BP GULF DISASTER--EXTINCTION EVENT OR MEGA-SPILL?

World Affairs Brief, By Joel Skousen. 

Getting to the truth about any major catastrophe these days is complicated by the lack of transparency from government and its tendency to shield international corporations from full culpability. This deliberate cover-up on the part of both the Obama Administration and British Petroleum and its contractors has led to a flood of speculation and disinformation, including a variety of false conspiracy claims. This week, I’ll try to sort out what we know and don’t know.
Given that our world is awash in real conspiracies to undermine liberty, it’s an easy thing for charlatans and disinformation agents to add any number of false conspiracies to the mix. The charlatans are out to enhance their reputation by claiming “insider information” (usually through willing government disinformation agents who make them feel they have special access). The disinformation experts are just out to fabricate lies so as to discredit all conspiracies and their believers.
Some of the worst to promulgate new disinformation are the so-called “EU Times” and “whatdoesitmean.com”, which often showcase the writings of one Sorcha Faal. Faal is a supposed Russian insider with all kinds of extreme and baseless claims relating to conspiracy. Despite biographical claims as a Russian academic, her name appears nowhere in any search of Russian academia. Some suspect that she is neither Russian nor a female, but an American disinformation expert.
The latest EU times rumor is that a North Korea submarine torpedoed the Deepwater Horizon and caused the explosion. Naturally, the source always quotes some mysterious Russian military source that no one can trace. I think it is absolutely bogus.
Then, there are well-intentioned but naive Christian ministers like Lindsey Williams who are made targets of disinformation by insiders who feed them some truth laced with many falsehoods. Williams is the author of the legitimate work, “The Energy Non-Crisis” but gets into trouble as he continues to trust that his insider contact of former years will not lead him astray. No real insider is allowed to continually leak the truth to someone on the good side unless there are ulterior motives and disinformation involved. Williams is now claiming that his insider contact, the former high ranking executive with ARCO oil in Alaska, told him the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig went down tens of thousands of feet deeper than BP has claimed and encountered abiotic oil under extreme pressures exceeding 70,000 PSI. William’s insider claims that the well became uncontrollable from the moment it penetrated the high pressure dome.
There are numerous witnesses from the drilling rig that dispute this. The fact that this is abiotic oil is irrelevant. All oil is abiotic, not just the deep stuff as Williams claims. The concept that oil was created by the decomposition of tons of rotting dinosaurs and plant material is pure bogus evolutionary hogwash. There has never been enough plant and animal life to account for all the huge concentrations of oil, nor can such decomposition explain finding massive pools of oil at the depths they are being found.
There are all kinds of variations on these false claims. Many talk show hosts are claiming drill depths of 25,000, 30,000, 35,000 and 42,000 feet. The real depth of the Deepwater Horizon well was 18,000 feet. Others are claiming oil/gas dome pressures of 20,000, 50,000, 75,000 and even 105,000 psi. None of these are true. We know from actual workers on the scene and pressure tests that were done prior to the blow out, that static pressures did not exceed 9000 psi and absolute pressures of 11,000. Well pressure is tested as the drill penetrates the oil dome in order to determine how thick the drilling mud must be to counter balance the pressure below. The most common test is to stop the topside pumps and see what quantity per time of drilling mud is pushed out of the hole by the gas/oil pressure below. The pressures the Deepwater Horizon found were on the high side of what well drillers have to deal with, but certainly not anywhere near the uncontrollable pressures claimed by William’s source and other speculators.
However, the pressures were sufficiently worrisome that a top Exxon executive said he would not have continued trying to put this high pressure well into production. Add to the fact that BP and its contractors started taking shortcuts which failed to contain that pressure and we can easily see how the disaster happened. Sabotage at high levels is not out of the question when we consider that BP executives had ordered sea water to replace the drilling mud, which has far less density and is far less capable of containing a sudden exit of pressure. Workers at the site protested this and other bad decisions but were overridden.
Some workers have also claimed there were shortcuts taken when they cemented the well casing. Cement is pumped down between the finished well casing and the rough rock walls of the original drilling to keep oil and gas pressure from seeking that alternate path to the surface--a disaster not easily contained once it starts. The fact that all this piping, well casing, cement and equipment (like the blowout preventer) was installed contradicts the claims of Pastor Williams and his source that the blowout occurred instantaneously upon penetrating the dome.
