There’s one aspect of the BP story that most of those angry residents of the Gulf states aren’t aware of. And the president hasn’t had a thing to say about it.
Even as the tar balls hit Gulf beaches, their tax dollars are subsidizing BP and so far, Obama has not shown the slightest indication that he plans to stop their flow into BP coffers, despite the recent call of Public Citizen, a watchdog group, to end the nation’s business dealings with company.
[…]
While the president has been on the verbal warpath, the US military has – with little notice – continued to carry on a major business partnership with BP, despite the company’s poor environmental record.
[…]
In 2009, according to the Defense Energy Support Center, the military awarded $22.5 billion in energy contracts. More than $16 billion of that went to purchasing bulk fuel. Some 10 top petroleum suppliers got the lion’s share, more than $11.5 billion, among them big names like Shell, Exxon Mobil and Valero. The largest contractor, however, was BP, which received more than $2.2 billion – almost 12% of all petroleum-contract dollars awarded by the Pentagon for the year.While one exceptionally powerful department of the federal government has been feeding money into BP (and other oil giants) with abandon, BP has consistently run foul of US government regulators from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
According to the Center for Public Integrity, “BP account[ed] for 97 percent of all flagrant violations found in the [oil] refining industry by government safety inspectors over the past three years.”
Admittedly, not a surprise.
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#30–ECA==what are you dithering on about? You do know that running 5 dithers together is still dithering and not any more insightful? You raise many questions, but I’ll just dispatch the first one. Now what was that? ====
“So, how do you Make it “ALRIGHT” to keep raising prices?” /// Thats silly. Roughly speaking, the market sets prices according to supply and demand. Wrinkles here and there, but thats the basic reality.
Whatever are you thinking about and trying to post?
#31,
BUT THEY CONTROL THE whole MARKET.
All of it.
regulations had to be installed…so that independents could survive.
The law said, that they could NOT undercut Local AREA PRICES.
AS the big corps would Undercut the Local Independents by 10% to get them out of business.
Once everyone Figures you cant win..they Quit trying. They control ALL of the market.
Do you see anyone complaining RECENTLY about $3 per gallon, as they did the last few times? Do you see the OIL corps bitching, because they arent making a PROFIT?
You conservatives are such whiners and carpers.
I would guess that Obama used these contracts as a way to get BP to pay for the disaster they created.
Had McCain and Palin been elected, they’d be apologizing TO BP and making US taxpayers pay for the whole cost of this mess.
bobbo re: ” When one of many energy breakthru’s arise, like thin film photovoltaics to shingle your roof with, … That would be a good thing. How would BP screw me on that one?”
That’s about as feasible as ethanol from corn. A windmill in every back yard? A ‘bar fridge’ nuclear generator in every basement? A flying pig? Mmm hm. BP can’t screw you on something that will probably never happen.
Just doing without electricity is more likely in the cards for everyone. there’s just too many people and not enough high tech and rare earth resources.
i used to be an optimist too.
#32–ECA==”no matter what happens” supply and demand is still “in play.” I think you are focused too much on a “free market” without cartels and corners on the market and what not. But still–even when a monopoly controls all, if the overprice or gouge for too long, the market finds an alternative. Its a tautology==you really can’t disagree.
#34–Skeptic==mental attitude has nothing to do with technological progress. The news in thin film voltaics is that they can be made with cheaper and cheaper materials thereby lowering their cost per watt over their lifetimes. As the cost of Big Energy goes up, and the cost of decentralized renewables comes down==at some point, renewables will be competitive all on their own even with the artificial support Big Energy has and will always received. Ignorant of history and the promise of science to think otherwise. Timing issues causing pain and dislocation?–yes. Bumps along the way but ultimately, clean relatively cheap energy “for all” will be available. All of us won’t be here to enjoy it, but Darwin dances on.
#35
bOBO.
They control the market.
The problem they have is REGULATORY and supervisory.
The only reason they are not a MONOPOLY, is because they have competition.
What is COMPETITION, if NOT competing? Its enjoying it the RISE..its flying WITH THEM.
tHEY LOVE the ride the OTHER corp is taking/creating.
I go with #5. If you don’t want the military to buy fuel from an oil company exactly who the bleep do you want them to buy fuel from? Chicken farmers?
