Simmons Says Obama Should Detonate Nukes to Seal Oil Leak; Obama Suspends Deep Water Drilling Programs; Scientists Locate Another Vast Oil Plume
by ilene - May 29th, 2010 12:09 pm
Simmons Says Obama Should Detonate Nukes to Seal Oil Leak; Obama Suspends Deep Water Drilling Programs; Scientists Locate Another Vast Oil Plume
Courtesy of Mish
News in the gulf regarding BP’s oil leak is grim. The "Top Kill" plan has reportedly failed although BP says it will continue efforts.
Worse yet, Matt Simmons says "Top Kill" is a sideshow, misses the big problem, and we might need nukes to seal the leak.
Let’s take a look at those stories starting with BP Engineers Making Little Headway on Leaking Well.
BP engineers struggled Friday to plug a gushing oil well a mile under the sea, but as of late in the day they had made little headway in stemming the flow.
Amid mixed messages about problems and progress, the effort — called a “top kill” — continued for a third day, with engineers describing a painstaking process of trying to plug the hole, using different weights of mud and sizes of debris like golf balls and tires, and then watching and waiting. They cannot use brute force because they risk making the leak worse if they damage the pipes leading down to the well.
Despite an apparent lack of progress, officials said they would continue with the process for another 48 hours, into Sunday, before giving up and considering other options, including another containment dome to try to capture the oil.
Deep Water Drilling Grinds to Halt
Bloomberg reports Oil Industry Faces Its ‘1,000-Year Flood’ as Drilling Is Halted
“The spill is like the 1,000-year flood: it’s the worst- case scenario,” said Brian Youngberg, an analyst with Edward Jones in St. Louis. “It’s hard to prepare for those extreme situations like that.”
Obama dropped plans to open waters off the coast of Virginia to drilling, canceled a lease sale in the Gulf, and suspended the permitting process for Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s planned wells off of Arctic Alaska. He said new safety rules will be imposed on offshore drilling.
U.S. oil output may be cut by 160,000 barrels a day next year as a result of the ban, according to Deutsche Bank AG. A one-year delay to deep-water projects would reduce global supplies by 500,000 barrels a day between 2013 and 2017, Sanford C. Bernstein said.
Shell has five wells affected by Obama’s call to halt drilling at 33 exploratory locations. Eni SpA, based in Rome, and