Oil is hitting Pensacola beach

[Sheba]

I'm a local resident in Pensacola and go to the beach often.
I helped pick up tar balls today and took some pics of the beach

Oil on the beach

Tar balls

The tar no my shoes after trying to wash them.

Tar in the seaweed.

I will try and update as I get more pic if you want.

[Shadow Wulf]

Awful news for us Floridians. The worst thing is that they don't expect to stop the leak until August and by that time the oil will cause incredible amount of damage to our Gulf Ocean and will take years to be anywhere close to how it use to be.

[Uniform Two Six]

It might even be worse than that. With the dispersants that BP bought from Haliburton, much of the oil appears to be getting mixed up in the entire water column instead of just floating on the surface. There are indications that it has already settled into the spawning grounds (on the ocean floor) for several species of "bottom feeder" fish such as flounder, and shellfish like shrimp and crab. If so, there is a real possibility that those species in the Gulf of Mexico will never recover. It's still a ways off before we'll know for sure, but EPA and USFWS are getting really alarmed at the prospects. Something like 20% of the fish consumed in the United States (and something approaching all of the shrimp) are produced in the Gulf, and we may have just lost that for the next century or so. This is scary. BP supposedly will not even be able to attempt to cap the bloody thing until August. And on a slight aside, Time Magazine made an interesting observation: If we're so desperate for petroleum products that companies like Kerr-McGee, BP, and Royal Dutch Shell (among others) are now drilling at such hideous depths, maybe we need to finally get serious about developing alternative energy sources. Brazil did it two decades ago. Why the heck weren't we all over this back in the eighties? (Aside from falling oil prices, of course)

[RedEye]

One of the problems with alternative energy is that while people may want it, they don't get on their representatives in government about it enough. If gas goes up a quarter, there is an avalanche of mail bemoaning the fact. If an alternative energy programme is shut down, there is mostly silence.

If we want alternative fuel (Brazil went with alcohol) we will have to keep on the government's neck about it until it happens. So far, we haven't done that.
We need to keep the government's nose to the grindstone; they won't do it themselves.

[Uniform Two Six]

I tend not to blame the government too much. I think there's a more basic problem here. People (at least in the United States) have an out-of-sight-out-of-mind mentality. The neat thing about a whole lot of alternative energy sources, is that it tends to be able to be done on a very small scale. In fact, the small scale is where it does best. The problem is that when you're a consumer looking to put solar panels on your roof, you see all of the costs right in front of you. If you're buying gas at the pump, you do not see all of the extraneous costs involved in that gallon of gas. You don't see the money that has to be spent on environmental cleanup (like the Superfund nightmare). You don't see the medical bills for resperatory diseases for the people living downwind of refineries, or for that matter the medical issues related to drinking water from aquifers that are tainted by petrochemical leaching. When you flick on a lightswitch, it's not immediately obvious how much coal you're burning (and all the attendant environmental issues with that). In short, with all of the (hidden) costs involved with more conventional forms of energy being borne mostly by the government, the only way for alternatives to be able to compete is with huge government subsidies. The problem with that is most people look at their tax dollars going to subsidize alternative energy, and tend to think "why should I have to pay for that if solar/wind/biofuels/etc. aren't economically competitive?" And mark my words, BP will find a way to weasel out of having to pay for any of the long term environmental damage done by Deepwater Horizon. M.V. Exxon Valdez destroyed the aquatic ecology of Prince William Sound, and most of the commercially harvested species of fish still have not recovered enough to be fished again, even twenty years on. Exxon-Mobil has left several economic sectors in southern Alaska absolutely devestated, and they litigated the crap out of it until they finally got away with paying a tiny pittance. Exxon-Mobil did it, and I guarantee that BP has that exact same playbook. The really sad thing is that they are going to get away with it, because as soon as the disaster is out of the spotlight, everyone will forget about it, and worry about cheap gas again.

[RedEye]

Sad but true. Sometimes I wonder if the general population has ADD, given the way they get distracted.

