Posted on 07/26/2010 3:08:04 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Matthew Simmons has made a lot of big claims about the oil spill (see videos below).
Because of his background, Simmons has been interviewed repeatedly in television, newspaper and radio media. Simmons was an energy adviser to President George W. Bush, is an adviser to the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre, and is a member of the National Petroleum Council and the Council on Foreign Relations, and is former chairman and CEO of Simmons & Company International, an investment bank catering to oil companies.
People have become polarized around Simmons as a lightning rod. For example, people who believe all of Simmons' claims believe that anyone who questions any of Simmons's claims is working for BP. On the other extreme, people who think Simmons has gone senile or is simply talking his book (he's short BP) tar and feather anyone who questions BP's version of the Gulf narrative as being a crazy Simmons follower.
So let's assess Simmons' claims one-by-one. And - more importantly - let's refocus the discussion away from one person and towards the Gulf itself (Simmons himself will either be vindicated, proven off-base, or something in between. But that is his personal concern, not ours).
BP's stock Will Go to Zero
Simmons predicts that BP's stock will go to zero. he might be right. Fines under the Clean Water Act are $4,300 per barrel of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. And civil and criminal damages could be substantial.
But BP has been doing everything in its power to lowball the amount of oil spilled into the Gulf (and see this), even though it easily could have easily quantified
how much oil is spilling.
(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...
I keep telling you, that it is not the corexit, it is the oil that is the problem. That problem may be exacerbated by the use of corexit, which holds the oil in suspension, rather than let it sink to the bottom, but since corexit has never been used in such vast amounts, we cannot possibly know what the long term damages might be. We may have large patches of dead sea through out the gulf, or it might spread out and dissipate. We just don’t know. The only thing we do know is that the spill seems to be disappearing from sight at a rapid rate. Most of the visible damage is going to be along the shoreline, where Bobby Jidal fought the Obama administration to protect the shoreline.
Like I said, it is not the corexit that is the problem, it is the oil that combines with the corexit. All the symptoms which are attributed to the corexit are symptoms of benezene poisoning. I’m not saying that there wasn’t a whole lot of concern about using so much corexit. There was a great deal of concern, but the bad weather helped by churning the seas and dispersing the clouds of oil laden corexit molecules.
You are a hopless brainwashed shill, Warthog. Now we all know. Thanks.
The only problem with that scenario is that the EPA has also been routinely measuring air and water for benzene, and the concentrations found are nowhere near high enough to cause those kinds of symptoms. The levels detected rarely exceed 1ppm, which is NOT enough to cause the acute poisoning type symptoms you are referring to. At 1ppm, the only effect long term is a very rare type of cancer, which won't show up in the exposed party for many years after the exposure.
Nope. I just decide things based on real hard scientifically validated FACTS, and not smoke and mirrors from conspiracy theory green websites.
Point out any single thing that is incorrect about my calculations or the facts I quote.
The simple fact is that in order for any chemical to be poisonous, it has be actually "be there". Hard scientific measurements show that it simply isn't, having either decomposed or been diluted far below any harmful level.
Who am I supposed to be a "shill" for??? I don't work for BP, or any other chemical company (although I "did" work for one years ago). What I currently do is design instruments to do the same kind of measurements that the EPA is currently carrying out (though not for the same species....my work addresses biowarfare and disease agents rather than things like benzene and Corexit...though I am VERY familiar with the technology used to measure them).
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