Review of RCH/C2C 20th July

Richard C. Hoagland on Coast to Coast AM

     He's BAAAAA-aaaaaack!!! Another hour of ranting, flinging totally inaccurate accusations like stink-bombs and beating a few dead horses just for good measure.

     There was nonsense about NASA and about the "artificial spaceships" Phobos and Lutetia, but most of the nonsense was once more about Deepwater Horizon:

     He repeated yet again a plea for those mud logs and lamented the fact that Ed Markey of the congressional sub-committee on energy and mineral resources has not been able to prise them out of BP's fingers. Of course, Hoagland doesn't actually know that — he's just guessing. Markey may well have been shown them on a classified basis. Hoagland still didn't say what he'd actually do with them if he got them. This campaign of his is already a total FAIL, but neither he nor radio host George Noory have accepted that fact.

     He called for the establishment of a network of tsunami warning buoys, presumably an extension of the existing DART system, ready for when that 20-mile wide methane bubble at a pressure of 100,000 psi erupts. Leaving aside for a moment the fact that the methane bubble as he describes it doesn't exist, the distance from the Deepwater Horizon site to the coast of Florida is about 450 kM — a tsunami would be over the beaches and swim-up bars of St. Petersburg and Sarasota in less than an hour. New Orleans would be the world's biggest human aquarium in about ten minutes.

     There was worse to come. Hoagland ranted several times about the stupidity of what he called the "pressurization" of the oil well by BP, a company that he described as concerned only about its profits and scandalously unanswerable to anybody representing "We, The People." He even apologized for getting hot under the collar, remarking that "when I see people doing really stupid things, I get mad."

     Well, this diatribe was not merely inaccurate but the exact reverse of the truth — and as usual George Noory allowed it on the air exactly as though it were true. The real truth is that since 15th July the three-ram capping stack has successfully stopped all but a trickle of oil and gas from the Macondo well. The gigantic three-month long gusher has actually had the effect of REDUCING pressure, from about 9,000 psi to today's 6,800 psi. The idea that the well is being pressurized is pure fantasy. As for lack of oversight of BP's practices — Adm. Thad Allen represents the people of the USA and he's very firmly in charge. Over the weekend he sent a headmasterly letter to BP reminding them that they had to do things his way, and directing them to continue the tests and seismic surveys.

     What Hoagland didn't mention — probably because he doesn't understand — is that the reduced pressure in the well has got some experts thinking again about a so-called "top kill." This is the same procedure that was tried unsuccessfully back on 26th May — injection of enough drilling mud to counterbalance the upward thrust of the column of oil under pressure. The pressure proved too great to overcome in May, but now that it's reduced a kill may be possible. However, it won't happen unless Adm. Allen approves.

     Either by means of the top kill or the relief well — very likely both — this well will be dead and sealed in a couple of weeks, weather permitting. High-pressure oil and gas will continue to exist under that part of the sea bed. But it was Mother Nature, not BP, that put it there.

     Hoagland still hasn't written the White Paper he announced five weeks ago, and for that I guess we can be thankful. Hoagland is wrong about the sabotage; he's wrong about the pressure; and he's wrong about that other gash in the Earth's crust spewing even more oil. His continued access to the public media, to spout utter lies to a radio audience of around six million, is a very palpable disgrace.