Copyright 2010 by John T. Reed

After all, the chief business of the American people is business.

So said President Calvin Coolidge on January 17, 1925. He was right, but Democrats hate business and the American people in general hate oil companies and oil company profits.

So why not take the logical next step? Outlaw all oil companies. We almost have.

I seem to recall that nine of the top ten oil companies in the world were American in my youth. I could not find a source for that when doing this article. But they sure are not America today. Only two are: Exxon/Mobil and Chevron.

Here is a partial list of defunct American oil companies:

Amoco
Atlantic Petroleum
Conoco Inc.
Humble Oil
Skelly Oil
Standard Oil
Standard Oil of Colorado
Standard Oil of Ohio
Standard Oil of Iowa
Standard Oil of Kentucky
Superior Oil Company
Texaco
Tidewater Petroleum
Tosco Corporation
Unocal Corporation

Almost all Americans say they want energy independence. I wrote an article explaining why that is an idiotic goal. But let’s set aside the facts and logic pertinent to the wisdom of energy independence. Is hatred of and attacks against American oil companies or oil companies incorporated in long-time allies of the U.S. like Britain (BP) and Holland (Shell) consistent with our desire for energy independence?

Imperfect
Oil companies are imperfect. Their tankers and wells sometimes leak oil. Viewed overall, they have a fabulous safety record. But they are not perfect. Probably no one could do better and God help us if their critics ever got control of making sure tankers and offshore drilling rigs were operated safely.

But when there is an accident, the left goes nuts. For starters, they are thrilled to death because it “proves them right.” They are also thrilled with the opportunity to beat their chests self-righteously at this evidence of their enormous moral superiority. And they are thrilled with the crisis that should not be allowed to go to waste to paraphrase Rahm Emmanuel.

So shut them down. No more drilling anywhere in the U.S. or in its coastal waters. Stop all current drilling. Punish the oil companies so severely that they either go bankrupt or, if they are foreign companies like BP, they refuse to do business with or in the U.S.

I think the only thing that will satisfy the American people is to nationalize the entire oil industry within the U.S. Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who like Carter and the Clintons refuses to go away quietly, says Obama should nationalize BP. Nationalization is unconstitutional. For the U.S. to“ nationalize” a foreign company like British Petroleum is banana republic-ish.

But since we seem to be able to ignore the Constitution these days, Obama probably could take over all U.S. oil companies and gas stations and refineries and wells. The employees would be replaced with the Obama supporters like the SEIU and Teamsters. Executives would be replaced by “accountable” political appointees. A gallon of gas would cost $20 and climbing. The number and severity of spills would skyrocket.

The U.S. economy would go into a permanent severe depression and we would have to resume life as it was around 1880—lots of horse-drawn wagons.

But at least those damned oil companies would no longer be making a profit and that’s more important than anything else.

Tankers
In the wake of some bad tanker oil spills, the government cracked down severely on oil companies operating tankers. If you read my article on the left’s inability to understand the meaning of the word “if,” you can predict what the oil companies did in response to severe mandates and penalties being imposed on operators of oil tankers. They got out of that business and subcontracted out their shipment of oil to infinitely less responsible, less financially strong oil tanker companies you never heard of. So next time an oil tanker runs aground, don’t sue Exxon. Sue Mustafa’s Oil Tanker and Banana Boat Corporation LLC flying the flag of Elbonia.

Whose fault?
It appears someone screwed up in the recent Gulf oil spill. The three parties all blamed each other. Obama threw a hissy fit about it. They still blame each other, but nice hissy fit. Eleven guys died on the rig when it caught fire and collapsed. Perhaps some of the dead were the witnesses who could tell us who really was at fault. The matter ought to be investigated and appropriate action taken. But job one at the moment is to stop leakage of oil from the well head and to prevent the oil in the water from harming land or underwater ecology.

Sending the U.S. attorney general to the scene to see whom to criminally prosecute does not strike me as conducive to stopping the ongoing leak or encouraging better oil companies to seek to replace BP in future Gulf of Mexico drilling. Indeed, I am surprised that anyone is willing to drill for oil in U.S. jurisdiction. I might feel sorry for BP if it were not for the fact that they had plenty of warning that the U.S. is run by an angry mob with a group IQ of about 12 when it comes to oil companies.

Burn it
There was a contingency plan in place before this happened. It said the best course of action was to immediately set fire to the floating oil. Makes sense.

So why didn’t they do that? Apparently, federal bureaucrats were scared of the unpopularity they might achieve as a result of the ugly black smoke rising the from the oil fire. They figured if they let the oil come ashore, the oil companies would get blamed. But if they prevented that, but created ugly smoke in the process, they would be blamed. So they made a Sophie’s choice: “Take the beaches and marshes.”

