It took the Interior Department less than a day to rescind the shallow-water drilling permits I was bitching about yesterday.
If the new “Cervical Cap” procedure doesn’t work, the current estimate on the relief wells is two months, minimum.
by $8 blue check mistermix| 40 Comments
This post is in: Science & Technology
It took the Interior Department less than a day to rescind the shallow-water drilling permits I was bitching about yesterday.
If the new “Cervical Cap” procedure doesn’t work, the current estimate on the relief wells is two months, minimum.
Comments are closed.
John PM
Am I acting immature because I saw the phrase cervical cap and started giggling? Anuway, the name for this current attempt by BP to stop the leak is appropriate, since we are getting f-cked.
LarsThorwald
Heh. Cervical cap.
cleek
BP’s IUD ? LOL. SNAFU.
Wag
Anyone doubt that if Bush were still President, his response to the Deepwater blow out would have been to make it easier to drill in shallower water? After all, we would have needed to ease the regulatory burden on our beseiged oil industry to keep us free.
John PM
It is also my understanding that if the cervical cap does not work BP’s next option is something called the Intercepting Underwater Device.
Jeff
There are two explanations as to why the MMS continued to grant drilling permits in the face of this catastrophe– and they are not mutually exclusive.
First is that the agency is more or less brain dead, working with out a functioning top executive for months, since the Republicans won’t allow a vote on the agency head, and
second is that the agency is shot thru and thru with Bush moles who have burrowed into civil service positions and were operating on a
“drill, baby, drill” mentality.
Either way this is an agency that needs shock therapy.
MikeJ
@Jeff: Isn’t the current solution to do away with the MMS and replace it with something competent and unbought?
Bill E Pilgrim
Some resources for the geekishly fascinated:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6558
http://www.sanaracreations.fi/rov-feeds/index.html
Thomas
@Wag: Well said, I can just see it now. Palin, Limbaugh et. al. have already raised this notion. As if, if we could just drill in Anwar and close to shore we’d have all the oil we need and it would be earmarked to the U.S. market.
Tom Levenson
All hail the power of Balloon Juice and its thralls! I’m not surprised, I must say — my sense of Obama and his crew is that they are sometimes slow, but never actually dumb. Makes a nice change.
Tom Levenson
And yes — I’ve been waiting many moons for an excuse to use the word “thrall” at this forum.
cat48
Kieran Suckling, as always, appears in the article to criticize Salazar. Don’t know if it’s valid or not. His first stmt about the spill was “Fire Salazar!” Of course, he wanted Grijhalva appointed. (Robert Redford likes Salazar). Environmentalist don’t seem to agree on much of anything. It gets confusing listening to them sometimes. They have their own priorities like everyone else I suppose.
Whether Suckling likes it or not, Obama sets the policy, not the Interior Secy. Just like Rahhhhm doesnt decide policy.
Respect folks more if they just blamed Obama, not someone he appoints.
Ash Can
@Jeff: This. There has to be a way to clean house over there. I mean, let’s face it — an agency that was literally in bed with the energy producers just a couple of years ago isn’t going to become Albert Schweitzer overnight when the administration changes hands.
Rosalita
they couldn’t call it a condom? sheesh
Chyron HR
But, but, Jason Lipton, who works in the mail room at BP’s Chicago office, gave Obongo $100 in 2008. That proves that Obambi is on the payroll of Big Oil!
pablo
BP’s Secret Plan.
Bulworth
.
Bulworth “likes this”.
Punchy
It seems clear this oil condom thing aint working. I’m not sure I can handle 2 more months of 80K+ barrels/day leakage. My wife finally broke into tears this morning at the sight of oil-covered birds. Dammit, I almost did too.
This shit is going to fuck everyone and everything on the coast.
Wilson Heath
Joke though it may be, the cervical cap is a more serious measure than the combination of prayer and rhythm method that BP had been using before.
Ash
I really want to make a cervix and dilated joke but I didn’t get enough sleep to think of anything witty enough. Dammit.
liberal
OT, on citizenship:
Israeli became a state in…1948.
liberal
@cat48:
I nominate this for “dumb O-bot comment of the day.”
maya
Obama should listen to ExGuv Palin and start authorizing shallow water leases right off West Palm Beach. Call it the Rushbo field.
shortstop
Have we resolved the drilling permit thing? Look at this amazingly contradictory AP story from yesterday, which the AP has now pulled from its own site, and tell me what it says about the status of shallow-water drilling permits. Because hell if I can tell.
wrb
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Tom Levenson:
Winston Churchill is often quoted as having said that You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else. Bush and Cheney broke that time honored rule, by leaving out the last crucial step and just doing the fuckup part. Obama has restored balance to The Force. Once again, we fuckup, but eventually we get it right in the long run.
wrb
@shortstop:
Sounds like it
Michael
@maya:
I was going to suggest sticking a large sucking pipe straight into El Flobbo’s gut and to start sucking out fat. That’ll be good for a fair amount of oil production.
gnomedad
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Holy crap. The apocalypse will be televised.
YellowJournalism
Cervical Cap? Seems fitting since BP gave the Gulf area the oil slick version of HIV.
thomas Levenson
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Forgot that Churchill quote. Too true.
Plus, I hear that Winston guy did have a way with words more generally, ya think?
catclub
@Wag:
He would have called it the healthy coastlines initiative.
Who says those guys aren’t literate? They clearly have picked up something from “1984”. Words means what they want them to mean, and torture is good.
maya
@catclub:
Or, No Tarball Left Behind
maya
@Michael:
Unfortunately, we haven’t used that kind of oil for lighting since the mid-1800’s. And GreenPeace would probably tail your ship.
Bill E Pilgrim
@gnomedad: That’s funny that’s exactly the sentence I used when I first saw the link to the ROV cam, a week or more ago. Exactly.
The Other Chuck
We got the cervical cap for this one … and now Jindal is lambasting Obama for instituting an abstinence program.
ET
@Punchy: those pictures are soooo depressing and make me sick. I wasn’t totally sure a bird really was under the sort of bird like blob that was the picture on the front of the WaPo.
I think that BP exec, all those involved with making safety and emergency equipment decisions, and those evaluating the odds on an “event” need to be dumped into the oil with their winter clothing on and be forced to “swim” in it for a hour or two and see how they like it.
I hope the few million they saved by not having all the equipment, etc. was worth it.
Randy P
@liberal:
Glad to see this resolution. It happened in my neighborhood. Very weird case. My daughter was loosely connected, knew the people involved, went to school with his sister.
Sheinbein and a buddy decided to kill an acquaintance of theirs. As far as I remember it was just for the hell of it, they wanted to know what it was like and they befriended this guy after deciding he was the target. Sick, sick dudes. Then Sheinbein got his parents or grandparents to help him flee the country and pull this Israeli citizenship stunt.
Same neighborhood as the DC sniper, by the way.
ruemara
@liberal:
It’s our lord & masters, Israel. Don’t question the chosen.
DBrown
I have a question – since they can reach the well head and it is just a pipe above the main shut-off tower, why in the hell don’t they just crimp it shut? That would stop the flow … is it because they don’t want to lose the ability to cap and pump? Let the Gulf go to hell for money? Please tell me I’m wrong … please. It can’t be that simple and overlooked by everyone … right?