Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
As dozens of ships at the BP spill site are forced to head for harbour by the approach of Tropical Storm Bonnie, work to plug the well permanently could be delayed by up to two weeks. But eight days on the temporary cap is still holding, and officials are now ‘encouraged’ by the results. Earlier this week they were concerned that seepage near the well might be evidence of damage from the disaster that could lead to a further leak…
July 2010 edition of Oilwatch Monthly
-BP testimony: Officials knew of key safety problem on rig
-EPA Whistleblower Accuses Agency of Covering Up Effects of Dispersant in BP Oil Spill Cleanup
-Workers on Doomed Rig Voiced Concern About Safety
A midweekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-Deepwater Horizon
-The Impending Peak and Decline of Petroleum Production: an Underestimated Challenge for Conservation of Ecological Integrity
-How Much Does a Gallon of Gas Cost?
-Offshore Oil Drilling and Hurricane Risks
-BP’s Tony Hayward ‘set to step down’
An amazing thing has happened. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), China has now surpassed the United States as the world’s biggest energy consumer.
Models of transition in eastern Kentucky must simultaneously address a host of interrelated regional challenges in order to bring sustainable success. The region’s economy is under-developed, with extremely high poverty and unemployment rates; housing stock is inadequate and energy-inefficient; and rural electric cooperatives are more than 90 percent dependent on coal, increasing the vulnerability of their customers in the face of rising prices.
-Andrew Nikiforuk Is Tyee’s First Writer in Residence
-Unist’ot’en leadership takes to the streets to assert their rights and stop the Enbridge pipeline
-Powering up Canadian prosperity
This pair of items will illustrate BP’s extraordinary confidence during its planning for the Macondo well. The first item consists of selected quotes from BP’s Initial Exploration Plan (Feb. 2009). The second item is a review of the recent presentation by two veteran drilling specialists from Shell. The primary purpose of their presentation was to contrast the differences between the way Shell designs its deepwater wells and the way BP designed the Macondo well. An underlying theme of both items is the fact that the various aspects of the BP plan were conducted under the oversight of senior industry administration and federal regulators.
Canada seems to be heading into authoritarianism and corruption which is similar to conditions in Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and other countries in which extractive industries are leading centres of national cash flow, which props up industry and state regimes. (Some people describe those international trends as a “resource curse.”) Lobbying, revolving doors between industry and government, and oil subsidies are three of the sides of Canada’s petro-regime.
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-The Deepwater Horizon
-Demand projections
-Briefs
-Quote of the week
If you live on the Gulf Coast, welcome to the real world of oil — and just know that you’re not alone. In the Niger Delta and the Ecuadorian Amazon, among other places, your emerging hell has been the living hell of local populations for decades.
