They should go bankrupt.
I’m pretty sure if this was some lone fisherman who caused this mess, he would be sued into oblivion.
Why are they exempt from responsibility?
(and I know the fisherman example is not realistic, but the point stands)
Nah, Goldman Sachs should be forced to bail em out. 
Who is they? Be specific.
Yah, I’m sure it has nothing to do with money.
Of course money has something to do with it. The cheapest product goes the furthest and is thus the most effective use of money.
Is there a point there? BP is a British Co. Transocean is a Caymans Island based tax dodger. Haliburton is centered in Dubai. They don’t care about America , any people or the environment. Excuse me if I lack sympathy for them.
Ah, never mind. Deleted.
Yes, they all sit around a giant desk scheming on ways to bring down America and dodging taxes.
al Qaeda in Britain then?
Finally, video of a 22 inch pipe gushing oil.
NOAA says the leakage is about 146 gallons a minute.
Given the oomph with which the oil is leaving the pipe, and the fact that a 22 inch pipe has a cross section more than 1200 times the area of a 5/8" garden hose, that seems a mighty low estimate:
Size of Oil Spill Underestimated, Scientists Say
The products with the best dispersion rate go “the furthest”. It’s not a bargain if it is only “pretty effective”, as BP’s spokesperson stated.
Tapioca Dextrin was telling me that availability was the factor dictating their choices, and I’m countering that keeping the money in the family is their actual motivation for using up all their Corexit (10-20x as toxic, and half the dispersion rate).
Some of these other, safer dispersants are actually cheaper per gallon/barrel. BP has done nothing but ask for samples of these others (already vetted by EPA), and then tell them they don’t have time to test them. (Because the EPA tests, approving them for these very scenarios, were not rigorous enough?! I notice BP never debated and never asked the EPA to re-evaluate their own product’s toxicity…)
They are not out there selflessly buying up everything they can lay their hands on, as they would like the media to believe. They are selling a toxic chemical to themselves at a premium to clean up their other mess, and they are poisoning the Gulf at 10-20x the rate necessary (or is it 20-40x since the dispersion rate is half?).
Makes me wanna offer them all a big steaming cup of 2-butoxyethanol.
Just sayin.
Bringing down America? Not the aim. Avoiding taxes, regulation and transparency is though. Hurting America is a bi-product.
Forgive me if this has already been mentioned, but…
I heard a news story the other day that there was another attempt to put a cover over the leaking pipe and collect the oil coming out. Is that really the best way to stop it, or is BP risking prolonging the spill in an effort to save and collect the oil?
Trust me, BP is not trying to save and collect the oil. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not really even a lot of oil to them. Think about it this way, for a typical offshore well, the federal government will get something like a 20% to 25% royalty. That means that the working interest owners of the well (in this case BP at 65%, Anadrako at 25%, and Mitsui at 10%) pay 100% of the costs and receive 75% to 80% of the revenue. Therefore, that takes BP’s share down to something like 52% (65% times 80%). If the well is producing 5,000 bbl/d, that would be something like $187,200 a day in revenue, which would have some taxes and other fees that would need to be taken out of it. In the 24 days since the spill, BP has spent around $450 million ($18.75 million per day). Do you really think they would spend $18.75 million per day so they can potentially collect $187 thousand per day in revenue?
The best way to stop the spill is by drilling a relief well. They are drilling two of them. They started drilling the first on May 2nd and the second should start within days. These other things they are trying like the large dome, small dome, injecting crap are just short-term measures.
Bomb Designer, Mars Expert Sent by Obama to Fix Oil Spill
Perhaps the president has decided it’s time for a custom H-bomb.
WOOT!
I know… ‘nuke it’ is starting to become an option.
Basically, the reason to pump it out is to relieve the pressure down there. If they don’t, it’ll leak… and also blow up whatever they put down there.
What good would putting it in a microwave oven do?
The gulf loop current continues its favorable path:
latest Gulf current animation
No obvious eddy formation either.
Eddies:
I can’t find the link now, but the Soviets literally used nuclear bombs to plug blowouts. 5 times IIRC, a small device buried 5 km below the surface and some distance from the pipe. Kablooey, and a mass of earth is forced through the pipe, clogging it.
I don’t know just how well it works, what the risks are, and so on. I won’t be surprised if it is considered not acceptable.
From this very thread:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=12417479#post12417479