Environmentalists should play nasty for Oil Spill in Gulf of Mexico

Dear Energy Professional, Dear Colleagues,

An investment is placed in order to have payback in the shortest possible period of time, and to earn the maximum return. It is not because you need more energy, more electricity. This is not public service. These are expensive commodities and they will get more expensive due to ever increasing demand.

That is the case in the world, hence that is the case in our country. An investor comes to a country and makes an investment since that country creates opportunities to payback the initial investment money in the shortest period of time. They do not care the environment, they do not care the people, they do not care employment expectations of the local people. An investor only cares the money they will earn.

On the other hand, they behave as if they care the environment, the people, the nature. Do not get confused, nor get deceived.

They promise everything, the best environmental friendly technology, the best appropriate filters, non-stop operation of those dust filters, fluegas desulphurisation systems, minimum temperature increase in the nearby seawater for plant cooling system, the lowest available dust exit at their stack, the best coal handling system, the best ash handling and ash storage systems.

Do not get wrong. Do not loose your control over their investment on your home land. Do not leave your environment to their control.

We mechanical engineers are educated to make, design, fabricate, construct and operate thermal power plants. We like to have more stringent environmental rules and regulations. These regulations are our joy, our business, our challenge. The more the rules get stringent, the more we work, the more engineering we make, the more money we earn.

The critical issue is that these engineering works should be made locally, by local engineers, by local fabricators, by local qualified workers, based on local fuel coal lignite etc.

A foreign engineering company can NOT make these detailed engineering. They are unreliable. They make the construction, operate for a few years during acceptance test period and then they leave the country. You stay with a scrap design, a scrap plant, and most of the time unable to operate.

Environmentalists should be careful in nature protection. They should even play nasty. That is the language the international investors understand very well. Locals should keep an eye on all activities, on all design stages, on all equipment, on all environmental regulations.

These critical issues can not be left to public administrations. A public administrator only cares to please his/her superior in order to get promotion, he/she does not care the local environment, top administrator only cares to please the existing political power.

Therefore do not hesitate to play nasty in order to protect your employment, your job, your environment, your air, water, soil and sea. You should be merciless to those who do not care your environment. You should destroy/ eradicate/ erase their business interests, their career, their professional expectations.

That is the case where President Barack H. Obama has to take action against BP in Gulf of Mexico. That is the same case in Amasra, Catalagzi, Elbistan, Yatagan in our country. That is the rule of the game. There is no other compromise.

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Haluk Direskeneli, Ankara based Energy Analyst