December 27, 2006: Nigerian gas explosion outcome [very graphic]

[Spexxvet]

Burying them costs more than 260 Nigerian lives, apparently.

Why so many lives to bury the lines, mines? Were they burying the lines... I did not get that... I got that they were stealing the fuel from it.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

Why so many lives to bury the lines, mines? Were they burying the lines... I did not get that... I got that they were stealing the fuel from it.

What I meant was that the amount that "the company" would have to pay to bury the lines would cost more than these dead people.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

What I meant was that the amount that "the company" would have to pay to bury the lines would cost more than these dead people.

You misspelled the government. Nigeria's oil industry is nationalized.

[Griff]

hmmmm... upon further review public private partnership...

Got it... no inflection in text.

If you have 3rds all over you, sure... I have had em' in limited spaces. They HURT, at least the surrounding area sure as hell does.

[chrisinhouston]

Sadly, the charring on these bodies comes mostly fromt he subcutaneous fat cells, sort of like when you forget you put steaks or chicken on the grill and the when you take them off you hardly recognize what the are.

I wonder if Americans, who lead the world in obesity, would make better char then others around the world?

[CaliforniaMama]

Originally Posted by chrisinhouston

Sadly, the charring on these bodies comes mostly fromt he subcutaneous fat cells, sort of like when you forget you put steaks or chicken on the grill and the when you take them off you hardly recognize what the are.

I wonder if Americans, who lead the world in obesity, would make better char then others around the world?

Uh, thanks for that visual. The description is almost worse than the pics!

This is one of my most nightmarish things. My dad was a firefighter. One time they were digging up the tanks of a defunct gas station. Something in a piece of equipment sparked and three workers . . . POOF. Right in my little home town. My dad had just gone off shift . . . as a volunteer firefighter he was called back to help put out the fire. I've often thought of what he must have felt seeing that and what a close miss it was.

When I was a kid there was a fire in a tunnel here. A tanker truck exploded. They showed a picture of a person sitting at the steering wheel of a car with a gruesome grin. It's like they never even knew what hit them and all that was left was the metal frame of the car and this person's bones.

I have hated tunnels ever since. And gas stations.

One time hubby let the tank overflow. We had no idea it was overflowing until we saw someone glance under our van. There was a huge flood of gas all around. I freaked, because all three of my kids were in the van. It took forever for the gas station attendant to find the neutralizer. Any little thing and we would have all been gone. Fortunately, the gas station led out to a parking lot that was slightly down hill, so we were able to push the van out of the gas flood without starting it . . . or making a spark.

[GuyNamedGuy]

A suggestion to the folks running the Cellar IOTD: perhaps it would be good if, when running a stomach-churning image like this, you had a "are you sure you want to see this?" button to click first, rather than seeing a gagger image the moment you visit the IOTD. There's been a few medical-related images in recent months that left me queasy. I love the IOTD - it's a daily stop - but please, give us a chance to look the other way first, okay?

I've been saying for 20+ years that one of the best things the USA could do for the world (and make a few export $$ at it, too) is develop safe, cheap alternate energy technology for developing countries. This is a good argument WHY. It'd let us manufacture something (a novel idea in itself these days), would lower pressure on non-renewable oil, and would be waaaaaay safer than this sort of thing. Were people going to power cars with what they stole, or cook with it, or what? If it's cooking, there must be a solar or alcohol technology or SOMEthing better than, literally in this case, "cooking with gas".

And heck, I guess I'm an insensitive bastard, too. That is a hell of a pattern on the fellow's outfit. Looks like we know now where James Brown's extra stage outfits got to after he died!

[CaliforniaMama]

Originally Posted by GuyNamedGuy

A suggestion to the folks running the Cellar IOTD: perhaps it would be good if, when running a stomach-churning image like this, you had a "are you sure you want to see this?" button to click first, rather than seeing a gagger image the moment you visit the IOTD.

