Oil Spill Update: Mile-long tube sucking oil away from Gulf well

[maxcok]

I cannot believe we are debating 'which disaster is worse'. Who cares? Both are devastating beyond measure. Both are the result of the same stupidity - our voracious appetite for energy to fuel an overpopulated human "civilization", ignored safety procedures and lax oversight, valuing cheap energy and financial profit over people and the environment - in short, GREED!!!

For those of you trying to compare the relative cost and damage from the BP spill to the Chernobyl disaster, may I remind you that the oil is still spewing into the Gulf at the rate of 20,000 to 40,0000 barrels a day by conservative estimates. (Yes, BP lied, quelle surprise.) It's already at least 3 to 4 times the Exxon Valdez spill, and as yet there is no end in sight.

The immediate disatrous effects on the economy of the entire region are just beginning to be felt, and will continue for many years to come. Tourism and the fishing industries are already feeling the pinch, and the pain will spread from there. Today the oldest oyster processor in the country closed its doors for lack of oysters.

The damage to the environment and to wildlife - to the oyster beds, to sensitive wetlands where shrimp spawn, to endangered sea turtles, to waterfowl, to people, to all life in that complex ecosystem - is inestimable and incomprehensible. The devastation will last for decades! Who knows when, or if, the Gulf will ever fully recover.

Worse than Chernobyl? Who knows? Who cares? We're just getting started. Prepare for it to get a lot worse.

 

[FRE]

Actually, you're right; both disasters were the result of greed and not taking proper precautions.

The Chernobyl reactor was of a very dangerous design. There was no containment structure so, when the accident happened, there was nothing to contain the radioactive materials. Safety devices had been disabled to facilitate a test. The control rod mechanism was very slow and the design caused the control rods to jam when the reactor overheated. The reactor had a positive temperature coefficient, meaning that as the temperature increased, the rate of fission increased, which would have been illegal elsewhere. So, the disaster was the result of a combination of many factors.

It seems that the oil well blowout also resulted from a combination of many factors. They had experienced problems and decided to move forward anyway without dealing with the problems. Employees had even complained about the problems.

After what has happened, I'm surprised that, according to an opinion poll, 52% of the public still favors deep water drilling. So far, at least 11 people have died and the environmental damage has been devastating. When the Three Mile Island reactor partially melted down, there were no injuries or deaths and no significant release of radiation, yet public reaction has made it impossible to build more nuclear plants in the U.S. The loss was limited to the owners of the nuclear plant.

 

[midlifebear]

Considering the normal background radiation, by what percentage is the cesium 137 increasing the total radiation? How does it compare with the radiation in our own bodies resulting from carbon 14 and radioactive potassium?

Can't say, at the moment, the quantity of caesium-137 (which is just one of radioactive elements created by the Chernobyl disaster) is residing within the 50-mile radius of the old power plant. And true, one can enjoy lots of rads coming from a granite-clad building or big headstone. But that's a less pernicious level and source of radiation.

It's been a while since I read up on Chernobyl. But it is the biggest, if not the most contaminated radioactive hazard site on the surface of the Earth. It is a recognized Dead Zone. Local fauna that take up residence in the nearby buildings don't last long. The second most contaminated area of the Earth's surface is in Idaho or Washington. Can't remember which.

When the native polynesian tribes insisted upon returning to the Bikini atolls, the incidence of cumulative radiation poisoning had a serious impact upon them, despite the USA's scrapping off all of the contaminated topsoil and replacing it with dirt from the USA mainland and replanting all of the local flora. A few die hards are hanging on to some type of existence on those atolls, but the majority of the natives have, for health reasons, have moved back to residences in other non contaminated parts of Micronesia.

I do know enough that it's the cumulative effect that causes cancers and impairs immune systems. The Downwinders, those who died in statistically high numbers from uncommon cancers in Overton, Pioche, Panaca, and Mesquite, NV, and St. George, Ivins, Kanab, and other small communities in southern Utah and northern Arizona were unquestionably victims of wind-borne above-ground fall out from atomic tests hundreds of miles from the Nevada Test Site north of Las Vegas.

There's an interesting little town called Caliente on Highway 93 about 150 miles east of Las Vegas that is a historic railroad town. The residents of that community were almost completely wiped out by lymphomas, adenomas, and leukemias that were the direct result of radiation poisoning. The train station has a big out door geiger counter for the tourists to play with (and the remaining residents to check) regarding how many rads they are bombarded with at any given time of day or year. It's serious business. Dust storms still kick up clouds of radioactive crap from the Nevada Test Site and depositing it in a wide cast to the east -- as far as New Mexico.

I'm convinced that nuclear reactors that generate electricity can be safe. But the emphasis is on the can. Even the Atomic Energy commission has finally conceded that the Diablo Canyon reactor in Half Moon Bay north of San Luis Obispo, CA, is going to be a bitch to decommission in 15 years. It's built directly on the edge and over the water of Half Moon Bay. I'm sure deep sea oil drilling can be safe, if only the money interests involved invest as much in contingency measures to prevent blow outs and effective clean ups as they do in exploration and drilling. Obviously, they don't. Similarly, I'm not convinced the Atomic Energy Commission is in any shape to assure and ensure the safety of the "new and completely modern" designs of proposed nuclear reactors US power companies want to build -- especially since they haven't built one and tested it.

