Because of Dick Cheney, they were drilling without all of the safeguards
"Without all the safeguards" can mean either "without any safeguards", or "without every possible safeguard". Either way your statement is nonsense. The first because safeguards on the rig where extensive, as they are on all the other rigs. The 2nd because there are always more safeguards that could be added whether or not they are cost effective.
So dropping the nonsensical part of your post we get "Because of Dick Cheney, they were without an acoustical shutoff valve.
That offshore oil rigs would be required to have this particular safety measure if it was not for action by Cheney is possible, but you have not established it as truth, you've just claimed it with not backing.
Beyond that there is the question of would it have helped, which you seem to assume, you don't address it at all. The well not only had a primary shutoff (where someone presses a button and the signal needs to travel down an intact wire to cause shutoff), but a backup "deadman switch" with a constant signal that if lost (by the connection to the sub-sea unit being severed) causes the shutoff to occur. The fact that this backup didn't work leads to speculation that the cause of the failure was at the sub sea level, with some physical or electrical fault preventing the shutoff from happening. If that's the cause a setup for an acoustical signal to the shutoff valve unit wouldn't have done any good.
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U.S. regulators don't mandate use of the remote-control device on offshore rigs, and the Deepwater Horizon, hired by oil giant BP PLC, didn't have one. With the remote control, a crew can attempt to trigger an underwater valve that shuts down the well even if the oil rig itself is damaged or evacuated.
The efficacy of the devices is unclear. Major offshore oil-well blowouts are rare, and it remained unclear Wednesday evening whether acoustic switches have ever been put to the test in a real-world accident. When wells do surge out of control, the primary shut-off systems almost always work. Remote control systems such as the acoustic switch, which have been tested in simulations, are intended as a last resort.
online.wsj.com |
