Pondering on Oil

Stop and think about oil…it’s an amazing thing really. While we may differ on the origins of our planet and how life came to be, oil is super-concentrated energy—the result of organic materials under great duress. The pressure from above forced this material into the depths of the earth. It never ceases to amaze me that technology allows oil drillers to puncture the earth’s crust at a depth of nearly one mile below the ocean’s surface, and then extract this “black gold”.

Unfortunately at Deepwater Horizon, the gash in the earth’s crust has left her bleeding, resulting in another oil spill for the history books. I am confident the sharpest minds at BP are feverishly working to find a solution to not only stop the bleeding, but to repair damaged maritime ecosystems.

In 1979 a Mexican oil well blew up at the Ixtoc I rig, discharging 140 million gallons of crude into the Gulf. It appears the clean up effort—plus nature’s ability to recover over time—has made the Ixtoc incident something that many people have never heard of. With over 30 years of technology under out belts since the late 70s, I remain confident in BP engineers’ ability to seal the well and clean up the Gulf. The Kevin Costner solution may be a start.

BLAME GAME

Perhaps what amazes me more about this is the perceived need to blame someone. Plenty are blaming BP. There are reports of BP being in the proverbial sack with government officials, and whistle-blower accounts of poor maintenance on the rig now sunk in deep waters.

But what amazes me most is President Obama stepping up and admitting he’s to blame. In interest of full disclosure, President O wasn’t my first choice in 2008, and he didn’t get my vote. But he doesn’t seem to me like a choice scapegoat. Do you think BP isn’t doing all it can to fix this problem? The past is the past, and if government regulators let BP’s lax oversight slide, and it led to this catastrophe, then that’ll eventually have to be ironed out. Litigation attorneys will be salivating at this one for years, no doubt.

But is the Obama Administration really in a position of expertise to deal with this?  Especially now that Elizabeth Birnbaum, former head of Minerals Management Services, resigning over the spill? Is she another scapegoat?

I’d just like to know…what can Obama’s administration be doing better? I truly believe BP is doing all it can to bring this under control. What company wants to have a crisis on its hands? This will one day make another case study for budding public relations practitioners, just as Exxon Valdez was a commonly referenced study when I was in PR classes.

To further rile up the public, a live feed of the blowout has gone viral on the ‘Net. It’s disturbing, and yet technology wows me again here. How do engineers submerse a camera to such bone-crushing depths and manage to obtain as bright and clear a picture? This is a YouTube clip of some of the footage: