White House Edited Oil Drilling Safety Report 368
bonch writes "The Interior Department inspector general has released a report stating that the White House edited a drilling safety report by reordering paragraphs to make it appear as though a seven-member panel of independent experts supported the six-month ban on offshore drilling. The IG report states, 'The White House edit of the original DOI draft executive summary led to the implication that the moratorium recommendation had been peer-reviewed by the experts,' but the panel had only reviewed a draft of safety recommendations and not a drilling ban. The White House has issued a statement saying that there was 'no intentional misrepresentation of their views.' This follows complaints from scientists and environmentalists that the administration has not been holding to its promise of policy guided by science and not ideology."
Re:Surprised by /. (Score:2, Interesting)
Quite frankly, I'm surprised this made it to the front page of Slashdot given the majority of liberals that make up this community.
You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.
Re:Is this a surprise? (Score:1, Interesting)
The only reason that there was an oil rig out there in the first place was a matter of politics. Had we pushed for alternative energy in the 70s and not lost focus that oil rig wouldn't have been in such a risky locale.
Re:One more level of abstraction ... (Score:3, Interesting)
You're commenting about the summary of the report about the report. And I am commenting on your comment about the summary of the report about the report.
policy guided by science and not ideology (Score:4, Interesting)
Dunno, when the largest oil blowout (it was not a spill!) happens, most people would think it prudent to stop and check all other similar endeavors. Maybe they misrepresented stuff on purpose. Yet, the _end_ to which they did it sounds scientific to me.
Though the real question is why you can drill in the US waters without a cement-clad drill hole and a ready-made emergency sarcophagus already in place before you even start drilling. We have those requirements in Europe and people still make gobs of money with oil.
Re:EXTRA! EXTRA! Read all about it. (Score:5, Interesting)
...despite 70% opposition by Americans
Similar numbers were/are convinced that Iraq attacked us on 9/11.
Only a fool trusts either of these two parties.
Wikipedia tells me that in the 2008 presidential election, Obama and McCain took 98.6% of the votes.
I think we agree that most people are fools, but then you hold their opinions up as a reason why healthcare reform and the bailout were bad? Interesting.
Re:EXTRA! EXTRA! Read all about it. (Score:4, Interesting)
Yellowcake
It started a war that killed 10s of thousands and crippled many Americans.
Yes, because if he had taken office and yanked them out the next day you would hold him faultless. You would have been 100% behind that as two nations crumbled
Here is some personal responsibility for you. You voted these assholes into office, you pay for their wars. Moreover, you send YOUR sons to die for this bullshit.
It's still the US government no matter who runs it (Score:3, Interesting)
That's right - it never happened!
When are you guys going to wake up that you are not led by a magic nigger that you must all either love or hate on racial grounds and instead by a real human being that is a Chicago lawyer trying to do the best he can. McCain would have done many of the same things if he was in power and unconstrained by ties to donors, but may have faced less opposition if he went around firing horse judges in places where you need somebody that will actually work and other dead wood.
I think Obama will be hated far more than Carter mostly on racial grounds but also because there is no magic way for him to instantly get the USA out of the hole it has fallen into. Whoever follows after him will probably be hated for the same reason.
Re:I hope you like your change. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Is this a surprise? (Score:3, Interesting)
1) A favorite is Solar, due to its abysmal energy conversion efficiency.
Solar's energy conversion efficiency is low, but this really isn't relevant. Most solar panels are about 20% efficient. When you ask about the efficiency of a system, you have to ask what the total course of the system is, from sunlight to wheels/house power/chemical production. What this basically means is the total land area needed to sustain a person. If that land area is too big, that's no good. If a system has 1% efficiency but ends up not requiring any space, that's not a big deal. The real favorite of the renewable energy deniers is the ethanol and hydrogen. They prove that hydrogen fuel cells or ethanol won't work and then claim we're dead. This is like saying that a car clearly is unaffordable, because you can't afford a collectors edition Corvette, while ignoring the fact that you can afford Honda Civic.
3) "Wont power our cars!" Which, of course it wont, if your car is designed to run on hydrocarbons.
Actually it will. Worse case scenario, we have the technology to use electricity, CO2, and water to make hydrocarbons and oxygen. Yes, it's horribly inefficient, but in a world where EV's fail and RE is cheap, it would make sense. It might also be a sensible way to make plastics and other oil based stuff.
2) inferior drive distances (battery technology is rapidly resolving this.)
This is actually a big problem, but battery technology can't fix it. The problem is that outlets just can't pump out enough power for the system to be recharged in a reasonable amount of time. The real solution is to build something like the Chevy Volt, that can consume synthetic petroleum and biofuels. Doing this lets you use cheaper but heavier battery technologies, like Edison NiFe batteries.
Did you know that most of the power generated and pushed into the existing grid gets bled out as wast heat and or radio emissions?
This actually isn't true. The electrical grid, as wires, is about 95% efficient. However, the power plants aren't very efficient, ranging from 30% to 60%. This is because of the Carnot limits that impact the conversion of heat to work in a heat engine.
Re:Is this a surprise? (Score:3, Interesting)
This actually isn't true. The electrical grid, as wires, is about 95% efficient. However, the power plants aren't very efficient, ranging from 30% to 60%. This is because of the Carnot limits that impact the conversion of heat to work in a heat engine.
Modern thermal power stations are large and run very hot and have many stages to recover energy from the heat precisely to deal with these things (running hotter increases the theoretical max, being larger and having more turbines in series increases the actual amount of energy extracted). In this, they are much more efficient than a small power plant such as a combustion engine. Once you've converted into electrical energy, you can't use Carnot-style calculations to do the calculation (you've not a thermal distribution so you're not satisfying the starting assumptions); energy losses are due to resistance and impedance in the cables.
The only thing that it's not a good idea to do with electrical power is heating; at that point, it's better to move the fuel itself to where it is needed.