Obama's Political Revenge on the Gulf Coast

What follows is directly from Wikipedia. Ask youselves "why would the president not accept help from a country that has the ability to save our coast?"

Three days after the oil spill began, the Netherlands offered ships equipped to handle a spill much larger than Deepwater—at no charge. "Our system can handle 400 cubic meters per hour," Weird Koops, the chairman of Spill Response Group Holland, told Radio Netherlands Worldwide. Each Dutch ship offered more capacity than the total for all ships that the U.S. was then employing.^[205]
The Dutch also offered to prepare a contingency plan to protect Louisiana marshlands with sand barriers and a Dutch research institute developed a strategy to begin building 60-mile-long (100 km) dikes within three weeks. The Netherlands government owns ships and high-tech skimmers and gives an oil company only 12 hours to demonstrate it has a spill under control. Otherwise, the government dispatches its ships at the company's expense.^[205]
According to a Dutch official, the U.S. government responded to the Dutch offer with "Thanks but no thanks," despite BP's desire to bring in the Dutch equipment.^[206] After the U.S. refusal, the Dutch kept their vessels on standby. By May 5, the U.S. had also turned down offers from 12 other governments that maintain spill response fleets. Ironically, the superior European technology runs afoul of U.S. environmental rules. The Dutch vessels, for example, continuously extract most of the oil and return vast quantities of nearly oil-free water to the sea. However, "nearly" doesn't comply with the U.S. standard of 15 parts per million and so the technology was rejected.^[205]
In U.S. waters ships must store oil-contaminated water. Admiral Allen explained on June 11, "We have skimmed, to date, about 18 million gallons of oily water--the oil has to be decanted from that [and] our yield is usually somewhere around 10% or 15% on that." In other words, U.S. ships have been removing material that is 85-90% water from the Gulf, requiring them to make up to 10 times as many trips to storage facilities to off-load, an approach Koops calls "crazy."^[205]
The Americans later relented and took the Dutch up on part of their offer. The U.S. airlifted the Dutch equipment to the Gulf and then retrofitted it to U.S. vessels. And the U.S. further postponed the clean-up operation to train U.S. crews to operate the equipment.^[205]
To avoid using Dutch ships and workers, the U.S. government asked them to train American workers to build the sand berms. Apparently using Dutch trainers was acceptable. According to Floris Van Hovell, a Dutch spokesman, Dutch dredging ships could complete the Louisiana berms twice as fast as the U.S. companies.^[205]
This is not the first time the U.S. spurned Dutch help in an oil spill. When the Exxon Valdez leaked oil in 1989, a Dutch team with clean-up equipment flew unasked to Anchorage airport to offer help. They, too, were told to take their equipment and go home.^[205]
The U.S. Jones Act prohibits the use of foreign ships and foreign crews in port-to-port shipping. However, U.S. officials have offered conflicting statements about its applicability to the cleanup task. Adding to the confusion, on June 19, the Coast Guard actively requested skimming boats and equipment from the Netherlands, Norway, France, and Spain.^[206]

As of June 25, The U.S. State Department listed 70 assistance offers from 23 countries, and indicated that 8 had been accepted, counting the Dutch skimming equipment (but not ships) as such an acceptance

