Call me a naive ignoramous, but when they figured how to pump oil from the bowels of the earth, couldn't they create a plan to stem an accidental hemorrhage like the one we are currently seeing?

Aren't oil companies willing to spend money on rescue plans?

Perhaps they gamble and decide its cheaper to hope for the best and pay the penalty if an accident happens

Maybe this has been allowed to happen because for years the ocean was regarded as a communal garbage dump.

Can any engineer enlighten me?

They generally do think about things that can go wrong, take steps to prevent them from going wrong, and have contingency plans in place for when they do go wrong. And if they foresee the possibility of a catastrophic event which they would be unable to prevent or remedy and whose consequences they could not live with, then they don’t proceed with the development. Common decency aside, it is not in their self-interest to find themselves in the position that BP is now in.

But no human process is perfect. I don’t know what happened in the present instance, and I’m not sure that anyone does, yet. But it seems certain that either (a) something happened which they failed to foresee, or (b) some precautionary or preventative process or safeguard which they decided upon was not, in the event, put in place or operated. I doubt that they calculated that they could live with the consequences of this kind of accident, because the plain fact is that it’s not clear that they can.

Do companies calculate that it is cheaper to run a particular risk than to guard against it? All the time. So do individuals. So do you, in all probability. If you have, say, a $750 excess on your home insurance policy, you have in effect decided that an accidental loss of up to $750 is one that wouldn’t floor you, that you don’t need to insure against, and that you are better off simply living with the risk.

But this calculation is distorted for a business if they don’t bear all the losses that result, or may result, from their business activity. Pollution is an obvious issue; if my plant pollutes the river water, it is the downstream river users and riverside property owners who suffer, not me. One of the goals of a regulatory regime has to be to ensure that the costs and risks of my business are born by me, and not imposed on someone else. And if that can’t happen, then the regulation should prohibit the business activity outright. I’ve no doubt that one of the questions which will be debated in the aftermath of this instance is whether drilling of deepwater wells of this kind should be allowed at all, now that we know what can happen.

Deleted by Hunter

I think it's a perfect example of Murphy's Law in action. Things will go wrong, often at the worst possible time and in the worst possible way. It's one of the reasons that I am opposed to monopolies. The bigger they are, the bigger their screw-ups tend to be. Of course, the biggest monopoly is the government and all other monopolies have to be approved by the government.

One of the issues in the oil spill now is the building of sand berms to prevent the oil from entering the marshes. But, they're not being built. Why? Well, because the rules say that before they can be built there must be an environmental impact survey done to insure they won't do harm. By the time the survey is done, the oil will be in the marshes and it will be a moot point.

Real life example. We had a gas leak that exploded downtown and 1/4 of a city block disappeared. Poof. The fire department was on the scene, the police, the gas company, and every damned politician you can imagine. We had a plethora of private contractors with equipment to clear debris looking for people in the rubble and to shore up damaged buildings facing farther collapse.

A contractor came to me and said, "When the blast went off it created a vacuum that sucked the entire end wall off that building. At the top, there's a gap of over a foot and there's no way that can be repaired. But, we can't work there because that wall can collapse on us."

"What's the problem?"

"No one will say we can knock the wall down." I asked a couple of other contractors and they agreed the wall needed to come down in a controlled manner and not when gravity decided it was time.

"Okay, knock the wall down." They secured the area from all workers and knocked the wall down and work proceeded.

When dealing with a bureaucracy, no one wants to take the responsibility to say, "Knock the wall down." No one wants to accept responsibility.

What we're seeing now is massive buck-passing which means things that should be done don't get done.

Then there's cost-cutting. Not just with private business but with the governmental oversight, too. Above our city were three earthen dams. For years, they had sat there, quite safely. Then people noticed water running, some rapidly, under the dams. Questions were asked and we learned that to "save money" the regular inspections of the dams had been skipped, for years. The subsequent repairs were major. Had the inspections been done and repairs made as problems arose it would have been much less expenive and much less disruptive. And, no one decided to skip the inspections. No, money was moved, they couldn't do them, so they weren't done.

We had a problem where I worked and I asked the awkward question: "Who is respnsible for this happening?" The response: "Well, lot's of people were involved so no one is responsible." I'm not looking for scapegoats. I just want to know who needs to insure it won't happen again. Oh, well, nobody or everybody. Surely, there had to be someone who decided the inspections didn't need to be made. There just had to be. But, the answer will be, "No one made the decision. A lot of people made the decision so no one is responsible."

Lastly, nothing is difficult for the person who doesn't have to do it. Periodically people go nuts. They do amazingly horrible things. Climb a tower and shoot strangers. Recently a pilot who was depressed was stopped from flying because of a concern that he would commit suicide by crashing the plane with passengers on board.

