The environment thread

[StrangeSox]

Pretty cool conservation source for anyone in the Chicago area. They've got a "Conservation at Home" section with ideas for native plants, rain gardens, rain barrels, etc.

 

http://www.theconservationfoundation.org/

[StrangeSox]

The Oil Drum with a good article on possibly shifting attitudes towards energy:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6591

 

That seems to be an all-around good source for more indepth and technical information on the spill and recovery efforts.

[BigSqwert]

Surf's Up!

Where's the oil!

[StrangeSox]

Brit Hume should be forced to go for a swim in that.

[Balta1701]

Small oil spill in utah, but in urban area.

[StrangeSox]

BP finally gets the right experts on the job.

 

But they died in 2005.

[StrangeSox]

Oh, and some under/ not-reported oil spills in Nigeria, comparable in scale to DWH.

 

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-stag...a-world-spilled

 

NSS, this is why I don't hold out hope for newly-discovered mineral deposits to bring a better life for Afghans. If the resources are in an area populated by poor people, then little to no concern is given to safety or the environment.

Edited June 14, 2010 by StrangeSox

[kapkomet]

This just gives our soldiers reason to rape women in the middle of the night and lose more wars. -- John Kerry and Harry Reid.

[StrangeSox]

A Letter from Congress ahead of Hayward's visit:

 

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6604

 

That does not bode well for BP.

 

edit: seriously, unless this letter is way off the mark with the facts, f*** BP. Bankrupt those assholes, and send those directly responsible to jail.

 

Even if the hole is perfectly straight, a straight piece of pipe even in tension will not seek the perfect center of the hole unless it has something to centralize it.

 

But, who cares, it's done, end of story, will probably be fine and we' ll get a good cement job. I would rather have to squeeze than get stuck .... So Guide is right on the risk/reward equation.

 

Transocean's internal working report as of June 8th. Some good diagrams in there to understand exactly what the oil well looks like and how the different components (BOP, casing, annulus, etc.) play together.

http://energycommerce.house.gov/documents/...June.8.2010.pdf

 

edit again:

and a large document dump

http://energycommerce.house.gov/index.php?...s&Itemid=55

Edited June 15, 2010 by StrangeSox

[Chisoxfn]

I find it hard to have sympathy. BP was a transparently awful company, and investing in inherently risky.

Holy cripes, you guys should have heard the British news outlets talk about Obama and the way the US is handling this thing. They are ballistic. They talk I heard was not what I typically associated with England and the US. It calmed down a bit after Cameron had his talk with Obama but they are f***ing livid at the Obama administration and they refer to him as the Great Joke (instead of the Great Hope).

 

The British citizens are getting killed as there retirements are heavily impacted by what the US government is asking for. I personally have a major long-term buy status on BP because they will recover from this and right now they are incredibly undervalued. However, I could be a complete dumbass and be wrong. I tend to believe people over-react.

[Chisoxfn]

So, serious question for those who know better.

 

I've been holding 20 shares of BP for the last decade that my Aunt gave me when I graduated high school.

 

If BP goes into Chapter 11 to protect it from creditors, what typically happens to common stock shareholders? Is it worth holding those shares or should I look into dumping it and taking the $600 loss now?

They will not go bankrupt.

[Chisoxfn]

Which kind of makes me wonder, shouldn't this be a world wide response, not just a BP / US response?

You mean the other coutnries that immediately offered up its ships and resources to help with the Gulf clean-up? Oh wait, our government ignored those offers. If they did we would have had a lot more ships out there cleaning things. Countries were offering assistance pretty damn immediately and our govenrment as well as BP looked the other way (albeit, our government is far more responsible for accepting governmental assistance from other countries than BP).

 

This has been an epic f***up and the Obama administration is culprit 1B along with BP.

[Chisoxfn]

Well, first point...it's in U.S. waters, it is a U.S. licensed rig, the U.S. owns the mineral rights, and the U.S. would be taking royalties on the oil that was sold. It is a U.S. problem involving a multi-national company that the U.S. licensed to do the drilling.

 

Second point; as I noted a few pages ago; other nations with expertise in these areas have offered help. The U.S. turned them down.

It was because of an old ass rule indicating something along the lines of how we don't allow foreign ships to do some sort of random business in US waters. I dont' have it exactly but it was some outdated legislation if I ever heard of it and it should have been immediately looked past given the state of the oil spill.

[KipWellsFan]

Holy cripes, you guys should have heard the British news outlets talk about Obama and the way the US is handling this thing. They are ballistic. They talk I heard was not what I typically associated with England and the US. It calmed down a bit after Cameron had his talk with Obama but they are f***ing livid at the Obama administration and they refer to him as the Great Joke (instead of the Great Hope).

