Thursday, August 26, 2010
Monday, August 23, 2010
BP Dispersants: It seemed like a good idea at the time
Man oh man oh man. You ever notice how, when a guy does something really stupid, the long rambling excuse he offers up later so often starts with the phrase, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”? Yeah, well, see, there was this big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico awhile back. It was in all the papers. Sure, they capped that puppy, but not before a whole mess of gooey oil got loose. One of the first things the oil company did, in response to the massive leak, was to spray dispersants on the oil that gathered over the surface of the water. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Dispersants. Not gather-it-all-upants. Not make-it-go-awayants. Dispersants. So then what did the oil do? Class? That’s right, Johnny: It dispersed. It did not go away and it was not gathered up. It dispersed. The big gooey mess was, through the magic of toxic chemicals, reduced to teeny, tiny little messes that maybe no one would see. Or so I’m sure they hoped. All together now: It seemed like a good idea at the time.
I have to admit: I was really skeptical at the time when the marine science guys from USF came back from the northern Gulf of Mexico and said they had found oil plumes moving well under the surface of the ocean out there. I mean, come on, we all know oil floats. How can oil not float? It’s oil. Apparently, if you spray crude oil with the right dispersant, it breaks up into very small molecules and does not float. Out of sight, out of mind. Were they out of their minds? We’ll leave that topic for another blog. Right now, we’ve got an oil mess to clean up. If we can find it.
So now we have the Gulf of Mexico looking virtually free of surface oil, but: They are finding more and more oil moving below the ocean’s surface or sunk to the bottom in sizes small enough to enter the food chain. And dude, you are part of that food chain. This is your food chain we’re talking about here. The phrase “fish oil” is taking on a whole new ugly meaning. How soon before we see this oil in the fish we can’t eat?
Even though this all started months ago, we still have not seen the last of it. People are just now finding out how badly the dispersed oil has messed with the subsurface environment in the Gulf of Mexico. It may be years before we know the full impact and how long it might take for the oil to work its way out of the ecosystem. Until then, expect this to be a sort of lingering annoyance thing. It’s no longer news, as it is no longer spectacular. The ongoing contamination of life in the Gulf will not make the headlines. It will be the subject of quiet reports and research papers. No biggie. It’s just the death of the ocean. Who’s gonna notice?
Maybe the oil company wasn’t so stupid after all. They got rid of the visible signs of their screw-up. Subsurface microscopic oil contamination is tough to film for the evening news. The situation has become all technical and scientific, and who wants to read about that? Too many big words. Maybe, from BP’s point of view, it wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
Maybe, like so much else they BP does, it was simply evil.
Dispersants. Not gather-it-all-upants. Not make-it-go-awayants. Dispersants. So then what did the oil do? Class? That’s right, Johnny: It dispersed. It did not go away and it was not gathered up. It dispersed. The big gooey mess was, through the magic of toxic chemicals, reduced to teeny, tiny little messes that maybe no one would see. Or so I’m sure they hoped. All together now: It seemed like a good idea at the time.
I have to admit: I was really skeptical at the time when the marine science guys from USF came back from the northern Gulf of Mexico and said they had found oil plumes moving well under the surface of the ocean out there. I mean, come on, we all know oil floats. How can oil not float? It’s oil. Apparently, if you spray crude oil with the right dispersant, it breaks up into very small molecules and does not float. Out of sight, out of mind. Were they out of their minds? We’ll leave that topic for another blog. Right now, we’ve got an oil mess to clean up. If we can find it.
So now we have the Gulf of Mexico looking virtually free of surface oil, but: They are finding more and more oil moving below the ocean’s surface or sunk to the bottom in sizes small enough to enter the food chain. And dude, you are part of that food chain. This is your food chain we’re talking about here. The phrase “fish oil” is taking on a whole new ugly meaning. How soon before we see this oil in the fish we can’t eat?
Even though this all started months ago, we still have not seen the last of it. People are just now finding out how badly the dispersed oil has messed with the subsurface environment in the Gulf of Mexico. It may be years before we know the full impact and how long it might take for the oil to work its way out of the ecosystem. Until then, expect this to be a sort of lingering annoyance thing. It’s no longer news, as it is no longer spectacular. The ongoing contamination of life in the Gulf will not make the headlines. It will be the subject of quiet reports and research papers. No biggie. It’s just the death of the ocean. Who’s gonna notice?