Revenge? Power Lust? you decide

Oil Spills a NECESSARY RISK

As an oil explorer of 45 years experience, I look at the BP and Exxon oil spills as unavoidable  to an industrialized society. Oil,and Coal are absolutely essential to our economy and our personal well being.The problem is with the hysteria and naive solutions being recommend. Rachel Carson embarked on a similar path with her book “silent Spring” which succeeded in eliminating DDT from our environment. The unintended consequence was the death by starvation of perhaps millions of children in the third world as insects devoured their crops. Every major change in the world has unintended consequences. The fall- out from the BP oil spill will undoubtedly lead to less drilling and production of oil and gas in the US. The unintended consequence will be vastly greater importation of Arab oil. This will keep our balance of trade negative and we will all suffer at the gas pump and the general economy will suffer severely. Don’t think that alternative energy can quickly step in and save the day because if it could have made a difference it would have done so long ago. Most of the alternative energy either requires oil and gas for it’s manufacture (hydrogen, bio-fuels, etc.), has no infrastructure to distribute the energy to the cities (solar, wind, geothermal) or has serious environmental problems of it’s own (nuclear). In short, we are trapped by urban sprawl which requires oil to transport us to work, we don’t have a rail system thanks to President Kennedy’s political debt paying to the teamster union which spelled the end of significant rail and made us dependent upon the car and truck. In a nutshell, we have to move forward with our techno-industrial society. We need to learn and improve after a disaster but massive punitive response will always lead to serious unintended consequences

Can anyone doubt that the environmental damage of both the Santa Barbara and Exxon Valdez were monstrously over stated by hysterical environmentalists? There were no mass fish or bird kill and the numbers of cleaned up birds was tiny compared to what exists in the wild. The estimates are wildly inflated in most articles to inflame public opinion. Our legal system functioned as it should have and damages were paid for claims of loss. This will happen again. Lawyers are streaming into New Orleans in hopes of finding work on claims against BP. We do not need hysterical claims of environmental disaster until it has happened. I predict that the final effect will be 10% of what is being said now. After all, this is not the first wild well in the Gulf and natural oil seeps have always been spewing oil and gas into the water. It is time to sit back and watch unless you are one of those on the front lines. Bobby Jindal and Billy Nungesser strike me as quite competent in their efforts and the dredged sand island may become a reality thanks to their efforts.

A major impediment to domestic production is just around the corner. Oddly, this will increase chances of the next big oil spill. Imported oil comes to us by way of Supertanker. The likelihood of an accident will increase as our imports incrfease. Terrorism is also a threat to the tankers.

Fall-out from the BP oil spill

There is not much question that the radical anti-carbon groups will seize upon the tragedy to promote their alternate energy schemes and conservation ideology.. This is inevitable and probably beneficial from a global perspective. Environmentalists will seize upon this tragedy as an opportunity to further turn public sentiment against the " Big Oil" companies.What should our response be as members of the fraternuty of oil worker and investors?

Over my career, I have  continually been amazed at the lack of understanding the general public has about the oil business. We need to arm ourselves with facts about oil employment, economic share and etc.and begin to makes appearances on liberal and environmental blogs and web sites. I suggest that we take a firm but unemotional stand on the value and importance of oil and gas to our economy. I further suggest that we compare the cost of the current BP spill to the cost of drunk driving accidents annually. If rig explosions are a "fixable" wrong then so is drunk driving.

Another thing to drive home to the public is the % profit of oil versus groceries, movies, cars, and etc. Our detractors have made much of gross profits without mention of % return on investment. The radical liberal promotes the idea that companies exist to serve the public and that profits should not be a goal or requirement. We must promote the idea of free markets. The profit motive has always been the driving force behind our successful economy and the radicals would take that away from us. It is important that we not allow that to happen.

Here are some facts that I've found on the net .In 2004 there were 316,000 workers in the Oil and Gas Industry. Their pay scale was from $12 to $50 per hour. The link: Oil Company Earnings has excellent information on Oil Company earnings as compared to other industries. Oil Companies actially are less profitable than many other industries. The charge of obscene profits is definitely a Red Herring.Earnings for a large company are always huge sounding to the lay person. Percent return on investment is a much fairer statistic for comparing companies and industries. One figure that stood out for me was the spending on Carbon Mitigation. The Fed has spent next to nothing on it compared to Industry..
Another link: Oil & Gas Investment  gives fact about the investments that O & G makes in the U.S. Economy. In 2006 new investments amounted to $174 Billion. This is a very significant part of the Total U.S. economy. The current administration is constantly trying to demonize the industry and especially its profits..Armed with the facts we need to fight back, not just for our own sake but for the poor innocent citizens who do not understand the economics of energy and have been swayed by the most heinous missrepresentations of "Big Oil".
Here is the best set of figures yet: Oil Jobs and GDP share . Nine million jobs and 7.3% og GDP depend on the O&G industry. Lets all arm ourselves with the facts and go out and fight for our industry.

