Needlenose

Tell me this ain’t so…another rig in the Gulf of Mexico just exploded.

Just in case you forgot why nuclear energy is so bad, here is an unpleasant reminder from Chernobyl – the wildfires are near the contaminated area – a burn in the region could release radioactive ash.

Just as BP shuts down the undersea gusher, some drunken redneck smashes his boat into a small wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico.  What are the odds that this could happen?  Well they have a lot of boat-driving drunken rednecks down there in the Gulf, and a lot of wells and pipelines…

The People’s Republic of China has surpassed the U.S. in energy usage.  Seems like only yesterday when CMike was berating me for negatively comparing Chinese output of CO2 to that of the U.S.  That’s a first-place we really didn’t need

Could BP have finally stopped the oil gusher?  Looks plausible in the ROV cam:

BP Oil Spill Cam

*Update 7/19/10* Uh oh, seepage detected…

*Update 7/19/10 7:27P PT* and oil leaking out of the cap

*Update 7/21/10* The oil spill in China is now deemed twice as bad as originally thought.

For years it’s been trendy to argue that in pricing fuels it’s important to use  ’true (or full) cost accounting’  to adequately compute the total cost of fuels.  Alternative fuels, through this reasoning, don’t look nearly so bad in comparison on a cost basis once you add in environmental costs, cleanup costs and the like to the cost of fuel.  The usual public policy conclusion is invariably that the greenshades sharpen their pencils to compute externals, and the government then add those externals to the cost of the fossil fuels in the form of a tax.

So I’ve been reading about this true cost of accounting for nearly 3 decades and while there has been a lot of accounting done, gubbermint has sat on its ass and delivered nothing in the way of the tax.  In fact, under the Shrubya Reign of Error, they larded the fossil fuel industry with massive additional subsidies in a hellish ‘false cost accounting’ variant that could only have been concocted by a coterie of cthonic cretins on K Street.

The BP oil disaster, however, points to a novel approach for implementing at least a portion of applying ‘external’ costs – forget fossil fuel taxes that lily-livered  Congress will never pass – instead, make the fucking companies pay directly for their messes!

For example, the various oil companies could start with a supervised safety review of the other offshore wells currently in production as well as the 27,000 abandoned wells just in the Gulf of Mexico whose capping were most likely never supervised and which may be decaying as I type.  How about forcing the coal companies to put out the millions of tons of coal burning in thousands of coal seam fires around the world that are spewing noxious chemicals and carbon dioxide with zero benefit to anybody?  Or nuclear power plants paying for permanent storage of the 64,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel that will stay radioactive for up to 250,000 years?

We don’t need technology breakthroughs in alternative energy.  We need to eliminate the unbelievable corporate welfare the industry currently enjoys in subsidies, we need to force the companies to clean up the messes they have already created and to have plans to prevent and correct future messes, and we need to invest in conservation and modern grid infrastructure to properly use the power we do produce.

But first we need to break the link between the conservatives and the fossil fuel companies, otherwise we’ll keep circling the drain, faster with each turn of the spiral.

*Update 7/15/10* Could Congress actually be taking action to investigate those 27,000 abandoned Gulf Wells?  Or is this just more ‘look concerned’ bullshit?

Louisiana Republican

The gushing goo destroying the livelihoods of the folks who live on Louisiana’s coast hasn’t damped the ardor of Louisiana Repug leaders to drill, baby drill.  You know, I feel bad for the poor Louisianans, but riddle me this – why do they continue to vote for abusive politicians?  Let Jindal go clean up the fucking mess his philosophy has created.

*Update 9:50P PT* Forrest Gump in 2010: bad news, BP oil spill destroyed his livelihood, his entire shrimping fleet had to be shut down.  Good news – he bought Apple stock, and held on to it!  Only question is, will he vote for David “double down on offshore drilling & liability cap” Vitter again this year, or will he realize that his shrimping business would be better off with a vote for Melancon?  Remember, stupid is as stupid does…

As Richard M. Nixon could have told Barack Obama, any time you’re on the beach in dress clothes and the press is watching, it’s probably not good news.

