Worried about BP Oil Spill? Don't Be

Bacteria eat Gulf Oil methane.

"According to the new study, bacteria took fewer than four months to finish off the methane, and it appears that at no time did oxygen levels in the area the team studied fall to levels dangerous to marine organisms there."

According to the report, some scientists dispute the finding. And, in other news, water is wet.

The Obama Doomsday Machine Rumbles On

Peter Ferrara, one of the most accurate writers in the country on economics, states in a recent American Spectator essay:

Last week, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced a 7 year moratorium on oil drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and up the east coast. They need that time to further study the BP oil spill and implement a "more stringent regulatory regime," Salazar transparently prevaricated.

Salazar is consequently depriving America of 7.5 billion barrels of oil and 60 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. To ensure their access to a reliable supply of oil at the time, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. That's shows what a serious attack on the American people this policy is. [emphasis added]

Meanwhile, EPA Director Lisa Jackson is imposing cap and trade by regulatory decree, despite its thorough democratic rejection by a Democrat-controlled Congress and the American people in 2010.

Frankly, I don't fully understand why the oil companies don't simply, at this point, start breaking the law. Surely they could never be subject to legal punishment if they chose to fight. The American people would riot on their behalf.

I can only assume that, since having low-price oil and gas doesn't really affect the executives very much, they simply choose not to endure the hassle. Can't say I entirely blame them, but it's a real shame for the rest of us.

Where is Hank Rearden when you need him?

Conservatives Misread Lomberg's "Cool It"

Several recent conservative commentaries offer a sympathetic review of Bjorn Lomberg's global warming documentary "Cool It."

These well-meaning individuals have been snookered. Bjorn Lomberg is more dangerous than Al Gore precisely because he appears (and is) more reasonable. Obvious con men like Gore expose their own racket before long. It's those who are more apparently reasonable - but still opposed to freedom - who do most of the damage in the world.

According to the Spectator story, "Mr. Lomborg's thesis is straightforward: Global warming is real and humanity needs to do something about it."

Its well known that that thesis has been radically undermined in the past two years.

Moreover, the idea that "we" should do anything about it - beyond leaving individuals free to adapt to any changes that occur - is the fatal flaw in Dr. Lomberg's argument.

Lomberg may sound more reasonable than many, but he is still committed to Comtean altruism, Roussean collectivism, and garden-variety statism, and still touts a highly dubious hypothesis to justify them. Running around Africa crying over the poor doesn't change any of that.

Pajamas Media Article: Why the 10:10 Video Is a Distraction

Please head to Pajamas Media and read my article on Why the 10:10 Video Is a Distraction.

In it, I argue that the real enemy is much more dangerous, because much more benign looking.

Here's how it begins...

A British group called 10:10.org recently released (then quickly pulled) a viro snuff film. In the video, teachers press a red button to explode schoolchildren reluctant to accept the Green dogma of AGW (anthropogenic global warming) and other environmentalist fairy tales.

There's no question that the film is revolting and its producers are vicious, no matter how much they try to claim it was intended as humor. Still, the pundits up in arms over it are making a tactical error.

Your comments are invited.

Read the rest here.

Thanks,

Jeff

Another Oil Rig Explosion

Another oil rig in the Gulf has exploded, according to an AP report.

Ok, sign me up for the conspiracy club: Riechstag fire anyone?

IPCC Climate Science Chief Gets Good Advice, Finally

IPCC Climate Data Fudger-In-Chief Rajendra Pachauri gets a mild spanking from some real scientists, the sort who haven't yet completely lost their scientific integrity.

"Qualitative probabilities should be used to describe the probability of well-defined outcomes only when there is sufficient evidence," said the review group, which was supported by the academies of science from the United States, Netherlands, Britain and other countries.

Good advice (although I'm not altogether sure what a "qualitative" probability would look like). Think he'll take it? Nah, me neither.

"Fascising the Auto Industry" Published at Pajamas Media

Another of my articles has been published at Pajamas Media — The GM Volt: Fascism Strikes the Auto Industry.

