Stena Carron protest in Shetland - Greenpeace Esperanza

[scrap man]

i would like to know how much fossil fuels this latest green peace joke has burned between steaming ships all over the ocean, ribs with big petrol outboards and more than likely flights from god only knows where. intresting to know what there carbon footprint is like.if anybody else did this to an oil ship the word pirate would be quickly used as far as i'm concerned they should be treated as and delt with as

[eastsider]

I canna understand why the police dunna arrest yun idiots fur trespassin on idder folks property. I wid be more than willin to go aff un run the anchor fur dem.

 

Has the green peace eens done a risk assessment fur the possibility of the stena carron havin a black oot un runnin ashore at the nort end a bressey because of 3 idiots hangin aff there anchor chain. What damage would dat cause ta wild life etc.

 

I winder if there boats run on oil or fresh air ?

[Njugle]

Hiya eastsider. If you have a look back through this thread, particularly for posts by Gorgonzola-butt-cheese, you'll find answers to the point you make about a power outage.

[orkneypaul]

What flag does thon gp boat fly is it the royal standard or the double standard

[EM]

Would Shetland be f**ked if there was a disaster of some sort and does more drilling make that more likely? Or not?

Although there are Shetlink contributors with considerable experience in the oil industry, I think few of us really understand enough about the details of drilling and extraction to argue such points with any authority. As I pointed out earlier with the BBC schematic diagram, I feel the so-called media specialists are (pun warning) also out of their depth. The scale and speciality of the industry is just too alien for Joe Public to be able to genuinely grasp.

 

My own gut feeling is that deep water drilling is nothing like as potentially dangerous as the anti-oil activists present. As is well known, oil spills are damaging when they overwhelm natural eco-systems. The "classics" are when tankers hit coastlines, especially those with sheltered inlets and marshes. And birds of course . This scenario is simply not the case in Shetland as was proven with the Braer. Even given the good fortune of the storm and the light gulfaks, the Braer spill left virtually no trace on Shetland's environment. Deep water wells are, as the term indicates, in deep water rather than on the coast. I would be truly surprised if even a sheen would be apparent here if one of the deep water wells blew out.

 

People seem unaware of just how much oil is being released into the oceans all the time. It is an entirely natural process. The problems only occur when fragile eco-systems are overwhelmed.

[Ghostrider]

What flag does thon gp boat fly is it the royal standard or the double standard

 

Or the below standard.

[orkneypaul]

on a serious note they monkeys could make a contribution to real projects like pure in unst who are trying to make a differance and dinna get enough publicity for all the good work they do instead o wastin it on publicity stunts that at the end o the day ends up as yesterdays news when something better turns up

[Far Haaf]

But, oil and whales are different.

Indeed so, though it is perhaps a bit ironic that the expansion of the petroleum oil industry came about in part as a way of replacing the exhausted whale oil industry.

 

I wonder if it is possible to extract oil from Greenpeace activists?

I'd certainly get a lot of satisfaction if my tilly lamp was powered in such a way. 'Green' energy, and ridding the planet of a nuisance at the same time.

[Njugle]

Deep water wells are, as the term indicates, in deep water rather than on the coast. I would be truly surprised if even a sheen would be apparent here if one of the deep water wells blew out.

 

I'm no expert EM, nor a GP fan, but I think I'm in safe territory saying that some of the deeper wells west of Shetland are relatively heavy crude, that was one of the reasons they were left for so long. Heavy crude + deep water. If one were to blow out on the scale of the US disaster we would almost certainly be aware of it, being downstream of the prevailing currents, and that which did not float would have a strong possibility of hanging around on the sea bed, gugging up the occasional trawl net for quite a while = fishing restrictions.

 

However, the official line is that the UK sector is better regulated than the US, so it is less likely to happen.

 

Yes, there are natural and manmade spills all the time, and similarly there are lumps of black tarry gug that wash up on our beaches at present that have no apparent source.

 

One good example of what I'm trying to convey is the regular occurrence of black pumice washed up on Shetland beaches. It is everywhere, little lumps not easy to spot, but I've stopped collecting them because I've found plenty. Ask yourself, where do these lumps of "lava" come from?

