Gulf_of_Mexico_Oil_Spill

Due to lack of energy resources and high demand of energy consumption, more energy supply is needed. However because we are depending on non-renewable resources and overusing it a lot, those are getting hard to recover and find out. Therefore many scientists are trying to find and develop the new way to get energy. However non-renewable resources are still important resources to us; consequence, some companies are taking out fossil fuel from the deep sea, because there are no new gold mines in the world except in the deep sea. Indeed, the deep sea is not a safe place for drilling operation but companies pay the best attention to only profits. As a result, companies keep drilling and taking out the fossil fuel, operations might cause a crisis though. BP, one of the companies that taking the fossil fuel from the deep sea, has been saying safety of the operations, but in April, a big accident, which was called BP oils spill, happened. BP oil spill is known as one of the worst oil accidents in the history. Oil leaking, which was caused by an explosion of drilling rig Deepwater horizon was at 5.000 feet below the surface (Robertson, 2010)i. In the end, it took 153 days to finish stop leaking, and during oil spill, more than 4 million barrels of oils were spewed into the sea. Reasons of why damage of the accident expanded were technical difficulty of the operation and a low motivation of workers for safety that environmentalists warned (Hays, 2010)ii. A main working field of an energy industry has moved to the deep sea, but due to a location, companies had to take new risks; therefore BP oil spill was a natural effect. The contents of the subject from the handout are basically agreeable for me in accord with the above, but I found some lack of objectivity from the subject. For instance, BP is not the only one who has to take the responsibility but others, namely, rig owner Transocean and contractor Halliburton also should take responsibility for the accident. Moreover the trend of public opinion is also arguable for me. Indeed, liability of perpetrators is heavy because reasons of the accident was preventable and the impact of the spill dealt and keep dealing serious damage to everywhere, but I can see some fallacious commotion; therefore I would like to write about what is the companies’ the fault and fallaciousness of reaction to the accident. First of all, the main misstep of the companies was being rash; therefore they led the accident happens. Safety was not promoted in the oil industry. What workers had to care was finish the project quickly (Rascoe, 2010)iii. Because some companies may believe that safety never make profits, there is always a possibility that the companies consider safety as worthless. Even though, the truth is that if a company prevents a trouble that could be a financial loss, it means as same as the company earns profits because save money and earn money are same things to bookkeepers. However, the companies, which caused the accident, believed safety is not as worth as income; as a result, they made a mistake such as operations without appropriate equipment. One of the reasons of why it took 153 days to stop the oil leaking completely was a failure of the blowout preventer (BOP) that should stopped the oil leaking, but Goldfinch (2010) says the failure of BOP was a quite natural result; BOP systems are designed for shallow water and this marks the first time anyone has tried to adapt it for deepwater, but working this deep is like trying to drill on the moon, and getting equipment to work reliably at this depth is incredibly hard. I don't think anyone took into account how deep this well was, and no one had tried and tested the equipment at such depth. We're talking about 20,000psi down there, and I don't think the equipment was designed for deepwater. Possibly unfair demands were made on the system on the seabed.( http://www.offshore-technology.com/features/feature95452/)iv Although spokesmen of the companies keep telling us how safe their business is, I can see a lack of the pure depth involved in the operation of the companies; consequence, they allowed the accident that dealt serious damage to the environment of Gulf of Mexico, and no one knows how far the damage will expand and when traces of the accident will disappear. Indeed, as I explained about the fault of the companies, the perpetrators who cased the accident were the companies. However, trend of public opinion focuses on only the surface of the problems so that the trend is one-sided. This is our bad habit of focusing on only visible things; therefore, everyone was surprised when they did not find any polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, the most hazardous constituents of oil, from 13.000 square kilometers of the Gulf of Mexico since July 3. Thus, there is one question occur. Did we exaggerate the damage' Kintisch (2010) says no; I don't think it was overblown. I think we overestimated the short-term impact, and I think we're underestimating the long-term impact. … The safety of gulf seafood will be in question for some time (http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/08/huge-area-for-fishing-reopened.html'ref=hp)v. Because the oil was leaking under 5, 000 feet of the sea, methods that scientists used might not be certain as usual, but unfortunately, people, not scientists, often pay attention to surface of the sea to estimate the damage, so that they may expect wrong results. To be honest, the most one-sided thing is the response to BP. According to the subject from the handout, Tony Hayward the CEO of BP had to resign because of political outrage and terse exchanges of opinion, but he was not the only one who had to take a responsibility. At least there are two another CEOs, namely, the CEO of Transocean and the CEO of Halliburton should take the responsibility as well. Transocean was a owner of the Deepwater horizon, so if the explosion was caused by inadequacy of the device, Transocean was the one who had to take the responsibility most. Halliburton was a contractor of BP and it had a responsibility of some parts of the operation. Indeed, President Barack Obama was also felt negative feeling from 52 percent of Americans as similar as when President George W. Bush was handling of hurricane Katrina in 2005. However, BP was garnering negative opinion rather than the president, such as 83 percent of disapproval to BP(Orgon live.com, 2010)vi. Moreover, according to the subject, an author says, “political backlash by local, national and international parties is capable of long term economic implication for perpetrators, and new policy development capable of restrictions on all involved in resource utilization”. I think the author’s estimation would happen, but if strict restrictions occur on oil industry, a quantity of energy supply will decrease, because we still rely on the oil. Therefore actually, we cannot allow the strict restrictions to prevent a shortage of energy. Environmentalists lobby the government to stop seeking oil from the deep sea, but I do not think we can stop it unless environmentalists innovate new resources. The increase of the quantity of the energy demand and lack of new oil wells, the companies had to take risks such as moving work field into the deep sea. BP was one of the companies that bet on the deep sea. However, due to the lack of preparation of equipment and the culture that dose not pay the best attention for safety as much as for maximizing and optimizing their profits; as a result, the biggest oil accident happened, but because it was critically big, people lost composure. Therefore, the response for the accident was one-sided. Even though there is several companies were involved in the accident, only BP was closed up from the public opinion; as a result, only the CEO of BP resigned. Indeed, Gulf of Mexico oil spill was caused by stupid reasons, but the response of the public opinion was also stupid.