Welcome to 1984

[Molly]

When the US fought the Germans in WW2 they used what they got. I don't think they secretly had stealth jests/bombers and cruise missiles.

That's not necessarily true.  We fight wars today without using our most advanced weapons.  

Why do you think that might be?




In 1907, the Russian scientist Boris Rosing (who worked with Vladimir Zworykin) used a CRT in the receiver of a television system that at the camera end made use of mirror-drum scanning. Rosing transmitted crude geometrical patterns onto the television screen and was the first inventor to do so using a CRT.

Modern phosphor screens using multiple beams of electrons have allowed CRTs to display millions of colors.

http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventions/a/CathodeRayTube.htm

[WhiteWings]

When the US fought the Germans in WW2 they used what they got. I don't think they secretly had stealth jests/bombers and cruise missiles.

That's not necessarily true.  We fight wars today without using our most advanced weapons.  

Why do you think that might be?

Because you said technology is hidden for a hundred years. USAF started showing of with their stealth stuff a few years back. Meaning it already existed during WW2, and even WW1.

We fight wars today without using our most advanced weapons.

Meaning the very best stuff the US army has? Or the best 100 year old stuff they have?

[Molly]

USAF started showing of with their stealth stuff a few years back. Meaning it already existed during WW2, and even WW1.

LOL! You're just feeding me lines, right?  Take a look at the picture.


Nazis were close to building stealth bomber that could have changed course of history

Nazi engineers were dangerously close to building a stealth warplane shielded from radar that could have changed the outcome of World War II.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5773358/Nazis-were-close-to-building-stealth-bomber-that-could-have-changed-course-of-history.html

[WhiteWings]

USAF started showing of with their stealth stuff a few years back. Meaning it already existed during WW2, and even WW1.

LOL! You're just feeding me lines, right?

Keep chewing Molly :winkgrin:



 

Take a look at the picture.


Nazis were close to building stealth bomber that could have changed course of history

Nazi engineers were dangerously close to building a stealth warplane shielded from radar that could have changed the outcome of World War II.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5773358/Nazis-were-close-to-building-stealth-bomber-that-could-have-changed-course-of-history.html

I really wonder if that plane would be able to really work in real life.
The US "wing" can't be flown by a pilot. It's shape is such it would fall out of the air if not constantly comensated by computers.

But Molly that was not really my point. Say the Germans had a plane equally good as the current US stealth planes. Or even 5x better if you wish. The point is that The German certainly would have used the plane if it was really ready. Hitler wouldn't have said: Well done enginering team. Now lock up the plane until 2044. And if the US would have layed their hand on the blue prints I'm sure they would have build it long ago. For example to display US superority during teh cold war with the USSR.

Beam me up Scotty :laughing7:

[Molly]

Those Germans are some brilliant engineers. You can bet if they were building this plane [for Goering, no less] it was going to fly.   They had the helicoptor before the war and have you ever checked out their flying 'disc'?  Looks suspiciously like a UFO.

I think you might be looking at the wrong paradigm.  You seem to think wars are all about one side winning.  

It's shape is such it would fall out of the air if not constantly comensated by computers.

I rest my case.  :happygrin:




In 1943 Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering demanded that designers come up with a bomber that would meet his '1,000, 1,000, 1,000' requirements – one that could carry 1,000kg over 1,000km flying at 1,000km/h.

Two pilot brothers in their thirties, Reimar and Walter Horten, suggested a "flying wing" design which they were sure would meet Goering's specifications

A prototype of the Horten Ho 2-29 made a successful test flight just before Christmas 1944.

--IBID

[WhiteWings]

It's shape is such it would fall out of the air if not constantly comensated by computers.

I rest my case.  :happygrin:

Because you think that proves your CPU claim? If so.. bad luck for you. :winkgrin:
Just look at the pics of old IBM super computers used during the first US spacemissions. Vastly underspeced and so big they don't even fit in a wing. Weight and power requirements are another problem.

[Molly]

Because you think that proves your CPU claim? If so.. bad luck for you.

No. Because it would heavily imply that the silicon chip [made from the second most abundant element on earth] was really developed long before Misters Kilby and Noyce made their serendipitous simultaneous independent inventions circa 1958.

You don't think they really went to the moon using that IBM clunker, do you?

By the way, those same Nazi's were in charge of NASA.


Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr[1] von Braun (March 23, 1912 – June 16, 1977) was a German-American rocket scientist, astronautics engineer and space architect, becoming one of the leading figures in the creation of rocket technology in Germany and the United States. He was a member of the Nazi party and a commissioned SS officer. Wernher von Braun was said to be the preeminent rocket engineer of the 20th century.[2]

After the war, he and some of his rocket team were taken to the United States as part of the then-secret Operation Paperclip. In 1955, ten years after entering the country, von Braun became a naturalized U.S. citizen.

Von Braun worked on the US Army intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM) program before his group was assimilated by NASA, under which he served as director of the newly formed Marshall Space Flight Center and as the chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle, the superbooster that propelled the Apollo spacecraft to the Moon.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun


'If the rockets go up, who cares where they come down?
That's not my department, says Wernher von Braun.'