As an example of other extreme claim, Coast to Coast radio show featured Richard C. Hoagland, who sited “insider” sources in BP and in U.S. Government say that there is a Gas Bubble 15-20 Miles across 10+ feet high near BP’s oil well head in Gulf of Mexico. “It may cause an explosion with Apocalyptic proportions in weeks or months. The pressure at the well is 100,000 PSI and when the Gas explodes it will be like Mt. St. Helens going off underwater. It will create a Cloud of Death and a Tsunami Wave traveling at 400-600 MPH sinking all Vessels around the area as well as drive all hazardous materials including the Oil inland.” Yes, gas does escape but it is flared (ignited) in order to keep it from accumulating to dangerous densities.
Here is another. Steve Quayle interviewed Mr. “B”, a well connected financier in Asia on June 15. This guest maintained that “there may be martial law declared and evacuation of the Gulf coast on or about 28 June. Credit cards and debit cards may not be usable and banks and credit unions may close for an unknown period of time. Once the evacuation has been accomplished, foreign troops may occupy the evacuated areas.” It is all too convenient to quote these anonymous sources, but these kinds of rumors about martial law surface virtually every month. So far, they have not come true and the sources never come forth and apologize. Someday martial law will be a reality, but these “sky is falling” rumors will only ensure that most people ignore the real warnings when they come.
The top of the pile rumors are that the BP oil catastrophe could potentially become an “extinction event” for animals, fish and humans in the whole gulf coast region. This is typified by the essay by Larry Chin of Online Journal:
“The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig and the resulting oil super spill in the Gulf of Mexico is the worst man-made disaster, and the largest and most heinous act of environmental destruction in history. This floating super-bomb remains completely out of control, spewing hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf, spreading in directions that cannot be predicted, becoming exponentially worse by the second. It threatens to dwarf the entire Gulf of Mexico, the entire southern and southeastern coast of the United States and Mississippi River, and is poised to spread into all of the world’s oceans. Wildlife, human life, industries, economies and livelihoods, all potentially face permanent damage and destruction. It is even possible that the Gulf will be rendered impossible to navigate.” This is badly exaggerated, but typical of those from the Left intent on blaming everything on the evils of capitalism. Much of what he details later, however, is sadly true:
“For weeks, BP, government officials, and the corporate media have been engaged in a massive cover-up, lying about the unspeakable actual scale of the disaster, and lying about its clean-up and containment efforts. According to a spokesperson for Greenpeace, there has never been a successful response to an oil spill, and that what BP is doing at present is nothing but “response theater.” [True. When Pres. Obama went to the gulf to be filmed by news crews, BP trucked in volunteer workers who were paid to look busy cleaning up oil. As soon as Obama left, the volunteers were put back on the bus and driven away.] All attempts to contain the geyser -- each of them a series of failed experiments and theories -- have been futile and ineffective.
“BP’s use of toxic chemical dispersants has been, at least in part, an attempt to obscure the visual horror of the spill from news cameras. The highly toxic dispersants themselves have further added to the toxicity of the spill, without actually removing any of the oil.”
“Leaked memos suggests that government officials were aware of a potential for a nightmare scenario. Will it simply be ‘allowed to happen’ as the days, weeks and months pass? BP, Halliburton and Transocean... enjoy long and enduring ties to the world governments, and their worldwide oil strategies. Both the Bush-Cheney and Obama administrations, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) directly involved with allowing BP to operate Deepwater Horizon in reckless fashion, sheltering BP from regulatory requirements. This despite the fact that BP has a history of recklessness and disaster known throughout the energy industry.”
The following claims about gases released and their quantity and toxicity are, in my opinion, exaggerated--at least the concentrations claimed, which varies dramatically depending one whether the measurement is taken over the spill site or farther away when concentrations are diluted: “The black oil is not the danger - EPA says coming out is some of the most toxic organic compounds - Hydrogen sulfide (tested at 1,200 parts per billion), benzene (safe level 0.24 ppb, now at 3,000 ppb). Its deadly. Exposure can causes rapid heart beat, long term damage in bone marrow. It targets organs, brain, lungs etc. Metholene Chloride is the next one...safe levels are at 61 ppb, current levels are 3,000 to 3,400 ppb. A hurricane can carry it up the east coast of the states.”
WWLTV a local station in the gulf has a more realistic account: “’These pollutants could pose a health risk to local communities and this monitoring is essential to ensure that communities are protected as BP takes direct response actions,’ EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said during a Senate Committee Hearing on Tuesday. All can irritate the eyes, nose, throat and lungs, and in some cases lead to nausea and dizziness.
“So what have they found? ‘Some elevated levels, but not every day and not for long periods of time. The levels have not been that high.... It varies based on the wind direction, whether or not they’re burning the slick,’ Orr said.”
