Guard watches coast for oil slick's first wave

[JoeRedskin]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

Maybe not, but with the right motivation the private sector very often finds a workable solution. In this case, clearly with govt support, there are several motivating factors for a private sector oil leader to come up with a solution. 1) if a company makes a breakthrough and finds a creative, effective way to end this, they get HIGH Publicity and advertising capital for their company. 2) if the solution is patent-able, they could make a profit by their design. 3) the company that stops it, if BP were to throw up their hands, would have an upper hand in the foreseeable future of deep sea drilling.

IF, and I don't believe this will be the case, it goes unstopped till August, this will be the equivalent to deepsea drilling that 3-Mile island was to Nuclear energy in this country.

Of course it does. In fact, the private sector is likely to have 1) more flexibility and 2) greater ability to "think outside the box" in looking for solutions. On the other hand, the private sector probably does not have the spectrum of resources that government entities have. I do not doubt that the public sector can marshall more and broader information (including wide ranges of specialists) and manpower (in the short term) than the private sector and, conversely that application of those resources can be done more efficiently and with more innovation by the private sector.

Mustering large amounts of short term manpower & gathering information (mundane and specialized) and specialists across a broad spectrum of knowledge? Public Sector.

Applying those resources and information to find new and innovative solutions? Private Sector.

Obviously, this is an oversimplification and the devil is in the details. But step one in finding a solution is recognizing what each group does well.