snow hope wrote:I think it is unfair to discount Matt Simmons pronouncements.
It is hard to believe a man of his standing, knowledge and experience would be calling the massive open hole oil leak and BP cover-up that he is alleging without serious reason to do so.
He seems to be getting a lot of his recent information from the NOAA research ship, Thomas Jefferson.
I am very concerned about what he is alleging.
Matt ' US natural gas cliff' Simmons hmmm....
I think he should book a 2 week vacation in the priory with Kunstler
Matt's been saying things like methane is more toxic than hydrogen sulphide, that "wet" methane is especially bad - one of the more toxic gases known, because it doesn't disperse. The man's lost it.
Early warning systems on the Deepwater Horizon rig had been switched off, a federal investigation has been told.
Michael Williams, a chief technician at Transocean, the firm that operated the doomed rig for BP, told a federal panel in New Orleans that alarms had been disabled to prevent workers being woken up by false alarms.
BP will start deep-water drilling off the coast of Libya within weeks in spite of concerns about the UK group’s environmental and safety record after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster.
I was hoping that the positive outcome of this would be that the false belief that oil spills cause massive environmental damage would be proven wrong. I am not saying we should all be spilling oil into the sea but the hysteria is way out of context.
clv101 wrote:Remember also that nature will clean up a lot of this mess. The GoM is warm, lots of microbial life that will eat up that oil. This is totally different to a spill in cold water. http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/forum/vie ... hp?t=14517
We've always known the oil would vanish pretty quick in warm, turbulent waters of the GoM.
ziggy12345 wrote:I was hoping that the positive outcome of this would be that the false belief that oil spills cause massive environmental damage would be proven wrong. I am not saying we should all be spilling oil into the sea but the hysteria is way out of context.
You're only saying that because you're not a dolphin.
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
But if not rising demand, if not rising inflation, will the news of supply problems convince you to buy oil?
If so, then here is a quote from Casey's Daily Dispatch, which is that "the oil companies must now push the outer envelope of what's technologically possible in their quest for the oil that humanity requires to maintain forward momentum. That we are forced to drill so deep, or that the Brazilians are contemplating ultra-deep drilling through three-and-a-half-miles [5.6 kilometers] of water, rock, hot sand, and salt, is a clear sign of how serious the quest for large new oil reserves has become."
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
Simmons’ Sensational Claims on the Gulf Spill
In these and various other interviews, Simmons claims:
1. Use of a small bore nuclear device is the “only option” to stop the flow of oil.
I don’t want a banker who doesn’t know what fuzzy logic is being taken seriously on the issue of using nukes in the Gulf of Mexico.
2. BP would be insolvent by July 8, 2010. He has also stated several times that the stock is going to zero.
While I have said that I don’t think the BP brand can continue in the long run, I wouldn’t call them insolvent and it will certainly take some time for the legal issues to play out. A prediction of insolvency by July 8th was ridiculous. Simmons has also shorted BP stock, so some of this may be wishful thinking on his part.
3. The “real, untold story” is another leak that is 5-7 miles away spewing 120,000 bbls/day.
I haven’t the faintest idea where he came up with this, but I have spoken to several experts who say the chance of that is zero.
4. That there is an underground lake of oil that is 500 feet thick, 100 miles wide, and may be covering 40% of the Gulf of Mexico.
As one person calculated, that would equate to 500 trillion barrels of oil; total global reserves are estimated in the region of 2 trillion barrels.
5. The leak could last 24 years.
He believes this, because short of the nuclear weapon idea he sees no other way to stop the leak and thinks we may have to wait for all of the oil to come out of the reservoir. Meanwhile, the news is that BP is starting to get the leak under control.
6. The gulf states need to be evacuated.
Simmons says “We’re going to have to evacuate the gulf states. Can you imagine evacuating 20 million people? . . . This story is 80 times worse than I thought.”
As was stated in the report 90% of the spills are deliberate vandalism by the Nigerians to protest over lack of funds from the Nigerian government. More like 99% in my experience
