We've Never Done this Before!?!?

As I listened to Adm. Thad Allen's press conference this morning I heard the Admiral used an approximation of the phrase, 'This [repair attempt] has never been tried at 5,000 feet (below the ocean surface) before'. This is not the first time I have heard some version of that phrase used regarding the repairs being attempted on the oil wellhead that has been gushing thousands upon thousands of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico every day.

More than six weeks into this man-made disaster the oil still flows from the broken pipe as BP has tried various repair techniques with campaign-slogan sounding names like the "Top Hat", "Top Kill", and of course the most recent "Cut & Cap" procedure underway as I write this post. These are, as we have been reminded frequently, stop-gap measures that might reduce the amount of oil flowing into the waters of the Gulf. The "ultimate fix" is the pair of relief wells that are currently underway with an extremely optimistic, and purposely vague, completion estimate of "August". We are asked to remember that this is "unprecedented", these procedures have never been attempted at the depths and pressures involved in this situation.

The problem, of course, is that this is not, in fact, unprecedented (see previous post "When will we ever learn"). The ability to deal with a catastrophic failure like the one that occurred on the Deepwater Horizon has not kept up with the inevitability of such catastrophic failures. Yes, such a failure is "relatively rare", at least on the massive scale of the Deepwater Horizon spill, if you consider every 30-40 yrs to be rare. On a geological timescale such intervals are literally blinks. The ecological damage to the coastal wetlands will take many generations at least, probably centuries, to recover, if they can recover. The damage to the ocean and the environment beyond the beaches, marshes, swamps, etc. is equally incalculable. And it is going to happen again, I am absolutely convinced that this is not the last time we will see this "mini-series" remade with a new cast.

There is a way that this kind of thing can be avoided. If the determination, political and popular, existed to make the United States truly energy independent we could reduce our use of fossil fuels to self sustaining levels within 15-20 yrs and have alternate sources of energy sufficient to reduce to almost zero, if not completely eliminate, the need for petroleum production within 50 yrs. There is no way that the energy companies, as they operate today, are going to make this an easy or attractive proposition. Corporations have at least one thing in common with actual people, survival instinct. They will resist with everything that is within them any threat to their existence and this is the single biggest threat that the oil and fossil fuel industry perceives. A true transition to clean, renewable, American power threatens the powerful interests in the status quo.

When Will We Ever Learn?

The oil from the Deepwater Horizon rig disaster that occurred on April 20th in the Gulf of Mexico continues to flow from five thousand feet below the surface of the Gulf at a rate of somewhere "between 12,000 and 19,000 barrels" (@ 42 US Gallons per barrel, FYI) per day. It is now day 43 since the explosion and fire that sank the drilling rig and began this disaster.

As it has been mentioned elsewhere - The Rachel Maddow Show, on MSNBC for one - the technology to drill at ever deeper depths has vastly exceeded the capacity to deal with a "potential catastrophe". The fact is that when the permits were issued for these deep water drilling leases the regulation and permit issuance agencies were totally at the mercy of the oil companies to "guarantee" that the disaster we see happening right now in the Gulf of Mexico wasn't supposed to be possible. It appears that we, the American people and the American Government, may not have been told the entire truth about the risks and the preparedness of the oil companies for those risks. Here is the 'dirty-little-secret', this isn't the first time this has happened.

On June 3, 1979 the oil rig Ixtoc I suffered a failure of it's blowout preventer and caused an oil spill that dumped over 3 million barrels of oil into the Bay of Campeche off the coast of the southern tip of Mexico. If you want to know how that spill was eventually resolved (it took nine months to finally stop the oil flowing) see the Deepwater Horizon story unfolding daily. The same methods were tried and they failed to work in 1979 just as they have failed today. The only sure fix then is the same only sure fix today, a relief well drilled to intersect the blown well head so it can be capped.

How is it possible that we have been so blind as allow this to be the case? It makes me wonder, as I have for quite some time now, what happened to the greatest minds of my generation? When there was a war that the American people felt was wrong, when there was discrimination that denied rights to a group of Americans, when there was corruption in government brought to light there were demonstrations in the streets to stop the war, there were civil protests and marches to promote civil rights. What happened? Where did we go? What will it take to generate the kind of civilian uprising that took place in the 1960's and '70's? Will we see anything like the demonstrations that lead to the end of the Vietnam war?

It seems like we are in a long, deep slumber. Almost rousing briefly from time to time, as if to get comfortable and drift back off to sleep, never waking to the reality that has been unfolding around us for over 40 years now. Can the great sleeping giant that was roused after Pearl Harbor in 1941 be awakened? Why wasn't 9/11 enough? Did we get lulled back into our comfortable oblivion by false impressions of security with little or no sacrifice on our part? How much liberty have we surrendered in the name of security? Benjamin Franklin has been famously quoted, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Do we still believe in the cause of liberty? Are we willing to give up more of our essential liberty for the feeling of false security and painless prosperity?