Maybe the oil company wasn’t so stupid after all. They got rid of the visible signs of their screw-up. Subsurface microscopic oil contamination is tough to film for the evening news. The situation has become all technical and scientific, and who wants to read about that? Too many big words. Maybe, from BP’s point of view, it wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
Maybe, like so much else they BP does, it was simply evil.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Independence From Oil
So I got asked to lead an “Independence From Oil” ride last Sunday. I could go into boring detail about how much oil it takes to actually build and operate a bicycle (more than you’d think), but hey, the gig landed me a spot on the local evening news Saturday night, so it wasn’t all bad. I was even the follow up to a story about the President taking a quick vacation on the Gulf coast. How cool is that? A bunch of people showed up the next morning for the ride, and we went from downtown Clearwater up to the front gate of Honeymoon Island State Park. Along the way I got to chat with Bill Hemme from St. Petersburg College. We talked about what it might take to form a bicycle club at the school. (I promised to go and talk to them about bicycling this fall.) Also got to see a couple of the guys I saw at the last local alley cat race (I knew I should have brought my fixie!) and overall, I think we had a good ride.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Waiting for the other shoe
So here we are in the middle of August, BP has capped their runaway oil well and all is right with the world. (Man, that was tough to type with a straight face.) The media (and America’s) attention span being what it is these days, the oil spill in the Gulf is now officially old news, and to keep hammering away at it makes you look a bit out of it, sort of like a bad SNL skit. Or a really good one. And yet. . . .
And yet, I sit here waiting for the other shoe to drop. Yeah, they capped the well. The relief wells are not yet drawing off the oil to release the pressure, so there’s still a chance the original well will rupture far below the sea bed (below the cap plug) and turn a major oil spill into something far, far worse — and impossible to stop. Of course, that hasn’t happened yet. That we know of. I did get a kick this week — this week — out of Greenpeace sending a ship out there to check it out. Uh, guys? Where ya been? This all happened four months ago. You’re late to the party. Way late. It’s old news. But thanks for stopping by.
Let me tell you how old this news is: A couple of weeks ago, a tugboat hit a barely submerged well head up that way, in the Gulf, and it spewed oil like a big fountain in Vegas, right out there in the Gulf for all to see (if you just happened to be there). It hardly got any mention at all in the media. It’s old news. There are most certainly other wells out there, abandoned and leaking away like crazy, but no one’s going to bother to mention them. That’s really old news. I guess Lady Gaga is hogging all of the headlines these days until Michael Jackson does something interesting. Like breathes.
Of course this will happen again; that is, there will be other oil spills/leaks/whoopsies out in the Gulf, but here’s how the media works: If the next one isn’t bigger than this one, you might not ever hear about it at all. It ain’t news unless it’s new.
Meanwhile, before Lady Gaga walks in here and punches my lights out (or Michael Jackson does a very impressive zombie dance), how about we compare notes? If you have made any changes in your life in response to the possibility of peak oil, I’d like to know what you’ve done. We’ve lowered our home energy use (to 5 kwh a day) and I do a fair amount of practical cycling around town. If you’ve done anything in the way of prepping for peak, post it in the comments section here and we’ll talk about it.
And yet, I sit here waiting for the other shoe to drop. Yeah, they capped the well. The relief wells are not yet drawing off the oil to release the pressure, so there’s still a chance the original well will rupture far below the sea bed (below the cap plug) and turn a major oil spill into something far, far worse — and impossible to stop. Of course, that hasn’t happened yet. That we know of. I did get a kick this week — this week — out of Greenpeace sending a ship out there to check it out. Uh, guys? Where ya been? This all happened four months ago. You’re late to the party. Way late. It’s old news. But thanks for stopping by.
Let me tell you how old this news is: A couple of weeks ago, a tugboat hit a barely submerged well head up that way, in the Gulf, and it spewed oil like a big fountain in Vegas, right out there in the Gulf for all to see (if you just happened to be there). It hardly got any mention at all in the media. It’s old news. There are most certainly other wells out there, abandoned and leaking away like crazy, but no one’s going to bother to mention them. That’s really old news. I guess Lady Gaga is hogging all of the headlines these days until Michael Jackson does something interesting. Like breathes.
Of course this will happen again; that is, there will be other oil spills/leaks/whoopsies out in the Gulf, but here’s how the media works: If the next one isn’t bigger than this one, you might not ever hear about it at all. It ain’t news unless it’s new.
Meanwhile, before Lady Gaga walks in here and punches my lights out (or Michael Jackson does a very impressive zombie dance), how about we compare notes? If you have made any changes in your life in response to the possibility of peak oil, I’d like to know what you’ve done. We’ve lowered our home energy use (to 5 kwh a day) and I do a fair amount of practical cycling around town. If you’ve done anything in the way of prepping for peak, post it in the comments section here and we’ll talk about it.
Monday, August 9, 2010
The Boy Who Cried “PEAK!”
For every person out there that thinks the world’s supply of oil will some day peak, there’s another person even further out there that is just as sure it won’t. These are the “Cornucopians”, who see the earth’s supply of oil as virtually inexhaustible. This “Oil Forever” camp can be roughly divided into three broad groups: You have your Economic Cornucopians that believe that demand (price) creates product, the Techno-Cornucopians that are sure that technology will save us and provide a never-ending supply of energy, and my personal favorites, the Chewy Nougat Center Cornucopians that are convinced that the center of the earth is full of “abiotic” oil. I kid you not.
