Well, there I was comfortably sitting...

Well, there I was, comfortably sitting on a sofa, shopping for a TV after having slipped away from work early. The cell phone rings and it's an old client asking what my availability is. It's Tuesday afternoon, so I tell him I am pretty much free for whenever he needs me. So he tells me to be in his office at 6 am the next morning, I'd be answering a few phone calls. This is approximately a week at the explosion and sinking of the drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Next morning I show up, he sits me in front of a phone with a pad of paper and tells me to answer the phone, respond to the caller and take notes. 12 hours late, my voice mail box is full and I've answered about 100 calls. Next morning I bring in a second person. End of day same results, 200 calls answered and the voice mail box is full. Got real exciting when the Governor of Alabama called and couldn't leave a message because the mail box was full. By Friday we had a third person and were working on a database to categorize and record the information from the phone calls. Saturday morning we go live with the new database and 60 Kelly girls answering the phone, working 2 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week. So, fast forward, as compared to flash forward, 80,000+ phone records later and we are still here, taking calls. Been quite an interesting time, working 7 days a week, 12 hours per day. A couple of days off after being hauled off to the local ER and then a legit 2 days off for time served. I've been cursed at, told I was personally going to hell and instructed to quit working for BP. We've had calls offering help on how to stop the flow of oil from using really big tampons to building a Flux Capacitor (think Back to the Future). Even got our first bomb threat today. Wondering why that took so long. 

So, is this a tragic incident? Definitely. Is it an ecological disaster? Probably going to the worst we've suffered yet. Stop offshore drilling/production. I don't think so. We definately need to prove out deepwater technology. I suspect companies have forged ahead without the proper R&D in respect to the technologies to deal with this kind of disaster. Even though it is a rare occurrence, the potential impact is too great to ignore and if not proven, at least existing technology standing by to combat the problem. It is apparent that at least this company was not prepared for a spill of this magnitude and situation. But despite all that, we still need the oil. People always equate oil to energy, but look around you. How many of your day to day products from from oil related materials? Even some medicines are oil related. So at what point do we have to start choosing whether to use the oil for a product or for energy? It really seems like a no brainer to me. We have so many alternative energy choices, but it is going to be difficult replacing some of our man made materials. Wood and bamboo can only go so far. If there is any one positive thing that comes out of all this, maybe it will be the emphasis to develop these alternative energy sources into viable solutions. People are just going to have to learn to live with some of these other sources. North Atlantic states don't want drilling to occur offshore in their area, but try to set Wind Generators offshore and they raise all kinds of hell. I suppose it is ok to clutter up someone elses backyard, as long as I get what I want in the process. People are going to have to learn to accept reasonable solutions and balances to the energy issue. Unless there is some kind of revolutionary break through in technology, things like wind, sea, solar are going to local solutions. We'll never see this kind of technology generating the large amounts of energy to supply large areas of the country like current power generating stations using natural gas to fire large power turbines currently do or burning coal to generate power. Hydropower is great, but you can only damn up so many of the large rivers.