Apocryphal Account of the Cause of the Deepwater Horizon Platform Failure: Batteries. [View all]
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.
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