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W&C Blog  
Trowel Talk: Drill Baby, Drill?
by William E. Rogers ACP
May 19, 2010

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The battle cry of the GOP during the last presidential election has now come back to haunt us all as we watch the “mousse” roll ashore along the southern coastline (that’s what they official call the muck that washes ashore when oil and seawater mix).

Be it the dangers of drilling for oil along our coastline or the pristine glaciers of the Alaska slope, there is a risk and a price to be paid for domestic oil. But can we continue to buy oil from the Middle East? That has its own set of risks that neither Party seems willing to tolerate for much longer.

If I had the answer to this dilemma, I would market it and then retire to an island far from the smell of crude oil or the noise of politicians and all political pundits. What I do know is that anything, and I do mean anything, we can do to reduce our dependence on oil and reduce our consumption of energy of all kinds, will yield a three-fold profit:

* We keep more of our money from going overseas and into the hands of people who do not like us very much.

* We lower the risk of ecological and financial disasters like what has recently occurred off the coast of Louisiana.

* We prosper financially by spending less on energy and by inventing, and then selling, the technology, products and services necessary to produce energy efficient building, vehicles and appliances to the entire world.

Does this make sense or should I just go get me a T-shirt that says, “Drill, Baby Drill?”


William E. Rogers ACP
William Rogers is the executive director of the Plasterers and Cement Masons Job Corps Training Program, a national training opportunity for America’s disadvantaged youth, sponsored by a partnership between AWCI, OPCMIA and the U.S. Dept. of Labor.

  Comments (6)Post a Comment
Title: Drill on the Northern Slopes


Good reasoning in today's world and energy problems.

Stay at home, American ingenuity and no longer the need to build bombs for far away conflicts ..... Bring it on Home to Me...Yeah

Thanks for a common sense ideas.


Title: Say bye-bye to oil


Anything we can do to reduce our dependence on oil is a step in the right direction. There's no easy way to do it, but I think enough has happened that we should open our eyes to other possibilities. Thanks, Bill, for addressing this topic on W&C. Oh, and let me know where you plan to retire - I need an island vacation. :-)


Title: Dyduch


Great post Bill, I will start with the last suggestion you made. Well if common sense makes sense I believe it will work. Personally I think many companies and people actually forgot that and this is why we got problems.

As for the shirt if we all wore one that said "KISS" Keep it simple stupid things actually might change.

Anybody for a shirt?


Title: Following Procedures


I think the real issue we have with this disaster is the failure to follow procedures. If Transocean would have followed proper procedures when testing the Blow out Preventer this could have been avoided. That was the first mistake. The second mistake was not allowing Halliburton to use a third concrete plug.
Why were these procedures disregarded, profits. BP had spent millions of dollars drilling a well in the area that went bad and they had to seal it off. BP put the pressure on Transocean to get this new well in ASAP. Transocean has culpability in this as well when they were the ones ultimately that took the short cuts.
In most disasters it not just one event that causes the disaster, it’s a lot of small ones. The events in this case involve the Federal Government, British Petroleum, Transocean and possible Halliburton. I am not defending oil companies or preach “Drill Baby Drill” But the truth is everyman woman and child use fossil fuel in some form. Until we can produce enough energy with no disastrous side effects to satisfy our appetite were going to have to shake hands with the devil. Following proper safety procedures when drilling for oil is like having safe sex. Failure to do so could cost ruin the planet and take your life


Title: "Top Kill" Failure


Last night BP announced that their latest effort to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico had failed. But said they had a few other tricks up their sleeves. Which bodes the question; "Was the "Top Kill" scheme their best effort or just the most cost effective?"

5,000 feet under water is a long way down and the challenges are monumental. Is it possible that our technology isn't yet up to the challenge? If we fail to plug the leak, oil may continue to spew into the Gulf for months, even years...

What would our world look like if we come face to face with such a disaster? It may be the next question we ask ourselves!


Title: "Top Kill" Failure


The problem with all of this as well the rest of our society is quiet simple.

Everybody along the way protects their interests only. And they are not willing to sacrifice anything for things to actually work as a group.

In simplicity all what they care about are their own interests, as a WP of a company or as a politician or as a subcontractor. They just want to protect their interests as individuals.

And at the end of the day everybody done their job yet frack all got done. And the people at the receiving end of this disaster suffer and then the same poop happens, "we will do the best to help you" And again frack all gets done.

This is simply BS, everybody dose their best and nothing gets done.

The goal is simple just plug the sucker. And plug it fast.

I could plug this in less than a week, but the problem is there are too many people along the way that protect their own interests only. Hell I would not even charge for my time.

Just give me a set of blue prints regarding this disaster and all reverent data and the next day I would have a feasible plan of action.

This could be stopped...


 

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