This was almost certainly a simple competitive bid and BP made the low bid. Not going with the low bid in a case like that would almost certainly be corruption unless the product was defective.
#37 You should be asking why were they able to come in with the lower bid in a commodity product? Maybe because they don’t waste money on unnecessary things like a second backup blowout preventers and cement plug integrety tests.
There is such a double standard for Obama.
I heard Eric Boehlert pointing this out on the radio this morning:
The media and most Americans didn’t blame Bush Sr. for the Exxon Valdez spill. Bush never flew up there. Never held a press conference. Never met with Exxon, (let alone get them to cough-up 20 billion dollars!)
… and Bush was a oil president! Yet no conservative and none of the msm tried to pin any of the US’s second-worst oil disaster on Bush Sr.
Obama, in contrast, has been engaged as hell with this crisis from the beginning and is actually getting stuff done. Yet, everybody, including the liberals, including this blog, are beating the crap out of Obama for this.
#39–Greg–you are getting a bit knee jerk here. True, Bush escaped a push for responsibility for Exxon Valdez but I don’t see a drumbeat “on this blog” against Obama==much less “everybody, including the liberals.”
Silly to take on the same coloring of a teapartier. Facts do speak for themselves, why isn’t the truth enough for you?
bobbo, history has also shown that given a choice, we gravitate to the lowest common denominator.
Case in point, silicon is currently the most efficient photovoltiac available commercially. Unfortunately it is in short supply and expensive. So guess what is happening? Roof shingles are now being made from *Copper Indium Gallium diSelenide*. Inexpensive and available… just like oil. They contain heavy metals and produce hazardous waste. So now we have a billion watts of these shingles being made yearly by Dow Chemical alone. What happens in 5-10 years when these shingles need replacing? Yes 5 years is the pro-rated warranty on those shingles, so don’t believe the BS that they will last 20 years.
If you don’t know it by now bobbo, profit is king and we’ll buy anything without thinking it through. Think ethanol.
… maybe in 500 years….
“BP account[ed] for 97 percent of all flagrant violations found in the [oil] refining industry by government safety inspectors over the past three years”
Unbelievable!
If this is true, then there are a few more bursting oil rigs on the way…
#41–Skeptic==you are starting to spout gibberish. You are driven by a philosophical point you wish to champion: everything is going to shit and I wish things were better/different right now. Few things take 500 years, with AGW being one of the probable exceptions which ironically you reject.
So, in your own terminology which I don’t understand but just linguistically put together: why don’t you think people’s lust for the lowest common denominator will not cause AGW that will be obvious to all by 500 years from now?
But to be rational–fine, the roof shingle issues will be a failed technology because of price. Maybe with a cheap catalyst we really will become a hydrogen gas/fuel cell based society==who knows. The point is that when we run out of oil, be it whale oil as was the first Big Oil, or Sequestered Petroleum as it is now, or sunlight bacterial bio-oil that may need too much space to create but is even now 150 more space saving than corn based ethanol, to finally a dark process than can be done in giant vats without the need of sunlight==there will be progress.
Asstarded silly to think otherwise.
Bobbo, you are simply being optimistic while I’m being pessimistic. At least i have a factual basis for being pessimistic.
With a population currently 6 billion, then 7 then 8 then 9 billion… all the while third world societies are modernizing at an alarming pace, there isn’t enough of anything… rare earth elements for batteries and magnets used in cars, windmills, batteries and superconductors as it is right now, with hardly anyone using them yet. We already have the technology to mimic photosynthesis that makes an alcohol byproduct from sunlight and CO2 in the air. They would have to cover the same area of land as all our forests, with the black plastic “leaf” to make enough alcohol to make a significant amount.
For your argument, you have the most common and abundant elements… iron, aluminum and silicon that were used for “breakthroughs” to get us this far in ‘history’, so you think we can keep up the pace. I’ll believe you when they make a commercially feasible iron based super magnet.
So stick your asstard insult where the sun don’t shine.
You need to look at where technology is taking us… the consequences and side effects, not the parlor tricks you see in the labs, and the “rush to market” profit machines at work. You mentioned AGW again? Man, can you stay on topic? You naively think that corruption is limited to big business and government. Hah. it’s human nature to be greedy (power, money, control) and if you get enough white lab coats together and organized, you get the same effect.