[very graphic] doesn't do it, eh?

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by GuyNamedGuy

...I've been saying for 20+ years that one of the best things the USA could do for the world (and make a few export $$ at it, too) is develop safe, cheap alternate energy technology for developing countries. This is a good argument WHY. It'd let us manufacture something (a novel idea in itself these days), would lower pressure on non-renewable oil, and would be waaaaaay safer than this sort of thing. Were people going to power cars with what they stole, or cook with it, or what? If it's cooking, there must be a solar or alcohol technology or SOMEthing better than, literally in this case, "cooking with gas".
...

Is this really Jimmy Carter?

I agree. It would have been nice if Dutch Reagan hadn't undone the policies Carter implemented to promote alternative fuels.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Seems to me, it would be better for the world if we did GuyNamedGuy's suggestions for ourselves.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by GuyNamedGuy

I've been saying for 20+ years that one of the best things the USA could do for the world (and make a few export $$ at it, too) is develop safe, cheap alternate energy technology for developing countries. This is a good argument WHY. It'd let us manufacture something (a novel idea in itself these days), would lower pressure on non-renewable oil, and would be waaaaaay safer than this sort of thing. Were people going to power cars with what they stole, or cook with it, or what? If it's cooking, there must be a solar or alcohol technology or SOMEthing better than, literally in this case, "cooking with gas".

You mean like these guys?

Actually, Nigeria is a very rich country. It's just that all of the money being made from natural resources seems to be concentrating in the hands of the wealthiest and most corrupt individuals.

[GuyNamedGuy]

Yes - I just bookmarked cellar.org/iotd when I originally found the site, looking for pictures of the "purple polar bear" a few years ago. So when I look at it I get the image right off the bat. Sometimes it can be a jolt. I'm using a laptop - do you have any idea how hard it is to clean barf out of a laptop keyboard?!?

Yeah, from a very quick glance, self.org has sort of the right idea. I don't know anything about them or what their agenda is. I'm older, so I lok at it from a 1970's Mother Earth News angle. But the technology exists to wean a lot of the world demand of oil. I just hope the USA can switch away in time, before the press of events forces it on us in a painful and possibly fatal way to our nation and our characteristic culture. SF writers such as Lester Del Rey and Robert Heinlein have been predicting this sort of thing since about 1940 - and 67 years later we're still sliding towards oblivion. As Heinlein himself put it, we're "Too fat, dumb and happy", like the Romans watching the Visigoths (or whoever it was that sacked the city) approach the city in 410 AD and doing nothing. We've been sitting back doing basically nothing since 1973 - 34 years now!! - while our hard-earned treasure gets shipped overseas to enrich regimes which do not like us or are actively hostile to us. Now look at the mess we're in, basically over oil. How much longer can we go on?

Heinlein makes a very very good point in his short story THE ROADS MUST ROLL (1940). Every tank, jeep, airplane and every ship except subs and aircraft carriers run on oil. If a big war breaks out, oil will be a military priority, just as it was in WW2. The difference is, most folks live in suburbs now, not in the towns themselves as most of them did in 1941. Commute distances are many times what they were in 1941. Streetcar lines, interurban trolley lines and passenger trains are basically extinct now. If we can't get gas, how do we get to work? If we can't get to work, where does our country end up?

Now, we're going to be competing with China and India, the awakening economic giants, for Middle East oil. Great - just what we need. That'll be what kicks off the next big war, I suspect about 2020 or so. Time to get out of importing oil while the getting out's good.


Setting a good example for the world is supposed to be the USA's *JOB*, for heaven's sake. Cutting CO2 emissions can't hurt anything. And we can still make some nice low and medium-tech jobs manufacturing and selling alternate energy technology, and making some export bucks would be really nice these days!

And I do like Thomas Freidman's term for countries, like Nigeria, Saudi arabia, etc. that are rich in natural resources and yet the money never ends up enriching the majority of people - "Kleptocracies".