One of the best examination of causes of the disaster in the Gulf

by uscglantareapa

What caused the Deepwater Horizon disaster?
[Via The Oil Drum]

Author’s Note: I am grateful to the many drilling and completion engineers that consulted with me on this post to arrive at plausible explanations and interpretations of what happened in the final hours on the semisubmersible drilling rig Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico. The analysis that follows is based on these discussions as well as my own 32 years of experience as a geologist working in the oil and gas industry.

It is early in the process of discovering what really happened. Because of the gravity and potential impact of this disaster on the nation and my industry, however, I wanted to provide an early and more investigative perspective than much of what has appeared in the media to date. The risk, of course, is that more information will invalidate some of what follows. I, therefore, wish to clarify that this is a fact-based interpretation of what may have happened on the Deepwater Horizon on April 20, 2010 but, in the end, it is an interpretation. – Art Berman

The blowout and oil spill on the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico was caused by a flawed well plan that did not include enough cement between the 7-inch production casing and the 9 7/8-inch protection casing. The presumed blowout preventer (BOP) failure is an important but secondary issue. Although the resulting oil spill has potentially grave environmental implications, recent efforts to limit the flow with an insertion tube have apparently been effective. Continuous efforts to slow or stop the flow include drilling two nearby relief wells that may intersect the MC 252 wellbore within 60-90 days.

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There is a step by step discussion of what happened, including the actual logs of the blowout. I have not seen these before but they demonstrate an hour and 40 minute period between when the first indications of problems appear and when the blowout happened.

Things may actually have been done incorrectly rater than there having been an accident. This is chilling stuff.

Hasn’t science funding usually been non-partisan?

by Sergei Golyshev
BREAKING: Republicans derail the COMPETES act
[Via Bad Astronomy]

In a 261-148 vote that went almost exactly along party lines, the America COMPETES act was defeated. Over $40 billion dollars was designated in that bill to go toward science and technology innovation, and to provide a lot of jobs to meet our nation’s needs for the future.

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After compromising by adding the language that the GOP wanted (reducing the money spent, reducing the time of the authorization, etc.), the bill still lost. This was a re-authorization of a bill passed back in 2007. Yet the GOP kept it from passing. As the House Website for Science and Technology states:

About half of the growth in the U.S. GDP since World War II is related to the development and adoption of new technologies. COMPETES aims to maintain and strengthen our nation’s global economic competitiveness by: improving science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education, so that all students are prepared for the highly technical, high-paying jobs of the future; setting our basic research programs on a doubling path: the labs at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST); National Science Foundation (NSF); and the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science; and addressing the need for transformational energy technologies with the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E), which is pursuing high-risk, high-reward energy technology development.

Half of the GDP comes from research and development, much of it funded by the government. This was a bill that the House approved overwhelmingly three years ago. It has gone from a stunningly aggressive bill to help during tough economic times that the Democrats wanted to a more business as usually bill following Republican complaints.

This is not a case of the Democrats ramming a bill through with no consideration for the House GOP. They made changes in the bill suggested by the Republicans.

So, trying to construct a bi-partisan vote, actually changing the legislation in order to compromise with the GOP, resulted in the failure of a bill that originally passed the House in 2007 with 57 Nays and 367 Ayes. 142 of those Ayes were Republican in 2007, when there was a Republican President.

What a difference an election year with a Democratic President is in the White House makes.

Science and research did not use to be such a partisan issue with the two parties. Almost makes me think that Chris Mooney was right.

Putting things in perspective

Cracked vs. RIAA damages
[Via Boing Boing]

A trenchant and funny infographic from Cracked.com (which really is a worthy successor to the beloved print magazine of my boyhood) illustrates the absurdity of the damages that the RIAA seeks in music downloading cases.

The Pirate Bay

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I have a full 64 gig iPod, meaning I carry around $6,117,647,056 worth of value every day, according to the RIAA. In 2009, Apple said it had sold. cumulatively, 220 million iPods. Let’s do a little back of the envelope math.

Assume that the average amount of music held on an iPod since they went on sale in late 2001 has been 8 gigs – earlier ones held less, later ones held more. That means that about $170,000,000,000,000,000 of value has been placed on iPods over the 8.5 years.

The global GDP is about $60,000,000,000. So according to the RIAA, in the years since the iPod has been in existence, the value of music put on them is essentially equivalent to over 300,000 times the gross domestic product of the entire world! And that is assuming that the songs are worth as little as a Vanilla Ice song. I woudl expect some, like Sinatra, Elvis or the Beatles to have more value thanVanilla Ice.

They really are cracked.