[WhiteWings]

You don't think they really went to the moon using that IBM clunker, do you?

Nope the CPU power in the rocket was about equal to my pocket calculator... Those clunkers were used on on the NASA base.

[Molly]

You don't think they really went to the moon using that IBM clunker, do you?

Nope the CPU power in the rocket was about equal to my pocket calculator... Those clunkers were used on on the NASA base.

Yes, your pocket calculator got us to the moon on top of a huge firecracker.

Let's go!

[Molly]

Read the new book:

"Climategate: A Veteran Meteorologist Exposes The Global Warming Scam "


Confirmed! Global warming is 'settled' – as a scam
'Climategate' author unveils evidence of 'every deception imaginable'

Posted: April 20, 2010
9:18 pm Eastern


By Bob Unruh
© 2010 WorldNetDaily




Al Gore's insistence that global warming is "settled science" has been used to defend claims humanity is on the edge of destroying the world. Now author Brian Sussman, whose book "Climategate" is being released Thursday – Earth Day – agrees it's "settled," as a scam.

Sussman unveils in his book evidence that the move to restrict carbon-dioxide emissions, tax a multitude of energy programs and create a "Big Brother" that would limit household energy use, among other programs, is a move to give government unlimited control over people.

National Public Radio reported in 2007 how Gore took his "climate-change crusade" to Congress and said the science on the issue was "settled." Then in 2009 the Environmental Protection Agency declared carbon dioxide and other emissions are endangering the future of the world.

Be the first to see the full documentation of how your life could be changed by climate-related laws, taxes and regulations, in "Climategate"

Sussman's book, the newest title by WND Books, has been charting for several weeks already among Amazon's top 10 preordered titles. It warns that believing global warming is "settled science" is a danger itself.

He writes that the now-notorious intercepted e-mails that reveal leading global-warming supporters exchanging plans to squelch critics and falsify data are just the tip of the iceberg.

If you thought the record cold winter, expanding polar ice and other factors would make global-warming supporters "chill out," guess again, he writes.

"These people have a plan and they intend to control much more than your thermostat," the book says.

In "Climategate," he explains the science of the subject and how politics have taken control of the data. Further, he explains how many of the global-warming promoters are out to make a buck for themselves.

"It's obvious to everyone that this global-warming facade is in meltdown mode," said Joseph Farah, publisher of WND Books and founder and CEO of WorldNetDaily.com. "Now Brian's important book comes along just in time to reveal exactly why this Big Lie was foisted on us to begin with and what we can do to stop it cold."

Among other things, "Climategate" reveals the underlying fraud of environmentalism in America. It also depicts the myth that global warming is the consensus of the scientific community.

The book traces the origins of a "climate-scare" agenda to the "diabolical minds of Marx and Engels in the 1800s – down the ages to the global governance of the United Nations today."

On the issue of carbon dioxide, the book points out that nature needs carbon dioxide and generates it through multiple natural processes to ensure its availability.

"Decomposing vegetation, the carcasses of dead animals, forest fires, smoldering peat bogs, volcanoes, plowed soil, weathering rocks, human utilization of fossil fuels, and even termites and crustacean shells – all exude carbon dioxide beneficial to the plant kingdom," he writes. "And the more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the more content the plants become – just ask anyone who has worked in a greenhouse.

"In fact, that is a portion of the carbon-dioxide debate no one bothers to address – the plant kingdom would abound if carbon-dioxide levels were to increase in the global atmosphere," he writes.

WND previously reported among the topics discussed in the book is whether there soon could be "Green Goon Squads" at your door, checking your energy usage.

The author explains federal legislation includes a set of regulations for energy efficiency that will be enforced "by a national, green goon squad."

"The legislation also authorizes the Secretary of Energy to 'enhance compliance by conducting training and education of builders and other professionals in the jurisdiction concerning the national energy-efficiency building code.'"

Sussman warns the focus is not to save energy and money.

"It's a social-engineering scheme, designed and promoted by the federal government to change your behavior," he said.

Pollution actually has been decreasing, significantly, he documents.

From 1980 to 2005, for example, he wrote, "Fine particulate matter declined 40 percent. Ozone levels declined 20 percent, and days per year exceeding the 8-hour ozone standard fell seventy-nine percent. Nitrogen-dioxide levels decreased 37 percent, sulfur dioxide dropped 63 percent and carbon-monoxide concentrations were reduced by 74 percent. Lead levels were lowered by 96 percent."

Neither are temperatures rising, he documents.


"Since 2007, global temperatures are engaged in a significant downward spiral, with government data illustrating a 1°F (.65°C) drop in temperature between 2007 and 2008 alone," he reports.

He reports on e-mails that were hacked from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, which contain references to "hiding" information.

"The Climatic Research Unit had been regarded by many as one of the most credible atmospheric institutions in the world, but with the revelation of the e-mail exchanges, their supposed credibility was reduced to junk science," Sussman writes.

"The e-mails reveal that the world's leading climate scientists were working together to block Freedom of Information requests to review their data, marginalize dissenting scientists, manipulate the peer-review process, and obscure, massage or delete inconvenient temperature readings. One certainly wonders, why? Especially since Al Gore has assured the world that 'the science is settled.'"

