EARLE: ... to be able to calculate the effects and what‘s the fate of the oil itself, plus-, what do we need to do to bring it to closure?
MATTHEWS: Well, that‘s what I‘m asking about. Is the problem getting a submarine to get—can we use our fleet of submarines to go down there and get men, frogmen, down there with torches and begin to close up that—that hole in that pipe? What is the problem, getting there? Is it the transportation to the bottom of the sea, a mile down, or is it the technology of closing that hole?
EARLE: I think it‘s a combination. We don‘t have submersibles that can go to 5,000 feet, except for the Alvin, a few systems that exist in the whole world. There are only four submersibles that can go to half the ocean‘s depth. And this country doesn‘t have any of those. It‘s Japan, China, France. We‘re not—and Russia—we‘re not in the game to go really deep with manned systems.
MATTHEWS: Well—well, how did we dig this hole? EARLE: And... (CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: How did we drill—how did we drill this pipeline? How did we create this oil well down there, if we couldn‘t get down there?
EARLE: We have got the technology to actually accomplish that kind of work in the deep sea, even essentially nearly twice as deep, and the robots that are developed to be able to go down for maintenance, inspection and repair.
But that‘s under normal circumstances. To deal with something of this sort is a major challenge that I think nobody anticipated that we would ever have to do this. There are some unique problems with dealing in deep water and dealing with the oil that comes out of such an area, as compared to what is released at the surface.
For one thing, of course, it‘s cold. And then there‘s the pressure. These are factors that we‘re just not prepared to have to— to deal with. And we have to get up to speed fast. The technologies arguably do exist. I mean, the capability is there.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
EARLE: But we haven‘t made the investment to have a garage filled with submarines, a garage filled with remotely-operated systems, and the talent to be able to go down independently of industry and respond.
linkThe Bush administration approved more than
41,000 drilling permits.
America's ability to respond to this catastrophe was determined long ago when this country decided that drilling was more important than solutions to potential disasters.