{"id":31554,"date":"2012-12-01T12:37:53","date_gmt":"2012-12-01T19:37:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/12\/01\/there-are-spills-and-there-are-spills.html"},"modified":"2012-12-01T12:37:53","modified_gmt":"2012-12-01T19:37:53","slug":"there-are-spills-and-there-are-spills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/12\/01\/there-are-spills-and-there-are-spills.html","title":{"rendered":"There are spills, and there are spills"},"content":{"rendered":"

Okay, on the one side, putting on my engineering hat, yes, anyone who tells you that there will be no oil spilled during drilling, extraction, and transportation of oil from the North Slope is trying to sell you something, if not offering you a big bribe under the table to look the other direction. (I am assuming "you" are a Congresscritter.)<\/p>\n

OIl exploration and extraction are dirty businesses. \u00a0Guys aren't dressed in while tuxedos. Things leak, spatter, drip, seep, pool, and so forth. \u00a0That's why you have maintenance crews, so that when things get messy, they can clean up and fix them. \u00a0So, yes, expect some messiness if Shell goes ahead with this. So kudos to their honesty up front.<\/p>\n

And that can be manageable. Nobody particularly likes living next to an oil rig, or a port, or a pipeline, but that doesn't mean it's not manageable and doable, if the risk are worth it for the overall gain. \u00a0If the rest of the cost-benefit ratio applies.<\/p>\n

And that's the problem, because these guys can't<\/i> demonstrate that their cost\/benefit ratio is where we want it to be, because they can't trustworthily demonstrate they have control over the risks. \u00a0"No, it won't be something that impacts people's subsistence." \u00a0Prove it. Demonstrate that the safety measures, and counter-measures, and plans, and backup plans, and contingency backup plans, will be sufficient.<\/p>\n

All signs — from the testing that's been done to what we know of the Arctic to simple demonstrations like the BP disaster (and a zillion lesser disasters that take place annually with oil facilities around the world) — are that yes, there will be an impact on "people's subsistence" — and much more.<\/p>\n

What we do know is that, internal to Shell's business, they think the cost\/.benefit ratio looks pretty good. \u00a0That may be because they know something about their safety record and abilities we don't, or because they are deluded, or because the safety guys want to look good and so minimize the risks, or the sales team wants to do the same … or because they realize that if they do a billion-zillion dollars worth of environmental damage, they won't have to pay up to anyone for years of litigation, and when they do it will be at pennies on the dollar of damage vs. what short-term profit they've been able to make here.<\/p>\n

And, of course, it's not like if they start getting a large business investment there, with lots of rigs and pipelines and all that anyone will dare shut it down for too long. \u00a0Too much money at stake. \u00a0Too many jobs. Too much income to the state. \u00a0Too much to trumpet about energy independence. \u00a0In the face of the BP spill, Caribbean oil production just kept humming along, and even the deep-water exploration only suffered a temporary hiccup.<\/p>\n

Shell won't\u00a0promise anything to anyone, except to their investors. And those don't quote have the same priorities as the rest of us.<\/p>\n

\n

Embedded Link<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tShell VP: Yeah, we\u2019re gonna spill some oil in the Arctic<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tShell’s Alaska vice president confirms spills will be part of its new, fraught drilling operations off the North Slope of Alaska. But it’s not a big deal or anything.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Google+:<\/strong> View post on Google+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okay, on the one side, putting on my engineering hat, yes, anyone who tells you that there will be no oil spilled during drilling, extraction, and transportation of oil from the North Slope is trying to sell you something, if not offering you a big bribe under the table to look the other direction. (I … Continue reading “There are spills, and there are spills”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":132954,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/03\/01\/tar-sands-are-being-written-off-by-major-producers.html","url_meta":{"origin":31554,"position":0},"title":"Tar sands are being written off by major producers","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 1-Mar-17 10:30am","format":false,"excerpt":"Long-term and pretty systemic drops in petroleum prices, plus high extraction costs, means that major oil companies are actually writing off their investments in Canadian oil sands. 'A glaring example of this problem came from ExxonMobil this week, which announced that it had removed 3.3 billion barrels of Canadian oil\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":33843,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/16\/the-joy-of-benzene.html","url_meta":{"origin":31554,"position":1},"title":"The Joy of Benzene","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 16-May-13 9:03pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Cleaning up benzene spills, even when they get into the water supply, is just the grudging cost of business for refineries and pipeline companies. It gets detected, the state makes you spend some money to clean it up, you do what you have to, and on to the next site.'Dealing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":33037,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/03\/exxon-enjoys-the-fine-print.html","url_meta":{"origin":31554,"position":2},"title":"Exxon enjoys the fine print","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 3-Apr-13 10:56am","format":false,"excerpt":"That pipeline spill in Arkansas? \u00a0It's being cleaned up by a federal fund specifically designed for the such spills, the imaginatively-named Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. The fund is, in turn, paid for (quite logically) through a tax on piped oil.Except that the type of heavy crude \/ diluted bitumen\u00a0Exxon\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":135783,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/09\/everyone-gets-offshore-oil-drilling-except-seems-florida.html","url_meta":{"origin":31554,"position":3},"title":"Everyone gets offshore oil drilling … except, it seems, Florida","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 9-Jan-18 8:55pm","format":false,"excerpt":"After Trump's Interior Secretary Zinke announced that pretty much everywhere would now be open to offshore oil drilling (and it was also announced that a bunch of regulations put in place around offshore drilling in the aftermath of the BP oil disaster a few years back), there was a lot\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/unnamed-42.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":17620,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/16\/unblogged-bits-wed-16-jun-10-0200.html","url_meta":{"origin":31554,"position":4},"title":"Unblogged Bits (Wed. 16-Jun-10 0200)","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 16-Jun-10 12:00am","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... President's speech on the BP oil disaster, Robert Gibbs takes questions - What the hell planet is Michael Steele living on? Obama should basically shut up about getting us off of oil and just\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132400,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/20\/drill-baby-drill-not.html","url_meta":{"origin":31554,"position":5},"title":"Drill, Baby, Drill … Not","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 20-Dec-16 3:49pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Obama will use a little-used provision in federal law to remove substantial Arctic and Atlantic coastal areas from oil exploration and drilling. 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