Taking on the EPA directly, Sussman says, "Carbon dioxide only accounts for thirty-eight-thousandths of a percent of our planet's atmosphere. It is known as a variable gas, because, like water vapor, it has historically fluctuated. And what percentage of the minuscule amount of CO2 is produced by the activities of man, including the utilization of fossil fuels? According to a thorough analysis by the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, a research wing of the U.S. Department of Energy, it is only 3.207 percent. All of this hoopla over an atmospheric component so minute, it is difficult to comprehend."

What could be driving the agenda of global warming? Dollars, he suggests.

"It's widely reported that Al Gore is worth at least $100 million, although my well-connected [source] believes it may be closer to $500 million. Quite a success story for a guy, who, according to financial-disclosure records released just prior to his bid for the presidency, had a net worth near $2 million," he writes.


University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit


Last December, the EPA signed two findings that concluded greenhouse gases in the atmosphere "threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations." The EPA's rulings could mean thousands of dollars in additional taxes for individual consumers.

Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Joe Barton, R-Texas, then cited the doubts about the integrity of "climate change" science in a letter and asked for an accounting of U.S. taxpayer support for the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The U.S. since 1994 has given some $50 million to the panel, and contributions under President Obama now have doubled.

Sussman, formerly a highly acclaimed San Francisco meteorologist, also is the newest morning host at KSFO Radio (560 AM), the highest-rated talk show in the San Francisco Bay Area and the fourth-largest radio market in the country.

In the original scandal that spawned the name Climategate, the hacked e-mails of Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit in Norwich, England, and others uncovered schemes to employ "tricks" with warming trends, squelch skeptics and defame journals that published them.

Earth Day is all the evidence of deception needed, said Sussman. First celebrated in 1970 on the 100th anniversary of the birth of communist leader Vladimir Lenin, it was founded by Sen. Gaylord Nelson, D-Wis.; former Stanford student-body president Denis Hayes; and author and Stanford professor Paul Ehrlich.

"Lenin's core political philosophy was linked at the hip with these newly fangled environmentalists who maintained that America's government must be altered, its economy planned and regulated, and its citizens better controlled," writes Sussman. "The environment would be the perfect tool to force these changes, and the most efficient way to gain converts would be through the public-school system – the earlier the better."

Sen. James M. Inhofe, R-Okla., has suggested the Justice Department investigate scientists for potentially falsifying data. And the Orange County Register has posted a chart for consumers to try to keep up with all the scandals developing in the "global warming" community.

Among the scandals listed are:

ClimateGate: The scandal over the Climatic Research Unit e-mails from East Anglia.


FOIGate: In which British officials are investigating whether East Anglia scientists refused to follow that nation's freedom-of-information law about their work.


ChinaGate: In which dozens of weather monitoring stations in rural China apparently have simply disappeared. This would lead to higher temperature averages since city levels frequently are warmer.


HimalayaGate: In which an Indian climate official admitted in January that he falsely claimed Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035 to prod governments into action.


And PachauriGates I and II, SternGates I and II, AmazonGate (in which a claim that global warming would wipe out rain forests was exposed as a fraud), PeerReviewGate, RussianGate I and II and nearly a dozen others.
WND also reported recently when the St. Louis–based Peabody Energy, the largest private coal company in the world, petitioned the EPA to re-examine its decisions in light of the controversy over the scientists' e-mails.

The company noted the "seriousness of the flaws" in the work.

Given the EPA's "extensive reliance" on those reports, "the agency has no legal option but to re-examine the Endangerment Finding in light of this new information," the petition said.

On its website, the company said the EPA's earlier ruling "could mean regulation of hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of buildings, farms, businesses and other facilities in the U.S."

Texas officials also have filed a lawsuit accusing the federal government of using "tainted" information to arrive at the EPA conclusion and it asks that the EPA's decisions be set aside. Virginia's attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, also filed a petition demanding the EPA reconsider its greenhouse-gas finding.

The scientific community actually is anything but unanimous on climate change.

The disunity is documented by the Petition Project, launched some 10 years ago when the first few thousand signatures were gathered. The effort by Art Robinson, a research professor of chemistry and cofounder of the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine in 1973, now lists tens of thousands of qualified scientists who endorse the following statement:


There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.

Among the original e-mails hacked from East Anglia and posted online was, "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't. The CERES data published in the August (Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society) 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate."

Be the first to see the full documentation of how your life could be changed by climate-related laws, taxes and regulations, in "Climategate"

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=143181

[Beloved Servant]

"Confirmed! Global warming is 'settled' – as a scam"

Film at 11.
Socratic: duh.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkRIbUT6u7Q
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkhX5W7JoWI

[Reverend G]

You don't think they really went to the moon using that IBM clunker, do you?

Nope the CPU power in the rocket was about equal to my pocket calculator... Those clunkers were used on on the NASA base.

Yes, your pocket calculator got us to the moon on top of a huge firecracker.

Let's go!

Pretty much.  The rockets used to get to the moon were ballistic missiles retro-fitted to carry humans.  With good ballistic assessment, and the gravity of the moon to influence things even more, it doesn't take much more than good ground calculations and aiming to get a rocket to head for a moon impact.  All of the computers were really tracking more than guidance. 

