So who will pay?

[Levellass]

Well it seems President Obama is not too happy with a certain oil company. (Revelations of this state of affairs between politicians and big business were interrupted by a live feed from Hell's first winter Olympics.) They may actually have to *gasp* pay money to clean up the gigantic mess they've made.

But not too much of course or a vital economic powerhouse that supports millions will fail, and nobody wants that now do they? *cough*banking crisis! *cough*

Also, it probably wasn't their fault, just LOOK at the huge list of other people that are to blame!


So, who thinks they'll actually have to pay anything substantial to cover this unprecedented foul-up? I mean the court cases alone could go for years, as could the blame throwing and debt dodging. I figure they'll weasel out of it in a few years, as long as they can stall long enough to make people start to forget.

[kuliwil]

You mention the huge list of groups: all should pay up (in accordance to their role). It's not the responsibility of any tax payer - not their fault (bar demand for oil for massive 4WDs ).

But yeah, the UK pensions! That's not good! It seems to be more anti-UK than anti-BP. It's BP now, not British Petroleum.

[Deltamatic]

I'm more interested in what's going to be done about it than who's going to have the blame assigned to them. There are several solutions that have been proposed but for some reason nothing is being put into action.

[kuliwil]

Good point Deltamatic.

What are the proposed plans?

[Deltamatic]

There was one about plugging the leak by having ROVs slide in a series of inflatable rings, and then inflating them once they're in. And there was another one about dumping tons of straw onto the spill, since straw absorbs two-thirds of its weight in oil.

You can google "proposed solutions to gulf oil spill" and get plenty of results.

[_mr_m_]

I concur with Deltamatic.

Stop pointing fingers, and fix the problem now; there will be plenty of time to blame AFTER the leak is plugged.

There are proposed plans out there (especially that China conspiracy), it just seems that no one is listening -- they're more concerned about who's to blame. And really, there are WAY to many people to blame. It's not solely BP's fault. There are manufacturers of parts, engineers, safety inspectors...the list goes on.

I'm certain that BP has enough capital to ensure that they only have pay the minimum applicable fines, if any. Bringing down a company the size of BP would have a serious effect on the already hurting world economy.

[Yes, I realize I sound hypocritical to be pointing blame here:]
Speaking strictly as an engineer, though, oil rigs commonly do not just 'burst' on their own the way they did in the Gulf coast (I sense some sort of sabotage going on here...). They are engineered to withstand not only the internal pressures of the oil in the pipes, but the external pressure being exerted by the seawater (which has a higher density than freshwater) at high depths. -- And there are factors of safety built in to the designs, to ensure durability under high-stress conditions. These factors of safety ensure that any high-stress conditions do not come near any critical limit states on any components. And yes, factors of safety do also account for aging equipment. With that in mind, it's highly unlikely that these pipes burst on their own.

[/end long-winded rant]

[Roobar]

It doesn't matter. By this temp of destroying our environment, in the end the human race will pay for all the mess.

[Toomuchsparetime]

So oil is bad for everyone.

The USA will do what it is best at: declare a war on oil.

[tulip]

One can't possibly say yes on this poll and mean it when thinking about it. No one can ever pay for the amount of harm that has been done here. So I still hope BP will have to pay a token amount at least, but I hope it won't be a ridiculous a mount, like when Union Carbide was condemned to pay a few thousand dollars for killing close to 20,000 people.

[DHeadshot]

They WILL have to pay for the mess of the Swiss company that owned and maintained the rig (or should it be the mess of that Belgian firm who failed to install the pipe properly?) despite the fact that their only involvement in the entire affair has been to try to clean up the oil. Obama will continue his seemingly tireless campain to blame Britain for the mess-up, despite the fact that most of his support during the US election came from countries outside the US, us included. Americans who believe the media will add Britain to their list of hated countries thereby joining every country with non-white inhabitants. Tensions will rise to the point when someone snaps and war will break out. The expected alliances will result in an equal amount of nukes on either side. Eventually, some idiot will press the Red Button and the world will end.

That's my prediction based on the fact that people are acting like idiots at the moment and don't show any signs of stopping any time soon.

[VikingBoyBilly]

Lemme guess, you predict the red button will be pressed on December 26 2012?

[DHeadshot]

The prediction thingy was the 23rd...
But no, if people belive the 2012 thing, they'll press it before because they'll think "What's the point". If they don't, they won't. Unless they want to mess with people, then they'll either do it on the day or the next time the LHC gets booted up...

[kuliwil]

There was one about plugging the leak by having ROVs slide in a series of inflatable rings, and then inflating them once they're in. And there was another one about dumping tons of straw onto the spill, since straw absorbs two-thirds of its weight in oil.

You can google "proposed solutions to gulf oil spill" and get plenty of results.

Ah, yeah, and the golf balls and rubber one and all that. I thought you'd meant plans on the cleanup, not stemming the flow. My bad

[Levellass]

Yes, there's the small fact before we start cleaning up that the well is still leaking and that it's worse than anyone thought. The recent 'fix' of cutting the pipe has made it WORSE.

Yes, I realize I sound hypocritical to be pointing blame here:]
Speaking strictly as an engineer, though, oil rigs commonly do not just 'burst' on their own the way they did in the Gulf coast (I sense some sort of sabotage going on here...).

In *theory*; but we're learning a lot in this spill, and a lot of what we're learning is that a lot of what we 'knew' is utter crud. Remember the unsinkable ship? (A.k.a Titanic) and the uncrashable blimp (Hindenburg) We were so sure we could fix this *days* after it started. The engineers has their plans and blueprints and calculations. Attempt after attempt has fallen flat one after the other. (I would welcome your analysis of why the many, many attempts made so far to stem the flow were doomed to fail.)

This hasn't happened before, how do we know how likely it is? What do we base our guesses on? There are thousands of wells out there, working all the time. Was this sabotage, or was it just another company overly sure? These things happen, remember the challanger disaster? (Darn those O-rings!) 9/11 (Impossible! A building can't collapse like that! The gov'ment musta done it!)