[Frances144]

So what would happen if turd happened?

 

Who would be liable?

 

Is the insurance of the boat is at risk because they do not have 2 usuable anchors due to the "dangleberries" (luff that word btw )?

 

Also, if they have turned the boat into the wind, and the little pod thingy drops off or injures/kills one of the GP protestors, who is liable? Do you turn most boats into the direction of the wind during a storm usually - I am a landlubber, you can tell!

 

Are there trespass laws or anything in the maritime world? Is this piracy to be there without permission?

 

Answers on a postcard?

[Skunnered]

But, oil and whales are different.

Indeed so, though it is perhaps a bit ironic that the expansion of the petroleum oil industry came about in part as a way of replacing the exhausted whale oil industry.

I've got it! I've solved it!! It just came to me in a flash!

Never mind salmon farms, we need whale farms.

We can fence in the North Sea at the north end and the south end, and turn in into one gigantic whale farm. Then we will have as much whale oil as we will ever need, and we'll never have to drill for oil again!

Sorted!

[Ghostrider]

It is everywhere, little lumps not easy to spot, but I've stopped collecting them because I've found plenty. Ask yourself, where do these lumps of "lava" come from?

 

The really difficult stuff to spot is the teaspoonful size blobs of stuff the consistency of treacle, its only when you get a gale and its stuck itself to sundry wood, rope and net thats washed up that you begin to realise just how much of the stuff is out there. Most NW gales will bring some, and it has nothing to do with the drilling out west, as it was coming long before anybody ever heard there was Atlantic oil.

 

Some, very probably is the result of dumped oil, finding a 5 gallon drum of very used diesel sump oil washed up is no rare occurance. I suspect they're the minority, the majority getting split open against banks on the way in.

 

A good source though is probably old wrecks breaking up, its a ship's graveyard out there especially from two wars, and not all by a long shot spilled their bunkers etc when they went down. They're all at an age now that every gale is ripping them up a bit more, sooner or later it gets to fuel tanks etc. About 25 years ago the beaches and geos on the SW side of the Ness, and probably further afield were littered with candle fat after a prolonged spell of strong SW wind. The earlier larger pieces the perfect plug of the inside of a 45 gallon oil drum, complete with rust stains on the circumference where the barrel it had been in had touched, before it long since rusted and crumbled away. It was blamed on coming from a boat that went down in the Pentland Firth during one of the wars that had broken up with the weather, which goes to show it isn't just local crap we get driven up. If it lies SW we get from Orkney the NW Scottish mainland and the Western Isles, if it lies NW we get from Faroe, and I don't think it was a coincidence that a few weeks after the mid Eastern seaboard of the U.S. had one of their autumn storms in the 80's that swept numerous of their beachfront houses out to sea that there was a sudden run of fresh but smashed wood that had been house parts coming in. If it floats in the North Atlantic, we will end up getting some of it washed ashore.

 

Between dumped, ex-wreck spills, and natural seabed seepage, its just a wonder there isn't more that comes ashore.

 

(Oil splattered firwid and those tar balls are splendid to get the old Rayburn going good style though).

[jimmy parks]

I canna understand why the police dunna arrest yun idiots fur trespassin on idder folks property. I wid be more than willin to go aff un run the anchor fur dem.

 

Yes Im pretty sure if a couple of us went and tied ourselves to the anchor we would be forcably removed. Greenpeace gets special treatment of that theres no dout. They maybe have zilcho support in Shetland/Shetlink but they have a fair bit around the world.

 

Personably I think they should be taken off, by whatever means necessary.

[mate64]

People seem unaware of just how much oil is being released into the oceans all the time.

 

I checked out "natural oil leaks" on Google.

Quote: The natural seeps off Santa Barbara, where 20-25 tons of oil have leaked from the seafloor each day for the last several hundred thousand years.

Jeez!

[Kavi Ugl]

Well, I've just looked at the Shetland News and seen the photo of the pod and it's as I suspected - it's hanging from the top side but unsecured from the bottom which means the wind and movement of the SC herself will be swapping it about and against the chain.

 

If that pod breaks loose and comes crashing down onto the anchor head there will be some serious injuries to the people inside.