Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Oil prices fell below $70/barrel this week before recovering slightly. The drop reflected market nervousness about the gravity of the Euro crisis and its potential impact on the global economy, coupled with continued high US crude oil stocks. In the meantime all eyes continue to be focused on the Gulf of Mexico where challenges to BP’s estimate of the size of the oil spill is further damaging the credibility of the company…
Yes, the oil spewing up from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico in staggering quantities could prove one of the great ecological disasters of human history. Think of it, though, as just the prelude to the Age of Tough Oil, a time of ever increasing reliance on problematic, hard-to-reach energy sources. Make no mistake: we’re entering the danger zone. And brace yourself, the fate of the planet could be at stake.
No mass media is as pervasive or intrusive as the American one. Now that we’ve stopped making stuff, more or less, we’re still super prolific at selling our own image. This hypnosis works even on Americans, who should know better. But we don’t live here so much as inside media. The average American watches four hours of television a day, listens to constant music, and there’s also the internet with its Facebook, texting, twitter and email, etc, to distract him.
-Relief wells
-Flow diversion: “top hat” and pipe insertion
-Top kill/junk shot
-New BOP
-Congressional hearing reveals “significant problems”
-Cementing
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.
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.
-Relief wells
-Containment dome/cofferdam
-“Top kill/junk shot”
-New BOP
-Congressional hearings
-Cementing
-Government oversight
-Crews dealt setback in placing containment dome in Gulf oil spill
-Oil production hit for decades after BP spill
-How big is the Deepwater Horizon oil spill?
-Tread carefully, Mr Obama. You need big oil
A quick roundup of ongoing oil spill news.
The drawing of parallels between industrial accidents is a dubious armchair sport, but here the parallels are just piling up and are becoming too hard to ignore.
Even where it comes to renewable energy, we face the battle of centralization vs. relocalization, the corporatism of politics vs. democracy. Economically, technologically, politically, we face the same democratic struggle.
-Groundhog Day for Oil
-Oil disaster may prove tipping point for world oil production
-Mother of all gushers could kill Earth’s oceans
-Peak Oil and the Return of the Jet Set
-Not So Fast: With Gas Prices Low, A Return To Oil
-Caution Required for Gulf Oil Spill Clean-Up, Bioremediation Expert Says