Back to renewable energy…
IMO, the future lies in nuclear power. They have units with sodium based coolant that are the size of a small bus, which can be buried and left for 30 years untouched before refueling. They are powerful enough to run a small city. They are extremely safe, but if they do “melt down, the worst case scenario is a contained mess underground that is supposedly safe to nearby inhabitants. Look up Toshiba, Hyperion power, and NuScale.
But back to how this argument began… you disagreed with me that you can’t effectively boycott BP, but then just jumped into attacking me with rhetorical nonsense about BP and roof shingles. You’ll never argue anything effectively if you keep going off willey-nilley like that. Focus.
Skeptic:
1. Nuke is not renewable. Nuke is not clean. Nuke is not green. Nuke is non-carbon based.
2. I most assuredly did AGREE with you that no one can boycott BP==oil is fungible and as you cleverly showed, omnipresent.
3. The roof shingles had nothing to do with BP.
4. The increasing population of the world has little to do with the possibility of technological breakthroughs/developments to come other than to perhaps motivate and fund them?
So far–Skeptic-ZERO, logic-4. You have a perfect record.
Are you pessimistic? I guess that would be a nice word for it. Am I optimistic?==no, just realistic when it comes to the march of science. Knowledge is a powerful thing, a thing of beauty. When you reject that knowledge, you deny yourself beauty, and are in fact ugly.
Speaking of being stuck on a subject, if you don’t like shingles there are other technologies in the pipeline and over the horizon. Perhaps energy will take a larger share of our income to keep up a standard life style. That would be a choice, not a disaster.
You are so hysterical and nonsensical ( 0-4!) that its hard to tell what your real issue is. Maybe you are upset/concerned about over-population? Well, we all are but that has nothing to do with what we are discussing.
Fusion?–Sulfer?==fine, give them a try if they are clean. Artificial Photosynthesis==we are just starting to make progress there.
You sound like a luddite: what will computers ever amount to? Then wait 30 years.
Yes, or hysterical.
You are babbling bobbo. I’ll just take 2 points as the rest are just as self serving.
3. The roof shingles had nothing to do with BP.
Refer to your 1st post to me, post #27…
OMTH–everything is relative. When one of many energy breakthru’s arise, like thin film photovoltaics to shingle your roof with, then when sized right, I can run all the electrical appliances I want to without a thought to any energy bill at all. Basically, a one time price for energy.
That would be a good thing. How would BP screw me on that one?”
You are the one who linked the two. You are he one with the snarky rhetoric.
2nd point…
4. The increasing population of the world has little to do with breakthroughs/developments to come other than to perhaps motivate and fund them?
WRONG. breakthroughs have to be scalable, distributable, cost effective, and have sufficient production materials. Population size and distribution is critical to every one of those requirements.
I won’t even bother with your dumb comments about nuclear power.
Skeptic–you mean nuclear power is renewable? I see a noble prize in your future.
You are right about the roof shingles. I didn’t even check my post because “my” point was that thin film roof shingles is an area where a break through would be valuable and is being worked on. The reference to BP was a joke. JOKE!
Perhaps much like your review of my characterization of nuke energy.?
“You Know” as often as religion and politics can put people at odds, I find equally so does differing senses of humor.
Ba-dump!
And Skeptic–since it is the substantive part of your post you say: “breakthroughs have to be scalable, distributable, cost effective, and have sufficient production materials. Population size and distribution is critical to every one of those requirements.”
And I agree with that which is why at #35 I said what every clear thinking person would assume: “As the cost of Big Energy goes up, and the cost of decentralized renewables comes down==at some point, renewables will be competitive all on their own even with the artificial support Big Energy has and will always received.” === you see if the technology doesn’t scale, then it isn’t cheaper.
I like this thread. Your illogic, mistatements, and tangents are plainly viewable here. More ambiguous with AGW. Yes, or I give too much benefit of the doubt?
If BP goes out of business, who cares?
True free market capitalists know that when one company fails, other companies benefit, the net effect is jobs are not lost, just moved around.
The market must determine who gets the rewards of capitalism. If an oil company consistently cuts corners in safety it must pay the price through stock devaluation and the public’s lack of trust.
History
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2d58wz6
This and many other reasons WHY other countries are upset with the USA.
Corps with the backing of a nation.