I have a suggestion. Bomb the oil spill with napalm and set it on fire now to stop any more from reaching the beaches.

Actually, buring the oil on the beaches also makes sense. If Oil is mixed with sand, burn it. Sand does not burn. Burning an oil and sand mix leaves pristine sand behind.

Nuclear bomb
I have hear some discussion on TV that the well leak could be stopped by putting a small nuclear bomb at the site of the leak and setting it off. Reportedly, the Soviets did this once or twice in the past and it worked. So do it. What are we waiting for?

I assume we cannot do that because the left hates the very word nuclear and would throw a hissy fit if a nuke were used even to saved the birds and fishes. Leftists hug trees and polar bears and whales and snail darters and spotted owls and so on. But the hatreds of the left trump their hugs. If a nuke will save the wetlands and beaches and fishes and birds, screw the wetlands and beaches and fishes and birds. There will be no politically-incorrect solutions, even if they work. Besides were still enjoying watching BP twist slowly, slowly in the wind as Obama reneges on his recent promise to allow more offshore drilling and outlaws all previously-approved new drilling.

If a nuke would work, how about a huge conventional explosive like the Vietnam era Daisy cutter bomb (15,000 pounds of TNT) or the Iraq war MOAB? It sounds like the principle is big explosion, not necessarily nuclear explosion. It also sounds like nuclear is the best way to achieve it, but hell, humor the leftist nut cakes who, de facto, run our country, and use a conventional explosive.

Napalm is also politically incorrect. But perhaps the hate-America-first-crowd might allow it if it is only used against an oil company rather than against North Vietnamese Army troops whose only “crime” was to try to kill American military personnel.

Clean up the floating oil

Crude oil is all natural—even less man-made than trail mix grown by a Birkenstock-wearing 1960s hippy using emu poop for fertilizer. You would think the environmentalists would want to hug it.

It is also slightly valuable. On 6/3/10, a barrel of oil sold for $73.17. A barrel of oil is 42 U.S. gallons. That means each gallon of oil floating in the gulf is worth $73.17 ÷ 42 = $1.74. Fine. Buy it for that amount. When I was a kid in the 1950s and early 1960s, we could get 2¢ for an empty soda bottles. 2¢ in 1960 = 15¢ in 2010 dollars. Like today’s homeless aluminum can collectors, we hustled all over town looking for those bottles.

One would expect a bunch of folks in boats would go out into the gulf to collect floating oil if they could get $1.74 a gallon or thereabouts for it.

If so, please instruct the napalm dropping pilots to refrain from bombing the areas where boats are cleaning up the oil. And please instruct the boats cleaning up the oil to refrain from shooting at the napalm-dropping planes.

Environmentalists are partly responsible for this spill

There is also the issue of how culpable environmentalists are for causing this spill. The BP well is one mile below the surface of the water. One of the reasons BP was drilling there is that environmentalist nuts oppose all drilling everywhere. To placate them, politicians generally force oil companies to drill new wells offshore rather than onshore in California or ANWR, and they force them to drill way offshore where the rigs cannot be seen by the white wine crowd, and to punish the oil companies by making them spend tons more money to find and extract such oil.

Never mind that all such costs imposed on the oil companies are passed through to consumers at the pump.

Obama’s leadership

Obama know nothing about oil drilling or fixing malfunctioning wells under a mile of ocean. If Reagan were still president, he would simply have said,

Those who know best how to stop it are working on it. I have ordered all U.S. government agencies with relevant experise and equipment to offer whatever assistance they can. And I have ordered all clean-up resources to the affected beach and marsh areas. The best we can do now is let the experts do their work.

Obama, however, is incapbale of that sort of common sense. He made as much political hay as he could out of Katrina. Now he has a man-made disaster in the same area. He appointed the various regulators who were overseeing this oil rig. He is doing his imitation of Jimmy Carter reacting ineptly to the Iran hostage crisis in the late 1970s. Carter lost the 1980 election to Reagan in large part because of his ineptidute in the hostage crisis. To this day, Carter is viewed as the biggest presidential bust in the last century by those who lived through his malaise/hostage/gas lines administration.

By the way, a joke went around between 1980 election day when Reagan defeated Carter and inauguration day in 1981.

What’s green and glows in the dark?

Tehran after inauguration day.

Iran released the hostages who had been held for 444 days during the Reagan inauguration ceremonies—literally. Not long after that, federal air traffic controllers went on strike. Reagan gave them 48 hours to return to work and said he would fire them permanely if they did not. They did not. He did. He was not Jimmy Carter—or Barack Obama.