[fire walker]

Al Gore ought to be down in the Gulf of Mexico helping on the clean up of the underwater oil leaking gusher instead of just preaching about the enviroment. He  can do some of the dirty work himself and not just preach only and be such a sour faced hypocrite about it all.

Chances of Al Gore ever doing that are slim to nothing simply because there isn't the big dollars to be made in doing dirty work, not when he has aleady made his fortune 10 times over playing the global warming con game like a broken record that is stuck to play over and over until it is turned off.

Fire Walker

[WhiteWings]

FW,

Until he gets the bright idea to set up a "Global oil spill cleaning fund."

[Molly]

Al Gore ought to be down in the Gulf of Mexico helping on the clean up of the underwater oil leaking gusher instead of just preaching about the enviroment.

He's probably too busy building 30 foot high seawalls to keep his new California mansion dry when the polar ice caps melt... :happygrin:

Al Gore Spent Nine Million Carbon Credits on New House

This morning I was chugging some Milwaukee's Best (hey it's noon somewhere) in my above-ground pool behind my Bonnavilla Double Wide, and tossing last night's roast to my dog, when my cousin showed up and said "Hey! You seen that new house Al and Tipper Gore bought in Montecito?!"

"No! Why don't you shut up!"

After she left I decided I needed to check this baby out. So off to the L.A. Times website I went...

The couple spent $8,875,000 on an ocean-view villa on 1.5 acres with a swimming pool, spa and fountains, a real estate source familiar with the deal confirms. The Italian-style house has six fireplaces, five bedrooms and nine bathrooms.

Wow. I bet that thing is super energy-efficient. Six fireplaces? Burning wood is great for the environment, and really necessary in Santa Barbara. And hey, there's always room to add an airstrip later so his buddy Harrison Ford could come visit.

I was gonna ask how this con man sleeps at night, but I would guess it's probably on a big comfy mattress, stuffed with piles and piles of carbon-credit cash.

http://deceiver.com/2010/05/04/al-gore-spent-nearly-nine-million-carbon-credits-on-new-house/

[Molly]

Massive Oil spill solution already exists
by Mark Warren
Wednesday May 26th, 2010 10:17 PM


There's a potential solution to the Gulf oil spill that neither BP, nor the federal government, nor anyone — save a couple intuitive engineers — seems willing to try. As The Politics Blog reported on Tuesday in an interview with former Shell Oil president John Hofmeister, the untapped solution involves using empty supertankers to suck the spill off the surface, treat and discharge the contaminated water, and either salvage or destroy the slick.


Hofmeister had been briefed on the strategy by a Houston-based environmental disaster expert named Nick Pozzi, who has used the same solution on several large spills during almost two decades of experience in the Middle East — who says that it could be deployed easily and should be, immediately, to protect the Gulf Coast. That it hasn't even been considered yet is, Pozzi thinks, owing to cost considerations, or because there's no clear chain of authority by which to get valuable ideas in the right hands. But with BP's latest four-pronged plan remaining unproven, and estimates of company liability already reaching the tens of billions of dollars (and counting), supertankers start to look like a bargain.

UPDATE (May 26): The Pragmatic Oil Spill Fix That BP's Still Waiting On

UPDATE (May 24): Sources Say BP Looking Beyond 'Top Kill' with Supertanker Fix

UPDATE (May 21): Why the Supertanker Fix Works at Depth... but the Government Won't Listen

The suck-and-salvage technique was developed in desperation across the Arabian Gulf following a spill of mammoth proportions — 700 million gallons — that has until now gone unreported, as Saudi Arabia is a closed society, and its oil company, Saudi Aramco, remains owned by the House of Saud. But in 1993 and into '94, with four leaking tankers and two gushing wells, the royal family had an environmental disaster nearly sixty-five times the size of Exxon Valdez on its hands, and it desperately needed a solution.

Pozzi, an American engineer then in charge of Saudi Aramco's east-west pipeline in the technical support and maintenance services division, was part of a team given cart blanche to control the blowout. Pozzi had dealt with numerous spills over the years without using chemicals, and had tried dumping flour into the oil, then scooping the resulting tar balls from the surface. "You ever cooked with flour? Absorbent, right?" Pozzi says. Next, he'd dumped straw into the spills; also highly absorbent, but then you've got a lot of straw to clean up. This spill was going to require a much larger, more sustained solution. And fast.

That's when Pozzi and his team came up with the idea of having empty ships park near the Saudi spill and pull the oil off the water. This part of the operation went on for six months, with the mop-up operations lasting for several years more. Pozzi says that 85 percent of the spilled oil was recovered, and it is precisely this strategy that he wants to see deployed in the Gulf of Mexico.