Obama, Jindal and the Oil Slick

These men face the trial of a life time. This is what they were elected for. It is time for the rest of us to back off and give them a chance to do their jobs. There is no way that we can be kept informed of the progress so stop clamoring for updates. When they can, the people in charge involved will update us. Also, let's forget the politics for now. Rush was out of order with his rash statements. Those of us who can, should volunteer to help physically with the effort to protect the marshes. If the oil does go onto the beaches of Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, then the impact on fishing and birds will be somewhat less and cleanup will be much easier and very much faster than if it comes ashore in the Louisiana marshlands. I don't wish this on anyone, but contaminated sand can picked up and disposed of but contaminated marsh is a decades long process of cleanup and much more devastating to wild life and the fishing industry.

Obama and Energy

As a professional in the domestic oil & gas industry, I am frustrated at the lack of cooperation by local, state, and federal governments with my industry. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that if the government controlled lands were opened up to oil exploration 10's of thousands of high paying jobs would be directly created in a year and after that more than 100,000 indirect jobs would be created. Governments would rake in large amounts of money in lease bonuses and fee and then after production starts they would enjoy a rich revenue stream. To jump start this effort, Obama should put a tarrif on imported oil and gas. This would give our home grown industry an advantage over the foreign national companies such as Shell, BP, ENI, StatOil, CNOC, and etc. The tariff would provide another rich revenue stream. It is time that the government began to look after the interests of business rather than trying to kill the golden goose

Global Warming Debacle

The unmasking of bias and down-right fraud amongst the Climatology Scientific Elite is shocking but not unexpected by other Scientists whose dissent has long been quashed. The absolute rape of Scientific Method is caused bythe Politicization of Science and is the result of the practice of Governments of funding Scientific Research. The process of funding Research involves the need to convince a board of decision makers (usually lay people) of the importance and timeliness of the proposed Research. This is the same process that private Researchers go through to achieve their funding but there is a big difference. Private Research is funded by a foundation or Corporation using THEIR own money. They take the risk to act on the Research results. Bias is assumed and even encourage if it furthers the economic goals of the Company. In the case of Government funded Research, the bias is political and is FUNDED BY THE TAX PAYERS who then are forced to take the risk of acting on the Research's results! On top of this, the Research is advertised as being unbiased basic Research of the most fundamental importance. The results of Governmental Research, in part, are:
1. The development and use of the Nuclear bomb and development of the Thermo-nuclear giant bomb, not to mention, Napalm, Nerve Gas and Biologic Death Agents. What were these giant minds of governmental research thinking? The largest bombs are capable of causing 3rd degree burns for a radius of 50 miles! Now it is only a matter of time before Terrorists get their hands on one or more.
2. NASA which has spent billions to put humans in space for no good scientific reason. Most of the really important discoveries of NASA are from unmanned robotic instruments and yet they continue to waste Research money and kill astronauts for no good Scientific reason. To make matters worse. Bert Rutan built a space plane system for a $10,000,000 contest and it worked as well as the space shuttle. He did it at a tiny fraction of the cost and in a tiny fraction of the time that NASA took to build the space shuttle.
3. The Center for Disease Control who cannot seem to understand the H1N1 epidemic and cannot figure out how to get vaccines and distribute them efficiently. The amount of conflicting information coming from this agency is mind boggling.
4. The Corps of Engineers has a long record ot monkeying with Rivers and Coastlines and failing spectacularly. The Tombigbee River, The failure of Levees in New Orleans and elsewhere, the $300,000,000 a year bill for replacing sand eroded from rich peoples beaches, and on and on.......
5. The numerous "scientific" projects that appear on website of the humorous and onerous uses of taxpayer moneys.
6. The billions in Research to see why fish and game are disappearing. Are we still a hunter-gatherer society? Fishing and Hunting are recreational and therefore should be supported by private funding rather than the taxpayer. Ducks Unlimited is a good model. Professional Fishing needs to stand on its own financially. If they insist on fishing the species to extinction, then it is their problem, not the tax payers.
7. Global Warming Solutions are in the realm of fairy tale. The solutions being offered are so preposterous that they are hardly worthy of response. If the Gores of the World are correct, that CO2 produced by man is the primary cause, then the only solution is to cause a massive reduction in population. Trading CO2 credits on stock exchanges will certainly not produce this result. It is becoming clear to me that, for many Scientists, this is seen as a code word for the actual problem which is overpopulation and an out of control rate of human reproduction , especially among the poor. By destroying the Capitalist economies via Kyoto and Copenhagen, are they actually aiming for mass starvation of the poor?
8. Ethanol as a "green" gasoline. Never mind the fact that both gasoline and natural gas are required to grow the crops and that Ethanol cannot be transported using gasoline infrastructure and that food prices are forced upwards due to the competition with energy for the use of the crops.
9. Florescent bulbs as Energy savior. Never mind the fact that this will make mercury poisoning of the environment rampant
10. Electric cars as the Energy savior. Never mind the cost and pollution of electricity production and never mind the Lead and Lithium poisoning of our environment. By the way, the Chinese now own virtually the Lithium mines in the world.

