[Laurasia]

Okay I was going to post this on one of the more technical areas but was a bit intimidated - y'know I'm a rank amateur, who thinks that Peak Oil and its ramifications are just plain commonsense but don't understand too much of the science.

Well, something's been bothering me a lot: first off, I read about a horrendous unstoppable flow of toxic mud coming out of an oil-drilling site in Indonesia - sounds like something out of a grade b horror movie as far as I'm concerned. Then I read of a Swiss geothermal company in trouble after deep-drilling and causing earthquakes for goodness sake.

Okay now I've been reading through the threads about the Jack 2 in the GOM and how they're going to have drill REALLY deep to get the oil. Well does anyone think that maybe they ought to leave the stuff where it is, in case the drilling starts something off that we can't control - you know, like an earthquake triggering a tsunami; sound familiar? Or a Kraken disturbed, unleashing its fury on the unsuspecting residents of the Gulf Coast?

L.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Laurasia', '
')a Kraken disturbed, unleashing its fury on the unsuspecting residents of the Gulf Coast?

[mmasters]

I too fear Jack II could go terribly wrong...

[strider3700]

kraken are nothing to our modern weapons.
We need to make sure we keep out drills out of R'lyeh

[Specop_007]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', 'L')aurasia, I don't know about setting off big earthquakes or disturbing the Kraken, but I totally agree this stuff is scary. A friend of mine who's a petroleum engineer and works with this kind of stuff specifically once sat down and drew me a few sketches about how the wells are built, and what can happen if they aren't shut down properly when they stop producing (think hydrogen sulfide, for example). Which apparently happens very frequently since the oil companies are interested in making money and cleaning up after themselves eats into profits. As the economy tanks, this is going to be even worse. Not good.

The whole thing sucks and we need to stop doing it. But we can't and we won't.

[tsakach]

I don't know why, but I find this stuff fascinating:

The 12,262 meter (7.6 miles) deep Kola Superdeep Borehole is the deepest hole ever made by humans in the earth's crust.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')nother unexpected discovery was the large quantity of hydrogen gas, with the mud flowing out of the hole described as "boiling" with hydrogen.

Wikipedia: Kola Superdeep Borehole

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('tsakach', '
')Wikipedia: Kola Superdeep Borehole