As bad as this Gulf oil spill is, and it is bad; all our arguments and complaints wind back to the US government and what WE THE PEOPLE, who are the government, will accept. That is to say: as long as we demand fossil fuel energy without demanding tight regulation, safeguards and total penalty for damage life and environment, we are a big part of the problem.
However, BP/TO and Halliburton were playing pretty fast and loose with chemicals and mud, without cement plugs and a functional shut-off system. And many questions remain: exploration? fracking? what was the heat source or flame? what did they have to do to find this huge resevoir of oil using what chemicals????
You know, the whole point of drilling for oil or gas is to CREATE AN UNDERGROUND EXPLOSION then contain what happens! (Wouldn't it really help to have an infallable plug in place, guys?)
Drilling on land and sea is dangerous and seems more so using recent cost-effective, profit-enhancing methods. Drilling in deep water just makes the whole endeavor more explosive if anything goes wrong! Sounds to me like there are a couple of hundred parts that could fail, fifty to a hundred chemicals that could ignite, and a crew of humans liable to make "human error." Are we willing to accept those odds when our homeland coastlines are at stake?
SO, this is my take-
Either a primary explosion caused cement and equipment to fail because they were damaged in the explosion; or the cement and equipment failed allowing gas to travel and ignite. I think we could possibly have the info backwards at present, which would protect the reputation of current drilling methods many people consider unsafe.
Very sad for all living creatures-but at least we're living-many aren't.
(Above photo from the Huffington Post, which has excellent coverage on the oil spill, as does Propublica.)
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