In a number of ways, Obama is arguably handling this worse than Carter did with the hostages. He keeps inserting himself by “taking responsibility” for the leak and for “taking responsibility” for stopping the leak and saying his daughter asking him if HE stopped the leak yet [emphasis added]. He and his people have claimed they were in charge of everything and that BP cannot scratch their nose without Obama approval “since day one.” In fact, they have almost nothing to add to the efforts to stop the leak. They could have organized a Dunkirk-like effort by every available boat to block and skim off the ocean the floating oil. They could be burning floating or beached oil. They could be gathering every boom from everywhere in the world. They could string boats together to act as booms.

The well head under a mile of water is purely tecnical, not susceptible to federal effort or resources. The floating oil, on the other hand, is susceptible to the sort of effort government can organize and mount.

But Obama is clearly clueless and flailing about trying to bluff us into thinking he is in charge of all this and engaging in optimally effective efforts. This is only the latest evidence that he thinks we are a bunch of easily fooled idiots.

His rhetoric, including Interior Secretary Salazar and White House Spokesman Gibbs saying they are putting their “boot on the throat of BP” was appalling. As are Obama’s many belligerent trash-talking threats and straw-man assassinations directed at BP. As are his flip-flooping on new drilling like a willow in the breeze.

The majority of American voters wanted an unqualified man in charge of the exeutive branch because of the skin color of his father and their dislike of the other party’s recent performance. Odd criteria for choosing the man to fill the most imporant job on earth, but, hey—majority rules.

How’s that hopey changey thing working out for you?

Hannity has been excoriating Obama for various events unrelated to the spill like welcoming the national championship Duke basketball team to the White House. Hannity has also accused Obama of being the new Jimmy Carter. I think Obama is to an extent the new Jimmy Carter. But one of the dumb things Carter did was to isolate himself in the White House because U.S. hostages were being held in Iran. Carter thereby made himself the 53rd hostage. That was really stupid—epecially considering the crisis lasted 444 days until the middle of Reagan’s inauguration which was the end of Carter’s one term in office.

But Hannity is both accusing Obama of being like Carter and complaining that Obama is not acting even more like Carter.

That having been said, Obama probably ought to knock off the golfing outings and more frivolous photo ops while the media is inflaming the public with pictures of oil-covered birds. He really probably ought to shut up about it because he keeps taking responsibility for things he is not responsible for and positioning himself to take credit for the inevitable stoppage of the leak, thereby getting blamed for its delay. If I had been president wen this happened, I would have said with regard to the leak, “The best people on earth are working on stopping it. That is all we can or should do.” With regard to the clean-up, I would have made sure every federal effort in that direction was being made and having done that, said so.

To those who continue to yammer and whine, I would say, “‘Are we there yet?’ is not helpful. If you want to help in the clean-up, go to the gulf and offer your services. Otherwise, there’s nothing to see here. Go back to your normal business.”

To those clamoring for the heads of someone, I would say, “The pertinent investigations are prceeding properly. They will announce their results when they have completed their work.”

Finally, I would say, “When there is anything new, the petrinent officials will let you know. In the meantime, leave them and us alone about it. All concerned stipulate it is a terrible mess. Endless video of affected birds and beaches adds nothing to the efforts to stop the leak or clean up the shore. Enough! Stop the whining and nagging and badgering and threatening.”

If BP had any guts
If oil companies had any guts, they would tell the politicians and press to get off their backs.

Yeah, somebody on that rig screwed up. Eleven of our men died. We are now busting our asses to stop the leak then we will do what we can to help clean up the oil. In the meantime, leave us alone! You people don’t know shit about oil drilling or stopping runaway wells. All the top people in the world are on the job and working frantically. If we need your help, we’ll let you know. If you don’t get off our backs, we are going to go home and let you geniuses handle it. Any freaking questions?

To their credit, BP did ignore Obama when he ordered them to use less toxic chemical disperssant. (The one they were using was federally approved. Obama was just engaging in a cheap stunt to prove he was in charge. The disperssant BP was using was fine and available. There were availability problems with the others.)

During World War II, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt said,

The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale, and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen. Thank God for the United States Marine Corps!

I don’t know where she got that cleanest bodies stuff. Apparently she did not watch the HBO miniseries The Pacific.

Paraphrasing Eleanor, I say the following about the BP guys working on the spill:

The oil rig workers I have seen around the world have the dirtiest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale, and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen. Thank God for the oil rig workers!

If the environmentalists ever got their way completely, and shut down the oil industry, the rest of America would promptly lynch them. The oil companies are the only things standing between the environmentalists and that fate.

