Sunday
Oct022011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Matt on discriminatory laws
Oct 2, 2011 Energy: oil Greens Matt Ridley A few months ago the Obama Justice Department brought charges against Continental and six other oil companies in North Dakota for causing the death of 28 migratory birds, in violation of the Migratory Bird Act. Continental's crime was killing one bird "the size of a sparrow" in its oil pits. The charges carry criminal penalties of up to six months in jail. "It's not even a rare bird. There're jillions of them," he explains. He says that "people in North Dakota are really outraged by these legal actions," which he views as "completely discriminatory" because the feds have rarely if ever prosecuted the Obama administration's beloved wind industry, which kills hundreds of thousands of birds each year.
Reader Comments (23)
One rule for one lot and no rules for the other lot.
Finally a way to make prison slots more equivocal as soon any cat owner she will find herself rightfully in jail.
Instead of now 95% of prisoners = male.
5% female.
for every male prisoner there is a 80% likelihood that the plotting mongering cause of it all is still free out there, cuddling her cat.
I wonder how they decided that a small bird found dead in an oil pit was killed by that pit. Birds die and fall to earth all the time for all sorts of reasons. In the last two days I've observed two small birds killed by larger birds.
Wind farms at sea could kill many birds and no one would ever know.
Boy, am I in trouble. I have a bird strike a week on my patio windows. The barn cat will be in even more trouble, since he kills them deliberately with malice aforethought.
Which incidently raises something newsworthy from the Isles in recent weeks I've not heard about from Bishop Hill: the discovery of vast, record amounts of natural gas under Lancashire and the sea.
I live in an American oil and gas patch, with friends in the industry. The news here this year has been sensational this year. But the scurrilous attacks in the UK against hydrofracking technology revealed by my googling for news is most alarming, too.
It seemed to be more about the politics of carbon-fuels and implicitly about opposing AGW, not anything environmentally objectionable.
[Once again, take it to the discussion forum]
ZDB
Have you got any idea what FREEDOM OF SPEECH is?
[BH adds: Freedom of speech is to be found on the discussion forum - here we talk bird legislation :-)]
ZDB
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Flynt
This might help you to understand.
[No]
Yawn! Don't feed the troll peeps, keep the thread on track.
[No]
I don't know zed,....looks to me like an attempt at humour, not hatred.
Bird-murdering cat-owners going scot-free when oil companies are in the dock?
Let me give you my two cents: I don't see any Erin Brokovich protesting against cat-owners.
Sorry
ZDB
My reaction to Tutut was that this is some kind of joke. I didn't pay enough attention to work it out but it did not offend me. Neither did your comments but I thought them more worthy of a responce.
The key element in that report was that a real prospect of game-changing revenues ( in the trillions) was at risk because of the mentality that despises oil and its offshoots. This is where the idealists have too much the upper hand over the pragmatists.
When your eye is on the sparrow, it is possible to miss the big picture.
Posted earlier under another topic:
Syncrude, an operator in the Canadian Oil Sands business had an equipment failure that lead to the unfortunate demise of 1,606 ducks in the company's tailings pond. For this, they were fined $3,000,000, or $1868 per duck.
There is no record of prosecution of windfarm operators for the havoc caused by their avian Cuisinarts!
On a related topic, some wag suggested that more birds had been Killed by Margaret Atwood's cat. (Margaret Atwood is a prominent publicity seeking Canadian author.)
Oil pits is probably an unfortunate piece of journalism. Open earth bank oil pits haven't been seen since the days of early cable tool drilling, unless its in some remote corner of the FSU or a dodgy Far East one man band enterprenour. They're probably talking about drilling mud pits, the weighted up fluid that needs to be maintained in the bore hole at a density just sufficient to overbalance formation pressure. On land wells, active and reserve mud pits are usually lined but open, therefore at risk for birds, feeding on trapped flies etc.
Drilling mud is essential for safe drilling. It is not stuff you would want be tempted to drink. Normally its just like it says, powdered mud in water, the more clay the heavier. And various chemicals to control the pH and so on. But when the situation demands, powdered heavy minerals, barytes for example, are added. In extreme overpressure cases, lead. Too heavy, there is a real risk of fracturing the formation and uncontrolled loss of mud via these induced fractures to the formation, leading to the risk of the necessary overbalance being lost, unless the losses can be plugged. (Reserve mud pits are maintained, ready mixed, to provide an emergency reserve against this eventuality). Too light, and an underbalanced well has the potential to blow if it encounters a hydrocarbon bearing reservoir. There are inbuilt safeguards even then, each well is planned with attention to the integrity of the casing string, blow out prevention equipment at the wellhead, and so on and so forth. There are industry standards for these.
It is quite possible that Continental, at some location, ran a cowboy job, and they are getting the book thrown. I dont know. But BP in the Gulf, from what has passed my way, ran a cowboy job there. And how. It happens. And it costs.
On the face of it, I agree, one bird, it just screams like McEnroe 'You cant be serious!
Why doesn't someone in the US take out a private prosecution against the operators of the "Bird-Death Prayer Wheels" (not my name for them, unfortunately)?
I feel one coming here in the UK
I like the term Avian Cuisinart, although the prayer wheel one is good top :)
Regards
Mailman
So the moral we draw from this is:
Drowning a bird in oil = murder
Bashing a bird's brains in = progress.
Law as a political weapon, standard Leftwing stuff.
In the Blue Corner - First Degree Slaughter.
In the Green Corner - Death from Misadventure