Real quick, here’s a May 17 video of the blowout plume. this is from Senator Bill Nelson’s blowout page.

That doesn’t look very sealed to me, that’s all I can say.

Let’s hope the attempt to pump drilling mud at very high pressure behind the leaking BOP components is more successful than this particular attempt. Good ongoing discussion at theoildrum.com.

And also lets keep in mind, we are now strip mining Canada for its oil sands, Canadian standard liquid oil production is in decline, and apparently the oil sands oil is just about making up for the oil that is lost through decline. Can you say running faster and faster just to stay in place? Good, I thought you could.

Drilling off the coast of Nigeria, pirates invade, ripping apart the tundra and vast resources of the Canadian wilds, using vast amount of natural gas in the process to heat the oil. Drilling at more than five thousand feet, then down some 10-20,000 more feet, or even deeper, to get at the last available pools of oil.

And nobody is saying the obvious, umm, I think it’s over folks, it’s time to stop, our brilliant lack of planning isn’t working out very well.

I’m still somewhat curious to see which country will first pull itself out of this loser’s game and declare growth based economics non grata. Let me know if you hear of one, and I’ll probably look into moving there, this situation is getting to be absurd.

Also keep in mind, since 2005 the planet has been producing a fairly consistent level of oil per day, in other words, we’ve hit the peak in total liquids produced, around the time that everyone from Hubbert to Deffeyes predicted. Global economic situation is growing increasingly volatile, as was predicted would be the case when the primary material underpinning of the globalized industrial economy begins to fail. Fail in this case means no further growth in barrels per day, the so-called ‘flow rate’, is possible, no matter what we do, where we drill, what we destroy.

I’ll ask again, just to be boring: what’s your plan when there’s no gas at the local gas station? And when the job you thought you’d have for the rest of your life lays you off? And when the state cancels all its key programs, and begins to fail at its central duties?

And it’s not just oil, the recent coal mine disaster here was caused I believe at least partially by having to mine very narrow veins, hard to ventilate, methane builds up, then bang, dead miners and destroyed mine. All over its the same story, picking a the dregs, ripping off the tops of mountains to pick away at the last bits of coal in the states corrupt and misguided enough to allow such monstrous ruination of God’s natural world, the one we were supposed to take care of and nurture and cherish.

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