[Peakoil] Kunstler on Matt Simmons' take on the Gulf oil spill

[Keith Thomas]

Jim Kunstler quotes Matt Simons this week.

I have pasted below JHK's piece plus a selection (about 20%) of the better reader comments.
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Keith Thomas
www.evfit.com
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What If He's Right?

By James Howard Kunstler

on July 19, 2010 8:18 AM

http://kunstler.com/blog/2010/07/what-if-hes-right.html

 

Just when America was celebrating the provisional end of BP's Macondo oil blowout, and getting back to important issues like Kim Kardashian's body-suit collection, along comes Matthew Simmons with a rather strange and alarming outcry on doings in the Gulf of Mexico that contradicts the mood of renewed festivity, as well as just about every shred of reportage from any media outlet, mainstream or otherwise.

Matt Simmons’ Houston-based company has been the leading investment bank to the US oil industry for a long time, financing exploration and drilling in places like the Gulf of Mexico. Simmons, 68, recently retired from day-to-day management of the company. For much of the decade he has been what may be described as a peak oil activist. His 2005 book, Twilight in the Desert, warned the public that Saudi Arabia's oil production had reached its limits and, more generally, that an oil-dependent world was entering a zone of serious trouble over its primary resource. He took this aggressive stance despite risking the ire of the people he did business with. 

Matt Simmons is a sober individual and a very nice man (I've met him twice over the years), a button-downed corporate executive who's been around the oil business for forty years. His knowledge is deep and comprehensive. From the beginning of the BP Macondo blowout incident in April, he's taken the far out position that the well-bore is fatally compromised and that BP has been consistently lying about their operations to stop the flow of oil. Perhaps most radically, Simmons claims that an oil "gusher" is pouring into the Gulf some distance from the drilling site itself.

Last week, Simmons came on Dylan Ratigan's MSNBC financial show, but he did a longer interview over at the King World News website. (click here for ERIC KING'S INTERVIEW WITH SIMMONS - http://www.kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2010/7/17_Matt_Simmons.html

Simmons's current warning about the situation focuses on the gigantic "lake" of crude oil that is pooling under great pressure 4000 to 5000 feet down in the "basement" of the Gulf's waters. More particularly, he is concerned that a tropical storm will bring this oil up - as tropical storms and hurricanes usually do with deeper cold water - and with it clouds of methane gas that will move toward the Gulf shore and kill a lot of people. (I really don't know the science on this and welcome any reader to correct me, but I suppose that the oil "lake" deep under the Gulf waters contains a lot of methane gas dissolved at pressure, and that as the oil rises toward the ocean's surface, and lower pressures, the gas will bubble out of solution.)

Simmons makes two additional points that are pretty radical: he says that several states along the Gulf ought to begin systematic evacuations in counties along the shore now. From his experience in Houston with Hurricane Rita (2005), he says a last-minute evacuation is bound to be a disaster -- the highways jammed hopelessly, drivers ran out of gas, and then the gas stations ran out of gas. Based on where the nation's collective state-of-mind is these days, I can't imagine that any Gulf state governor or mayor will heed this warning and begin preparing an evacuation now. (The practical problems are obvious for householders but what if it really is a matter of life and death?)

Secondly, Simmons maintains - as he has from near the beginning of the blowout - that the US military should take over operations from BP and ought to set off a "small" nuclear device down in the well-bore to fuse the rock into glass and seal the site permanently. Simmons says, based on his experience growing up in Utah near the government's underground nuclear testing sites in neighboring Nevada, where scores of very large atomic bombs were set off for years with no measurable consequences above ground, that a small nuclear explosion down in the Macondo well is unlikely to have any effect above the undersea rock surface. I have no idea, personally if this is true.

Matt Simmons is taking a position so "out there" that even the radical peak oil website THEOILDRUM.COM won't comment on his remarks (at least not as of early Monday morning July 19). I don't know how to evaluate Simmons's contentions myself, except to say that I don't believe Simmons is a nut, or that he's lost his marbles. We also must suppose that someone in his position is able to talk with an awful lot of the best people in the oil industry.  Simmons has put his reputation on the line. A lot of bystanders and commentators are treating him as a fool. Simmons himself is painfully aware of his lonely stance and seems, in his public appearances, to be a very regretful messenger.