In this case, in an embarrassingly small-ball version of “Message: I Care,” President Obama got himself caught on video explaining to Lafourche Parish President Charlotte Randolph how tar balls could be cleaned up manually from the beaches where they’ve washed up.

If Ms. Randolph asked the president, “Um… but what about the marshes around the corner drenched in floating oil, or the massive underwater plumes — how do we clean those up?!”, it didn’t make it into this clip.

But, to be fair, in his prepared remarks at the scene, Obama made a seemingly honest effort to recognize the grave toll of the catastrophe wrought by Big Oil, and how the government he heads is obligated to respond:

As I’ve said before, BP is the responsible party for this disaster.  What that means is they’re legally responsible for stopping the leak and they’re financially responsible for the enormous damage that they’ve created.  And we’re going to hold them accountable, along with any other party responsible for the initial explosion and loss of life on that platform.

But as I said yesterday, and as I repeated in the meeting that we just left, I ultimately take responsibility for solving this crisis.  I’m the President and the buck stops with me.  So I give the people of this community and the entire Gulf my word that we’re going to hold ourselves accountable to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to stop this catastrophe, to defend our natural resources, to repair the damage, and to keep this region on its feet.  Justice will be done for those whose lives have been upended by this disaster, for the families of those whose lives have been lost — that is a solemn pledge that I am making.

. . . To the people of the Gulf Coast:  I know that you’ve weathered your fair share of trials and tragedy.  I know there have been times where you’ve wondered if you were being asked to face them alone.  I am here to tell you that you’re not alone.  You will not be abandoned.  You will not be left behind.  The cameras at some point may leave; the media may get tired of the story; but we will not.  We are on your side and we will see this through.  We’re going to keep at this every day until the leak has stopped, until this coastline is clean, and your communities are made whole again.  That’s my promise to you.  And that is a promise on behalf of a nation.  It is one that we will keep.

Fine, Mr. President; we’ll be watching to make sure you do.

And for myself, I acknowledge that an epic, slow-motion disaster like this is a tough situation to deal with, and I’m sure President Obama feels like he’s doing the best he can within the constraints he has to operate under… just like with everything else.  It’s just painfully awkward to watch, that’s all.

(Cross-posted at Firedoglake.)

From his recent attack on the Civil Rights Act it was pretty clear that Ayn Rand Paul is pretty extreme even for wacky Libertarians.  But from Paul’s criticism of Obama over his handling of the recent mining tragedy and BP oil catastrophe, I’m beginning to suspect that he’s actually quite stupid as well:

“And I think it’s [Obama's call to have BP stop the leak] part of this sort of blame-game society in the sense that it’s always got to be somebody’s fault instead of the fact that maybe sometimes accidents happen,” Paul said.

“We had a mining accident that was very tragic. … Then we come in and it’s always someone’s fault. “

Yeah, dumb-ass, accidents do happen.  That’s why we have these things called ‘regulations’ to put technology and processes in place to minimize the chance of accidents occurring, and to mitigate the effects of accidents after they occur.  ”Blame” is quite fitting when an actor such as BP actively worked to undermine additional safety regulations targeted to avoid just such an event, not to mention BP making numerous mistakes, shortcutting their own internal safety regulations and procedures.  Paul – you are a fucking nitwit!

And speaking of stupid, hypocritical conservatives, Loserman is also attacking Obama over the BP oil leak response, complaining about the government’s lack of preparedness.  WTF?  Loserman minced across the aisles during the recent 8-year Repug Reign of Error, gleefully voting against industry regulations left and right, including voting for legislation that would ‘cap’ BP’s liabilities for such a spill at $75M – petty cash, compared the billions this will end up costing in the end.

These two tragedies are perfect examples of industry lobbying, combined with pliant political tools, privatizes profits and socializes the risks of extractive industries.  And yet another compelling argument (as if we needed one) of why we need not merely to stop industry donations to political campaigns, but should also impeach frickin “Justice” Samuel Alito.