Oil

Is there rehab for this oil overdose? Black tar has just taken on a whole new meaning

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It’s been almost a month since the sirens of the Deep Water Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico lacerated the night with tortured warnings of impending doom. Chief electronic technician Mike Williams, who nearly perished in the catastrophe, recounted in excruciating detail on CBS’s 60 Minutes on May 16 the horror of that night and the appalling negligence that contributed to the worst human-made disaster in recorded history.

Deepwater Horizon Could Result in 2nd Largest Oil Spill in History

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Sometime within the next two weeks the free-flowing Deepwater Horizon well could surpass the second largest oil spill in history. Indeed, if we assume the highest independently measured estimates of the leak’s flow rate, Deepwater Horizon may have already released 84% of the total petroleum that was dumped into the Gulf of Mexico by the Ixtoc I, a similar rig blow-out that occurred in 1979.

Regulating the disaster

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We still don’t have the faintest idea how much oil is spewing out of the well in the Gulf. Nor do we have the faintest idea what the full environmental consequence of what may well be the biggest single-event human-caused. ecological disaster of all time (the very fact that I have to add the word “single-event” to that statement should tell you something). We know that it is almost certainly more than all the low estimates to date, and we know that the ecological consequences will be huge, lasting and we do not understand them.

British Petroleum vs. a sustainable planet: time to ban BP from doing business in the United States

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British Petroleum (BP) portrayed itself this past decade as an oil company investing in renewable sources of clean energy for a “Beyond Petroleum” future. BP had many people convinced that it was a very different kind of oil company, but the catastrophic spill this spring in the Gulf of Mexico is shedding light on the true nature of this transnational corporation.

It’s the end of the world (as we know it)

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This article concisely summarizes most of what has been discussed in Energy Bulletin over the past few months regarding Peak Oil. Reading all this news, I realized we are now actually facing The End of The World (As We Know It). I struggled for awhile with how to write about this. Despair is not the answer.

ODAC Newsletter – May 14

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There was much to welcome in the new coalition’s energy policy. In particular, ODAC supports the commitment to a “huge increase” in anaerobic digestion; raise renewables targets; the “full establishment” of feed-in-tariffs while maintaining the existing banded ROCs to ensure continuity for big renewables investors; a shift of aviation duty from people to planes; scrap Heathrow’s third runway and block new ones at Stanstead and Gatwick.

Stupak stunner: Oil well’s blowout preventer had leaks, dead battery, design flaws

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A senior House Democrat said that the blowout preventer that failed to stop an oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico had a dead battery in its control pod, leaks in its hydraulic system, a “useless” test version of one of the devices that was supposed to close the flow of oil and a cutting tool that wasn’t strong enough to shear through joints that made up 10 percent of the drill pipe.

Peak soil: it’s like peak oil, only worse

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Resource collapse is bigger than peak oil, and bigger even than the projected depletion of natural gas, coal and uranium – it encompasses each and every natural resource extracted, exploited or otherwise processed on an industrial scale. We’re experiencing problems with our living environment – climate, soil and water – that are more than just energy issues.

How the BP oil spill is affecting New Orleans schools

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When BP’s Deep Water Horizon well exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, it was difficult to imagine the scope of its impact on the delicate coastlines of Louisiana and adjacent states. Today, the former platform site continues to spill about 5,000 barrels a day – or 210,000 gallons – into the Gulf, with no containment strategy yet in sight.