re: #705 Aceofwhat?

Yeah, fine. That’s a fine plan. Demand your relief wells.

Again, that’s wholly different than a moratorium. Make up your mind.

If Obama had said “thou shalt drill relief wells or suffer a moratorium for the next six months whilst we figure this out”, i’d have hoisted my gin in his honor.

But nooo. Moratorium. So now it’s Spiff’s turn. Moratorium or no moratorium? (remember, drilling with preconditions ≠ moratorium)

Look buddy, you don’t demand anything from me. Did I say the word moratorium on this or any other thread? No. I didn’t.

I said BP shouldn’t be allowed to operate because they’ve clearly shown themselves incompetent. I said no one else should be allowed to drill until they’ve shown a plan to deal with blow outs. The most logical one thus far is drilling relief wells before they’re needed. If someone has a better alternative, I’d support that.

If that sounds like a moratorium to you, then I support a moratorium. If it doesn’t, then I don’t. I don’t really care about political buzzwords, I care about good engineering.
re: #708 Aceofwhat?

And no. I’m trying to ask why you’re so focused on better plans from the companies without so much as pausing to wonder how much coke it takes to get five MMS employees to screw in a toxic light bulb?

Because the regulators don’t have a clue. We’ve all seen that very clearly from this disaster. Even if they fix whatever oversights allowed this to happen, there will be others.

Trusting that everyone will do their job right every single time just isn’t good engineering. Its not a plan, its a prayer.

If you really wanna trust a bunch of bureaucrats to be 100% effective, be my guest. Those of us in the real world will plan for the most serious eventualities and develop ways to migrate the damage they cause. The best way to do that is to ensure that BP and Exxon and everyone else in the gulf has a plan to deal with blow outs, and the resources in place to put those plans into action quickly and efficiently should the need arise.