 

The British citizens are getting killed as there retirements are heavily impacted by what the US government is asking for. I personally have a major long-term buy status on BP because they will recover from this and right now they are incredibly undervalued. However, I could be a complete dumbass and be wrong. I tend to believe people over-react.

 

According to the poll(s) I've seen today, most Americans think Obama should be harder on BP, so it's not like Obama has an easy balance to strike.

 

Are some of these Brits, and others invested in BP of no fault of their own? Because to me energy companies are always attractive investment options, but with difficult moral questions, and certain obvious risks.

[StrangeSox]

Holy cripes, you guys should have heard the British news outlets talk about Obama and the way the US is handling this thing. They are ballistic. They talk I heard was not what I typically associated with England and the US. It calmed down a bit after Cameron had his talk with Obama but they are f***ing livid at the Obama administration and they refer to him as the Great Joke (instead of the Great Hope).

 

The British citizens are getting killed as there retirements are heavily impacted by what the US government is asking for. I personally have a major long-term buy status on BP because they will recover from this and right now they are incredibly undervalued. However, I could be a complete dumbass and be wrong. I tend to believe people over-react.

 

I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for them. The US government isn't even asking for enough at this point IMO ($20B isn't going to cover everything). Investing is inherently risky, and when you invest in a company with transparently awful practices, well, you risk getting burned.

[kapkomet]

Tonight's speech:

 

Story after story about how bad it is, and how *I* personally met with all these people's lives that are ruined. (Create strawman).

 

BP sucks, and *I* will hold them personally responsible for any and all cleanup costs and put in regluations to ensure this never happens again. ("Kick their ass").

 

*I* have appointed an oil czar. (More government executive power).

 

*I* have been and am on top of this since day one. (f***ing straight up lie but have to "cover that ass")

 

*I* have appointed another lawyer at MMS (gotta have more lawyers, can't pass up this crisis as an opportunity)

 

This will be long and painful, and *I* will not rest until it's cleaned up. (Kind of like solving mortgage crisis and unemployment will not exceed 8%).

 

That's about it. 45 minutes just typed out in two.

[StrangeSox]

According to the poll(s) I've seen today, most Americans think Obama should be harder on BP, so it's not like Obama has an easy balance to strike.

 

Are some of these Brits, and others invested in BP of no fault of their own? Because to me energy companies are always attractive investment options, but with difficult moral questions, and certain obvious risks.

 

It's another "too big to fail." It doesn't matter how awful they ran their business and how many risks they took; their collapse would effect too many people and so we have to prop them up. There is a legitimate argument for BP sticking around so they can continue to pay for cleanup costs and (lifetime) loss-of-wages damages.

[kapkomet]

Obama is just as negligent and criminally liable (yea, I know, can't happen, but in reality this is true) in this as BP now.

[Chisoxfn]

I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for them. The US government isn't even asking for enough at this point IMO ($20B isn't going to cover everything). Investing is inherently risky, and when you invest in a company with transparently awful practices, well, you risk getting burned.

I never said it was a safe investment, but I think that people are over-reacting from a business perspective and the assumption that BP can't afford this mess is most likely incorrect. Now it could get a whole lot worse, but the US is going to bear some of this burden as well and I don't believe BP will be allowed to fail. The British government certainly wouldn't stand for it and regardless of what we believe the US isn't going to ignore the criticisms from our largest allies and one of the more powerful nations in the world.

 

I would also say that the fiasco was intensifed by our own governments ignorance and unwillingness to step in. BP also f***ed up but this would be a much less of a mess of Obama even did a deplorable job. And I'm not saying the government would solve anything as I tend to believe the governmetn is worthelss, but the government does have more power than BP when it comes to working with other countries, institutions, etc, to ensure that all of the resources possible are involved in a clean-up.

 

This mess was too big for just BP to clean up and the government was completely worthless in the way it has handled this mess. Obama's legacy is heading straight into the s***ter as far as I'm concerned (and he's pretty much been a gigantic failure in my book prior to this and I had been pretty willing to give the guy a chance becasue I won't deny that my republicans f***ed up immensly in the way they behaved during the 2nd half of Bushs' adminastration).

 

 

[Chisoxfn]

It's another "too big to fail." It doesn't matter how awful they ran their business and how many risks they took; their collapse would effect too many people and so we have to prop them up. There is a legitimate argument for BP sticking around so they can continue to pay for cleanup costs and (lifetime) loss-of-wages damages.

