I can’t help but have some sympathy for the folks at BP just now. They are not the evil empire and despite their poor safety history, say, the recent Texas City refinery explosion, they do in fact rack up a good many safe operating hours doing very hazardous work. They handle and process flammable materials on the gigantic scale. And, they respond to market pull for petroleum products.
I have been to meetings in their facilities in the UK and discussed new technology platforms that they wanted to bring on stream. I have listen to a few of their scientists describe their technology and marveled at the new things they have found for molecules to do. They are smart, competent, and well meaning people and we should not lose sight of this.
BP helps to provide the petroleum that we use to conduct out busy modern lives. We gladly consume every bit of their output. In fact, their contribution to the supply picture helps to keep hydrocarbon prices low. The same is true of all the producers.
The now famous spill in the gulf is clearly a bad thing and it happened to them for several reasons. But consumers have not responded to this in what you might call a philosophical manner. Nobody seems to be jolted into wakefulness by the depth that producers have to drill to find oil or the fact that these guys are resorting to drilling way out on the continental shelf. We just plug along expecting demanding that they keep producing at the same price.
If the critics of BP can drill better or operate distillation towers or cat crackers better than BP, then they should get off their duffs and do it. Put up or shut up. The chronic condition we are all subject to is the truism that we can do better. If you think you can be a better driller, then try it. It’s harder than it looks and it doesn’t look easy.
Lamentations on Chemistry 
You comments are welcome reprieve from the endless barrage of invective that streams out of so many people right now. The spill in the Gulf is an absolute tragedy and the responsible parties should be held account for it. But those who a scream the loudest fail to acknowledge the faustian bargain the modern world has struck.
The petroleum industry is going further and further afield to satisfy the never-slowing demand and the risks grow accordingly. I have heard comments from people who want to bankrupt the company over this, never recognizing the countless responsible individuals who work there producing a necessary, and hazardous, product and producing interesting science.
If there were deliberate actions that resulted in the well’s failure (their is growing evidence this may be the case) those responsible should bear the brunt of the responsibility. But unless they have a substitute for the million of barrels consumed every day, those who want to pillory BP and the people who work in the petro industry should grab some Dawn and carpool to the Gulf and put their energy to a constructive purpose.
The spill is an absolute disaster and should force this country to examine its energy future, but the first step is recognizing that we the petroleum consumers are as much responsible for the spill as is BP.
Note: I am not a petro employee. But I am in brewing so I have seen an entire industry painted with a single brush before.
I agree that BP does not need to be pilloried. This is not about loving or hating one company.
All the arguments and outraged statements are symptoms of colliding resource and technology issues relating to drilling for oil. We are now hearing the ruckus that results when people are forced to face some reality they would prefer to ignore, some nonzero risk they would prefer to think of as zero.
With respect to offshore drilling, something like the current sequence of events and reactions was going to happen eventually. But notice that the public can no more control its stupid reactions than BP could have prevented every last accident from happening.
“… consumers have not responded to this in what you might call a philosophical manner.”
Groups of people seldom respond in a philosophical manner to anything. What we are observing is just how humans behave.
If people were always sensible, and oil drilling were always safe, none of this would have happened! Heh heh.
Your comments are a classic example of regulatory capture, or more correctly the Stockholm syndrome. Yet another sycophantic US citizen stoned out on Ambian and happy pills.
The company should be nationalized and the executives flogged. This company has an abysmal safety record.
(actually death by pelican mauling would be a better fate for the BP managers.)
-an outraged mass
Actually, my comment is based on experience with daily participation in handling highly hazardous materials in hazardous environments. My friend, shit happens when you operate complex systems on a routine basis. Safety awareness or safety acknowledgement drifts over time. People become comfortable behind their layers of protection. Complex systems can fail in ways that you cannot predict. Calculation of low frequency, high consequence risks may be based on faulty assumptions. If we want petroleum, we have to expect failures of this magnitude now and then. I’m truly astonished that this doesn’t happen more often. One of the recurring themes of the extractive industry is calamity.
Drilling platforms are made from mechanical parts that each have a failure rate. These individual parts have a set of failure modes that can be close or distantly coupled to the failure of other parts or systems. Failure can propagate slowly or rapidly.
Platforms have hazardous energy in the form of high pressure, rotating machinery, sparks & flame, and electrical energy. Through these systems we run pressurized flammable materials at fantastic mass flows. Its a freaking wonder that every third platform doesn’t go up in a fireball. But they tend not to. That’s a fact. Overall, risks are managed quite well. The BP disaster is an example of a low frequency, high impact failure. These are the most vexing of all types of failures.
It’s true that events like the Gulf blowout are the inevitable outcome of doing risky work to satisfy a huge demand, to produce a product which is used by virtually every person in America.
What is new is that the risks associated with extracting oil and gas from the earth are now continually rising. At some point the monetary and non-monetary costs of drilling are bound to curtail our use of petroleum.
The only question is whether we will slow down our drilling and consumption before or after we experience one or more catastrophes that threaten the survival of our own species.
I’m guessing we won’t stop until it’s too late to fix the damage we have already caused. We are going to drill and extract until our civilization is so damaged we literally cannot drill any more.
That is humankind for you. There’s no stopping us.
I think Malthus figured out the endgame long ago.