BP spill at 60 days, and counting: Worst case scenario?

The BP rig exploded and sank on April 22nd.

My intro class students were just about wrapping up the assignment I had given them--on how the volcanic eruption in Iceland messed up Kenyan farmers who export flowers and, therefore, on the role of transportation in economic growth and development.

I thought that might just about be the only "current news" driven assignment for the term.  But then the BP disaster happened.  My gut instincts were that it was a catastrophe, which was the word I used to describe it when I pulled up photographs of the news story in the class (thanks to the wired "smart rooms" in which we now teach).  So, it was on to the next "current news" driven assignment.

Now, 60 days later, it does not seem like we are anywhere near the end of the story.  In fact, as Lisa Margonelli writes:

The question I'd like to ask Tony Hayward is this: To the best of your knowledge are we near the end of this spill? In the middle? Or perhaps, only at the very beginning?

Back on May 1st, I noted in the post that this was our own Chernobyl.  If I second-guessed myself that I was engaging in hyperbole, well, it sadly seems like I might have even underestimated it--it is even worse than Chernobyl because unlike the nuclear reactor accident, this one has a real probability that it could go on until there is no more oil to ooze out.  One can imagine the horrific economic and environmental consequences .... and we will still be underestimating ...

I was initially a tad suspicious of this Scienceblog post on the worst case scenario about the BP oozathon--that we will never be able to stop it.  But, even Margonelli refers to that, and adds this:

There are legitimate concerns about the integrity of the casing. Yesterday, someone asked Admiral Allen about that. He said that concerns about the integrity of the well bore were part of the decision to stop the "Top Kill" a few weeks ago, indicating that there are significant concerns. On April 23, the Coast Guard was aware that the size of the leak could grow from 8000 barrels a day to 64,000 to 110,000 barrels a day if the well completely blew out. That's quite close to the current spill estimates. Does that mean that the well is nearing a full blow out?   

The reason the casing's integrity matters is that if it's cracked, oil will push out through the cracks and into the surrounding ground, destabilizing the ground around the casing, and bubbling up from the ocean floor. Here's more, with Senator Bill Nelson's interview a week and a half ago saying just that. A seeping well, of course, will be hard to contain. 

Holy crap!
Oh yeah, happy Father's Day!

Are we f*ing idiots?

That is what Jon Stewart asks ... this is a must-watch segment, which tells a far better story (of course!) than the one I did earlier ... once again, will be super-hysterically funny if it weren't true.
Stewart also points out something that I tell students when we discuss environmental aspects--the political label of R or D can be misleading, and the best example is Nixon.  Yes, that unethical president who resigned in disgrace and didn't do jail time only because he was given a swift presidential pardon.  Nixon created the EPA that most of the current Republicans dis all the time.
Oh well, here is Stewart:

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A Tale of Two Gulfs

Taking off on the classic Charles Dickens work, A Tale of Two Cities, perhaps the economic, environmental, and geopolitical aspects of petroleum can be woven together as A Tale of Two Gulfs.

Growing up in India, I, like many others, was familiar with “the Gulf” to which hundreds of thousands of Indians headed every year.  The geographic area referred to was the Persian Gulf, which had gained prominence thanks to the phenomenal growth in employment in the oil-rich Gulf countries—specifically, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain, and Kuwait. 

Here in the US, in the current contexts, “the Gulf” now refers to the Gulf of Mexico, where oil has been gushing out from a mile under the sea for two months now.  The live video feed from the site continues to mesmerize not only us here in America, but in the rest of the world as well.

But, more than thirty years ago, it was that other Gulf, and the oil there, that monopolized the attention of Americans.  In 1979, the Iranian revolution ousted the Shah, and installed a theocratic regime, and the geopolitical instability that resulted triggered a massive increase in the global price for oil.  The high oil prices that were recorded then went unmatched until very recently, immediately before the Great Recession. 

As the planet watched the unfolding events in Iran, and struggled to cope with the high price of oil, President Jimmy Carter addressed the country—and the world—in the “Crisis of Confidence” speech.  Carter noted early on in that speech on July 15, 1979, “I began to ask myself the same question that I now know has been troubling many of you. Why have we not been able to get together as a nation to resolve our serious energy problem?”