Bobbo re: “The reference to BP was a joke. JOKE!”
LOL. If you think rhetoric is the same as a joke then you have issues.
And it’s just like you to change an argument so that it appears you were not wrong like you really are.
First you say:
“The increasing population of the world has little to do with the possibility of technological breakthroughs/developments to come other than to perhaps motivate and fund them”
Then you say:
And Skeptic–since it is the substantive part of your post you say: “breakthroughs have to be scalable, distributable, cost effective, and have sufficient production materials. Population size and distribution is critical to every one of those requirements.” And I agree with that…”
You contradict yourself at every turn as you writhe beneath my logic and scrutiny.
This is too easy, but still fun.
Skeptic–I think YOUR fatal flaw may be on exhibit: not man enough to admit to simple mistakes/mispeaks much less just having a wrong idea.
We’ll/YOU will never get to a wrong idea (eg AGW) if you can’t admit to a mispeak–eg the nature of nuclear power.
I enjoy discussion with people who disagree and they can adamantly disagree with some argument against overwhelming evidence. But when they ignore the evidence and twist the discussion, that is not fun.
Regarding the relationship of technological breakthrus, with population levels, and scalability==I can accept you just can’t keep up. What I posted is accurate and pretty self evident==an argument proceeding by defintion.
But, FOR MY EDIFICATION, can you detail just how my characterization of nuclear power was wrong? All you did was misspeak. All too easy and honest just to agree and go on. You choose to ignore and ridicule. Not honest.
#50–ECA==nice link. “Every great fortune is based on a crime.”
Not always true, but can we think of any exceptions?
Re bobbo, “I enjoy discussion with people who disagree and they can adamantly disagree with some argument against overwhelming evidence. But when they ignore the evidence and twist the discussion, that is not fun.”
As i have pointed out numerous times bobbo… that is exactly what you do, even in AGW discussions. To revise an old adage… you can’t see the trees for the forest. You concentrate on the “big picture’ so intently that you completely miss the flaws in structure. You claim you are a clear thinker, but what I see is a guy wearing blinders.
As for nuclear energy, I’m tired of educating you on the cutting edge of technology. I gave already you 3 companies developing self contained mini reactors… by far the most economical and practical way to get off the nation wide grid. The byproducts are recyclable. The net byproducts are almost harmless in 100 years and 100% reusable in 200 years. The current worldwide yearly refuse from spent uranium and plutonium is only the size of one football field one meter deep. Compare that to the amount of carbon we are spewing into the atmosphere. As recycling becomes more prevalent and economical, and new technologies are implemented, that will be reduced by up to 70% (see the DUPIC technique). that’s 1/3 of a football field/year… completely harmless, and 100% reusable. The fission energy contained uranium reserves is far greater than all fossil fuels on the earth combined, without even considering the use of fast breeder reactors utilizing byproducts like plutonium. Even IF we run low on Uranium, there are reactore being developed that use Thorium as a fuel, and It’s 3-4 times more abundant than uranium.
So when you say :”1. Nuke is not renewable.” There is plenty enough available for many hundreds of years, while other technology has a chance to catch up.
When you say: “Nuke is not clean.” You are ignorant of the technical advances that make it clean in a reasonable and safe timeline.
When you say: Nuke is not green.” You are simply wrong as “green” is used to describe processes that do not foul the earth. Uranium is NATURALLY in about every substance on Earth and new technology can renders 100% recyclable. for purposes other than energy production.
You’ll have to school yourself on the details.
When You say “Nuke is non-carbon based.” … well Duh! That’s a good thing.
Hey Skeptic–I feel better. I know that makes you feel better too.
Your basic proof that technological advances will not overcome our energy dependence on oil is the promise of technological advances in clean, safe, renewable, scalable, cheap nuclear energy?
I accept everything you say as responsive, logical, and true. You have vanquished me. I can’t wait for my homebased nuke reactor to go on sale. What do you think–Radio(active) Shack or Home Despot?
Now, let me go back and re-read that AGW thread(s) for what I must have missed.
It’s truly amazing how everything started when Obama took office. Ah, the good life when we were kids…you know, exactly like the video Stephan Colbert did. EXACTLY like it.
There you go again. Not much of what you say in post #55 is true. This argument was never about “technological advances will not overcome our energy dependence on oil”. you just pulled that out of the air to try and save yourself.
