A Bill Maher Two-fer!

[Jacob1983]

Bill Maher was wrong. Case closed.

[Yonivore]

Secondly, Yoni, are you calling people who depend on fishing for a living "envirowhackos"?

Are the people who own coastal real estate "envirowhackos" too?

Are the people working for the tourist industries in coastal states "envirowhackos"?

Seems like your own statement seems to be informed as many who listen to Fox are... by rhetoric.

Or can we be grown ups and both agree that the statement "envirowhackos are keeping us from drilling oil offshore" was an erroneously simplified statement?

Simplified, maybe; erroneous, no.

There was a spill in the Bay of Campeche in 1979 that spilled so much oil it would take the current well blowout, flowing at it's current rate, two to three years to equal.

I lived on the Texas Coast in '79. I remember the oil clumps washing up on shore for about a year and half. After that, everything went back to normal. Whooping Cranes did just fine, thank you very much.

There is a lot of hyperventilating by the envirowhackos in an attempt to make this out to be some apocalyptic oil spill. If I remember correctly, I heard earlier today, it's not even in the top 20.

Anybody want to guess where the largest oil spill was and who caused it? No fair googling.

[RandomGuy]

Simplified, maybe; erroneous, no.

There was a spill in the Bay of Campeche in 1979 that spilled so much oil it would take the current well blowout, flowing at it's current rate, two to three years to equal.

I lived on the Texas Coast in '79. I remember the oil clumps washing up on shore for about a year and half. After that, everything went back to normal. Whooping Cranes did just fine, thank you very much.

There is a lot of hyperventilating by the envirowhackos in an attempt to make this out to be some apocalyptic oil spill. If I remember correctly, I heard earlier today, it's not even in the top 20.

Anybody want to guess where the largest oil spill was and who caused it? No fair googling.

That would be the release of oil into the Persian Gulf by Saddam's forces during his retreat from Kuwait. No need to google, already came across that during my research.

[RandomGuy]

Simplified, maybe; erroneous, no.

The ultimate size of the current spill is still fairly small, and no one really knows what the final effects will be.

Yes, it was a simplification, and quite a misleading one, because it failed to acknowledge that there are quite a few jobs that are harmed by large oil spills, and quite a bit of money thrown at opposing drilling for becasue of the overall risks posed to people's livlihood and property values.

Anyways, back to proving you wrong:

How much oil are the "envirowackos" keeping us from drilling?

You have stated that we wouldn't be importing much oil if we could just "drill here, drill now".

He who asserts must prove.

I call bull . Either substantiate that statement, or withdraw it as false.

[Yonivore]

Either substantiate that statement, or withdraw it as false.

You remind me of Yul Brenner's Pharoah in the Ten Commandments, "So let it be written, so let it be done!"

You forgot one of my options, "or ignore my pedantic ass altogether."

[ChumpDumper]

Nah, it's more fun watching you not back up your claims.

[RandomGuy]

You remind me of Yul Brenner's Pharoah in the Ten Commandments, "So let it be written, so let it be done!"

You forgot one of my options, "or ignore my pedantic ass altogether."

I woudn't call you pedantic. You are being a bit harsh on yourself.

[RandomGuy]

Nah, it's more fun watching you not back up your claims.

(shrugs)

I don't expect him to answer it, any more than than a 9-11 truther would answer direct questions when asked to back up their bull .

The "truth" movement has more in common with the modern "conservative" movement than either camp would care to admit.

[RandomGuy]

Well, RG, the United States wouldn't import much oil if the envirowhackos would allow us to [drill all the oil we could offshore and on] and build nuclear power plants.

I disagree.

Even if we drilled offshore and got all of the oil online tomorrow, drilled in anwar, and did all the other oil drilling in all the places you seem to think that "envirowhackos" are keeping us from drilling, it still would leave us in the position of importing a great deal of oil. I think it would be pretty likely MOST of our oil. Not only that, it would make hardly any difference at the pump in gas prices.

You are factually, provably wrong, and you know it.

This is little more than a regurgitated talking point that you swallowed, hook, line, and sinker without doing any critical thinking or fact-checking.

Quite frankly that is the level of intellectual rigor on the part of people that call themselves "the right" in this country that makes me HIGHLY su ious when they come to me asking for my vote for their policies and candidates.

If you are so easily misled by this Yoni, what else are you misled on?

[DarrinS]

Quite frankly that is the level of intellectual rigor on the part of people that call themselves "the right" in this country that makes me HIGHLY su ious when they come to me asking for my vote for their policies and candidates.

The policies of "the left" have worked wonders for California and Michigan.

[RandomGuy]

The policies of "the left" have worked wonders for California and Michigan.

Oh goodie, an opportunity to show more intellectual laziness on the part of the "right".

Care to support that statement/implication with data?

[RandomGuy]

... and days later, still no support for the direct assertions from Darrin, or honest acknowledgement from Yoni that he was wrong.

Color me unsurprised.

