Oil industry sinkhole threatens to swallow city

www.mnn.com...#

U.S. 285 south subject to sinkhole 1,000 feet ahead," reads a bright yellow sign along the stretch of highway heading through Carlsbad, N.M.

Normally a motorist driving through the area might not find a sign like that unusual. The city is, after all, home to Carlsbad Caverns National Park, a network of some of the largest natural caverns in North America. But on this occasion, the sign's sharp colors make the message clear: what's happening in Carlsbad is not natural.

In fact, the massive sinkhole currently running through the center of town was created by the oil industry. As MSNBC reports, it was formed over three decades as oil field service companies pumped fresh water into a salt layer more than 400 feet below the surface and extracted several million barrels of brine to help with drilling.

And there are those on ATS that still support fracking, and the oil companies making obscene profits while we suffer at the pump.
WTF....

originally posted by: olaru12
and the oil companies making obscene profits while we suffer at the pump.

The USA has cheap fuel compared to most of the world, now if you drove decent cars......
www.globalpetrolprices.com...

a reply to: olaru12

If you define obscene by a 7 or 8% profit margin then yeah.

Or...we could just gut them, tax them to death and then pay 6, 7 or 8 bucks a gallon at the pump, no sweat!

a reply to: bbracken677
Oh yeah, and the Arabs extract oil for oh, $10 a barrel which they then sell on the open market for $100, $110 a barrel. Yeah...we should definitely blame the oil companies for obscene profits.... Yep...

After taxing the crap (cause 40% in taxes at the pump isn't enough) out of the oil companies we should drive those jobs overseas also. Isn't that the liberal way?

They should stabilize those caverns with concrete and create a huge underground facility. Think of all the possible uses - secure location for data storage, 365 day sports stadium with low air-conditioning costs, an underground city that won't be affected by blizzards or heatwaves.

a reply to: bbracken677
Silly...
What price is worth contaminating our water table and having sink holes everywhere?
I wish I had a business that only made 7-8 percent profit yet made BILLIONS quarterly.

Guess who makes the most "obscene" profits ?

More than triple the amount that most oil companies make on a gallon of gasoline.

The federal government.

l The United States federal excise tax on gasoline is 18.4 cents per gallon and 24.4 cents per gallon for diesel fuel.[1][2] On average, as of April 2014, state and local taxes add 31.5 cents to gasoline and 31.0 cents to diesel, for a total US average fuel tax of 49.9 cents per gallon for gas and 55.4 cents per gallon for diesel.[3]


Does anyone enjoy SALT on their food?
Guess where it comes from.
That's right, underground. Using this same process.

a reply to: olaru12

Well, you know what they say. The "bigger" you are, the less responsibility you have for your actions. Just have a look a the banking and coal industries. Why should 'poor ol' oil' have it any differently?

a reply to: g146541

It just seems to me that rather than demonizing a whole industry, one that has the potential of pulling us out of this clusterfunk economy we are in, every time a sinkhole appears, specially in an area of known naturally occurring underground erosion that we would consider that factor for just a moment.

I, for one, am tired of hearing about the "evil corporation" and then have to listen to the same group of people gripe about jobs going overseas as if it were some dumba$$ conspiracy.

a reply to: bjax9er
Lol and 80% of the cost of booze is taxes. Talk about a stinking bloated wasteful govt that fuel and booze taxes are not near enough to run the govt, they need to tax the crap out of everything and everybody as well.

Time for a Boston style tea party revolution, methinks. There is a serious addiction at play here... And our money is the crack.

a reply to: olaru12

Um, the ground underneath Carlsbad is like swiss cheese. How is it "the oil company" is to blame?

a reply to: bbracken677
Oil is not god, in fact it is quickly dying.
The only reason it has had a chokehold on the world is that real tech has been suppressed.
Back in 1987 my Mom had a car that got 57 MPG!
Fast forward almost 30 years, you would think fuel usage would have improved.
It has actually gone backwards, why is that?
Good news though, just in the past 20 years there have been leaps and bounds in alternative tech!
Funny how the tech boom coincides with the free flow of information on the internet.
Oil cannot save us, it can only keep us in the quagmire we have been in for the past 100 years.
I, for one am tired of hearing the corporate apologists and how benevolent the company is.

a reply to: g146541

I had one of those cars. It wasn't due to technology, it was due to an engine with barely enough power to accelerate the vehicle 0 to 60 in 5 minutes lol. People stopped buying them, they would rather have something with some get up and go.

That vehicle (mine) was a Datsun B210 if my memory serves me.

Every time I hear about supposed tech being suppressed when I investigate it I usually find some hoax or fraud.

Yeah, the internet is a great source of open information, but at the same time it is a great source of misinformation and outright bull shist.

If someone can make money (including the evil corporations) from new tech you bet your a$$ it will. If it provides a superior result, there will be no stopping it. I cry BS at suppressed tech, plain and simple.

All those tales of the suppressed technology have zero as proof and are nothing more than grist for the conspiracy mill and weak minds that will believe anything they want to believe is true, regardless of the non-existence of proof of any kind. Might as well believe in the tooth fairy.

I sure do hope you ride a bicycle.

Oh wait, it was made with oil also.

It is a sinkhole. These things happen, especially in that area.

The speculators make the money, not the oil companies. I suppose the execs do get into speculation. The stock holders don't make much either. The oil companies sell their paperwork oil to the speculators and then buy it back at a higher price.

Get rid of the speculators that drive the price up.

originally posted by: bbracken677
a reply to: g146541

I had one of those cars. It wasn't due to technology, it was due to an engine with barely enough power to accelerate the vehicle 0 to 60 in 5 minutes lol. People stopped buying them, they would rather have something with some get up and go.

That vehicle (mine) was a Datsun B210 if my memory serves me.

Every time I hear about supposed tech being suppressed when I investigate it I usually find some hoax or fraud.

Yeah, the internet is a great source of open information, but at the same time it is a great source of misinformation and outright bull shist.

If someone can make money (including the evil corporations) from new tech you bet your a$$ it will. If it provides a superior result, there will be no stopping it. I cry BS at suppressed tech, plain and simple.

All those tales of the suppressed technology have zero as proof and are nothing more than grist for the conspiracy mill and weak minds that will believe anything they want to believe is true, regardless of the non-existence of proof of any kind. Might as well believe in the tooth fairy.

Let me guess,you don`t believe in the 2000 MPG carburetor,and how the evil oil companies killed all of the inventors every couple years or so?

a reply to: rickymouse


Lol

That is not how it works... Not at all.

I am having an insurance commercial flashback !!!!

a reply to: bjax9er
I agree with your post up until...

Does anyone enjoy SALT on their food? Guess where it comes from. That's right, underground. Using this same process.

The largest source for salt is our seas and oceans. Sure there are salt mines, but salt is all around us, just saying.

a reply to: Sunwolf

Nope lol. My feet reside firmly on the ground.

The current "fad" involves perpetual motion machines and suspending the 2nd law of thermodynamics. And yet people fall for and believe that crap. At least until the company they invested in goes bankrupt and is then investigated for fraud.

But hey... It could happen! Lol

a reply to: TheLieWeLive

The salt you use on your table, or something like 80 or 90% of it! comes from mines.

Yes, there is much salt in the oceans, but it is more costly to extract than to mine.

How do I know this? I am so old that when I was young the Dead Sea was called the Dying Sea