It was about whether individual homes could be independent of the power grid with those technical advances… as YOU believe.
As I already explained, Mini nuclear power stations would be for communities… still a grid, just a lot smaller and separate from a nation wide grid, closer to home… less power lost and modular for easy repair and replacement. No where did I say that they were for your basement. In fact I said that would never happen.
So yes, I vanquished you, but not for the reason you stated.
Gee Skeptic–“we” continue to be unable to make contact.
The word/concept of the “grid” did not appear until you posted it at #54. I’ve never mentioned it. It is a related but side issue.
Our mishmash basically got going with your Luddite expression at #34==”Just doing without electricity is more likely in the cards for everyone. there’s just too many people and not enough high tech and rare earth resources.”
A silly statement. Like every other resource/technology on earth there could well be a maldistribution of wealth the result of many factors. But like every other resource/technology on earth, the free market and technological innovation will continue to support a significant segment of the population that will continue to advance mankind into its future. I can’t say if net/net the future will be bright or dim for the majority of mankind==but I do see technology becoming more advanced, and energy coming from renewables and the unit cost getting cheaper all the time.
Can’t prove it. Just the historical norm.
Why would anyone want to go off the grid if cheaper nuke energy was available? Really, you do flit around incomprehensibly and to your own damage.
I do look forward to finding a subject we can join forces on. I wonder what that will turn out to be?
Guys,
The problem comes with 1 point..Even the Oil corps will tall you.
“OIL IS CHEAP”
And after all the CUTS and personnel drops..
Look at the profit margins in the last 10 years.
After paying off all the bills, Profits that could Run this country.
And WHEN, a competing Product comes to market, all they do is LOWER/undercut the price. And we RUN away from the NEW/Nicer product. Its true.
THey have cornered Many markets, just because they can undercut Others. This is like Discovering TREES, in a Time when Everything was made from ROCK.
Even when there is a Better alternative. The oil corps have enough money to GRAB and alter the market on THAT NEW PRODUCT. Propane was CHEAP as dirt, and was looking like a great Alternative. Oil corps Bought it ALL OUT. THey inflate the price artificially. Other countries LOVE IT. They can bring CHEAP Propane to the USA and get a GREAT PRICE. They dont want to compete. They Love the Inflated price, and in their own nation they cant get a GOOD price.
I would love international pricing. But the USA CORPS Push it to much. They inflate prices and OTHERS LOVE IT. They dont need to compete. Even when we were shipping Metals/wood/goods to China. We inflated the prices by 3-10 times the National Rate. Other nations Loved us for doing. They DIDNT compete, they MATCHED the prices.
Other countries LOVE shipping to the USA. And OUR OWN CORPS love it also. They couldnt get the same prices in their OWN AREAS/locations. And OUR corps Double/triple/quadruple the COST estimates. SRP(suggested retail price) is a SHAM/SCAM. Printing an Arbitrary price on a product only tells you WHAT/WHY you shouldnt be Paying that MUCH.
The Stock market and the Corp Attitude in this country HAS to be changed. The Gov should make it AS IT WAS. If you are making PROFIT we are going to TAX IT TO DEATH. You must USE all the money, or THE GOV is going to TAKE MOST of what is left.
USE the money to:
HIRE people
FIX things
IMPROVE things
decent WAGES
#59–ECA==I see the point you are advocating. Oil will taint any other cheaper alternative? Well, the examples you give are pretty much all the same? Oil-Propane==more alike than different.
Too much like Nuke or Coal.=====In that these are capital intensive concentrated Big Enterprises.
As much as anything else, the promise of some of the renewable/green energy sources is that it is the OPPOSITE OF BIG OIL–in that it is decentralized-not subject to “international” prices. Basically, you buy equipment once, and after that your energy cost is “free” regardless of how much you use==can make money if you sell surplus back to the grid.
One of my early dreams was to build a super-insulated house. Basically an inflated balloon with a shell of gunite sprayed on followed by sprayed styrofoam with a covering again of gunite. Thinking r value 2017. Heat the house by the electronic equipment waste heat. Cool the house by thermal mass cooled at 3AM air temps. Lighting now with LED’s. Excess energy stored by compressed air instead of batteries.
Yes, tech is a grand thing. Think distributed and many bad problems go away. Not all.