[Yonivore]

Meanwhile, Anthony Watts gives meaningful perspective on the blowout:

Lessons from the Gulf Blowout

it will take weeks to years of uncontrolled leakage, before this spill comes close to previous highs, such as the:

* Santa Barbara Channel oil platform blowout (1969): 90,000 barrels off the California coast;

* Mega Borg tanker (1990): 121,400 barrels in the Gulf of Mexico off Galveston, TX;

* Exxon Valdez tanker (1989): 250,000 barrels along 1,300 miles of untouched Alaska shoreline;

* Ixtoc 1 oil platform blowout (1979): 3,500,000 barrels in Mexico’s Campeche Bay;

* Saddam Hussein oil field sabotage (1991): 857,000,000 barrels in Kuwait;

* Natural seeps in US waters: 1,119,000 barrels every year from natural cracks in the seafloor.

There's a transcript at the end of the article where an eyewitness (rig worker) is interviewed by a WBAP (Dallas) radio station.

Interesting stuff.

[RandomGuy]

Meanwhile, Anthony Watts gives meaningful perspective on the blowout:

Lessons from the Gulf Blowout


There's a transcript at the end of the article where an eyewitness (rig worker) is interviewed by a WBAP (Dallas) radio station.

Interesting stuff.

Indeed, this blowout so far is not really on par with other disasters, although its location and where the oil it has spilled is going is a bit more worrysome.

[RandomGuy]

Lessons from the Gulf Blowout

We’ve made it nearly impossible to mine coal or uranium, or build new coal-fired power plants or nuclear reactors. We’ve largely forced companies to drill in deep Gulf waters, where risks and costs are far higher, and the ability to respond quickly and effectively to accidents is lower.

"nearly impossible to mine coal"

We mined more than twice the amount of coal in 2008 than we did in 1949.
( pick a spreadsheet of data at: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/coal.html )

That doesn't sound like "nearly impossible" to me.

We haven't "largely forced companies" to drill in deep waters, that is where most of the new oil is.

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pe...01_mmbbl_a.htm

We have slowly exhausted reserves inland, and as that happens whatever is left is more and more un-economical to extract. Not because of some "envirowhackos", but because what is left is in smaller and/or deeper wells.

Simple economics, physics and geologic reality have done this, not any earth-shatteringly oppressive government regulations.

Most environmental regulations have the simple effect of making the extractive industries pay the costs of risk-mitigation up front, instead of being able to pollute unrestrictedly and essentially steal from others for what economists call "negative externalities".

San Antonio's own sordid past with the massive cost overruns at the nukes that the utility has been trying to build gives yet another clue as to why we don't have more nuclear power. It simply costs too much.

I would pretty much fully agree with this guy's conclusions about a good response:

What should we do next? Recognize that life, technology and civilization involve risks. Humans make mistakes. Equipment fails. Nature presents us with extreme, unprecedented, unexpected power and fury.

Learn the right lessons from this tragic, catastrophic, probably preventable accident. Avoid grandstanding and kneejerk reactions. Replace people’s lost income. Insist on responsible, adult thinking – and a thorough, expert, non-politicized investigation. Find solutions instead of assigning blame.

Why did the BOP and backups fail? What went wrong with the cement, plugs and pressure detection devices, supervisor and crew monitoring and reactions, to set off the catastrophic chain of events? How can we improve the technology and training, to make sure such a disaster never happens again? Did the regulators fail, too? How can we improve oil spill cleanup technologies and rapid response?

[word]

It's just sad that so many people live in the dreamworld that Maher inhabits.

I saw this chart put together of how many nuke plants, coal plants, wind farms and solar panels it would take to replace oil in our country using BTU's as a measurement. It's staggering. Getting 'off of oil' would fundamentally change this country in ways most people would not like. The fact is, we're going to have to, eventually, have a load of nuke reactors in this country. But wait, they're against THAT.

[RandomGuy]

It's just sad that so many people live in the dreamworld that Maher inhabits.

I saw this chart put together of how many nuke plants, coal plants, wind farms and solar panels it would take to replace oil in our country using BTU's as a measurement. It's staggering. Getting 'off of oil' would fundamentally change this country in ways most people would not like. The fact is, we're going to have to, eventually, have a load of nuke reactors in this country. But wait, they're against THAT.

It is a rather scary reality of what will have to happen as oil gets more expensive. For the reasons you outlined, it is pretty impractical to fully "get off" oil using present technology. We will have to do a lot of things at once, and get some solid efficiency gains in renewable technologies.

We will have to wean ourselves from being so dependent on energy for our transportation needs on a per capita basis. Individual vehicles are pretty energy intensive compared to trains and light rail.

Mass transit will go a LONG way towards reducing the amount of energy we require for our needs.

I am not against nukes per se, but the massive cost overruns coupled with the increased security risks posted by waste/fuel shipments seem to pose some pretty substantial practical barriers. I for one find the risk that we could conceivedly lose a major metropolitan area to a dirty bomb to be higher than I am willing to pay for that.

Which major city do you want to sacrifice for nuclear power?