Here's an excerpt:

Whether the American taxpayers get their money’s worth out of the investment, which they won’t, is beside the point. The precedent has been set for a massive public-private partnership in the auto industry, which can easily spread to other industries (and already has).

Granted, Chrysler gets partial credit for that precedent, owing to its $1.5 billion loan in 1980. Giving credit where it’s due, Chrysler’s loan did get paid back. But several things are different now that raise the Volt fiasco to a new level.

Your comments are invited, here and there.

Thanks,
Jeff

How Environmentalists Think

Sunlight is a good disinfectant. It's cheap, non-polluting, and the UV radiation kills a wide variety of nasty critters. So, how about we outlaw all antibiotic drugs? Well, to be reasonable, let's limit the legislation to disallowing just topical treatments, at least until we can figure out how to get sunlight inside the body.

Just a thought.

Obama the Thug, Part 27

The consensus on the left and right is that Obama's first Oval Office address was a dud. When you're a hidebound leftist and you've lost Eugene Robinson, you know you're in trouble. But I'm sure my beefs are very different from his.

Like any conscious being with some ability to sensibly allocate his time, I didn't bother to watch the speech. But I did read parts of it. What annoyed me was the whining of this part:

"I've talked to shrimpers and fishermen who don't know how they're going to support their families this year. I've seen empty docks and restaurants with fewer customers - even in areas where the beaches are not yet affected. I've talked to owners of shops and hotels who wonder when the tourists will start to come back. The sadness and anger they feel is not just about the money they've lost. It's about a wrenching anxiety that their way of life may be lost.

Notice how he always falls back on the stereotypical community organizer's litany of disastrous effects and how the poor are suffering. This is exactly the way those petty thugs use moral intimidation to get their way with banks, mortgage lenders, city officials, etc. The technique is all Obama knows. He must have been a completely inept lawyer in the face of any judge who wasn't instantly impressed by the pity card.

But what truly ticked off me off was the sheer thuggery of this:

I refuse to let that happen. Tomorrow, I will meet with the chairman of BP and inform him that he is to set aside whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business owners who have been harmed as a result of his company's recklessness."

Notice the sheer lawlessness of his attitude toward BP. He will "inform" them they are going to do such and such, as if there are no laws to follow in the matter, only his dictates. Just as one example, there is a legal – albeit, perhaps foolishly low — $75 million cap on liability. Even ignoring that, there is simply no legal authority on the part of the Executive to force BP to establish such a fund.

Not surprisingly, BP preemptively caved on the threat.

"BP will set aside $20 billion to pay the victims of the massive oil spill in the Gulf, senior administration officials said Wednesday, a move made under pressure by the White House as the company copes with causing the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history."

As if $20 billion was nothing more than a reasonable, if stinging, rebuke on a company who has been a very bad boy and The One is merely wagging his finger at them.

You can just hear how this crisis is a wet dream for an anti-business leftist (but I repeat myself) who finally has a chance to, big time, stick it to da man.

Anyone who does not now believe that Obama is, in fact, a Fascist doesn't understand Obama or Fascism. Among other characteristics is creating a shadow govt. Michelle Malkin has the lowdown on that.

Finally, be sure to catch some of Kenneth Green's points at AEI about the speech, which outline well just what a dishonest demagogue the stick-figure stick wielder truly is. About the only quasi-positive thing I can say for Obama is that he is fairly consistent. He never lets a crisis go to waste.

[An irresistible update:

"Countries like China are investing in clean energy jobs and industries that should be right here in America."

Right. That's why China is building about one major coal fire plant per month for the foreseeable future. Of course, they are investing in some 'green' technology: they have planned to build 15 new nuclear power plants in the next five years. That, of course, is one 'green' technology Obama almost never talks about.

So, once again the Thug-in-Chief also proves to be the Misleader-In-Chief.]

Obama, the Teenage Thug

Obama the overgrown teenager continues to demonstrate how ridiculous he can appear. Trying to pretend he's doing something about the BP oil spill he has declared,

I was down there a month ago, before most of these talking heads were even paying attention to the Gulf. A month ago, I was meeting with fisherman down there, standing in the rain... We talk to these folks because they potentially had the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick.

