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Science

Journal dubiousdave's Journal: fargin' slashbot groupthink 20

Journal by dubiousdave
The . has a story about cool science, specifically about the science I've previously been involved in, and the whole fucking thing turns into the tried-and-true anti-US-oil-is-evil ignorant flamefest. I know it's just business as usual, but I used to work on the old ship, so it pisses me off that these idiots are ranting about how ODP is destroying the world to make oil companies rich.

I don't think even 5 people actually bothered to read the article or, for that matter, all of the blurb before spouting.

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fargin' slashbot groupthink More

fargin' slashbot groupthink

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  • But offshore drilling at least in the US has a pretty good environmental record at for the last 25 years or so, doesn't it?

    I know there have been some issues with cutting canals in the Missippi Delta marshlands but that isn't necessarily directly linked to offshore fields (most of them were cut for inshore exploration and wells IIRC)

    My feeling on this is no matter how "radical" an environmentalist you are we are going to need oil and gas for some time to come. It is a good thing to be able to economicly e
    • The main problem is that the article and the Ocean Drilling Program have absofuckinglutely nothing to do with the petroleum industry. As, IIRC, the blurb points out, the new ship has equipment that keeps it from blowing apart or sinking if it should accidentally discover oil and/or gas, which is what would have happened the ship I was on.

      But to your question, yes, I think the Gulf has been pretty clean for quite a while. When I was growing up, a trip to the beach meant tarballs on your feet, almost with

      • I think lots of slashbot "environmentalists" think that our need for oil magically goes away if we all start driving electric cars.

        The need for oil certainly won't - but hybrids help reduce gas consumption, while switching to liquified natural gas would eliminate the car's dependence on oil for fuel. Switch electricity production over to a mix of natural gas and fission as well, and IIRC the US wouldn't have to import a single drop of oil from outside North America, let alone from OPEC!

        One of the areas

        • The need for oil certainly won't - but hybrids help reduce gas consumption, while switching to liquified natural gas would eliminate the car's dependence on oil for fuel. Switch electricity production over to a mix of natural gas and fission as well, and IIRC the US wouldn't have to import a single drop of oil from outside North America, let alone from OPEC!

          I believe that currently over 50% of the North American supply comes from coal, the remainder is a mix of natural gas, nuclear, and hydro. Not much o
          • Ironically, I think the environmentalists would be the first to scream bloody murder at the idea of using nuclear power. They're afraid to trade the slight possibility that something very bad could happen for the certainty that that less bad things happen daily.

            I believe there are some places where natural gas is vented and burned from oil wells as a nuisance. NG is usually found in oil wells, unless I'm mistaken.

          • I believe that currently over 50% of the North American supply comes from coal, the remainder is a mix of natural gas, nuclear, and hydro. Not much oil is used in electric generation.

            You're right - 53% coal, 21% nuclear, 16% natural gas, 7% hydroelectric and just 3% from oil, down from 5% in 1988. Cutting out that 3% would probably cut quite a chunk out of the c. 30% of oil consumption I'd want to replace, but vehicles take account for 45% - a much better target for reductions.

            I do think we need to thin

      • The main problem is that the article and the Ocean Drilling Program have absofuckinglutely nothing to do with the petroleum industry. As, IIRC, the blurb points out, the new ship has equipment that keeps it from blowing apart or sinking if it should accidentally discover oil and/or gas, which is what would have happened the ship I was on.

        Ack! I'll confess to having made the typical slashbot error and jumped to conclusions without having read the article.

        I just heard "deepwater drilling" and assumed it ha
      • I spent a brief time in grad school at Lamont Doherty in my previous life.

        I wasnt involved with the core guys, but did hang out with some of the microfossil guys who would do stratigraphic analysis/ isotope ratio studies with the core data. Interesting stuff.

        Similar studies are done by the oil industry for their exploration, but this project, as you said, has nothing to do with it.

        idiots!
  • that whole story taken over by whiny bitching. There's a good story and slashbots use the usual Waaaahhhhh, evil drilling,war 4 oil&oil 4 war, bash, troll, piss and moan groupthink. Sheez if they would've taken two minutes and RTFA there might have been some better conversation. Wound up doing some modding and meta-modding [if you want, I think I can remember who I bumped up [in that tar pit of posting] in that crap, so I couldn't chime in with my nickel [inflation,, don't 'cha know?] I, actually, reall
  • I see what you are talking about now. IODP really does have fuck all to do with oil or gas exploration (although I suppose the technology could be used for deepwater exploration)

    Seems like a pretty cool geophysical reasearch program with the potential to answer a whole lot of important earth science questions.
    • It is a cool program, not only for the science itself, but also for the international cooperation. The US NSF footed the bill for the majority of the program, but lots of other member nations also chipped in and sent scientists. We normally had scientists from 5 to 10 different nations working together for two months at a time on the ship.

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