And every one of these wonderful, thoughtful shiny people are more than happy to point out that the people that predict peak oil have been predicting the peak of oil for a very long time. Like for over a hundred years. And it hasn’t happened yet. (As far as we know.) People that do predict the peak of global oil are very often accused of crying wolf. “Remember the boy who cried wolf”, they will say, with a smile and a wink and a sort of knowing nod to dismiss anyone so foolish as to think that we might some day run low on oil. Perish the thought, if not the thinker.
So I’ve been thinking, and here’s my thought for the day: Yes, people that believe that we might some day run low on oil are very much like the boy that cried wolf, but not for quite the same reason. The boy cried wolf because he craved the excitement. We cry wolf because we lack complete, accurate data and must, for lack of a better world, guess at what we are seeing and what it all might mean.
The funny thing is, those that accuse us of crying wolf forget how the story ends. At the end of the story, there’s a wolf, and people don’t listen.
Life imitates art yet again. Woof, woof.
And every one of these wonderful, thoughtful shiny people are more than happy to point out that the people that predict peak oil have been predicting the peak of oil for a very long time. Like for over a hundred years. And it hasn’t happened yet. (As far as we know.) People that do predict the peak of global oil are very often accused of crying wolf. “Remember the boy who cried wolf”, they will say, with a smile and a wink and a sort of knowing nod to dismiss anyone so foolish as to think that we might some day run low on oil. Perish the thought, if not the thinker.
So I’ve been thinking, and here’s my thought for the day: Yes, people that believe that we might some day run low on oil are very much like the boy that cried wolf, but not for quite the same reason. The boy cried wolf because he craved the excitement. We cry wolf because we lack complete, accurate data and must, for lack of a better world, guess at what we are seeing and what it all might mean.
The funny thing is, those that accuse us of crying wolf forget how the story ends. At the end of the story, there’s a wolf, and people don’t listen.
Life imitates art yet again. Woof, woof.
Monday, August 2, 2010
That oil-free life.
And you ain’t living it, Roscoe. Trust me. No matter what, if you are reading this, you are using oil. Now, I know, if you are living in a solar-powered cabin in the woods or maybe in an apartment in New York City, you might appear to not be using any oil. You don’t have a car, you don’t have a lawn mower. You, personally, don’t have to buy anything like oil or gasoline or any oil-like product. Or so you say. But you still use oil. That is, oil is used on your behalf. Oil is used to grow the food you eat and to get it close enough to you so that you can buy it. And you’d better believe that uses oil. Using electricity uses oil. (Making solar panels uses oil.) You even have to oil your bicycle chain from time to time, don’t you? I know I do.
Unless you are part of an indigenous tribe in the upper reaches of the Amazon or the Congo, you use oil. And even then, I have to wonder. Any contact with the outside world, and ta-da! You are using oil. Now, it’s true that as that oil starts to go away, you will use less oil, and less oil will be used on your behalf, but trust me on this one: You use oil. Even the Amish use oil, and they are about as oil-free as it gets in the first world. That’s what’s going to make this peak oil thing so very annoying. It’s going to mess with everyone – some more than others, but all us before it’s over. Peak oil is very democratic. Universal, you might say.
I own several gasoline-powered items. I do use electricity. I like to eat. I use oil. I know that the time will come when there will be less oil for me to use, so I plan accordingly, or at least try to tell myself that I do. Still, even I have to admit that it is very easy to just jump in the truck and go. Or turn on a light or get a quick bite to eat. And all of these things take oil. All of these things are why we use so very much oil in our day to day lives, even when we try not to. We just can’t help ourselves. Some day we’re going to have to scale back.
I hope you're ready.
Unless you are part of an indigenous tribe in the upper reaches of the Amazon or the Congo, you use oil. And even then, I have to wonder. Any contact with the outside world, and ta-da! You are using oil. Now, it’s true that as that oil starts to go away, you will use less oil, and less oil will be used on your behalf, but trust me on this one: You use oil. Even the Amish use oil, and they are about as oil-free as it gets in the first world. That’s what’s going to make this peak oil thing so very annoying. It’s going to mess with everyone – some more than others, but all us before it’s over. Peak oil is very democratic. Universal, you might say.
I own several gasoline-powered items. I do use electricity. I like to eat. I use oil. I know that the time will come when there will be less oil for me to use, so I plan accordingly, or at least try to tell myself that I do. Still, even I have to admit that it is very easy to just jump in the truck and go. Or turn on a light or get a quick bite to eat. And all of these things take oil. All of these things are why we use so very much oil in our day to day lives, even when we try not to. We just can’t help ourselves. Some day we’re going to have to scale back.
I hope you're ready.
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