Where is the truth about what happened to the well? All the efforts to seal off the well with the blow out preventer (BOP) and cement/mud plugs have failed. Worse, the well casing has been severely damaged down below somewhere and oil is coming out of several fissures around the well casing itself, which has lost some of its cement seal. As the rock and sediment around the casing erodes, eventually, they will have an unsealable hole in the ocean venting oil and gas. I don’t have the space to detail all of this, so I will reference two excellent links. First, take a look at this excellent graphic which will orient you to how a well is constructed and what went wrong. http://media.nola.com/news_impact/other/oil-cause-050710.pdf Next, here is the best overall summary of the technical issues that went wrong during the drilling and the subsequent shortcuts taken by BP. Note that the prospects for a resolution are not good: http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_60341.shtml
Oil consultant Matt Simmons and others are even talking about using a nuke down the hole to destroy the well and hopefully cause the debris to seal it. I don’t buy it. This is an unknown technique and could make things even worse if it doesn’t work. In fact, just figuring out how to trigger the device under these circumstances is a nightmare.
The conventional techniques are more probable and promising. BP has contractors drilling two relief wells on either side of the damaged one. They will initially provide two additional sources to channel oil and pressure away from the bad well. One or both can then be used to insert plugs into the damaged well below the compromised casing where they will be more effective at stopping the flow. While this is a horrendous spill, the earth will eventually heal itself, just like at the Alaskan spill before. It isn’t the end of the world nor an extinction event.
What Happens Now? The most certain effect is that US offshore oil supplies will be forever curtailed. This is a perfect excuse to lock up US offshore oil supplies--just as the suspicious 3 Mile Island Nuclear incident gave environmentalists and government the excuse to effectively shut down the US nuclear industry.
There are going to be a lot of human victims of this super spill. British Petroleum’s $20 Billion is going to fall far short--if the company survives to pay. If managed like the Exxon Valdez spill, claimants can expect to wait decades for a settlement. It is not reassuring that the Obama administration has selected attorney Kenneth Feinberg to administer the fund. Feinburg is a stealthy insider who is serving as the special master for executive pay under the Troubled Asset Relief Program and previously ran the government fund supposedly set up to compensate victims of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It turned out to be an arm-twisting deal whereby the government offered token compensation if they signed a legal document that the victim’s relatives could not sue the government in the future. Cutting them off from legal recourse if they found out the government was responsible for 9/11.
BP has cancelled its dividend and will not make a profit in the foreseeable future. It’s stock has lost a third of its value and is headed lower. It’s not surprising that Goldman Sachs and other big funds have divested themselves of BP stock. But what is surprising is that Goldman knew to sell theirs before the spill happened. More inside information? If so, it would indicate that there was foreknowledge of an inside sabotage job.
Jim O’Neill of the Canada Free Press lays out the charges of sabotage and conspiracy: “I’m mainly concerned with whether the oil spill was caused intentionally,.... How did the oil spill start? The mundane, if unlikely answer, is greed and human stupidity caused it. I say ‘unlikely’ for two reasons: The number of ‘fail-safe’ protocols, techniques, and equipment that all failed at the same time, and 2) the all-too-convenient timing of the ‘accident.’ [However, given the number of willful shortcuts ordered, an “accident” was all too easily predictable]
“Before the Deepwater Horizon fiasco, the Lieberman-Kerry ‘Cap-and-Trade’ bill was stalled in Congress. With the loss of trillions of dollars at stake, the likely collapse of the CCX (Chicago Climate eXchange) and the ‘redistribution of wealth’ scenario coming apart, what to do, what to do? There are a lot of ‘heavy hitters’ surrounding the CCX--Goldman Sachs, Al Gore, BP, George Soros, to name just a few. And there are a number of possible culprits directly responsible for the oil spill: BP, Halliburton, Cameron, Boots and Coots, Transocean....
“I’m not suggesting that any of these companies, as such, committed an act of war against the United States. Nor do I believe that any individual country was behind the oil spill. I believe that certain elements, certain individuals, within the companies connected with the Deepwater Horizon, are responsible for the disaster, but who those individuals actually represent, is much larger than any company.” I agree--certain people tied to the globalist agenda.
Rep. Henry Waxman cited internal BP documents, according to the LA Times, that “assailed the company for repeatedly taking ‘shortcuts’ that he said endangered lives and increased the risk of a catastrophic blowout. The morning the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, a BP executive and a Transocean official argued over how to proceed with the drilling. The BP official wanted workers to replace heavy mud, used to keep the well’s pressure down, with lighter seawater to help speed a process that was overbudget by $20 million.