How about starting with his own?

Is he responsible for the spill, or even the clean up efforts? No. But he could have ordered the Federal Government to get out of the way and let the grownups do what they need to do. Instead, he dithers while Gov. Jindal frantically begs permission to build sand berms. He sends his enforcer Holder down to threaten BP with possible legal action. He claims he is in charge, on top of it, and to be held accountable. Yet, his idea of what that means is simply to act like an adolescent thug, who strokes his own vanity by making threats and watching his victims jump.

I wish I could say this was surprising. But when a man with zero experience at anything but yakking and gladhanding is faced with a real-world problem this is the almost inevitable result. The "almost" is there only because a man with any conscience at all would at least step aside during a crisis and let those who can, do. But the giant, creme-filled ego of The One simply can't allow that in this case. So, he must make a show.

Unfortunately, when the curtain comes down on this clown's act it will be left to those focused on reality to clean up the extra mess.

The Glory of Oil Drilling Technology

I mentioned recently that if anyone wanted to help out in the BP oil spill, he should come up with a technological innovation to obsolete oil drilling. That hasn't quite arrived, but the samples below are the next best thing.

Daniel Foster has written a piece on the amazing technology being used to combat the BP oil spill. It's so chock-full of glorious items I can't even decide what to excerpt. So, here are just two picked at random:

[T]he Deepwater Horizon floated on four massive stabilizing pontoons, which kept it stationary and level as waves washed beneath it. This allowed the rig to move anywhere it was needed, withstand 40-foot waves and 100-knot winds, and operate in water as deep as 10,000 feet.

Powered by two 9,775-hp, 7,000-kilowatt AC generators, and outfitted with awesome-sounding machinery like the “heave compensator,” “cascading shaker,” “hydraulic power choke,” and “iron roughneck,” it obliterated the previous world record — and its own nominal capacities — for offshore drill depth when it hit 35,055 feet in the Gulf.

And, for the cleanup effort,

Essentially powerful vacuums attached to centrifuges, Costner’s contraptions can reportedly remove oil from water at a rate of 200 gallons a minute with a level of 97 to 99 percent purity. Six of them are currently being tested by BP and the Army Corps of Engineers.

What Foster doesn't say much about (it's not really his purpose but is implied by the selections and the style) is just how magnificent are the heroes who designed and deployed these amazing devices. It's really a pity that the Nobel – actually intended for things like this – will never be given to any of the creators.

For anyone interested in how real life sometimes exceeds the bounds of the most romantic fiction, Foster's article is for you.

Oil Spills Compared

I've borrowed something similar before, but this chart strikes me as even better than the last. As is visually obvious, while not a drop in the bucket — particularly to those trying to make a livelihood in the Gulf of Mexico — the BP spill (so far) is relatively mild.

Naturally, no one presently calling for BP's head and an end to all oil drilling off the coast (and everywhere else) will have the least sense of proportion about this incident. But for those who haven't yet lost (or, more accurately, willingly tossed aside) their minds, I offer the following.



[Hat tip to Kathy Shaidle at NewsReal for bringing to wider public attention the efforts of Donna Laframboise on this subject.]

Obama Makes Oil Spill Problem Worse

John Calfee writing at the AEI site has published a highly intelligent essay arguing that Obama has just made solving the oil spill problem harder. Using examples from tort law and medicine he reasons that sending in Holder's minions to look for criminal wrongdoing is bound to make matters worse.

That shouldn't be too surprising. Apart from Obama's near total lack of practical experience at anything but politics, and his colossal ineptness at anything but snake oil sales, government involvement can't improve the situation. It's an engineering problem, and a darned tough one. Politics is about ass covering, not well capping. It's about popping up out of a manure pile looking shiny, not about cleaning up a mess.

More than that, the type of person who seeks power as Obama and his cronies have for decades does not develop the mental skills to solve real-world problems outside of politics. Power corrupts, and long before anyone acquires it. The very act of seeking it injures one's character.