More likely though; it's just the way the News dishes things out, making yesterday's tragedy seem trivial when compared with the new "shiny" they have for today.

People do like shinies; that's for sure.

[Uniform Two Six]

Well, more than that, most Americans are far more interested in stuff like sex scandals (South Carolina Governor Sanford, Senator Larry Craig, etc.) than 'boring stuff' like environmental legislation, corporate regulation, or foreign policy. Actually, a lot of Americans are only interested in news that features what Paris Hilton is wearing this week.

[Howlitzer]

This whole mess, and the shenanigans surrounding it, are beyond all levels of stupidity I want to even try to fathom.

It would be nice if, especially during this mess, the current government weren't passively dismantling and pushing aside progress with nuclear power when of the alternative energy sources we currently have, it by far can get us the farthest. We should get past oil, but we can't run the entire world off of wind and solar. And throwing money at things does not just make them happen the way we want them to happen.

[Uniform Two Six]

Yeah, nuclear is something we should be investing in much more aggressively. The problem is that we need to get serious about the waste issue arising from the reactors already in operation. This is another privatizing profit and nationalizing cost issue that leaves me furious. In the United States, we have private corporations (for the most part) who operate the existing units and make profits from the sale of electrical power, but make no effort to properly deal with the radioactive waste (it's currently sitting in 55 gallon drums in parking lots in some cases). There have been some efforts to set up a national disposal site in Nevada, but the Nevadan senators nixed that idea (although not until after the money had been spent in their state to build the thrice damned thing). We need to (gasp) follow the French lead and adopt their practice of glassifying their waste, and stabilizing it so that it can be stored safely. It won't happen, though because then the power companies would have to pay to have the reprocessing done and they aren't going to brook any threat to their bottom line.

Wind and solar might not be able to deal with our total power needs, but it can offset it, and it can help handle peak loads. We need to be investing in that technology because it not only has essentially no "fuel" costs, but it's almost entirely manufactured here domestically. Win - win.

Throwing money at a problem might not solve it in some cases, but the energy issue in the United States is largely a result of not throwing enough money at the various problems. We could have largely alleviated the problems we face now if we had legislated mandatory renewable quotas (like we're doing now) back in the eighties, and paying for it through higher utilities costs. Instead, we collectively decided that Carter and the tree-hugger crowd were all fruitcakes and thus most of the patents relating to photovoltaics technology belong to Royal Dutch Shell and BP! And, as evil as that is, I don't blame the evil petrochem corporations. I blame the American people because they didn't want to educate themselves about the issues, they just wanted to make fun of environmentalists and save money (in the short term). And not much has changed, that's what is so infuriating about all of this mess.

[Sebiale]

Nuclear fusion, oh nuclear fusion, oh wherefore art though nuclear fusion?
Seriously, they've been promising it on a regular basis, since like, the 50's.

Although I did stumble across a science article a few months ago that said they successfully tested the ignition process for a form of nuclear fusion. I believe it was using inertial confinement.

[Uniform Two Six]

There's a new effort underway at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. It's too early to tell what progress may be made. The problem is that without a fundamental understanding of how gravity works at the sub-atomic level, sustainable fusion may well be impossible. That's one of the reasons why string theory is so important. If they can unravel that mystery (pun intended), then effectively unlimited energy can (maybe) be ours. Unfortunately, at the moment there is something like seven different, mutually exclusive variations of string theory. With LLNL, and CERN both working on the problem, there is hope. Unfortunately, even the physicists in Livermore say that all of the experimentation that's going on right now is simply to see if it's even theoretically possible to sustain a small-scale fusion reaction. For all the experts know, sustainable fusion may wind up in the idea dustbin next to death-rays and anti-gravity.

[Howlitzer]

They can already do nuclear fusion... that's nothing new....the incredibly difficult part is getting it to output more energy than it takes to run the fusion reactor in the first place....for this they need good old fission reactors. So we can't really avoid fission reactors, we need one to get to the other. Only recently have scientists managed to break even on the input/output ratio, but that does mean they're getting closer to making a fusion reactor that gives a net-gain in energy output. It might not be the *ideal* fusion reactor, but getting any net gain would be good.