But, what do we do, and what can we do, to insure the unthinkable doesn't happen? Frequently, when these horrible things happen we hear, "Oh, he was a really nice guy. Quiet but a hard worker. Everyone liked him. He was a good neighbor. No, I had no idea he might do something like this." We had a flood in a narrow canyon and after the flood the experts said that damage done by the flood wasn't possible. It had obviously happened but none of their studies or "models" had suggested that anything like what they were seeing was possible.

So, how do you prepare for the impossible or the unimaginable? In the U.S., I know this is hard to believe, but we do not have a comprehensive plan in place to deal with a possible invasion by the French. And, how much should be spent to prepare for things that the "experts" say is impossible or that is simply unimaginable?

In 2008 our gas supplier which was situated thousands of kilometres to the north of the city, had a huge explosion and was put out of action.
It was never revealed to the public exactly what happened but I heard one report claiming that despite repeated government inspections identifying sub standard practises and very poor maintenance at the plant over many years, the recommended improvements were never enforced as they should have been.
So as could be easily predicted, the public is now footing the bill for new installations by paying huge increases in their gas bills.

Why on earth would you want to resist an invasion by the French?

Just think about it – it would bring good coffee, good bread, good cafés and a bit of philosophy. It’s just what the US needs!

The great BP stuff up was predictable and as I said elsewhere before it happened, the only way to make sure that things like this don't happen is to ban off-shore drilling. I note that the WA Govt. has approved new off-shore drilling since the BP happening.

Cest tres humoristique!
Then again we could probably do with a bit of Frenchification to, without the grumpiness and snootiness perhaps.

Are you talking about drilling off the coast at Margaret River, the most beautiful place in West Australia in my estimation?

I was hoping that hadn't yet received final approval.

Actually, I picked Australia first but decide it would be funnier to consider an invasion by the French. Really, if Australia were motivated they could probably manage an invasion.

Well, colonization by Australia would certainly improve the coffee, but I'm afraid I can't promise too much as regards bread and philosophy. Plus, the adulteries of politicians would cease to be a matter of media obsession. On the whole, you should hope to be invaded by the French.

Isn't it about time that they realised they were ripped off in that whole Louisiana Purchase business, and decided it was time to remedy matters?

Edited to add two more bonuses:

1. You'd get the Marseillaise for your national anthem, instead of the glum dirge you're saddled with at the moment.

2. In the name of republican virtue and laicité your politicians would have to stop invoking God at every turn.

What's not to like?

Christine

A college classmate of mine is involved in the efforts to stop the disaster. His wife has passed along a couple e-mails he has sent her.

One of the e-mails sent early on concerned the actual incident that sparked this and killed 11 people. The forst indications were that a safety device suffered a catastrophic failure. Keeping in mind that the device had a 50% safety margin built in to its rated service. The numbers in the e-mail was that the device was rated at 30,000 psi (safety margin 45,000 psi) but the estimate of the force of blowout from early analysis was in excess of 60,000 psi.

If I understand correctly, it was thought that a safety margin of 45,000 psi would be the most that would ever be needed. Then the explosion exceeded it by 15,000 psi.

I wonder if there any are other oil wells deep under the sea, that have the potential to cause the same kind of problem.

Hundreds, if not more.

Christine

Your close. A six sigma design requirement for this would have spec'd it at 30,000 psi to include margin. The additional 50% was there to handle an event beyond that and not fail catastrophically. But in all probability if subjected to something between 30K and 45K (especial as you approach the top end) it would require replacement. Based on the info I was provided this thing was double its design operating limit and exceeded the safety margin provided by the manufacturer.

Samuel,

While there are hundreds of under water wells, this problem occurred while they were actively drilling, not just pumping. I'm not sure the number of deep water drill strings approach that number. But I haven't been involved in the industry in decades so i don't know.

Change the figure overall to thousands.

Just one small area and over 3,500 platforms.
It would seem that generally they are safe but as the current situation shows, it only needs one . . .

Samuel,

Again the pumping platofrms differ from exploration rigs. once you have the well in and turned over to production the chance of a blowout based on hitting a high pressure gas pocket is nil.

I hardly think that all 3,500+ are gas wells. Where there is a pipe from an underwater water oil well there is the possibility of a leak. 99.9% of them may be absolutely safe; what we are seeing at the moment, is the result of an 0.1% failure.

Samuel,

You misunderstood me. Natural gas and oil go hand in hand. Where you find one you'll find the other. Many offshore oil pumping platforms are very visible at night as they have "flares" where they burn off the natural gas that is present with the oil they are pumping. Often times it isn't in a quantity that is commercially viable, but it is in a quantity that is dangerous if allowed to accumualate. So they burn it off.

Even if there is only a 0.1% that a well will blow out in this way, if you have 3,500 such wells it’s odds on that you will have to deal with a blowout in at least one of them. A blowout would definetly be an expected event, not an unexpected one. Therefore you need to know that you can deal with a blowout, and be prepared to do so.