[sparky]

.
" The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for April 2016 was 1.10°C (1.98°F) above the 20th century average of 13.7°C (56.7°F) "

from the NOAA https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201604

as for a 2C warmer world ......been there , done that ,
no noticeable effects beside a biomass shift and more rain

[jedrider]

The good ole USA is also the world expert at using FORCE. If UN sanctions don't work then we'll just take out each oil well with a drone:) As far as I am concerned, anyone without a plan to abandon FFs is an enemy of the entire planet and should be dipped in lava.

I feel the same way. However, the monetary elite are a globalist culture and they like things just the way they are.

Of course, whether money will be able to buy one happiness on a drastically altered planet remains to be seen.

[Plantagenet]

The good ole USA is also the world expert at using FORCE. If UN sanctions don't work then we'll just take out each oil well with a drone:)

Thats already been done. Saddam blew up the oil wells in Kuwait when Bush 41 pushed him out in 1991. It didn't help---the Kuwaitis just redrilled the wells and starting pumping oil again.


All the oil wells were taken out in Kuwait in 1991---but today they are all back in operation

[SeaGypsy]

It took a few weeks to figure out how to put the fires out. They ended up using explosives which burned off all the oxygen to starve the fires. Quite ingenious.

[Cog]

On some of the wells they used ground mounted jet engines to blow the fires out. It was quite the show and the well fires got put out very quickly all things considered. The value of being able to throw money at a problem won the day.

[rockdoc123]

It took a few weeks to figure out how to put the fires out. They ended up using explosives which burned off all the oxygen to starve the fires. Quite ingenious.

If memory serves that was the last big project that Red Adair was involved in. Between Adairs company and a company formed by a couple of his former employees Boots and Coots they put out a large % of the wellfires. The two companies were later merged into International Well Control.

For you younguns John Wayne portrayed Red Adair in the movie Hellfighters.

[clif]

I walked both burning oil fields in 1991 as part of operation desert shield.

[ROCKMAN]

baha - "As far as I am concerned, anyone without a plan to abandon FFs...". So what is your plan and how close are you to not benefitting (directly and indirectly) from fossil fuel consumption? Curious minds would like to know.

[yellowcanoe]

If memory serves that was the last big project that Red Adair was involved in. Between Adairs company and a company formed by a couple of his former employees Boots and Coots they put out a large % of the wellfires. The two companies were later merged into International Well Control.

Safety Boss from Calgary put out more well fires in Kuwait than any other company.

For you younguns John Wayne portrayed Red Adair in the movie Hellfighters.

Definitely a good movie.

[ROCKMAN]

Gypsy - "...took a few weeks to figure out how to put the fires out." Actually a decades old technique. Try to find "Hellfighters": a 49 year old movie with John Wayne showing exactly how the techniques was done.

Kuwait was lucky the Iraq soldier didn't know how to permanently destroy a well. Apparently they blew off the tops of the wellheads. As you saw blowing out the fires and replacing the wellhead is not fast nor cheap. But redrilling every well would have taken much longer and been much more expensive.

If they had set the explosives under the wellheads where the casing and production tubing enter the wells would have "cratered": no way to tie on a new wellhead. In the movie you'll actually see one of Wayne's cohorts turn down a job on a cratered well. If you watch the movie you'll see the well can't be controlled by just blowing the fire out: the damaged wellhead has to be removed and replaced by a new one. Then when the fire is out they can shut the new valves and stop the well from flowing oil. Just stopping the fire means the oil would just keep flowing on to the ground until it depleted.

And in addition to redrilling new wells most of the damaged wells would have had relief wells drilled to intersect and cut the casing in them to "kill" them...much more expensive and time consuming then just redrilling the wells. Maybe you remember such an effort on the BP Macondo blowout.

Back in the 80's when there was little work for geologist I came in second for a job with a well control company. Not Red's...a new start up. Besides needing a paycheck the prospect was truly exciting being a left over adrenaline junkie from my late teens.

But fortunately I grew out of it. LOL.

[ROCKMAN]

"Safety Boss from Calgary put out more well fires in Kuwait than any other company." That was just because Canadian engineers were cheaper and more easily replaced. LOL.

Reminds me of the crews that went in to handle all the mines planted by Iraq. Not exactly like you see in the movies: the demo man sweating bullets trying to decide whether to cut the red or blue wire. They would cut off the top of a one liter water jug (lot's of empty ones in the desert), place it over the mine and lower a blasting cap thru the mouth. Set it off from a safe distance and BOOM!...no more land mine.