Yesterday, I spoke to Pozzi and his business partner, longtime Houston lawyer Jon King, about their proposed solution, and the difficulties they've encountered trying to assist in the disaster, with both BP and the government. While BP is attempting its very difficult maneuvers to contain the gusher at the source, they say, nothing is being done to adequately address the slick itself. Dispersant is being used by the ton, some of the oil is being burned, and there have been other efforts, which taken together, Pozzi likens to "a flea on an elephant's ass." The two men have been trying to rally support since just after the rig blew up, without much success. This has been typical of their experience:

JON KING: Well, we went down to the BP headquarters in Houma, Louisiana, and we didn't have an appointment so they wouldn't let us in. Then I called the president of BP and I talked to his secretary and she put me in touch with somebody, but the somebody she put me in touch with didn't know who we should talk to. Nick contacted a gentleman that he used to work with at BP, and he threatened to sue Nick for not going through channels. And I said, "Great. I'd love BP to sue us for trying to help them. That would be wonderful."

NICK POZZI: Keep in mind that what supertankers typically do is they sit in the middle of the ocean waiting for all the traders to come up with the right price. When they feel that the price is right, the tankers that are full, they take off, and they can be anywhere in the world in a few days. Right now there are probably 25 supertankers, waiting for orders, full of oil. So all they got to do is come to Texas, in the Gulf, unload the oil, and then turn around and suck up all this other stuff and pump it onto shore into on-shore storage. It's not rocket science. It's so simple. It's a Robinson Crusoe fix, but it works.

This past Monday, Pozzi and King spoke with Captain Ed Stanton, who is commanding the United States Coast Guard for much of the affected coastline. Stanton requested a quick proposal in writing, and said he would "take it up the chain of command." Below is the proposal, to which Pozzi and King are still awaiting a response.

From: Jon King
Sent: Monday, May 10, 2010 2:05 PM
To: Captain Ed Stanton
Cc: Nick Pozzi
Subject: Procedures Developed thru Lessons Learned
Re: Salt Water Clean-Up
Importance: High

Dear Captain Stanton,

Per your request this morning, this is to confirm our conversation with yourself, Mr. Nick Pozzi, and I.

My colleague, Nick Pozzi, has worked for over 40 years in the energy industry the majority with Saudi Aramco in the Middle East. During that time, Nick's team was part of the first responders that successfully cleaned similar sized spills of sweet and sour crude with the best technology available from the late 1980's thru the 1990's when he retired.

The primary equipment that was used to remove the crude from the Arabian Gulf was Super Tankers. The Super Tankers were used to store everything, run thru on-shore three-phase separators and sent to on-shore tank farms for additional clean up using centrifuges. The more the oil spreads the more tankers will be needed. Nick would be willing to provide a conceptual non-technical drawing to visualize this process.

This process not only cleaned up the ocean but it saved the local environment, minimized shoreline damage, and recovered approximately 85% of the crude oil. (Nick may be required to get permission from Saudi Aramco thru the Houston, Texas office in Sugar Land to provide you with any further details as to what information he is allowed to disclose to you regarding the various projects that he worked on.)

Nick does not know what the appropriate channels are to effectuate this process but feels, if asked, the Saudi Government may be willing to assist as he believes, that with the right calls, tankers could be on the scene in 2 days.

Please feel free to call Nick or I, if you need any additional information or have any questions.

Sincerely,

Jon King
Nick Pozzi

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/05/26/18648971.php



3And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.

--Rev 16

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: You know, I wondered myself why they couldn't figure out a way to do that, but I decided it was so "simple" it must mean I didn't understand the problem correctly.  :laughing7:

[Molly]

Beyond Top Kill: Are BP and the Government Ignoring the Oil Underneath?
May 27, 2010 at 5:04PM by Mark Warren


With all the proper attention being paid to the top kill effort to cap the blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico, and the dedication of BP's operational assets that that has required, a very large and looming matter is being given less attention than it deserves, and that is: the oil already in the water, in large concentrations (or "plumes") and migrating, either toward coastline or to the ocean floor.

Last Tuesday, I asked Coast Guard Commander Mary Landry whether any efforts to recover the oil deeper in the water were being contemplated or devised, and the answer was no.

But late last week, it came to our attention that for the first time, BP was giving serious attention to a possible solution to this growing problem which involved the use of empty supertankers to essentially vacuum the oil from the water using the enormous pumping capacity of these vessels. Former Shell Oil President John Hofmeister has come out publicly behind this approach, and the Politics Blog has been reporting on it since early May — here, here, here, and here. (At a news conference this afternoon, President Obama glanced over a multi-part question involving the supertanker approach from ABC's Jake Tapper.)

We have spoken to other seasoned energy professionals, as well — including legendary Houston oilman Matthew Simmons — who also urge the deployment of this strategy to prevent the massive amount of oil already in the water from either washing ashore or contaminating the bottom of the Gulf.

Today, along with the promising news about the top kill, comes more sobering news of a newly-detected giant plume — 22 miles long, six miles wide — stretching toward Mobile Bay, Alabama. Just off the bay, in the town of Coden, a community organizer named Zack Carter contacted us immediately after our first supertanker report to find out how the South Bay Communities Alliance could help mobilize support and protect the Alabama coast. We spoke to Mr. Carter this afternoon, and with this latest news he has intensified his supertanker efforts, including enlisting Alabama Secretary of Agriculture Ron Sparks — a candidate for governor who has now organized a committee of Alabama legislators to prepare for the disaster.