One sees this in large corporations all the time. Even there, where authority isn't coupled with coercion, one can observe formerly decent people change for the worse when they become managers. They become less willing to state the truth frankly and more forgiving of bad behavior on the part of those in charge. It takes an extraordinary kind of person not be corrupted by that and, by definition, few people are extraordinary.

That incentive is all the stronger because of the collectivist nature of most large companies today. Enter a business meeting and suddenly those who were joking with you a moment earlier join the pack. They are perfectly prepared to feed you to the wolves to deflect criticism. The wolves are in turn busy deflecting any potential criticism from themselves by the bears, and so it goes, on up the food chain.

Introducing coercion, as Obama has now done via the prospect of people actually going to jail for negligence — while expecting those same people to solve a highly complex engineering problem with serious environmental implications — is a recipe for disaster.

It may be that Obama honestly believes it's possible to frighten managers into haranguing technicians to solve it more quickly. But I'm willing to go out on a limb here and suggest that Obama really doesn't care if it makes the problem harder to solve. Following his buddy Emanuel's methodology, he can't let this crisis go to waste. It's too ripe with possibilities for furthering his agenda of "weaning us off fossil fuels and our addiction to oil."

Problems of this sort, however, will never get solved until Americans get weaned of their addiction to government solutions.

Pollution in the Gulf Not Just From Oil

"One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary."

Ayn Rand

That statement could easily apply to any number of areas attacked addressed by the Federal government over the past 22 months. But I was thinking of it in the context of the recent oil leak off the Louisiana coast. The viro-Left and its parasitic travelers who never let a crisis go to waste have been making the usual noises. They chastise BP and rent their garments for having 'allowed' oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

Set aside that everyone from Russia to Brazil is drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and the U.S. couldn't stop it if it wanted to. Just ask why BP, Shell, and others aren't drilling in areas where accidents are much less likely and easier to repair. Why aren't they drilling in ANWR and Colorado and South Dakota?

Because those same viro-leftists who complain about the spill were successful in getting the Feds to make it illegal to do so. And, then, of course they clutch their pearls when an oil company has a problem capping a well in mile deep water far out at sea.

So to all those complainers: tough. Want to make a useful contribution? Invent a cost-effective, unsubsidized technology that will make petroleum as unnecessary as whale oil was made by oil and get it accepted in the marketplace. Until then, stfu.

Barring that astounding breakthrough, as an interim step, help get the Feds out of the way of safe drilling — in ANWR, the shallows off the California coast, and elsewhere. Stop polluting the political system with sludge that dirties humans. Then you won't have to worry so much about tar covering birds.

Car Commissar Obama Imposes Fuel Rules By Fiat

Obama continues to demonstrate that he believes he is the CEO of Amerika, Inc.

Mr. Obama plans to announce on Friday that he is ordering the creation of a new national policy that will result in less greenhouse-gas pollution from medium- and heavy-duty trucks for the first time and will further reduce exhaust from cars and light-duty trucks beyond the requirements he has already put in place.
...
Under rules that were eventually formalized last month, new cars have to meet a combined city and highway fuel economy average of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016. The administration said the new rules would cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases by about 30 percent from 2012 to 2016.
...
In addition to the fuel efficiency and pollution standards, Mr. Obama’s directive will order more federal support for the development of new-generation cars like advanced electric vehicles and will instruct the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce pollutants from motor vehicles other than greenhouse gases.

What I can't figure out is why in the world this is even legal. Maybe someone in the audience can enlighten me why, even in our era of largely ignoring the Constitution, the head of the Executive Branch can simply write an Executive Order and dictate mileage thresholds.

The Totalitarian Two Step

The EPA,

is completing a rule requiring large polluters to reduce the amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that they release into the air. Those emissions can exacerbate asthma and other breathing problems.

The rule would require companies to install better technology and improve energy efficiency whenever they build, or significantly modify, a plant.

(We'll pass over the absurd claim about asthma, which not even viro activists have pushed. It's an Associated Press story, after all.)

