oil and video games

Some oil reserves are in environmentally sensitive places, nature preserves and such. Of course, I cannot see how ocean wells are safe to extract oil from either.

Some, as mentioned before, are in shales or sands. They are far harder to extract because the oil has to be mechanically separated from rocky substrate.

Foreign oil also means importing oil that has been extracted with foreign labor, which is much cheaper. Americans expect a certain quality of life and comparatively high pay. Why pay an American to do something when someone overseas will do the same job for cheaper.

Foreign countries also do not always have worker protection like we do. Why not have someone else do the dangerous work?

Last, but not least, environmental factors. Why damage a nature preserve here when we can get cheaper oil from cheaper labor from a region over there. We have little concern for the other countries' well-being if a spill were to occur there.

There are several reasons that we still depend on foreign oil instead of domestic. We need to limit our dependence on ALL oil. Granted, I do drive to work as this city is not pedestrain/bike friendly. But, I plan on moving to a more pedestrian, bike, and skateboard friendly city within two years from now.

Just to clarify, the above statements are not necessarily my personal beliefs (example: let other countries do the dangerous work for lower pay). I was using the arguments that companies use when making those decisions.

Tetris BOB failed!!

Dart said:

On a more serious note, I listened to a radio show last week, and the guest that was on the show worked for BP since like the 70s, wrote a book about all this stuff, and has a finger on the pulse of what is going on. He stated why the valve broke, and it was an accident. Normal oil field, when drilled into, have a pressure about 1,000-1,500psi. The one in the Gulf was rated around 7,000psi. There is no metal on the planet that could withstand that kind of sudden pressure spike. He also listed the "other elements" that are leaching into the ocean, and how the federal government is thinking of closing up the crack (yes, it's not just a hole now, it's a big freaking crack in the mantle now) with a nuclear bomb. It's like fixing a leaky sink by burning down a house. I'll find the link and post it from youtube.

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Well, it's a lot more grim than most people think. I don't see how detonating a nuclear bomb is going to deal a hole in the sea floor. I can only see it making a HUGE hole instead.

Really the only hope we have at this point are the relief wells. We are dealing with a worst case scenario here. This well is leaking from below as well. Top kill was never going to stop that. In fact it only made it worse. Now the BOP, which is 420 tons, which has lost most of it's support is starting to lean. Eventually it will break the pipe below and we'll have a total blowout. If you think a lot of oil is coming out now, it's not much compared to what will be. So now it's a race against time to get those relief wells done before we loose the BOP.

We could be looking at the biggest disaster in our lifetimes.

Polygon said:

We are looking at the biggest disaster in our lifetimes.

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Fixed.

Really, short of meteor or global nuclear warfare, this likely is the worst disaster any of us will see.

It's sickening how BP is trying to make it look like it's no big thing.

This happened in 1979 in the gulf also. The same tactics they used then, which all failed also, BP repeated in order. So they knew the techniques would fail. Relief drilling may work to reduce the pressure. But we'll see...