Last night, however, we again posed the question about solutions at depth to Commander Landry and to Doug Suttles, the COO of BP. While another press conference was forthcoming this evening, as of this posting we're still awaiting response to this note we sent to the Coast Guard's press officer....

Dear Lieutenant Commander Hoeft,

Thank you for the conference call notification earlier this evening.

I actually have a question to direct to either Adm. Landry or Mr. Suttles, if you wouldn't mind facilitating. It is similar to the question I asked at last Tuesday's conference. It is this:

I wanted to ask about efforts to recover the oil already in the water, not skimming operations, but at depth. Mr. Suttles made reference this evening to the burning and skimming operations having reduced the surface oil, but no mention was made of any efforts to mitigate or recover the significant concentrations of oil that are deep in the water and migrating.

John Hofmeister, the former president of Shell, has for two weeks been public in advocating the use of supertankers to use their powerful pumps to suck up the oil and centrifuge-separate oil from seawater. Given that supertankers hold 85 million gallons, this seems like a sound idea.

We reported on Monday that over the weekend BP's technical staff was for the first time giving this idea serious consideration. Is this true? And what might the timetable be for such an operation?

And if this approach isn't being considered, why not?

Thank you very kindly, Lt. Comm. Hoeft. I do appreciate your help and time very much.

All best,

Mark

Mark Warren
Executive Editor
Esquire Magazine



Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/beyond-top-kill-procedure-052710#ixzz0pDQ2rzcT




Louisiana congressman cries discussing oil spill in Congressional hearing

"These are America's wetlands."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jtr7xMiAsU

[WhiteWings]

I'm deeply suprised that the glorious Halliburton of the blameless Dick Cheney is involved too. And possibly even the cause....
http://industry.bnet.com/energy/10004219/gulf-oil-spill-whos-to-blame-bp-halliburton-and-the-feds-are-all-implicated/

BP, the oil giant operating the drilling rig that blew up and created a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, has officially taken responsibility for the accident. But it may actually be able to spread the blame.

According to federal law, BP is automatically required to pay for much of the damage, and its name is obviously attached to the accident. Denying responsibility would be foolish; accepting it is good PR. But there are levels of responsibility, and BP works closely with other companies who might also deserve some of the opprobrium.

Last week, my colleague Kirsten Korosec noted that BP CEO Tony Hayward was already pointing fingers at Transocean, the owner of the drilling rig (BP was merely leasing it). Besides BP and Transocean, there are numerous companies involved, as well as the regulators who were supposed to keep the operation safe.

The tangle will take a long time to sort out, but here are three emerging reports that give a deeper view into who may be culpable:

BP

CEO Hayward thinks that the damage to BP, and the wider oil industry, may be manageable if the oil spill is soon contained. That's half the story, anyway; the other half is the notion that the Horizon's explosion was a cruel twist of fate, the kind of industrial accident that occasionally occurs regardless of all safeguards.

If it's discovered that BP didn't do everything it could to prevent the accident, its guilt in the public eye will soar to new levels. Now a whistleblower report by a former contractor has emerged that apparently says BP was in fact cutting corners, dangerously so. The contractor first suspected problems when hired to work on the BP Atlantis oil platform, according to Truthout:

It was then that the whistleblower, who was hired to oversee the company's databases that housed documents related to its Atlantis project, discovered that the drilling platform had been operating without a majority of the engineer-approved documents it needed to run safely, leaving the platform vulnerable to a catastrophic disaster that would far surpass the massive oil spill that began last week ...

Indeed, according to an August 15, 2008, email sent to BP officials by Barry Duff, a member of BP's Deepwater Gulf of Mexico Atlantis Subsea Team, the Piping and Instrument Diagrams (P&IDs) for the Atlantis subsea components "are not complete" and "there are hundreds if not thousands of subsea documents that have never been finalized, yet the facilities have been" up and running ...

The risk in turning over drawings that are not complete are: 1) The Operator will assume the drawings are accurate and up to date," the email said. "This could lead to catastrophic Operator errors due to their assuming the drawing is correct," said Duff's email to BP officials Bill Naseman and William Broman.

There's more to the story, which you can read at Truthout. If the allegations are in fact correct, BP could be in for a world of hurt; in Congress, the Committee on Energy and Commerce has already begun digging for evidence of wrongdoing at the company, and other politicians are calling its response inadequate.

Halliburton

It's hard to have a worse public image than Halliburton, the multinational engineering firm whose image took a beating during the first part of the Iraq War. But the company may well get slugged again over the Gulf accident, too. The latest accusation: The cement slurry Halliburton was pumping into the drill hole prior to the Horizon's explosion may have in fact been at fault.

The Los Angeles Times describes what Halliburton was doing at the site:

After an exploration well is drilled, cement slurry is pumped through a steel pipe or casing and out through a check valve at the bottom of the casing. It then travels up the outside of the pipe, sheathing the part of the pipe surrounded by the oil and gas zone. When the cement hardens, it is supposed to prevent oil or gas from leaking into adjacent zones along the pipe.

As the cement sets, the check valve at the end of the casing prevents any material from flowing back up the pipe. The zone is thus isolated until the company is ready to start production.