In the past twenty-four hours, BP has reported some possible leaks coming out of the seabed some distance from the well-bore. Nobody has been able to confirm yet exactly what is happening down there. One other thing Simmons said is that BP should be barred from the media airwaves since, he says, they have lied consistently in order to cover up their criminal negligence and culpability. The company itself cannot be saved because the claims against it are much greater than the value of its assets - but the people running the company could be sent to jail, so the incentive to keep lying remains high.

Jesse at the JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN website

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

makes an excellent point that if Matt Simmons is correct, and it turns out that the US government has been played by BP, then remaining public trust in the competence and legitimacy of government could evaporate. This is not a happy thing to contemplate at a time when the state of the nation and its economy are so fragile. What follows could make the current political situation seem like little more than, well, than a tea party, compared to the politics-to-come.

Readers here at Clusterfuck Nation are probably well aware of my past declarations of being allergic to conspiracy theories and crazy ideas generally. I'm not really equipped to evaluate Matt Simmons's warnings about the exact nature of the Macondo blowout and what might happen in the months ahead. But I am confident, having met the guy and corresponded with him and read his books, that he is a straight shooter. I'm sure that he is sincere in proclaiming his extreme discomfort with the position he's taken. Listen and decide for yourselves. (SIMMONS INTERVIEW WITH ERIC KING)
http://www.kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Archive.html

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FOUAD KHAN | JULY 19, 2010 8:47 AM | REPLY

We must remember that evaluating this incident as an "incident" is foolish. This was the result of decades of risk accumulation during oil industry operations. Leaked and spilled contaminants are the unacknowledged "nuclear waste" of the fossil fuel industry. The cover-ups have become so elaborate over the decades, they would restore your belief in conspiracy theories if disclosed.

HTTP://HURRICANEKATRINAKAIF.COM

Matt is getting too extreme with the whole nuclear seal-off bid; I mean if we don't have the capacity to put a cap on the well with any degree of competence, how can we be expected to safely execute a nuclear detonation at those depths? It's never been done before and is therefore too risky.

But there's no doubt the well has been compromised and BP wants to play the "cap is working" drama just long enough to shift the blame of the next consequential disaster elsewhere. And given the current state of government, they'd get away with it too. Don't think for a moment that BP won't survive this. BP would, the gulf wouldn't.

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Chocokitty | JULY 19, 2010 9:04 AM | REPLY

Well, there's the whole matter of Simmons shorting BP, so take him with a grain of salt.

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Desertrat | JULY 19, 2010 9:31 AM | REPLY

I'm no expert, but some (IMO) halfway rational observations: The hazard from a nuke would be dependent upon the geology in the lower mile of the hole. Geologists would be able to determine that from the material which came up with the drilling--originally or with the relief-well effort.

If the cap doesn't work, and no nuke is used, it seems to me that the only way to stop the flow would be to reduce the gas pressure. I see no way to do that but to play, "Drill, baby, drill," and get as many producing wells going as possible. Accelerate the usual depletion as much as possible.

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 Bilbo | JULY 19, 2010 9:36 AM | REPLY

I don't whether Matt Simmons' ideas about the Gulf are lunatic or not, but I do know he has a truly lunatic idea that we can convert ocean energy into liquid ammonia and convert our cars to run on liquid ammonia. This is true lunacy because ammonia is highly toxic. Not only would I never want to be in an ammonia fueled vehicle, I'd never want to live any where near someone who did. Even a small leak in the fuel system of an ammonia fueled vehicle could kill or injure an entire neighborhood.

Simmons has been promoting this ammonia idea for years and has funded a research effort in Maine to break it to fruition.

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budizwiser | JULY 19, 2010 10:18 AM | REPLY

The BP oil spill has changed the Gulf of Mexico forever. For years into the future oil and other intermediate oil dispersion chemicals will surface or wash up on shore.

From now on, it will be impossible in most cases to identify the sources of oil or other contaminiates. Future operations are "free" to go about their business knowing that no one can blame their particular operations for oil appearing in any number of hundreds of square miles.

