Letter to "Time" Magazine

Letters to the Editor

Time Magazine

New York, NY

Dear sirs:

I read with great interest your article on bankrupt cities and counties ("The Broken States of America," June 28, 2010). Here in Dallas we are cutting library hours by half and closing public pools at the height of summer, putting police officers on furlough days and laying off maintenance workers--and Texas is actually doing better than most states. The summer's other big stories - the Tea Party movement, the oil spill in the Gulf, Federal government spending and the national debt - are inextricably linked. It's obvious that we Americans are demanding a lifestyle that we are unwilling to pay for. In plain economic terms, this is insanity. Which will it be? Top notch services, a first-class military and police force, energy independence and a sturdy infrastructure, or low taxes, low taxes and low taxes? Everything, including "cheap oil," has a price.

Very truly yours,

Jennifer P. Jonsson

Dallas, TX

Guest Column: The Gulf Oil Spill

Hi all! My cousin Kyle, who is awesome, is an oilman. Not a Texas oilman, exactly -- more of an Alaskan oilman. He also happens to work for BP. I asked him to give us his take on what happened in the Gulf of Mexico recently, when eleven men died trying to bring us fuel and plastic products and a potential environmental catastrophe was unleashed. Here's what he had to say.

It's been a very emotional month for most BP employees. What happened on the Deepwater Horizon and the subsequent spill will have far reaching effects for every single citizen - politically, environmentally, economically. The science and technology that is required to drill in ultra deep water is both amazing and immensely complex. It's difficult to describe, but the cumulative scientific knowledge and skill required to do this is second to none - this is NASAstuff.... not outer space, but inner space exploration. It is extremely difficult and it is very dangerous work. If anything, the public is not getting a crash course in the risks we take to "fuel" our life styles. There needs to be honest and open debate about the risk / rewards of the life styles we lead, because the Gulf of Mexico is a very prolific hydrocarbon basin and our most important source of domestic oil, but it also contains some the richest bio-mass and bio-diversity in all the known oceans.

The sequence of events is still not clear, but in most accidents like this there is a cascading string of events that ultimately lead to catastrophes. In all operations in BP safety is always first. So, imagine the reaction of all the BP employees when this happened.... the safety culture here is very deep and very real. When planning for deep water drill holes we try to anticipate and mitigate all the known and typical problems we experience while drilling including the dreaded blow-out. This was a shocker to me.

Known: There was a blow-out. First, you have to understand the pressures involved in deep water drilling. Pressure is the key and its what you need to control - it will kill you if you don't and it will kill you fast. Controlling pressure is a balancing act of sorts and very complicated, but while drilling we use weighted muds to hold back the pressure. If the mud is too light - hydrocarbons will enter the well bore at higher pressures and you get a kick. If you don't control the kick and it gets away from you a blow-out can occur if the blow-out preventers don't activate. If the mud is too heavy, drilling fluids can leak off in the the rock formations. If you lose too much fluid, the weight of your mud column decreases and again hydrocarbons can enter the well bore to create a kick and a blow-out can occur. These are the basics and it's important to remember.

Known: The Blow-Out Preventer didn't operate as designed. This is tantamount to having the wings fall off a jet liner. Wings are not supposed to fall off airplanes.... but in rare events they do. The 48-ft 450 ton BOP was designed to withstand and bleed off a 15,000-psi kick. If the BOP was compromised in some way, this pressure rating could be much lower. From what has been made public, the pressures experienced on the deep water horizon was at a minimum of 6000 psi moments before the blow-out.

About BOPs. The BOP can pinch or shear almost anything to prevent a kick reaching the surface. However, most BOPs cannot shear drill collars and some specific tools (I don't know much about this BOP). When running drill collars and tools across the BOP, pressure is monitored very, very closely and the mud is well circulated and circulation rates are observed to make sure there are not abnormal circulation rates which can be an indication of a kick. Also, most BOPs are in a default closed position - deadman trigger so to speak. Hydraulic pressure is used to actually keep the BOP from closing shut. Why? If communication is lost with the surface and the hydraulic pressure drops to the BOP, it will automatically close and shut in the well. In this case, the BOP might have been compromised. It is critical to the investigation to retrieve the BOP to see why it didn't prevent the release of oil.

Known: This blow-out DID NOT occur while drilling. Drilling was completed and the crew had cemented the last section of casing called the completion. Most exploration wells are plugged and abandoned after the evaluation - this requires the hole to be cemented-up and properly capped. At this point a well has no more utility. This particular well, however, was a very prolific producer and we chose to complete the well and put it on a long-term production test. The well was being prepared for a sub-sea tie back to a nearby existing production header on the sea floor. So, rather than cementing the hole, the well fluid (remember the drilling mud) was being displaced with sea-water. This is standard procedure when preparing a well for production as the drilling mud can damage the productivity of the well.

Speculation: The crew of the deep water horizon thought they were dealing with a stable well. Clearly, this was not the case. The entire well was now completely cased - drilling activity was over. Then the wings fell off - something went terribly wrong.

