Weighing in On the Great Oil Leak of 2010.

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First, let's recognize that the obama administration has been criminally negligent in my opinion for blocking skimmers from 13 countries that offered them a month ago, and for disallowing Bobby Jindal to take any action to protect the 'fragile marshlands' of the Louisiana coastline.

A moment of silence for the Additional suffering the wildlife will endure as a result of that.

Next, let's recognize that vast oil reserves lie just under the ocean floor in shallow and much more easily controlled environments. The media say those have been tapped already. They are Effing liars. obama says that oil is only 2% of the world's reserves; he's an effing liar. And stupid. Remember when he suggested we could eliminate the need for middle east oil by all of us having our tires properly inflated?
The EPA and 'the environmentalists' have kept us out of the safer drilling areas, because they hate oil and they believe in Unicorn fart power. They have the minds of children. Billions of our tax dollars go to them every year. They spend it on booze, hookers, and putting up obstacles to any common sense energy scheme ever created.


Onto BP we must now go.

Honestly, for the amount of money that comes out of one of these wells, and the potential damage that could occur, and is occurring, I believe the setup of the well head was sadly lacking. I'm not an engineer or an oil industry expert, but a simple look around the world at the related technologies in place leads me to suggest that something on the order of the gates at the bottom of massive dams could reasonably be expected to be employed as a fail safe for any event which disconnects the well tapping infrastructure (oil rig) from the well head. Gas bubble, torpedo, rogue wave, accidental hit by wayward submarine, asteroid, whatever...
It would have several methods of being controlled, remotely with electric motors, and at the site using mechanical means are two that come immediately to mind.

Visual Aids.
Open

Closed

And of course, you only need one of the gate mechanisms and a bunch of concrete around it and down into the ocean floor enough to secure it. Anything happens, close the gate. Oil stopped in its tracks within a day or days of the problem.

Just an idea.

In summary, I believe all these oil companies have been playing fast and loose with their operations. I've read where BP had a longer list of violations than say Exxon, but given what the Earth is capable of puking up at us in terms of scope and magnitude, a bit more extra protection than what you find in the federal handbook for building codes for ocean wells is not unreasonable. Like Mexico would follow the codes anyway, or pay anything for an oil disaster that they caused. We know they won't because they created a disaster bigger than this one is so far, and told us to 'too bad, so sad' we pay no money si senor..

In the end I believe that since the congress voted to put no limitation on the monetary liability of BP, and we know what lawyers can do with a situation like this, we can assume BP will ultimately seek bankruptcy protection and go out of business. Other oil drillers won't be able to get reasonable insurance, or insurance that would pay unlimited claims, so if something happens to them, they would simply file for bankruptcy and the shareholders are SOL.
So, who will invest in these companies? I wouldn't. I can't imagine some mutual fund owning millions of shares waiting for the time bomb to go off.  And who would invest in those mutual funds?  Hot Potato, Domino Effect.
We may be seeing the end of US offshore drilling (by civilized countries anyway) Mexico would continue, and would we stop China from doing so ?

It occurs to me a lot more oil will be needed from places like Venezuela.

You know, hugo chavez and a picture is worth a thousand words.

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