Having taken control of the health care financing of every individual in the country, the Federal Government is now engaged in Step Two of establishing a totalitarian dictatorship in America.

To be sure, it has the appearance of a benign dictatorship, more like Denmark's today than that of Italy in the 1920s. So, of course calling it that will inevitably garner a few reactions charging wingnuttery. So be it. It's not so extreme a description in this case. The ability of (or at least the quasi-legal framework for) the government to control every action you take — since all of them produce CO2 — is the definition of totalitarianism.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said the rule applies only to large polluters such as power plants, refineries and cement production facilities that collectively are responsible for 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

These things are never static. Expect a gradual defining down of 'large' until it reaches the level of the Feds worrying about the smoke from an outdoor BBQ grill. After all, if the EPA can worry — as it already has — about a farmer's stream on his own land, it will sooner or later get around to that. As Mises discovered generations ago, controls breed more controls. Even the relatively smaller ones today will have a hobbling effect on an already overburdened energy sector.

Still, money cost is actually the least troubling aspect of the ruling. It is just one more way, and not a small one, in which an unelected bureaucracy sets rules that have no useful purpose, solve no real problem, and expand Federal control over individuals and their Constitutionally guaranteed ignored property rights.

And, to tie this into other recent events, this is all the result of a Supreme Court ruling three years ago. (Combined, of course, with decades of environmentalism poisoning the culture.) For those who believe SCOTUS is like some gentleman's club that has no relevance to the day-to-day life of every American (no SL readers, I'm sure), here's proof positive of the reverse.

Oil Spills Over the Years

Though the total amount released by the recent BP oil spill can't yet be known, here is a graph that puts the issue in perspective.



[Hat Tip: Kate at something called Small Dead Animals, or The RoadKill Diaries. Really, who picks such a weird name for her blog? (Said he with the perfectly mundane blog name...)]

Anyway, there's more good news about the BP spill: it's already getting capped.

BP declared a partial victory today in its battle to control a spreading oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico, after the company said it had successfully capped one of three leaks from a pipe by applying a valve.

The oil giant, which is under mounting pressure from the US government to stop the leak, admitted that the operation would not reduce the overall rate of flow of the oil. But it claimed it was nevertheless a positive step because it “reduced the complexity of the situation being dealt with on the seabed”.

BP said the half-tonne valve had been installed on the end of a broken drill pipe last night using remote-controlled sub sea robots.

The robots first cut the end of the pipe to leave a clean end and the valve was then placed in position on the seabed. [Note: Once again, the British newspapers cover the story while the American press continues to act like Pravda for the viros.]

That it's being dealt with at all possible speed will surprise no one knowledgeable about the history and technology of such things. (I would say it would surprise those on the Left but, even if they accidentally read about it, they'll deny it.)

Apart from everything else, aren't the oil companies consumed with greed? Therefore, don't they have a vested interest in capping a big leak that is costing them lost revenue? Don't expect the viros to make that point, either, anytime soon.

The Sierra Club Hates the Oil Business

... So what else is new?

Unlike many on 'the Right', when I hear a Leftist call someone on the Right 'a whack job' I don't immediately think they are projecting. I just take it that they are saying "I hate your values." Well, likewise. Here's a case in point:

Kristina Johnson, of the Sierra Club, America's largest grassroots environmental group, said: "They're the ones who have profited from oil and from our oceans. They're the ones who put the Gulf Coast at risk so that they could rake in record profits."

Now, forget for a moment that the spokesperson of an environmentalist organization made this idiotic anti-profit statement. That's to be expected. What galls me is her apparent belief that her readers are as stupid (or vicious) as she is.

Sure, oil companies sometimes make big profits. Good for them. But for every seller, there is a buyer, or there's no transaction. So, the attempt to make it seem as if oil exploration, production, distribution, and sales is somehow a one-sided benefit is simply (and transparently) ludicrous. Clearly, many individuals and companies believe the oil is worth buying at the price at which it is offered. Otherwise, BP would be out of business post haste.