Soil & Rock Physical Parameters and Levee Design

I have already raised the question of whether the Corps of Engineers did soil borings (cores sampling) to determing the elastic parameters of the soils below the levees. The independent study by the Engineering committee headed by Dr. Seed criticizes the analysis and decision making based upon those samples. In the previous blog entry I have illustrated the hydrostatic effects of the storm surge on the strenght of the soils. Now I will raise the issue of anisotropy. Soils and rocks are not homogeneous bodies. Their heterogeneity is not usually random but rather consists of thin quasi homogeneous layers of differing properties. These layers can be characterized by the terms, Coarse, Medium, and Fine Sand, Silt, Clay, Calcareous (shell), and Organic (peat). Each of these layers has a different set of elastic parameters (strength). The layers are often very thin (less than a mm). The effect of this layering is to introduce anisotropy into the elastic parameters. Anisotropy causes the strength of the soils or rocks to vary with direction of measurement. The usual directions of interest are parallel and perpendicular to the bedding planes. Differences on the order of 20% between the parallel and perpendicular velocities have been reported in the Geophysical Literature. The orientation of the elastic parameters is such that the weakest direction is parallel to the bedding and thus in the horizontal direction. I propose that the Corps of Engineers familiarize themselve with the effects of anisotropy as well as overpressure and make sure that their lab measurements on soil borings measure all of the effects and further, that their levee models include these effects. I believe that the Katrina failure of some of the canals was predictable if correct and complete modeling based on detailed soil boring analysis was done during design.

EXAMPLE FROM THE LITERATURE

The Corps of Engineers Soil Strength Analysis taken from the Independent Analysis headed by Dr. Seed is below. The analysis and decisions made based on the analysis have been criticized in the report. Errors of under estimation of the weakest soil strength of the order of 100% are visible on the graph. The decisions made from this analysis undoubtably contributed to the disaster. All Engineers know that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Their graph is below.



I have contributed some addition considerations. My analysis of the hydrostatic effects of the surge imply a 20-30% weakening of these measurements at the depth of failure . Anisotropy considerations add a 5-25% weakening of the shear parameter in the horizontal direction parallel to the bedding planes of the soil. Most core measurements are made perpendicular to the bedding planes unless additional core preparation is done to get a sample that can be measured parallel to the bedding planes. My conclusion is that the U.S. Corps of Engineers modeled the levy response to a storm surge using soil strengths a least 150% higher than reality and that this was a major factor in the levee failure.