Each morning, I share the road with an EnerDel car or two (GM's latest electric vehicle venture). It looks a lot like a SmartCar or a smaller Honda Fit. The Delco battery research facility is just a few blocks away from my office.

I wouldn't mind driving one to the office, but I'm not sure about cross-country.

could you put your umbrella on it?

It might save energy downwind! Now if it could just go faster than the wind... Oops, that's another thread.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8402501
.
http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100530/NATIONAL/705299859/1139

Higher fuel prices will hurt all of us in many ways.
Being a retired trucking company owner, remember the old saying, "If you got it, a truck brought it."
And truckers are already hurting. Jump the fuel prices and you will be hurting.

I see complaining that the fact that those ships were headed this way wasn't in the headlines - but nothing saying that they weren't headed this way. Did the 30 UAE specialist get the green light to help?

There is apparently a law from the 1920's that prohibits foreign countries shipping from stopping in more than 1 port. That is some of the regulatory hold up with the "help" from outside the US. Seems someone could issue an executive order or something to dispense with the holdup.
BP is 41% owned by British concerns. A lot of people in Britian would be hurt (and already are) by a collapse of the company. Likewise in this country (USA) because 39% of the company is owned here by regular folks who own mutual funds in their 401ks/IRA's that hold BP stock. Cutting off our nose to spite our face?

$10/gallon gasoline in the US will prompt a war with someone. the oil embargo of the 70's and 80's almost did that (and actually touched off smaller skirmishes).

$6/gallon gas will cripple the US and flood our illustrious neighbors like Venezuela, Iran, and other nations with lots of dough, because developing nations will have no choice but to buy it (allbeit less, but still).

We have no other sources of energy available (at any cost) right now to handle the huge appetite for energy here in US, even if we combine all current technologies. We might be able to "ramp up" production of alternative energy (if we ignored permitting) to meet our CURRENT consumption in a decade or so...

If we were cut off of oil today, I'd buy a steam powered car. Technology already exists, fuel is readily sourced, and range is unlimited as long as water and combustibles are around. Sure, my carbon footprint won't go away, but I'd probably not lose much sleep over my "footprint" vs. my ability to feed myself.

Probably wouldn't be working in a nice little office, either. Will need to brush up on my farming/hunting skills (gator tastes pretty good when sauteed properly), and possibly loot a local tractor supply store and/or farm equipment dealer.

Oh, and Jake, how do you put 150 ships with straws all in the same spot? Have you seen how many boats are on the surface at the site already? That's a lot of stuff in a small space (not to mention all the tethers, ROV lines, cables, etc. under the ships.

One day of moderate sea conditions, and that parking lot could get ugly...

And BP is a public-traded company. Wonder who puts the pressure on the "board" or execs to push profit margins up? Shareholders. Who are the shareholders? you know the answer to that one....

Was intentional criminal activity afoot? Perhaps (an investigation should be able to determine that).

Incompetence? More likely (dead batteries in preventer?).

Convergence of a series of relatively unlikely events causing calamity? Certainly


There's a children's book "Because a Little Bug Went Ka-Choo" that pretty much sums up this whole oil spill...

That was ME that made that statement, not Jake.


Where do we put them? how about up BP's CEO's butt?

what REAL good would that do, Andrew?

I am in the camp that says, BP wants this to be BOTH A) stopped as soon as possible and B) estimated flow as small as possible.

I'm starting to get the impression that some of the enviromentalists want just the opposite.

Of course they do. What better way to prove your right? I think a fair portion of the people actually believe that these larger companies do nothing but dream of world destruction. Like some evil villain from a B movie. I'd say they're doing the same thing you and I are, but that would be a blatant lie, as the rest of us are for the most part are a pack of lazy and stupid chumps, and insanely jealous of their achievments and successes.




Why is it always the guy in charge who is to blame? Why not the guy who was in charge of checking the batteries on the widget?

Thats why he gets 4mil a year. to accept ultimate responsibility. just like why Bank CEO's must sign off on the financial reporting (after enron)... If the COO cooks the books, the CEO is responsible as well.

just like why the Coach is fired when the team doesn't win..

the guy who let the batteries die, is also to blame and liable to a degree. his actions caused this.. and he will probably get drawn and quartered for it

Check your math

1 US Gallon = 3.78 litres
1GBP = $1.47 today

so 1 litre of gasoline in the UK @ GBP1.21 = $6.72 / gallon.

Heck, I don't know. I just know I keep hearing complaints that we're not accepting help from other places but I haven't seen the evidence.

I also realize that boats are one thing but you still have to have a lot of support for those people and boats (places to offload the oil and water they skim, consumables, fuel, etc....).

I think the other wells they are drilling should be finished by mid-august at which time (if it's not fixed by then) they'll shoot concrete or something in there to jamb the broken well. So all that will be left is cleaning up the billions of barrels out there.

If the tar balls are sinking down, they're back at 5,000 feet, right? How do they make it uphill on to the continental shelf to then drift on the beach? Are the upwelling currents that strong, or will this sit like a giant ooze puddle at the lowest point of the gulf seafloor?

If the latter ends up the case, can't we drop a few straws down there to dredge the stuff off the floor?

What if they injected some chemicals that bond with the oil to make it a big, heavy "ooblek" like substance that would do just that... sit in one spot like a blob so you can suck it up when you get the ships in place...?

Just got back from a long road trip and saw all this. Andrew, your comment about 10 dollar a gallon gas is one of the most retarded statments I've heard in years. 10 bucks a gallon so we can get off oil? Thats like saying you hope everyone gets AIDS so they find a cure faster.

I had a conversation with a guy who worked for the company that manufactured the blow out preventer that got all effed up. He said all this trying to cap the well is basically impossible and everyone in the industry and the POTUS knows this. All this effort is all for show so people can say they are trying. People in the industry say the ONLY way to stop the flow is a relief well, which wont be done until august. Also known as "when the best catsailing venues in the world are totally effed forever".

Now what really pisses me off is if a well is in canadian waters a relief well has to be drilled CONCURRENTLY with the well for this very reason. Moreover, if it was in european waters (or friggin brazilian waters for chrissake) then a acoustic switch on the blowout preventer is mandatory. Only here can they get away with such lax safety precautions. Now lets see how many people manage to blame Obama for that. Surely it was 8 years of oilmen running the show and gutting the regulations that laid the groundwork for this. I am sure that if Obama tried to get stricter regulations through before this disaster he would have had nothing but total cooperation from all the "drill baby" morons. Meanwhile China is cranking out solar panels by the thousands. Pathetic that borderline third world countries are doing more to secure a oil free future than we are. Meanwhile you can kiss Santa Rosa sound goodbye.

Nice SUV by the way.

We have nobody to blame but ourselves, the voters and consumers who refuse to pay for anything and want equate the consumption of resources with wealth. Wealth is not measured only in dollars. Why have money if your faux-greco styrofoam million dollar mcmansion in Destin with the navigator and the jet ski out front smells like the decaying corpses of pelicans and dolphins? I'd rather live in a yurt in saskatchewan with a donkey and a sunfish (with the multicolor sail and a soft deck from being left outside). I would feel much richer, and happier to.

Amen! Forgive me, I'm a pastor ;-)