Speculation: Blow-out occurred so quickly the night tower crew didn't know what hit them. If they knew they lost control of the pressure below them, they might not have had time to react. A blowout is the uncontrolled release (kick) of crude oil and/or natural gas from an oil well after pressure control systems have failed. Blow-outs are violent and destructive. As the gas moves up hole the pressure decreased and the gas bubbles in the column expand and accelerate. Near the surface the rate of gas expansion can reach super-sonic speeds. The gas release at the surface will create a gas "wind" which can destroy equipment and kill. The wind of methane gas at these pressures could be as fast as 300 mph!!

Speculation: The gas somehow got into the the drill-string. The most plausible theory I've heard is that the final string of casing collapsed around the drill pipe forcing fluids up the drill pipe and through the last string of casing to the surface. Did the cement fail? Did the cement disaggregate methane hydrates? Was the casing not to spec? How this could happen is unclear, but this would be a very, very rare event given the stage of the operation they were in. Perhaps, the weight of the sea-water in the well (the drilling mud was displaced) wasn't heavy enough to keep hydrocarbons from entering the now completed well. It's hard to really say.

Known: In the end the BOP was compromised somehow and could not prevent the blow-out. Clearly, if failed to shut all the way.

This is really all I know. I'm not going blame any one company for this. As the operator of the well, BP is responsible for the clean-up and will need to provide answers to the public. In the end, it's my hope that logic, cool heads, and honest debate can occur, but at this point I don't expect more than political theater and finger pointing.

Kyle

Jen speaking: I'd like to hope that we can go a little farther than that and talk about our fondness for petroleum products, as well as alternative sources of energy. As of right now, nobody has come up with a better idea, and I expect offshore drilling will continue. We need to think about how much of that we want to do. And let's not forget that eleven families are without their fathers, sons and brothers today. People die to bring us oil, and not just in war zones.

Battle of the Eco-Snobs

Playing in the background: The soft gurgle of the kitty fountain
Meters swum yesterday: 1800 (whoo-hoo!)

They're at it again. As gas prices continue to creep upward, my North Texas denizens are writing letters to the paper, slamming each other for various driving habits. While I think it's true that the one sure way to bring gas prices down is to frick'n use less of the stuff, people seem to have endless ideas about the best way to do that and they all think they're right. Which means everybody else is wrong. Which means they're behaving just like church people, which, seeing as it's Sunday, is totally appropriate.

Quick disclaimer: I do drive to work, by myself, most days. Roughly two days a week, Joan and I drive together, which saves us about 32 miles, or maybe a gallon and a half vs. driving alone. I live about eight miles from my office. There is public transit and I do use it sometimes, but it's not terribly convenient from here and takes twice as long. Throw in going to the pool and I'm more or less forced to drive by myself. Joan is not terribly keen on getting up at 5 am and hanging out at a Starbucks for two hours, waiting for me to drive her the rest of the way to work.

We have a Saturn Vue, which gets like 20 mpg, and a Toyota Corolla, which gets 28. Most weeks we're going through about half a tank in the Vue and maybe a quarter tank in the Corolla, the "other car." Which doesn't seem like much. I'm always after new and exciting ways to use less, though. If not for two really nasty hills I could ride my bike to the pool, and Joan could pick me (and the bike) up in the Vue afterward. So yesterday I browsed around on the Internet for an electric bike, which has a small motor that can push you up hills. I found a couple of options, but they all cost around $1000. So much for that idea. It might be an option in the future, though.

Back to the paper. Some guy writes in about how gas-guzzling SUVs are feeding the terrorists. Then some lady writes in saying, "Hey, I have an SUV because I car pool all the kids in my neighborhood, and you're driving your Mini-Cooper 45 miles to work one way, and how is that saving any gas, you moron?" Then some other guy writes in and says that they're both idiots and the best way to save gas is to live downtown in a walk-up. Meanwhile, my cousin Kyle, who works for BP and should therefore be the Deciding Word, sends around an email saying by far the biggest problem we've got energy-wise is how we've built all these cities sprawled out for miles and miles, and that's not going to be fixed any time soon. He advocates all of the above; moving closer to work, driving a fuel-efficient car, ride sharing and so on.

I think Kyle has the right idea. I think everyone else, including me, is missing the basic point. One could argue the whole history of Western exploitation of Middle Eastern oil resources and the geopolitics of global warming, business interests, declining production and investment capital for several years, but let's just consider this for a second; we got into this mess by not thinking. Not thinking about the environment when we built the cities. Not thinking about the length of the commute to work when we bought a house. Not thinking about the budgetary consequences, or the effect on the ozone layer, of buying a Hummer. Not thinking about how our actions, both individual and as a society, effect other people, other countries, other climates and other beings. Maybe the guy with the mini-Cooper is smarter than the lady with the Hummer, but at least they're both thinking.

So there's the task, the mission for the millenium. THINK. Be mindful of how you affect other people and things. Be aware that your purchasing decisions do have consequences. Consider that you might not have all the answers and it wouldn't kill you to listen to other people every now and again. Do what you can to save gas, but don't beat up on other people just because they save gas in different ways. If you're not driving your Hummer 45 miles one way to work by yourself, you're doing something right. And if you are--well, why are you? Think about that. In any case, quit writing letters to the paper bashing other people for their choices. All that ink and paper being used up to make somebody else feel bad. Honestly. Cut it out.

So when are they gonna put me in charge?