“Do I believe it was sabotage? Yes, I do. Who are the enemy? The enemy is that which is opposed to truth, freedom, and God--call it what you will. Politically, we call it the Far Left--Marxist/Fascists. Sociologically, we’re talking about a self-anointed elite, who want to rule everyone else. I’m talking about a NWO (New World Order). It’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s a conspiracy fact, and if you doubt it--boy are you in for a surprise. A new world order--emphasis on the word ‘world.’ Look for violent attacks against freedom and democracy, world-wide--the Middle East, Europe, Asia, South America.... The New World Order end-game.
“The takeover and destruction of the United States of America has been planned for quite some time, and they’ve covered all of the bases as best they can. They’ve done a darn good job of it too. Every facet of our social structure has been infiltrated, compromised, and corrupted-from our courts and schools, to our religions and military... The ‘dumbing down’ of America, and the rise of our indoctrination centers (aka ‘schools’). The dismantling of our borders, and the infiltration of America by illegal invaders--and I’m not just talking about Mexicans. America is being forced to accept ‘green energy.” I too love alternate energy as a backup, but it is way too expensive to be the main energy component of society.
CLEAN-UP CONTAINMENT NIGHTMARE
One of the biggest sources of irritation on the Gulf coast has been the way in which BP has wielded tyrannical powers to restrict access to beaches, control who gets to work on cleanup, and restrict access by citizens and journalists to take photographs.
Jim O’Neill of Canada Free Press says the Clean Water Act (“The President shall direct all Federal, State, and private actions to remove a discharge or mitigate or prevent the threat of a discharge from onshore or offshore facilities which is determined to be a substantial threat to the public health or welfare of the United States.--Clean Water Act 311 (c)”) gives the President unprecedented powers to intervene, which he isn’t using--reminding everyone of the blame George W. bush eventually shouldered over Katrina.
But there is a conflicting law on the books that the courts have never resolved. Blogger “Cricket Diane” explains: “The 1990 Oil Act makes the oil company the first authority and gives rights over all in the event of an oil spill or oil disaster to the oil company over all government, government agencies, local and federal and state rights of say or authority. If I understand it correctly, it is the reason that the oil company and their marine spill response corporation has the full authority and first rights of say about anything and everything throughout the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf Coast of the United States - including demanding that the FAA ground all flights with media on board so they can’t take aerial photos of the oil spill. It is also the reason that BP could hire a security company to keep the reporters, photographers and state leaders and agencies out of the marshes in Louisiana after the thick crude oil was found there.
“It is also the reason that every state, county, town, city, coastal area, and marine group must go through BP and their contractor to do anything to prevent the oil from coming onshore or to place any other method of solving the problem or save a bird or rescue a dolphin or sea turtle, place a sand berm along their own waters - even the ones being placed in Destin, Florida.
“It is also the reason that over the thousands of products that are known to work to get up the oil, contain the oil or suck up the oil, only those that were originally on the list of the BP contractor are being used and only their list of subcontractors / companies pre-assigned by them are being used in the cleanup and skimming and whatever else.” This is a very disturbing conflict with people’s first amendment and property rights.
Now that the public is demanding more public action from government, mistakes are common. Jeffrey Ball of the Wall Street Journal explains how the same bureaucratic nightmare that damaged Katrina relief is at work in the Gulf spill.
“On May 19, almost a month after BP PLC’s Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, the White House tallied its response to the resulting oil spill. Twenty thousand people had been mobilized to protect the shore and wildlife [ineffectively and mostly for show for the cameras]. More than 1.38 million feet of containment boom had been set to trap oil [though misused and ineffective, violating standard procedures]. And 655,000 gallons of petroleum-dispersing chemicals [highly toxic] had been injected into the Gulf of Mexico. That same day, as oil came ashore on Louisiana’s Gulf coast, thousands of feet of boom sat on a dock in Terrebonne Parish, waiting for BP contractors to install it. Two more days would pass before it was laid offshore. The federal government sprang into action early following the vast BP oil spill. But along the beaches and inlets of the Gulf, signs abound that the response has faltered.
“A Wall Street Journal examination of the government response, based on federal documents and interviews with White House, Coast Guard, state and local officials, reveals that confusion over what to do delayed some decision-making. There were disagreements among federal agencies and between national, state and local officials. The Coast Guard and BP each had written plans for responding to a massive Gulf oil spill. Both now say their plans failed to anticipate a disaster threatening so much coastline at once [just like Katrina]. The federal government, which under the law [not necessarily so] is in charge of fighting large spills, had to make things up as it went along. Federal officials changed their minds on key moves, sometimes more than once. Chemical dispersants to break up the oil were approved, then judged too toxic, then re-approved. The administration criticized, debated and then partially approved a proposal by Louisiana politicians to build up eroded barrier islands to keep the oil at bay.”
The only thing for certain to come of all this will be more government power and regulation. Certainly not more liberty to run an energy business, even following safe procedures.