Amid all the finger-pointing spawned by the Gulf oil disaster, there's one simple fact that's crystal clear. It was a human failure, not a technological or mechanical one, that's to blame.
If we're to believe 60 Minutes, there was clear warning of a problem weeks before the oil rig blew up, when a gasket on the rig's blowout preventer was damaged. But the warnings were ignored, apparently because BP, which was in awful bloody hurry to get drilling going, took control of how things were going to be done.
I suppose you could make the argument that all technical failures are human failures, since the technology is created by humans. But this isn't quite one of those situations where some engineer used faulty calculation accidentally. This involved a loud, in-your-face warning which was ignored. Why? To maximize profits and minimize losses? To get a bonus? To strut around at a stockholder's meeting?
It's a given that our legacy methods of generating energy involve risk. As I mentioned in an earlier post, a lot more harm can be caused by a problem on an oil-drilling rig or an ocean-going tanker, or in a coal mine or a nuclear power plant, than anything that could happen with windmills or solar panels. And even if human beings behave perfectly, there are always earthquake and hurricanes, etc.
But there is no protection against disaster if profit or status is going to trump safety, and if those we entrust to regulate our riskiest endeavors don't do their jobs. The fact is, the vast majority of drilling rigs, tankers, coal mines and nuclear plants work just fine. But there is no technological safeguard, no mechanical backup yet devised, that can protect us against laziness, greed, or excess ambition.
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