Thirty-one years have gone by since Carter’s frustration that we have not been able to figure a way out of the energy problem.  Six months later, after losing the election in November, Carter stated in his State of the Union address that the official position of the United States was that “an attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”

Since then, we have been quite fixated on the Persian Gulf, with mostly disastrous economic and human costs.  While Carter couched this doctrine in the context of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the altered landscape since the fall of the Communist bloc has apparently not dented our perspectives on the Persian Gulf and petroleum. 

Even more, despite the political fixation, I suppose most Americans are unfamiliar with the geography and geopolitics.  Every once in a while I quiz students on the Persian Gulf and Middle Eastern countries, and rare is a student who correctly identifies at least a half of them.   

As problems began in the “other” Gulf—the Gulf of Mexico—I asked students in my introductory class to quiz at least six on campus about the catastrophe.  One of the questions was to list all the states in the union that border the Gulf of Mexico.  The results of this exercise, also, were far from encouraging. 

Our collective apathy about the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Mexico, and the valued resource that is in common—petroleum—is depressing.  Particularly when we project it against the background of Carter’s speech from 1979, in which he observed that “the energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our nation. These are facts and we simply must face them.”

We threw out any sense of urgency once the Persian Gulf crisis eased.  The Gulf of Mexico gusher, which ought to have been avoided in the first place, will be capped, hopefully sooner than later.  But, even after the images of oil-stained pelicans disappear from the daily news, I hope we will stay focused enough to write the rest of A Tale of Two Gulfs, and get to my favorite phrase: The End!

An OMG edition: Sarah Palin

TPM via Slate:

"Well, then what the federal government should have done was accept the assistance of foreign countries, of entrepreneurial Americans who have had solutions that they wanted presented. They can't even get a phone call returned, Bill. The Dutch—they are known, and the Norwegians—they are known for dikes and for cleaning up water and for dealing with spills. They offered to help and yet, no, they too, with the proverbial, can't even get a phone call back."
—To Bill O'Reilly, Fox News, June 15, 2010.

You know, maybe it is time for that Stephen Sondheim classic:

Cartoons of the day: the BP Oozathaon

We continue to fail "to resolve our serious energy problem"

After listening to President Obama's Oval Office address yesterday, I prefer the Jimmy Carter "Crisis of Confidence" speech from 30-plus years ago.  But, the fact that I am referring to Carter's speech is itself a reflection of how much the US has failed to act when it comes to energy and the environment.  Pathetic.  And, even when Obama talked about an energy policy need, he did not use that pulpit to urge the Senate to get cracking on the stalled bill ...

Bloody depressing that politics is thus ... To get more depressed (!) I thought it might be neat to dig up what President Bush (II) said about offshore drilling; wasn't a difficult search.  Here he is in July 2008--his last days of the presidency:

As all these are happening, I thought this might be the best opportunity for Al Gore to come out swinging, and say "I told you so."  But, of course, Gore is dealing with his split from his wife, and his daughter's divorce as well.  If that is what is preventing Gore from being in the public on this topic, then I am all the more impressed with his priorities--as they ought to be.
Yet,

Contrast this with last summer, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi brought her climate bill to the floor of Congress. Gore phoned wavering members and twisted arms alongside the president to pass the landmark American Clean Energy and Security Act. As the Senate debates a version of that legislation that could reduce emissions and consumption of domestic oil reserves, Gore is far behind the scenes.

Here is the first part of Jimmy Carter's 1979 speech, where he states the main purpose behind his address: "why have we not been able to get together as a nation to resolve our serious energy problem?"

So, how much things do not change? Jon Stewart explains it in the context of Guantanamo:

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"English muffins" are now "Freedom Muffins" :)

The anti-British rhetoric is getting a tad nasty ... click here for a round-up ....

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Kafka and the Gulf of Mexico Oozathon

I have always been drawn to Kafka, and now I can't stop myself from following the BP catastrophe ... It is neat that thanks to one of my favorite websites I came across this fantastic piece that combines Kafka and the great ooze from the bottom of the sea:

Is there any hope in the situation? This is where on our darker days, Kafka is a bleak New Orleans prophet. He was often dark, though never a nihilist. He lived, always, at the edge of faith. Once, his friend Max Brod asked him if there was any such thing as hope in the universe. “Yes,” Kafka replied, “of course there’s hope, plenty of hope—for God. Just none for us.”

I know that punch line sounds grim, but right now it hurts so much it’s funny. In the land of disaster, even a bitter laugh is a start.

