Good Article: Why It's So Hard to Stop the Gulf Spill -NPR

<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126390880&ft=1&f=1025>

"CONAN: Finally, this email question from Robert in Visalia, California. Have there been situations where the blowout preventers worked correctly? What's the success rate?

Mr. BIELLO: Unfortunately, a lot of that is kind of confidential information. Most oil companies aren't going to tell you when they have a disaster if they don't have to report it. But there have been circumstances in the past where blowout preventers have worked. Certainly, they've been shown to work in the lab and they have worked in accidents in the past. Like I said, there are about 4,000 rigs out there. Everything doesn't always go smoothly. And this technology is needed to make sure that, you know, we don't end up with situations like this. That said, there have been two in the last 30 years, and both of them pretty big, nasty oil spills."

you know, we don't end up with situations like this."

Actually no, I don't know. Seems to me "this" technology had an epic failure and there was no backup plan, practically guaranteeing a situation like "this" would happen eventually.

What a moron.

:silly:

BP will pay MINIMAL amounts compared to the destruction that they've wrought.

from my understanding of it, it is not a spill but more like a leak. If what I hear is correct to call it a spill is like calling a hole in a water pipe a spill.