One would think by the time a woman has reached the vaunted position of spokesperson for one of the world's largest, most influential environmental groups she would think a little more before she speaks. Either she's not aware of this perfectly obvious fact about business, or she's simply misdirecting to make a point. Neither reflects well on her or her organization.

But, then, The Sierra Club has been dedicated to the dismantling of industrial civilization for 100 years, so no doubt this is all wasted outrage on my part.

Terrorist Threats: Left, Right, And Other

Apropos the response to the recent jihadist near-miss attack in Times Square, it's useful to consider some of the attitudes expressed by creatures like Mayor Bloomberg. He said in a CBS interview hours after the incident:

The bomb could have been placed by “somebody with a political agenda who doesn’t like the health care bill or something. It could be anything.”

This not-so-subtle allusion to Tea Party sympathizers is a sentiment that comes more or less automatically to the mind of a Leftist.

[Update 17:55:] Here is one where there is no subtlety involved at all:

The Nation’s Robert Dreyfuss discounted the possibility of a jihadi from the Pakistan-based Taliban: “It seems far more likely to me [he] was either a lone nut job or a member of some squirrely branch of the Tea Party, anti-government far right.”

Yet, according to the FBI, what is the source of the #1 domestic threat? Eco-terrorism.

The FBI currently has 180 ongoing eco-terror investigations and over the last several years has tied them to some 1,800 criminal acts, Kolko said.

Anyone who, like me, lives in the Pacific Northwest is fully familiar with the sort of thing the FBI has in mind. Everything from tree-spiking to torching upscale homes occurs with frightening frequency. And, though it should not have to be said, let us hasten to point out that viro-paganism and the political movement to which it gives rise, Environmentalism, are phenomena of the Left, not the Right.

[Hat Tip: Jonah Goldberg, NRO for the Bloomberg quote.]

William Tucker Reviews "Power Hungry"

William Tucker writing at The American Spectator has produced a useful review of Robert Bryce's book Power Hungry: The Myths of "Green" Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future. Here's a sample of the many gems in this fact-filled work that show how so-called Green energy is wasteful and inefficient.

• The concrete and steel requirements for windmills are 9.6 and 11.5 times as great as nuclear reactors and 32 and 139 times greater as natural gas plants. That is what makes wind so expensive.

• Gasoline has eighty times the energy density of the lithium-ion battery, the latest in battery technology. Even old newspapers have thirty times the energy density of batteries. This makes the widespread use of electric vehicles unlikely.

• Although Texas now leads the country in wind production, engineers at ERCOT, the state's grid operator, estimate windmill electricity is available only 9 percent of the time.

• When measured on per-output basis, wind and solar energy get 15 times as much in federal subsidies as nuclear power.

• A 1000-MW nuclear reactor produces only 20 cubic meters of waste annually, while in one year the U.S. coal industry produces 2,200 times as much solid waste as our nuclear fleet has produced in the last four decades. Yet nuclear waste considered the bigger problem.

The entire review is highly recommended, as is the article that brought it to my attention, Peter Ferrara's Keep the Lights On. [Update:] From Ferrara's article, just as one stellar example:

The South Texas Project nuclear plant produces 300 horsepower per acre of land used, about the same as natural gas, with oil close behind. Wind power produces 6.4 horsepower per acre, solar photovoltaic 36 hp per acre, biomass 2.1. Corn ethanol requires about 1,150 times as much land as nuclear to produce the same horsepower.

The conclusion is obvious: oil powers civilization in a cost-effective way. Might that not be the reason the Anti(s) oppose it?

[Update 2:] Vulcan's Hammer has an excellent post on the subject of the recent BP Oil Spill, keyed off a recent WSJ editorial and focusing on the issues of safety. Here's a sample:

When an airliner tragically crashes and kills everyone aboard, does anyone suggest that society should revert back to ocean liners to get from, let’s say, Boston to London? No. When there is a pile up of cars where passengers are killed, does anyone suggest that society revert to the alternative of horse and buggy? No. Accidents happen even in a perfect world and no reasonable person is going to revert to a lower standard of living because of the threat of the odd incident. So why is oil held to a different standard than other technologies?

Exactly.