Kafka offers wonderful insights through his works.  It is too bad that many universities provide enough and more pathways for students to completely bypass Kafka--they can graduate and earn diplomas without ever even having heard about Kafka.  Unfortunate.  There is one college that has apparently been requiring incoming freshmen to read Kafka and Charles Darwin's works in the summer before they start college, and then the first few weeks of college is nothing but Kafka and Darwin all the time

[We] have asked incoming first-year students to read two texts in the summer before they arrive at Bard---Kafka's The Metamorphosis and the fourth chapter of Darwin's The Origin of Species, "Natural Selection." On some level, students will find something familiar about these summer readings as well as something counterintuitive and obscure. A simplified version of what takes place in Kafka's short story has some presence in popular culture, and at a minimum most students will have heard someone use the word "Kafkaesque." A direct encounter with the writing of this remarkable German-speaking Jew from Prague who was reluctant to have his writings published can be inspiring precisely because of the tension between image, reception, and textual reality that characterizes both The Metamorphosis and Kafka's life.

The disjunction between image and reality could not be more pronounced than in the case of Charles Darwin. The claims of no other thinker or scientist, with the possible exception of Einstein, have been so mangled and distorted in the popular imagination. Somehow every citizen thinks he or she knows what Darwin thought without actually having read his writings. Direct engagement with Darwin's work not only makes the character and significance of modern biology more apparent, exciting, and vital, but the brilliance and subtlety of Darwin's thought quickly dispel the distortions that dominate scientific journalism in the popular media.

Colleges must counter the experience of conventional high school education in the United States, where learning is little more than a standardized test-driven chore with utilitarian benefits. In college, students should discover that most of the important writings and discoveries they will study were not generated for their benefit, but rather came into being in order to illuminate and improve life. It is precisely the connection between learning and living that justifies the life of the mind and makes study and inquiry a treasured form of human activity and among the most rewarding.

This belief cannot be preached; it can only be experienced. What better mechanism to set this experience in motion than assigning common readings in the summer?

Can't take my eyes off you :(

More here from the National Geographic

Donate to clean up in the Gulf

The "Gulf"s in American politics

In India, when people refer to "the Gulf", it is the Persian Gulf they have in mind.  Because of the hundreds of thousands of Indians who work in the countries by that Gulf--with the exception of Iran. 
Now, with the BP oil gusher, here in the US when we say "the Gulf" we are, of course, referring to the Gulf of Mexico.
I told my freshman class, as the catastrophe started unfolding, that 30 years ago our attention was on the Persian Gulf, and now it is on the Gulf of Mexico.  And that it is only a matter of time before we are, once again, fixated on the Persian Gulf. 

Way worse than the Exxon-Valdez disaster :(

The "Chernobyl" of the oil industry

The dark shadows of the Chernobyl disaster looms in the background when we think about nuclear energy.  And, yes, the nuclear industry counters with their arguments about safety and security here in the US.

But, even a low probability for a disaster means that when that disaster happens, it is not a simple one.  The result: a great deal of opposition to building nuclear power plants.

The catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Louisiana, is a similar story then for offshore oil drilling.  When environmentalists worried about the potential downsides, well, even President Obama minimized those concerns; he said,

today we’re announcing the expansion of offshore oil and gas exploration, but in ways that balance the need to harness domestic energy resources and the need to protect America’s natural resources.  Under the leadership of Secretary Salazar, we’ll employ new technologies that reduce the impact of oil exploration.  We’ll protect areas that are vital to tourism, the environment, and our national security.  And we’ll be guided not by political ideology, but by scientific evidence.

That's why my administration will consider potential areas for development in the mid and south Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, while studying and protecting sensitive areas in the Arctic.  That’s why we’ll continue to support development of leased areas off the North Slope of Alaska, while protecting Alaska’s Bristol Bay.

How did the chief Republican legislator react to Obama's oil exploration proposal?  No, he did not oppose it, but chastised the president for not expanding the idea:

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) dismissed the president's plan as not going far enough in opening up U.S. waters for exploration. 

Obama's decision "continues to defy the will of the American people," Boehner said in a statement, pointing to the president's decision to open Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico waters, while leaving Pacific and many Alaskan waters largely closed to exploration. 

The irony of it all: Candidate Obama made it very clear that offshore drilling would not deliver any benefit.  In the video below, Candidate Obama actually says "let me make it clear ...."

I suppose after getting elected, President Obama saw things differently, as politicians often do after winning the election!