary proposition. The truth is that from the beginning the only real way to fix this is with relief wells which they are in the process of drilling. The problem with the relief well is that it takes about 6 months to implement. Do you really expect BP to come out with that to the American people?
I have this on good authority by a petroleum engineer in a rival oil company. Believe me or not but I think that the people in the oil industry probably no better about how to fix this problem than Obama or anyone else in government who are just going to get in the way. First, I do not at all agree with offshore drilling, however it bothers me that people assume that BP is holding out or that this is really an easy thing to fix. They aren't because letting the disaster continue will destroy their company and it isn't easy considering they are composed of people who studied petroleum engineering and actually no what they are doing. Johnny's silly, uninformed ideas aren't going to work either. Hell, the petroleum engineer I know also said that Russia's idea of nuking the leak would be the quickest way to fix but the government, or sane people, wouldn't allow that.
The bottom line is that we should never have been drilling in the first place. This spill is terrible but it happened and we have to deal with it. It bothers me though that people really think BP isn't doing the best they can and has the best people in the world working on this. The entire oil industry is helping them. The government and other entities should worry about supporting them and helping the people affected by this cope with the fallout. Leave the technical details to the professionals because everyone else ideas are uninformed, will slow things down, and will not work. Only a relief well will and thats 4 months away so why not worry about helping the people of the golf? The truly sad thing is that Americans will still get up tomorrow and drive their gas guzzling SUVs 2 miles to work instead of riding bike and those bullet trains and public transportation efforts are still decades away...
> ... Americans will still get up tomorrow and drive their gas guzzling SUVs ...
Let's say that I'm an American with a gas guzzling SUV. For the sake of discussion, what would you suggest are my better alternatives (taking into account the money I've already invested in the SUV)? How would those alternatives help fix the current BP problem? I'm not trying to be contrarian. I would like to start a discussion here.
I don't think Americans really need to do anything personally. I think the primary issue is the lack of public transportation here in America. We need leadership on this from the top so that we can catch up to the rest of the world. You can go anywhere in Europe in hours on a train. I know America is big but we are still (perhaps) the richest country in the world and we can implement a quality public transportation system. It would even help the economy by providing jobs, just like all of the infrastructure projects of the new deal did.
Besides public transportation though, just working on our infrastructure would help with fuel saving. Sitting in traffic all day doesn't help MPG. Hell, sometimes I wish I had an SUV for some of the roads here in Pittsburgh, with the potholes its like I am driving through in Iraq. Also, my beef isn't really with all SUVs. I mean the Traverse gets what 33/mpg? I am talking about the people who drive Escalades to and from work and don't haul anyone around.
Yea, I for one would welcome fast, comfortable, ubiquitous trains. Also, it would be nice if America could really embrace ideas like work from home or Results Only Work Environment in jobs where that makes sense. In my current job, there's no reason I couldn't do 98% of my work from home, except that management is scared that they'd lose control, which is really ridiculous on many levels. This is a new era and some organizations are managing people using techniques from 50 or more years ago. Techniques that have been scientifically shown to be a bad idea in certain jobs.
I have this on good authority by a petroleum engineer in a rival oil company. Believe me or not but I think that the people in the oil industry probably no better about how to fix this problem than Obama or anyone else in government who are just going to get in the way. First, I do not at all agree with offshore drilling, however it bothers me that people assume that BP is holding out or that this is really an easy thing to fix. They aren't because letting the disaster continue will destroy their company and it isn't easy considering they are composed of people who studied petroleum engineering and actually no what they are doing. Johnny's silly, uninformed ideas aren't going to work either. Hell, the petroleum engineer I know also said that Russia's idea of nuking the leak would be the quickest way to fix but the government, or sane people, wouldn't allow that.
The bottom line is that we should never have been drilling in the first place. This spill is terrible but it happened and we have to deal with it. It bothers me though that people really think BP isn't doing the best they can and has the best people in the world working on this. The entire oil industry is helping them. The government and other entities should worry about supporting them and helping the people affected by this cope with the fallout. Leave the technical details to the professionals because everyone else ideas are uninformed, will slow things down, and will not work. Only a relief well will and thats 4 months away so why not worry about helping the people of the golf? The truly sad thing is that Americans will still get up tomorrow and drive their gas guzzling SUVs 2 miles to work instead of riding bike and those bullet trains and public transportation efforts are still decades away...