There is one other application that could provide a good intermediate energy source....namely using fission and fusion reactors in tandem to produce energy, and process the remaining waste that a fission reactor would leave behind on its own. This still requires building more fission reactors...some people don't seem to want to do that though.

[Uniform Two Six]

Yeah, they can do fusion reactions, but aside from the hydrogen bomb, they have yet to get one that sustains itself for any length of time. The input/output ratio thing is sort of a side issue (important for our understanding of how these reactions work in practical terms, but only from a research view). Even if they could get one of these controlled reactions to create a net energy gain, they still cannot sustain it, so it's useless for practical applications like commercial electricity generation. Getting a sustaining reaction is where the big problems lie, and they still haven't gotten over the theoretical research hurdles yet. And as stated previously, it may turn out that a sustained (controlled) fusion reaction may not even be possible. We just don't know because the theoretical boot-strapping hasn't been completed yet.

And back on topic: I love how Tony Hayward felt this whole oil spill thing was too stressful, and went on vacation. You let us know when you're feeling better, Tony. We all know it's hard.

[Sebiale]

I heard BP is looking into Cosner's little oil vacuum, should be interesting.

[Set]

You would think they'd learn after the first time: Oil spill in the Gulf, 1979

[Uniform Two Six]

Whoo-hoo! The NRC just issued the first license for construction of a new nuclear plant in 34 years, for a new build in Georgia.

Oh, and did anyone hear about how BP is now attempting to litigate their way out of 8.2 billion dollars in civil claims related to the spill? I'm betting the answer is "no".

[Sebiale]

Wow, what a necro . . . what does the first line have to do with this thread?

[Shadow Wulf]

Maybe we should have gotten Gandalf to prevent the oil from reaching our coast.

[Uniform Two Six]

Wow, what a necro . . . what does the first line have to do with this thread?

Eh, earlier in the thread, we wound up discussing alternatives to fossil fuels, and (among a very many other things) how the commercial nuclear industry in the United States was (supposedly) on its last leg.

The latter part was to add upon my statement two years ago that BP would quietly wait until the spill was out of the public consciousness and then weasel their way out of paying for their monumental screw-up (ala Exxon-Mobil with the Exxon Valdez debacle).

[Scott Gardener]

When will you rage?

Anyone get the reference?

[Uniform Two Six]

Yes.

It's a good thing that the werewolves of Werewolf: the Apocalypse don't exist. Otherwise anything walking on two legs in North America would be dead after that bulls***.

[Uniform Two Six]

I just saw a commercial the other day from BP. They're now hitting it from the angle that they're creating jobs in this difficult recession. What jerks. They can't even have the basic decency to just peddle gas -- they have to insult my intelligence instead. And in addition to trying (unsuccessfully, this time) to weasel out of even more of their settlements over the 2010 spill, they're quietly making noises about standing by their good friend Vladimir Putin, and signing new deals for Russian gas and oil. Sheesh -- these guys really are the real-life Endron.

[Uniform Two Six]

BP just got nailed by the Justice Department. A court just handed down a ruling that the company is 67% responsible for the accident (in regards to civil liability). To the 4.5 Billion dollars in criminal fines they were forced to pay, this may add $45 billion more.

They're going to fight it through appeal. So much for wanting to help the Gulf Coast region, I guess.

[Sheba]

Sadly we still get commercials from BP telling us how much they helped us.

[Uniform Two Six]

And I don't know what's worse. Those friggin' commercials, or the fact that they're up on the hill trying to get more offshore drilling permits, and screaming about how evil the Obama Administration is in not giving them even more than the ones they are getting.

These guys have no shame.

This is why I only buy my gas from companies who pump in Saudi Arabia. That way I can give money to the Islamic State without any of the moral ambiguity or pretense -- and f**k up their country at the same time.