An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure

I think the following comment from another blog is worth sharing.
I would also add that the BP oil blowout is an example of over-active optimism.

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2010/05/why-obama-should-put-bp-under-temporary-receivership.html

bakho said in reply to me...

The only certain way to stop the leak is to drill a relief well. That is the way they stopped the last one (in Mexico) and that took 9 months to stop. The current relief well will take at least until August. Everything else is like Apollo 13, but much more complicated. They have drilled into Pandora's box. The blowout preventer was Plan B. Plan C is drilling a relief well. Plan C requires months to complete.

They are working over 5000 feet under the sea. Only the Big oil companies have much experience down there. The US government has little expertise in drilling. All the expertise and the drilling equipment and the deep underwater equipment designed for drilling is in the hands of Big Oil.

All the oil companies are chipping in because the spill is a major political disaster that threatens all their oil leases.

Granted the top management at BP is probably MBA types and not engineers. However, in a government takeover, there would have to be a reporting structure. It would have to be someone familiar enough with undersea oil drilling to communicate effectively with the engineers and approve or deny proposals.

The reason why those rigs have blowout preventers is precisely because a leak like this cannot be stopped after the fact in a timely fashion any other way. Since the blowout preventer is not functional, they are screwed.

"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of remediation." This is another case where prevention must work because remediation is too slow and not always possible.
Reply May 31, 2010 at 08:48 PM




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