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Author Topic:   Norwegian study tells us `Blow Out Preventors don't work`
Node
Knowflake

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posted March 25, 2011 09:43 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Node     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
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The reason you probably have an air bag in your car is because the federal government has required carmakers to put them there.
The government will not let a car company sell you a car that was built after 1998 unless it has an air bag, unless it has this device that's been proven to reduce the chances of serious damage should disaster strike.
The auto industry was not psyched about that regulation, but that's why they are bound by regulations.
This is one of the things the federal government does.
It serves the interests of all of us by requiring industries to make their products as safe as possible.

New information has come to light about Blow Out Preventers-Independant Norwegian study shows they are totally ineffective-- i.e.= They do not WORK

The blowout preventer is basically a piece of equipment that's attached to the top of an oil well, right?
And when pressure surges up the drilling well -- drilling pipe-- the blowout preventer is supposed to kick into action.
It essentially seals up the well and holds all of that pressure in.
If the blowout preventer does not work, you get this.

You get disaster.
Disaster not just for the environment but for the crew that's stationed on top of that oil rig. 11 Crew members were killed when the deepwater horizon oil rig blew in the gulf of mexico.
Soon after that explosion and the historic oil spill that followed it was pretty obvious that the blowout preventer had failed to prevent that blowout.
That was pretty clear.
But what we know now, what we have learned this week in fact is that the blowout preventer in question was not built wrong, it wasn't broken, and it was used as directed.
The coast guard hired a norwegian firm to do an expert forensic analysis of what went wrong with that blowout preventer in the bp disaster.


The coast guard, I should say, oversaw this.
The government hired this firm.
The firm set up shop at a NASA facility in new Orleans in mid-november. Yesterday they released what they found.
What they found is that in this case and maybe in every case don't work.
The forensic analysis of what went wrong in the bp disaster found a big burst of pressure that causes a well blowout can also render the blowout preventer useless.
If the shock that causes the initial accident misaligns the rig's pumps and valves, the blowout preventer won't be able to work, won't be able to seal off the pipe, even when used as directed, even when you do everything right.
"The findings of these studies should be considered and addressed in the design of future blowout preventers and the need for modifying current " the reason there are fears right now about possible nuclear meltdown in japan is because the backup plan there failed, right?
An earthquake and tsunami knocked out the power at the reactor.
You need that power at all times to cool the radioactive fuel rods.
But don't worry, there's a backup power source.
A backup power source that was also knocked out by the same quake and tsunami that knocked out the first-line power source.
The same disaster that caused the need for the backup plan also caused the backup plan.
So therefore, even though you're calling it a backup, you don't really have a backup plan.
It's the same deal with the blowout preventers. The same disaster that cause the need for the blowout preventer, a blowout, actually blows out the blowout preventer, too, renders it inoperable.

So that means you really do not have a backup plan.


And again it's not because these things are broken.
It's because this is the way they are designed.
That is the engineering part of this story.
Here's the politics part of this story and the life and death part of this story, which is worse, frankly.

The federal government is now in the process of issuing new permits to drill in the gulf of mexico.
Issuing new permits all of a sudden at a breakneck speed.
Today the interior department approved its fifth deepwater drilling permit for the gulf of mexico.
Not its fifth just since the deepwater horizon disaster last april.
We're talking about its fifth in the last 25 days.
This permit was given to chevron.
It's to drill a well off the coast of louisiana in nearly 7,000 feet of water.
The bp disaster happened, you'll recall, in 5,000 feet of water. This new permit for chevron follows the interior department's decision over the last few weeks to grant drilling permits to exxon, to shell, to atp oil and gas, and to noble energy.
All of those oil companies have now been given the go-ahead by our federal government to drill, baby, drill. After the moratorium, after the big halt in drilling, after the big safety freakout after bp, why are new offshore drilling permits now flying off the shelves?

Well, the government says it's because the oil industry is now "complying with rigorous new safety standards implemented in the wake of the deepwater " according to the head of the permitting agency, the permits show, these new permits show "that the industry has demonstrated the capability to contain a deepwater loss of well " this is the same office, the same office at the interior department that requested and released the investigation that proved that blowout preventers don't work.
Now that agency is saying drill baby drill because the oil industry has proven it can handle a blowout.