The process is tricky. A 2007 study by the U.S. Minerals Management Service found that cementing was the single most-important factor in 18 of 39 well blowouts in the Gulf of Mexico over a 14-year period.

The bad news for Halliburton is that a number of experts think the accident probably originated in the pipe that the cement was being pumped into. The good news for the company is that investigators may find it difficult to tell whether the cement did its job or not, especially if BP is successful in dropping massive concrete domes on top of the leaks to stop them.

The feds

Federal oversight of oil drilling rigs and platforms in the Gulf is intense; the Interior Department's Mineral Management Service inspectors often travel between drilling sites, proactively checking up on documentation and procedures. However, the Wall Street Journal has dug into a story that suggests that Fed oversight failed at a much earlier point.

Undersea drilling is immensely complicated, so the MMS is also involved in permitting the various equipment used. From the WSJ:

Federal regulators learned in a 2004 study that a vital piece of oil-drilling safety equipment may not function in deep-water seas but did nothing to bolster industry requirements ... The equipment, called shear rams, is supposed to seal off out-of-control oil and gas wells by pinching the pipe closed and cutting it.

In 2004, a study commissioned by the MMS raised significant questions about the ability of rams to cut through the stronger pipes used in deep-water drilling. Those thicker pipes—as well as the shear rams—must withstand the enormous pressures found at 5,000 feet below sea level ...

Only three of 14 newly build rigs had blowout preventers that were able to squeeze off and cut the pipe at the water pressure likely to be experienced at the equipment's maximum water depth, the study noted.

Whether the shear rams could crimp the pipe may turn out to be a moot point, if they system that was supposed to relay the command to the rams failed. On the other hand, if the rams functioned but didn't fulfill their job, the Fed may suddenly find itself the target of public anger, along with Transocean, which bought the rams, and Cameron International, the manufacturer.

The WSJ story, in fact, says that the Fed study singled out Cameron for doing a bad job calculating the amount of force their shear rams needed to apply. But for now, all of these allegations are still at the stage of finger-pointing, and more potential culprits may emerge over the coming weeks.

[WhiteWings]

How money is created aka credit crisis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oosq3TPgHH0

[Molly]

Nearly 50 Supertankers Are Waiting for BP (on the Cheap)
June 4, 2010 at 5:57PM by Mark Warren

Forget the president's latest Friday-afternoon jaunt to Louisiana. Here's the news that really got buried headed into the weekend: Former Shell Oil President John Hofmeister had his first substantive and detailed talk yesterday with Coast Guard officials in Louisiana regarding the viability and importance of deploying supertankers to the Gulf in an effort to recover the oil in the water before it ruins any more coastline.

Hofmeister has been extraordinarily tenacious in pursuit of this idea, and hopefully this breakthrough signifies serious movement toward action.

After all, it is not as if BP would have trouble finding supertankers to clean up the Gulf.

In all the world, there are 538 VLCC's, or Very Large Crude Carriers. The English, especially those in the shipping trade, sneer at the term "supertanker" that we Americans have popularized for these massive vessels. "It's a bad tag," a wise young tanker broker in London told me this morning. They prefer instead to describe the ship's line and its DWT, or dead weight tonnage, because those things convey more useful information. Pardon me, but I prefer the term supertanker, because in the Gulf of Mexico we've got a super problem. Anyway, VLCC is a little dry.

In any case, as of this morning, of these 538 supertankers dotting the oceans of the world, 47 were basically inert, being used for something the young English broker called "floating storage." That is, they were full of crude oil, going nowhere. And half of these are full of Iranian heavy crude, which for various reasons no one seems to want. The point of this being that we've got a glut of crude on the market at the moment, and it is cheaper to store the oil on 47 of these tankers than sell it. This phenomenon is what is known in the petroleum business as a "contango," where the delivery price exceeds the market price that you can get for the oil.

Which is all to say that were BP to get supertankers into the Gulf of Mexico to pursue a suck-and-salvage strategy (which The Politics Blog has written about extensively) to get the oil out of the water before the worst of it comes ashore — or before it contaminates the sea floor — it is not as if the company would have a difficult time finding tankers. In fact, it's not as if it would even have to divert tankers from its own fleet, and remove them from their regular runs picking up and delivering oil.

That's where tanker brokers come in. The young English broker at EA Gibson shipbroking that I spoke with, as well as the very helpful tanker broker I spoke with from Simpson Spence & Young on Long Island, broke things down. It is a special knowledge they have, and many calculations go into determining what the services of one of these vessels is worth, but chartering a tanker isn't rocket science. And yes, diverting a tanker from commerce to cleanup will cost BP a premium, but that cost is nothing compared to the ruination of vital coastline and of whole economies. I mean, look at the size of this thing.

Basically, these guys told us that per day, these tankers earn their owners roughly $45,000. If you were to approach one of these brokers looking to charter, on behalf of their owners they would ask a premium, maybe $1,000,000 per day, according to the broker from SSY. Negotiations would bring that down to something more acceptable to both parties, this broker said, and he also indicated that as a premium it wouldn't be unusual for the ship's owner to ask for and get ten times what it normally earns on its daily runs.