Not to mention they aren't a bad company. We put Arthur Anderson out of business because of one f*** up (and it was later found out that they should have never failed). We can't put BP out of business because of one f***-up, albeit a pretty massive one. Especially since everyone was well aware that eventually something like this was bound to happen. Clearly BP has failed and this will be something that all oil companies learn from but the blame is shared with our own federal governments complete ignorance in handling the situation. It is embarassing what our government has done to deal with this mess. And again, I don't think our government would have fixed the problem but they certainly have the power to ensure more resources are poured into a crisis and they completely f***ed up in that.

 

Institutions, other countries aid/resources (which our administration turned down due to a bulls***, outdated law), forcing BP to allow independent consultants to perform there own assessments of the leaks (no way should something like this have been left just to BP's statements. BP clearly isn't independent of the situation and would most likely be best suited by putting out their most beneficial estimates). I'm just really dissatisifed with the way everything has been handled. BP f***ed up, but our government majorly f***ed up too in the handling of a crisis and helped perpetuate the situation.

[Chisoxfn]

Obama is just as negligent and criminally liable (yea, I know, can't happen, but in reality this is true) in this as BP now.

It is absurd what this guy has gotten away with. Ya he's smooth on camera, but outside of that he is worthless. Basically that has been my opinion of Barack from the get-go. He just isn't seasoned enough to be president and the gist I get from the international arena (reading FT, watching BBC, etc) is that there opinion is pretty similar. Now for the most part the oval office runs itself but in certain times you need to have the president influence the way something is handled and this was one of those times, much like 9/11 and Katrina were.

 

Bush handled 9/11 superbly, Katrina (not so much) but as far as I'm concerned this has been 10 times the f***-up Katrina was. Our response was slow but our failure was because we relied heavily on our state legislation and it was compounded because our state govenrment was completely ignorant. President Bush did't step in quick enough from the federal perspective but he got involved a f***load faster than Obama has. The main difference is obviously on the loss of lives in Katrina vs the oil spill but the long-term impacts of this environmental disaster are HUGE.

[Chisoxfn]

I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for them. The US government isn't even asking for enough at this point IMO ($20B isn't going to cover everything). Investing is inherently risky, and when you invest in a company with transparently awful practices, well, you risk getting burned.

Remember, the US ain't the only country in the world and foreign relations matter. You can't just s*** on everyone. This is a foreign owned entity that we contracted out to and with that we can't just be the be all, tell all, overpowering monopoly we typically act like. While in general most local conglomerates have foreign impacts as well, we still are the governing country but in this case the US really isn't.

 

Sure we can swing a stick, but thing of the british who are seeing there company go to tanks and get thrown to the wovles because of statements of policticans, etc (or at least there is there feeling) who are basically trying to save there ass because they have made the situation worse by not helping BP and not supporting the company. And now we are telling a foreign owned company what they can and can't do.

 

I certainly can feel for them. Think if China told Microsoft that it was going to have talks and recommend that they shouldn't pay dividends becayse of some massive virus that hit Chinese computers through some hole in microsofts OS. We'd be in an uproar and would tell China to go f*** itself.

[Soxbadger]

Imo

 

Obama was damned if he did, damned if he didnt.

 

He uses the US govt, spends tax payers money, people are complaining that he spent their tax dollars on BP's mess.

 

He lets BP clean it up, it doesnt get done quickly, people complain.

 

I just hope they figure out a solution, instead of worrying who to blame.

[Chisoxfn]

Imo

 

Obama was damned if he did, damned if he didnt.

 

He uses the US govt, spends tax payers money, people are complaining that he spent their tax dollars on BP's mess.

 

He lets BP clean it up, it doesnt get done quickly, people complain.

 

I just hope they figure out a solution, instead of worrying who to blame.

The reailty is there are some things that are bigger. When big s*** happens that needs massive resources the government typcially needs to be invovled because private business don't necessarily have the pull to make it all happen. Sometimes they do, but often times they don't. In this case, it is our governments job to protect our country and this spill harmed our country, so they needed to get involved.

 

I feel the government shoudl do very little other than intervene and try and act as a 3rd party consultant at times to ensure appropriate resources are applied, ensure appropriate funding of roads and infastructure within our country, ensure a minimal life-style for people (i.e., help the poor to an extent by putting programs and assisting people when they are done), oversea education, and of course ensure national defense.

[Soxbadger]

The problem Obama faced is that he is called a "communist", "socialist", etc.

 

Im not an expert on the Oil Pollution Act, but I think it requires the party responsible to pay for clean up costs.

 

At the end of the day to many politicians (on both sides) let politics get in the way of doing the right thing.

 

If Obama had come in guns blazing, do you think Republican pundits would be saying "Good work" or "Another example of Obama expanding the govt."

 

Its a problem with our political society.