I still recall a reporter asking a former Legionnaire why he did that instead of diffusing them by hand. He didn't say anything...just walked away laughing very loudly.

And that reminds me of a story I haven't told for years. In addition to missing out on the excitement of working on blowouts: I missed another job advertised by the Texas Army reserve: they actually put an add in the Houston paper for an NBC Warfare specialist...anyone with a college degree in any science. But the opening had closed by the time I responded. NBC: Nuclear-Biological-Chemical. The unit didn't deploy those weapons...it was a response until when the enemy deployed them. The primary job was field testing to determine exactly what was in play. They were the first Texas called up when TSHTF. Years later I ran into a guy whose brother-in-law was in the unit. The unofficial unit patch: a fellow canary. LOL.

He said the heat in the hazmat suits was unbearable so they wouldn't wear them very long if they weren't sure there was a need.

[sparky]

.
I can feel for the guy ,
sometime in summer we were wearing full face gas masks because of the H2S
after five minute in 120 degree F , death seemed like a good option .

[careinke]

I walked both burning oil fields in 1991 as part of operation desert shield.

I believe the name had changed to Desert Storm by the time the fields were burning.

As a Mission Crew Commander on the E-3, I spent many hours flying over that mess. During the day there was too much smoke to see the ground from 30,000 feet, most days you could see the smoke all the way down to Riyadh (our base).

The night missions on the other hand were spectacular! Burning Oil wells from horizon to horizon. I am truly amazed how quickly Red was able to get those out. Whatever we paid him, it wasn't enough.

[clif]

Yes I realise the DOD plays word games with their ops. I deployed during the time they called it Desert Shield and when they changed the name I told my first sergeant, I don't care how many times they change the name, we are here for the duration.


Ground level was an alternate reality on some days, smoke so thick you couldn’t see 20 feet from you, even at noon.

My job EOD tech took me inside the oil fields clearing bombs and some mines for the fire crews. With in a 50 meters the heat started to get interesting. Interesting memories, I wouldn't care to repeat.

And as for wearing the TAP suit, try it in Florida in the summer carrying a 75 lb projectile 100 meters, you pour the sweat out of your boots.

First oil fires were extinguished in April 91 last one put out in early Nov 91.

A company called SafetyBOSS from Canada put out almost a third of the fires with a truck they had, more than any other firm by a significant margin. It used large volumes of sea water to basically cool and smother the fire.

Neatest rig was the MIG jet engine on a tank chassis, It just "blew" the fires out.

[careinke]

Yes I realise the DOD plays word games with their ops.

Ha Ha, so true...

When I helped kick off Provide Comfort, where we air dropped food to the Kurds in Northern Iraq, it was initially named "Southern Comfort." Before the first days missions were over, someone had figured out this was really not a politically correct name, and it was changed to Provide Comfort before we landed in Turkey.

We made a cool coin for that operation. "Provide Comfort" -- "Giving the Kurds their Whey"

[dohboi]

I posted this in the general GW thread, but it's really more apt here:

”A target of 2½ °C is technically feasible but would require extreme virtually universal global policy measures.” --William D. Nordhaus

https://www.scribd.com/document/3356882 ... -economics?

“There’s momentum in the energy system, there’s momentum in the climate, we really are committed to that second degree fairly clearly already.” --Richard Alley

At 36:40 here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IcPrEM2_p4

(Thanks to Erik Fredriksen at robertscribbler's blog for these)

[Newfie]

Dohboi,

On a personal level I consider 2 definite, 3 even.

Only some extreme event such as a limited nuclear war or complete financial/societal collapse will stop us at 3.

But that's just my bet. I likely won't be here to see it, given I'm 66. But I'll give it hell.

[dohboi]

That's a pretty fair assumption, I'd say. Of course, once we get to 3C (and probably long before), feedbacks will insure that we go much farther.

[Newfie]

I stumbled across rational wiki. Thought you might find it useful.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Climate_change

[dohboi]

Thanks, Newf. I knew about the site, but hadn't looked at this article for a while.

Nice to see they keep a healthy sense of humor there:

...the vast majority of scientific bodies are convinced by the evidence.... In addition, those pinko tree-huggers at the Pentagon now rank global warming as a "destabilizing force" (damn enviro-weenies)