Here is an email I got from a reader [my comments in red]:

Hi Jack:
 
I am not a petroleum engineer, but I am in a related field: hydrogeology [science of underground fresh water].  A couple of technical observations about your post:
 
1) You can't effectively burn oil out of sand because poor oxygen transport prevents combustion below the surface.  Trying this would also almost certainly cause a great deal more property damage than the oil slick itself.[So dig up the oily layer, burn off the oil, then put the clean sand back. I do not understand what would be damaged and why. Sand could not be damaged at the temperatures needed to burn oil. You would not drop napalm on the beach.]  
2) The nuclear option is largely untested - meaning nobody really knows what will happen if they try it, especially given the uncertainty inherent in geology. [If Russians did it, they would know and might share.] A radioactive oil spill would be quite a bit worse than a normal oil spill.  [I do not know whether a nuke would create a radioactive oil spill. We nuked Bikini atoll and I am not aware of any resulting radioactive liquids like ocean water or oil from the ships that were destroyed.] Is the risk worth it?  I have no idea.  I cannot even imagine who would be qualified to make that risk assessment. [nuclear engineers I expect.]
3) Daisy cutters or MOABS would not work for two reasons.  First: the bomb has to be inserted several thousand feet underground down a fairly narrow borehole.  [Why not just put next to the well head that’s leaking? Why can’t you put 15,000 pounds of TNT in a narrow borehole? Miners and tunnelers using explosives put one-inch-diameter dynamite sticks into narrow boreholes every day before detonating them.] MOABS and Daisy cutters are just too big.  Second:  The principal behind this technique is that the temperatures attained by the nuclear explosion (several million degrees) fuse the rock into glass, creating a plug.  [I do not know the principle. To make glass, you have to raise the temperature of sand to 3,600 degrees F. I doubt that happens in a conventional explosion. But I would think that any big explosion would jam anything below it together. When the allies set off a huge conventional explosion in World War under German trenches, they found hundreds of dead Germans killed by the front of their trench being shoved against the back of the trench. The Germans were crushed to death in between by that.] Conventional explosives cannot achieve the necessary temperatures. 
4) Reclaiming a slick of oil off the ocean surface is trickier than it sounds and requires a lot of equipment.  The costs associated with collecting the floating oil will almost certainly be higher than the value of the oil itself. [It looks pretty low tech, especially if you are not trying to use the oil. Reusing the crude oil in question is not crucial, it would just change the economics of the effort. We are constantly told that oil touching the shore is horrible. So do whatever is necessary to skim it up. It looks like it can be done with almost anything: sticks, styrefoam, sheets, tree branches, etc.]
5) Don't overestimate the skill of the engineers in stopping this leak.  [They have experience with above-ground breaks and other underwater leaks like Santa Barbara. This depth is new. But so was drilling at this depth to begin with. I have faith in the skill of engineers to figure it out.] Nobody on the planet has relevant experience with this kind of problem.  The engineers assumed that the multiple fail safes that were built into the wellhead would prevent such an event from ever happening. [I have not heard that evidence. I watched the testimony of the oil rig guys about what happened. There was a dispute about how to proceed before the leak. BP overrode the objectors.] They were wrong and did not have any plans in effect to deal with the current situation. [Apparently, but then there would be no data base of past experience from which to create such plans. By definition, anything that happens at an unprecedented depth, inculding both drilling the well and plugging it if it leaks, has to be play it by ear. Every type of well ever drilled fell into this category the first time. Government knew all that when it approved this exploratory well. Everyone involved decided to take the chance. It appears that the leak arose from a decision not to take some precaution argued the day of the explosion, not from faulty assumptions about the wellhead failsafes.] Plugging a leak like this at the surface is difficult enough (ask Red Adair [Adair died in 2004. His specialty was putting out well blowouts that caught fire and stopping the flow of oil. He was rather adept at it and companies like his did it many times in Kuwait after Saddam Hussein deliberately set a large number of wells there on fire out of spite.]).  Under a mile of water, nobody really knows what to do. [The depth is apparently unprecedented, but I have seen a zillion documentaries about engineers successfully dealing with unprecedented underwater challenges like the Brooklyn, Golden Gate, and San Francisco Bay Bridge constructions, raising a sunken Soviet submarine, etc. I studied a lot of engineering. You take the existing experience data from the most similar situations, form hypotheses about what might work, and try them out. Every engineered solution on earth bgean that way. It takes time but the alternative is to outlaw progress. Peter Huber’s book Liability argues that the compined effect of ambulance chaser lawyers, do-something legislators and activist judges is to outlaw much progress than allowed to go forward would have saved many lives and made life better. For example, the too-hasty ban of DDT—because of its alleged adverse effect on birds—has killed tens of millions of people via malaria. New things have to be tried. Some will not work. The alternative of outlawing trying would have kept, and will keep us in the Dark Ages. Stuff happens. Trying to prevent all bad things from happening is worse than the stuff that happens.]
 
I generally agree with the rest of your comments. 
 
Jeff Lewis
 

 

John T. Reed