So for argument's (and BP's) sake, let's say that when BP charters the necessary tankers (and they will have to, eventually), the tanker broker makes them a deal for $450,000 a day. And let's say that BP orders up six tankers, and for a problem the size of the one they've created, these supertankers and their pumping and storage capacity are needed for six months.

At that rate, six supertankers for six months comes to $494,100,000. Round up and call it a half-billion dollars. On the ghost of Lord Browne, we are here to say that that will be the best half-billion BP ever spent.

Obviously, these are the roughest of calculations, as today's rate won't necessarily be tomorrow's rate, but you get the idea. And again, a drop in the bucket compared to the bankrupting settlements they'll otherwise have to pay for destroying whole coastlines, economies, and ways of life.

And, gentlemen, that just accounts for supertankers. There are thousands and thousands of smaller-capacity tankers that are certainly more plentiful and might even save BP a buck. Or if they get more ambitious about cleaning up the Gulf, there are even a handful of ULCC's, or Ultra-Large Crude Carriers, on earth. At 400,000 metric tons, they're even bigger than the supertankers.

But what becomes clearer by the day is that this solution, which would be difficult under the best of circumstances, gets harder as the oil in the water migrates and changes in character (thanks to environmental conditions and a million gallons of dispersant).

There is no time for further study or more data. Enough smart people think this idea is feasible and is not technically that challenging to merit trying it immediately.

The other efforts to mitigate the oil — burning, skimming, dispersing — have failed or are failing. Unless someone comes forward with a better idea, now, the only alternative to the tanker solution is to watch the worst of the oil come ashore, and say goodbye to so much.



Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/bp-oil-spill-cleanup-costs-060410?src=rss#ixzz0q54fgDnQ

[WhiteWings]

I assume the suck-and-salvage strategy works fine for oil that's floating on the surface.
But what about the huge clouds of oil that deep below the surface because of the dispersant use?

[Molly]

I assume the suck-and-salvage strategy works fine for oil that's floating on the surface.
But what about the huge clouds of oil that deep below the surface because of the dispersant use?

One solution: stop using the toxic dispersant to 'sink the body.'  Out of sight, out of mind only works for 9 month old babies.



The Pragmatic Oil Spill Fix That BP's Still Waiting On
May 25, 2010 at 9:34PM by Mark Warren

So on MSNBC tonight, first on Hardball, Chris Matthews excoriated the White House's irresolute response to the Gulf catastrophe, quoting John Kennedy from the American University speech: "Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man." Instead, Matthews said the White House was treating the spill as if it were "a BP problem, to be solved by BP." He then went on to say that we as a nation must immediately find the resolve to end the calamity on the Gulf Coast, and he called for getting tankers into the Gulf and "sucking up that oil."

Just after Matthews, on tonight's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, former Shell Oil President John Hofmeister (whose important new book, Why We Hate the Oil Companies, came out just today), was asked by Olbermann: "So whatever happened to the idea that supposedly had worked in the Gulf of Arabia, with supertankers?"

To which Hofmeister answered:

SEE VIDEO AT LINK



Ladies and gentlemen, Hofmeister is one of the most respected and erudite energy executives in this or any other country. He is putting himself out, not without risk, to lend his clout to ameliorating what could be an environmental and economic (not to even mention human and cultural) disaster without precedent. And yet, "I'm waiting."

The Politics Blog has been reporting on the supertanker strategy for the past two weeks — here, here, here, and here. We have had conversations with people who have had significant careers in energy who have speculated that it need not be a strategy that is confined to surface collection, but by using powerful pumps and "smart pipe" could be utilized at various depths to retrieve the spreading oil. Should someone not test this hypothesis immediately? This is not a solution that ought to wait for further data, or study. Can anyone argue that it would be less effective than the current skimming and burning operations that have not prevented the ruination of delicate and vital Lousiana marshland? And that is just the beginning, and does not even contemplate the long-term deleterious effects that the oil and the chemical dispersants will have on life in a body of water that is so important to life and commerce along one of the most populous coastlines anywhere. And as goes the Gulf Coast, so goes America.

If anyone — anyone — has an effective counterargument to any of this, we want to hear it. Contact us. Otherwise, tick tock, BP. Tick tock.

We are waiting.



Read more:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/john-hofmeister-saudi-arabia-oil-spill-052510

[WhiteWings]

The problem seems far worse. I found an article in Dutch that I haven't been able to verify. (besides by a vague picture)
It seems the oil doen't only flows out of the drill hole but also the seafloor.
The theory is that the seafloor is porous and that the oil not only move upwards but also sideways.
That means 2 things. Multiple oil leaks. The 'easy' way stop a oil spill is simple place a huge concrete block on the spill.
But in this case that would simply means the oil flow would be diverted to other spots. In theory a 'limitless' number of spots.
The only way out is to drill a new pipe near the current one. Use the new pipe to lower the pressure and then start plugging the current hole.

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: I think we're idiots for drilling on the ocean floor in the first place. Decades ago, they should have demanded that a portion of the oil profits go into research for clean non-fossil fuel energy sources, to be implemented by _______date. But no, since we let big oil run and ruin the world, here we are........My  :2c: