Apocryphal Account of the Cause of the Deepwater Horizon Platform Failure: Batteries.

[NNadir]

Last night I attended a lecture by the Princeton University Science Librarian who formerly ran the USGS library.

She described her work during the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster which took place in 2010. Her access to literature proved to be a key aspect of addressing the disaster. She was under intense pressure.

The disaster, which killed more human beings (11 directly) than radiation releases at Fukushima has, although Fukushima if familiar to all antinukes and other people who can carry on endlessly about it, has gone down the Orwellian "Memory Hole."

Anyone and everyone can talk all about Fukushima, albeit from a perspective (usually) of extreme ignorance, but no one gives a rat's ass about Deepwater Horizon anymore. This is similar to the big concern over so called "nuclear waste" which has a spectacular record of not killing anyone in over half a century, while not giving a rat's ass about the 19,000 people (roughly) who die each day from fossil fuel waste, aka "air pollution," not even mentioning climate change.

Like all disasters, there were three issues, addressing the immediate consequences at Deepwater Horizon, monitoring the long term consequences. According to the librarian the cause was a battery failure, because the batteries powering the blowout valves, designed to prevent an explosion, were not designed to function at low temperatures.

I was surprised to hear this, but apparently it's been known for some time, and can actually be found on the Wikipedia page for the Horizon Deepwater event. But again, no one gives a shit anymore about Deepwater Horizon.

Have a nice day.

[Martin68]

1. I appreciate the author's perspective on the significance of the Deepwater Horizon disaster and the

rapidity with which it has faded in the public’s memory. I entirely agree that the extent of the damage and the significance in terms of the danger posed by deep water oil rigs is not taken seriously enough.

I have quite a bit of insight into the effects of the Fukushima disaster because my wife’s ancestral home was located on a stream about halfway between two of reactor sites. Her family had been living there for hundreds of years with a thriving and unique culture. Her family not only farmed crops and livestock, but grew silkworms, and wove and dyed and assembled fine kimono. The family included a number of highly respected traditional musicians and calligraphers. The only thing remaining of their homes, belongings, and farm buildings is the family cemetery, which was located on a hill and escaped the effects of the tsunami. 47,000 residents were evacuated to escape the effects of radiation, and will never be able to live there again. Deepwater Horizon was a horrific ecological disaster, but, because it took place on land, the Fukushima disaster erased centuries of human culture and permanently deprived tens of thousands of their ancestral land. In 2016 I walked the site with members of her family who had special permission to make a short visit. I had been welcomed into their home years before, and was incredibly moved to realize that their lives there had been completely erased and could never be reconstructed. I visited the cemetery with them to burn incense in their memory, and contemplate the great loss that had occurred. Please do not minimize the pain and suffering these people have suffered.

[NNadir]

2. You're confusing the effects of fear of radiation with radiation itself.

Last edited Thu Nov 30, 2023, 02:33 PM - Edit history (1)

It is well known that the number of people killed by the evacuation easily exceeds the number of people killed by radiation, which if not zero is close to zero.

I recently attended another lecture at Princeton, by Ryo Morimoto the author of "Nuclear Ghost." I have not read this book, but my take on the author's lecture is precisely what I indicated.

The main cause of the trauma was fear and ignorance, not radiation.

During the Northern Hemisphere summer huge stretches of the planet burned. The same is now happening in the Southern Hemisphere. Vast glaciers on which billions of people depend are disappearing. Seas are rising and island nations are trying to figure out where their inhabitants will go.

You want to talk about silkworms. I want to talk about the entire planet. When 1/3 of Pakistan went under water from melting glaciers in September 2022, do you think any cultures were impacted? Is it possible that some of the cultural artifacts destroyed in these floods were hundreds of years old? Any important ecosystems, and economic animals destroyed.

Suppose the nuclear reactors weren't there. Would anyone have cared about the roughly 20,000 people killed by seawater?

No, they wouldn't.

And for the record, the Oil Slick from the Deep Horizon disaster was the size of the State of Oklahoma. I deplore the statement that it wasn't "too bad" because it was at sea. Hundreds of thousands of lives have derived their living from the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It's not a lesser event simply because you care more about silkworms than craps and fish.

Everybody has an anecdote that they feel justifies their selective attention. I reject this nonsense wholly.

People whining about Fukushima should come back to me when they want to advocate for the banning of coastal cities because of the risks of Tsunamis.

Nuclear power need not be without risk to be superior to everything else. It only needs to be superior everything else, which it is.

The carrying on about Fukushima is, in my view, obscene, and frankly deadly.

[Martin68]

9. Your answer is both arrogant and unhelpful. First of all, I'm not confused in the least. Your assumption

that any disagreement with your assessment is “confused” is pretentious and unwarranted. Your cavalier attitude toward 20,000 deaths is shocking to say the least. You apparently have little regard for human life in general, or an appreciation of the Japanese value on human life. “No one would care?” Declaring that my counter-example is “nonsense" suggests you have an agenda that prevents you from admitting any other view other than your own pre-conceived notions.

You contend that the evacuation ordered and enforced by the Japanese government, and still stringently enforced, was due to "fear and ignorance.” A 2013 WHO report predicts that for populations living in the most affected areas there is a 70% higher risk of developing thyroid cancer for girls exposed as infants (the risk has risen from a lifetime risk of 0.75% to 1.25%), a 7% higher risk of leukemia in males exposed as infants, a 6% higher risk of breast cancer in females exposed as infants and a 4% higher risk, overall, of developing solid cancers for females. I suppose since you consider 20,000 deaths beneath your notice this wouldn’t concern you. But then you have made clear you could care less about a few people suffering and dying from cancer, or thens of thousands being forced to permanently evacuate from their ancestral homes.

You furthermore egregiously misquote me when you write that I said the Deepwater Horizon event wasn't "too bad" because it was at sea. I made no such statement. What I said was that the Fukushima event had a greater and more immediate impact on society than the Deepwater event because it took place on land. It is in fact your views, and vulgar expression of them, that are obscene. If you are serious about persuading people of anything at all, you will need quite a bit of work on your communication skills.

In the end you concede that your assessment is based on a callous calculation that, in your opinion, tens of thousands of lives lost are insignificant - in spite of the fact taht your original post made a big deal about the 11 lives lost in the Deep Horizon event.

[NNadir]

10. I stand by what I said, and will make no apologies for my response to what I regard as selective attention.

On the scale of environmental disasters, Fukushima is a triviality, and no amount of whining to the contrary will change my mind.

[Woodwizard]

3. For some there is only one solution

Nuke or nothing.

[hunter]

4. How do you propose we quit fossil fuels?

The usual "renewable energy" schemes won't cut it.

Like it or not, nuclear power is the only energy resource capable of displacing fossil fuels entirely.

Quitting fossil fuels entirely is something we must do.

[Woodwizard]

5. I currently put more on the grid than I consume

Put 9 kw of solar on my shop in 2014 did 80 percent I installed another 4K last year. Now I put more on the grid than we consume.

First install paid for Iself in 7 years the additional 4 will be less than 5 the components are less than a dollar a watt now.

Is it the total solution? No neither is putting nuke plants all over the world.

[hunter]

6. You are welcome to read through my journal.

Here's a typical entry.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=3075132

How would your system work without a grid connection?

How many batteries would it take to achieve even 98% reliability in your system all year around if you were not connected to the grid?

Can your "solution" to the problem support eight billion people?

You can watch the real world performance of gigawatt scale solar, wind, and energy storage systems on sites like this:

https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE

I'll start you off with Germany because their aggressive "renewable" energy programs have been an ongoing catastrophe.

The economic viability of solar and wind power in my own state of California is entirely dependent on natural gas.

[Woodwizard]

7. You have very selective comprehention

I did not say it was the only answer neither is nukes.

Lets put sophisticated nuke plants all over the world how are you maintaining all of them? Chain of security on all the material should be no issue right?
And all the countries we dont get along with no issue there.

[hunter]

8. If China, India, etc. replace fossil fuel power plants with nuclear power plants...

... that's a positive step.

They already have nuclear weapons.

Global warming is the greater threat to world civilization.

[NNadir]

11. We always have people who want to carry on about their bourgeois toys.

It's the end of 2023.

I've been at DU for 21 years, and I've lost count of how many people carried on about their swell bourgeois solar junk, which I see as future electronic waste.

In that time, the time of my tenure at DU, the concentration of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide has risen by 48.02 ppm (exactly) as of this writing, with this week's numbers here:

Week beginning on November 26, 2023: 420.59 ppm
Weekly value from 1 year ago: 417.81 ppm
Weekly value from 10 years ago: 396.21 ppm
Last updated: December 02, 2023

Weekly average CO2 at Mauna Loa

In this century the rise has been 51.35 ppm.

As for the world at large, despite half a century of carrying on about how so called "renewable energy" will save us, the following from the International Energy Agency, in SI units, Exajoules, not misleading drivel about watts, stating the peak power that solar junk never reaches:

The numbers are here: 2023 World Energy Outlook published by the International Energy Agency (IEA), Table A.1a on Page 264.



We are using more fossil fuels than ever, and combined, the solar and wind crap can't even keep up with the annual increases in the use of dangerous fossil fuels.

In the 21 years I've been here, about 150 million people have died for air pollution, which is never described as what it is, dangerous fossil fuel waste.

Global burden of 87 risk factors in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 (Lancet Volume 396, Issue 10258, 17–23 October 2020, Pages 1223-1249)

Numbers don't lie. People lie, to themselves and to each other, but numbers don't lie.

The 21 years of this tiresome bullshit "look at my swell solar cells" and "let me tell you about the nickels I save when the sun is shining" has meant nothing, zero, nada, zilch to the world at large.

The best time to have put nuclear plants all over the world, provincials carrying on about their nobility notwithstanding, would have been 30 years ago. The second best time is now.

If he we don't build nuclear plants all over the world, we will have no chance to save what's left to save, nor to restore what can be restored.

All over the world, it's sinking in, and the indifferences and intellectual insufficiency of provincials is being swept aside.

Nuclear energy no longer a taboo, WNE hears

We are, of course, building nuclear plants as fast as we need to - Grossi's point is well taken - but as long as we are not doing so we are plundering all future generations of human beings, and, in fact, given climate change, all living things.

Here are the consequences graphically of the extreme and deadly ignorance that drives anti-nukism, in units of CO₂/kwh, in that German antinuke coal dependent hellhole:



Electricity Map, 30 days, Germany

It's tiresome to hear how provincials pretend to care about the world at large, when clearly they don't.

[Woodwizard]

12. You know what they say about wrestling with a pig..........

[NNadir]

13. What I see is someone with trouble wrestling with numbers.

Wrestling with numbers requires something called "education."

If one lacks an education, one may be restricted to thinking of pigs, thus a provincial, unaware of the world.