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hugho | JULY 19, 2010 11:26 AM | REPLY

Jim, I have long been a fan of Matt and have always thought he was a straight shooter as well. But now that he has stepped down or perhaps was forced out, his pronouncements have gotten a bit strident. I will continue to listen to him but the circumstances of his departure from Simmons and Co give me pause. His idea of nuking the well is one of the comments that gave me pause. He says the Russians have used it successfully to cap blowouts in central Asia in the 60's. True enough but those were gas wells ON LAND. They were not oil wells miles deep. No one knows what would happen if it were tried in deep ocean. If the formation is leaking oil elsewhere, I would fear that an explosion could increase the chance of a truly catastrophic ocean floor blowout given that oil and water are incompressible. Only one way to find out. Ask Jindal and the other southern goon governors if they want to give it a shot! At this point no one is in control of this bad situation and the danger of thinking "dammit DO sumthin! Anything!" is probably a greater danger than letting BP muddle along doing the best it can, which so far hasn't been very inspiring.

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PEPPER SPRAY | JULY 19, 2010 11:49 AM | REPLY

"It seems that the first thing to do is to send ROVs down into the depths of the Gulf and see if that pool of oil and methane is there or not."

They have probably done that... If millions of people in Gulf States are in harms’ way, moving us out would result in financial chaos. How far would you move of millions of people? Where would you house them? Not in my back yard yells Middle America. Who would pay for their housing and policing of the displaced?

And the biggest issue. Real estate in most of the southern US would go to $ zero. The truth is that banks are insolvent now but legally hiding that fact off the books hoping R/E will come back before they actually have to book those real losses. Wiping out that much R/E in one shot would crush the banks and probably the global financial system.

With all that you have witnessed since October 2008 who do you think is really more important to our leaders, the people or bankers?

I live in Florida; we will never be warned of impending disaster because to do so will hurt the profit margins of the financially powerful.

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Jim in PA | JULY 19, 2010 12:31 PM | REPLY

Matt Simmons should stick to investment banking, because engineering and science are obviously not his forte. First of all, putting a nuclear bomb into the borehole would create more than just heat sufficient to fuse rock. The blast would also create a massive shockwave, the force of which would fracture rock for a great distance around the well. Metaphorically speaking, instead of the oil now spewing up through a small straw, it would then be seeping up through the entire surface area a large sponge. You tell me which is easier to contain. It is critical to maintain the geological integrity of the rock formation and seal the pipe. Although I will say that BP's solution of just "capping" the pipe is almost as idiotic. The damn well needs to be PLUGGED not capped. I guarantee that this "cap" will fail in short order. The only question is "when?".

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Stone | JULY 19, 2010 12:45 PM | REPLY

Although Mr. Simmons may be a nice and usually sober-minded man and one knowledgeable in the mechanics of oil industry investing and in the state of many oil fields, he is not thereby either a geologist, or a chemist, or a nuclear scientist specialized in nuclear detonations carried out under thousands of feet of water.

Let me add here that nuclear detonations always have to be tested when carried out in new environments, for their effects cannot be predicted with certainty.

To me, there is no doubt and no hesitation: Mr. Simmons has clearly over-stepped his bounds, and that is sufficient to take away some of the nice credibility he had acquired over his years as a peak oil activist.

It is not responsible of a man such as him to issue pronouncements the soundedness of which it is not within his competencies to guarantee.

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D R Lunsford | JULY 19, 2010 2:50 PM | REPLY

JHK, I'm a physicist and I know some chemistry. Simmons is out of his tree. There is no methane catastrophe pending. In fact most of the leaked oil will never be found. Its volatile gases are quickly driven off and break down in salt water. The volume of oil released to volume of water in the affected area is at least 6 million to 1. Once the volatiles are driven off, the tar left behind will sink and be enmired with the mud that streams into the gulf from countless rivers and streams. Much the same thing happened in 1979 at the Ixtoc I blowout, which was functionally identical to this one but at a much shallower depth. We were really fortunate here, in that the natural flow of water from the Mississippi is so powerful that most of the oil released near the surface from the early stages of the disaster was pushed away, and that at depth has almost no chance of getting anywhere near the surface. From the beginning there has been nothing but stupidity and misinformation all round, from all parties, on this spill.

And BTW, nuking something at 5000 feet under water would have essentially zero effect on the surface environment. It would also do nothing to stop the well unless carried out at the same depth as the relief well. Since the relief well is guaranteed to work, it's pointless to even consider it.

Note that I am not defending the scum-sucking oil companies here or the government of toadies that kisses collective oil-ass. It's the general stupidity, ignorance, and trembling baby pussiness of everyone that makes me want to puke. Everyone from McChrystal to Eminem is a posturing, ignorant pussy in this ridiculous excuse for a country. Why should we have expected anything better from the clowns in the gulf?

 


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