But that's just me. I'm not trying to be argumentative because I'm a cranky old fart. Experience has taught me to be cautious regarding most things; not just used car salesmen.

 

[FRE]

I'm familiar with the Bikini Island radiation history. The island had been ground zero many times as a nuclear bomb test site.

I also am convinced the nuclear power plants can be safe. In fact, they have an excellent safety record, especially when compared with coal. However, I am convinced that we are not using the best nuclear technology.

The reactors currently in use are pressurized water thermal reactors. They require a very expensive pressure vessel which is typically about 16 feet in diameter and pressurized to about 2500 psi. The fuel is enriched uranium. Natural uranium is 0.7% U235 and 99.3% U238 if I remember correctly. However, pressurized water thermal reactors cannot utilized natural uranium. By a very expensive process, it has to be enriched to about 5% U235, which means that there is considerable waste of U238 which, fortunately, is not very radioactive. Even then, the reactor can burn only a very small percentage of the fuel, with the remainder treated as waste. By contrast, the CANDU (CANadian Deuterium Uranium reactor) can use natural uranium as fuel and does not use a huge pressure vessel.

Also, reactors can be designed to use thorium as fuel; thorium is about 4 times as abundant as uranium. The LFTR (Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor) does not use a pressure vessel. The fuel is thorium tetrafluoride which, at room temperature, is a crystalline solid but at reactor temperature, is a liquid. Because the fuel is already a liquid, a melt down is impossible. Emergency shutdown can be accomplished simply by draining the fuel into holding tanks configured so that the fuel cannot become critical. Also because the fuel is liquid, it can be reprocessed during operation simply by continuously drawing off a small amount and chemically reprocessing it. The amount of waste is very small and quickly decays, so no long term storage is required. It also does not contribute to nuclear weapon proliferation, which is a serious problem now (consider the Iran situation which would not exist if LFTRs were being used instead of reactors which use uranium). In my opinion, that is the nuclear technology we should be using.

From the following link, you can get more information on LFTRs:

Energy from Thorium

 

[B_talltpaguy]

Sticking to the topic that I have maintained with information updates for almost a month would be great guys.

 

[FRE]

Sticking to the topic that I have maintained with information updates for almost a month would be great guys.

Perhaps we did drift a bit, but not in a manner that is TOTALLY unrelated. Getting away from petroleum would reduce to likelihood of future spills. Meanwhile, we have to deal with the present situation.

 

[maxcok]

Terry Gross of NPR's 'Fresh Air' had a riveting and very revealing interview today with ProPublica investigative reporter Abrahm Lustgarten. He uncovered a series of internal documents indicating BP repeatedly disregarded safety and environmental rules. His findings, published in The Washington Post, indicate that BP was well aware of safety and maintenance issues as early as 2001. (Among many interesting footnotes in the interview were the references to Halliburton and Bush/Cheney energy policy. Halliburton just seems to pop up everywhere, don't it?)

"[The documents are] strikingly consistent, which was the first thing that jumped out to us ... You start to see a couple central themes. And those were: internal criticism for a lack of accountability in the company, lack of support for workers at BP and at BP's contractors. ... [There was also] a consistent emphasis of profits over production over safety and maintenance and environmental compliance, meaning they were putting profits ahead of safety. And finally, a systematic disregard for maintenance of their equipment. It's a process that they call 'run to failure' where they would use the equipment for as long as possible while investing as little effort and money in maintaining it as possible."

Lustgarten says the findings in the internal documents are echoed in the problems that led to the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.

"We hear consistently throughout the documents about the human resources effect of how BP manages its operations," he says. "[We heard about] health, safety and environment complaints — and these punitive responses to employees who raise concerns — generally we hear that there is a culture of pushing production forward even if that meant cutting some corners."
​

For the article, full transcript, or to listen to the interview: Fresh Air with Terry Gross

I highly recommend listening to this interview. (You may need to navigate to Thurs. June 10).

On the same program, an interview with filmmaker Josh Fox, whose documentary Gasland will air on HBO June 21. The film explores the widespread practice of leasing private land for natural gas extraction and the devastating effects on communities, groundwater and the environment.

 

[dandelion]

After what has happened, I'm surprised that, according to an opinion poll, 52% of the public still favors deep water drilling. So far, at least 11 people have died and the environmental damage has been devastating. When the Three Mile Island reactor partially melted down, there were no injuries or deaths and no significant release of radiation, yet public reaction has made it impossible to build more nuclear plants in the U.S. The loss was limited to the owners of the nuclear plant.

The difference is that this is considered a worse case scenario, while Chernobyl was not. I dont know if that is exactly true, but I think that is the perception. Statistically there have been an awful lot more oil wells drilled than reactors built and by and large the wells have turned out ok.

And we need the oil. Look at the news and see a spreading slick, but then go fill up your car and think how it would be if you couldnt.