Same agency.
When the interior department granted its first new permit since the bp oil disaster last month, we took note on this show that the permit went to noble energy.
Seemed like an awkward choice to us at the time because the largest ownership stake in that noble energy project was held by bp. So the first permit granted since the bp oil disaster goes to bp.

Bp working with noble energy.
After that permit was announced, the show obtained noble's oil spill response plan for that project.
Again, this is for the first new drilling permit after the bp disaster.
We sought out that oil spill response plan because we figured if the federal government was granting new permits to drill we wanted to see the updated response plan.
He wanted to see all the lessons learned from the big bp disaster if we were going to be drilling again.
During the bp disaster we all got really familiar with that company's ridiculously inadequate oil spill response plan.
Remember?
The bp oil disaster took place ON APRIL 20th, 2010.
This is noble energy's official oil spill response plan for their drilling that they just had newly approved.
Check out the date on their oil spill response plan.
September 2009.
So the government is assuring us that they are only granting new permits for drilling because of all the lessons learned from the bp oil disaster.
Look at this.
The oil spill response plan for the first permit they issued, this oil spill response plan was written the year before the bp oil disaster.
So no lessons learned from the bp oil disaster.
No new containment capabilities developed after the bp oil disaster.
Same blowout preventer technology that has been singled out as having failed during the bp oil disaster and that we now know would fail again even if used as directed.
No new nothing as a result of the bp oil disaster.
And this permit was approved last month.
With an oil spill response plan dated seven months before the largest oil spill in u.s.
History.
With the administration's assurance about all the rigorous new safety standards these companies are going to be following.
We contacted the government. We contacted the department of the interior after we obtained this document because we thought somebody must have sent us the wrong thing.
We thought we must have been sent by accident an old version of this oil response plan.
They informed us that in fact we do have the most up-to-date version on hand.
They also told us that in general rig operators are eligible to get new permits while they're in the process of revising any old oil spill response plans.
So what exactly is the permitting process reviewing, then?
We also asked the department of the interior if their permitting requirements might change, given the new report released by their own office that says blowout preventers don't really work, even when they're used as directed?
They told us they have no comment on the report, it's part of an ongoing investigation, but they are handing out the permits to drill anyway.

This is like convicting bernie madoff and then investing his victims' compensation fund in a nice ponzi scheme.
What on earth is the government thinking here?

Are you being politically pressured into this with all the talk of higher gas prices?
Seriously, what are you thinking here?
And how psyched is the oil industry that they think they're going to get away with this, even after the bp disaster?
A 30-year veteran of the oil and gas industry joins us next to answer that question.
Joining us now is bob cavnar.
He's a 30-year veteran of the oil and gas industry.

He's currently the ceo of luca technologies, which is in the natural gas industry.
Before that he was president and ceo of an oil and gas drilling exploration firm called milagro exploration.
He's also author of the book high stakes, high risks, and the story behind the deepwater well " The interior department has gone to great lengths to assure us that the permits they're handing out now are the result of new safety measures that the oil industry has implemented since the bp disaster.
We tried to get a hold of additional documents laying out what all those safety measures might be.
We were told they contain proprietary information and cannot be released.
As a veteran of that industry are you aware of what new safety measures are in effect since the bp disaster?
What I've seen, rachel, in terms of communication from the , the new agency of the interior is designated to regulate the industry in the gulf of mexico, the new regulations are primarily around safety training and in third-party certification that supposedly assures the government that the companies who normally self-regulate are actually doing what they say they're doing.
There's real no -- no real change to deepwater drilling.
The only real kind of systematic change is this subsea well containment procedure that they've developed, that a company has to certify that they are a part of before they receive a drilling permit. In terms of subsea containment new technology, i want to talk to you about this new report about blowout preventers.
But in terms of any new containment technology that's been developed, has it been tested?
There's no -- there's been no real-life testing of this equipment, rachel.


So, what have we learned? We hire and independent group, they tell us that the equipment designed to prevent loss of life and to prevent a disaster from worsening doesn't work? And that the industry has proven that it is all better now, nothing to see here folks move along?

What indeed are they thinking?

continued here->Video

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katatonic
Knowflake

Posts: 6176
From:
Registered: Apr 2009

posted March 25, 2011 12:26 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for katatonic     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
almost makes you think they are just playing mindf*ck with us, doesn't it? that nothing means anything to "them".

and what is obama doing? have "they" attached an explosive microchip to his daughters' brains, or WHAT?

well at least jwhop and his sweetheart sal will be happy. next?

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