Oil Drilling News is back from vacation and is resuming daily weekday updates.
GULF OIL DISASTER
BP begins new operation to seal off leaking Deepwater Horizon well
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/11/bp-deepwater-horizon-well-oil
“If all goes well, the switch to a tighter cap will allow the collection of all the crude oil spewing into the Gulf. The process could take three to six days. But until then the containment effort that had been collecting some 15,000 barrels a day is suspended. The well is releasing 60,000 barrels [2.5 million gallons] of oil a day, and the leak that started in April has become America's worst environmental disaster.”
Also see: BP sees progress on new oil containment system and BP Optimistic on New Oil Cap
What if BP's relief wells don't plug the leak?
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0911121420100709
“BP and the U.S. Coast Guard express confidence that the two wells boring beneath the sea floor will eventually staunch oil from the blown-out well that has been gushing for 81 days. But they have a backup plan -- a seabed pipeline that could route the oil to a nearby floating platform or to an unused well where it could be injected deep underground.”
BP says oil spill costs climb to $3.5 billion
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iXJQx1rNcL7PjrK_G6tD_VyOZkKQD9GTCUA82
All that hurrying to bring in the well a few days sooner and save a couple of million doesn’t look like such a prudent decision now.
Six lessons from the BP oil spill
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2010/0710/Six-lessons-from-the-BP-oil-spill
“1. Improve the offshore police 2. Design a Better Drill Rig 3. Manage the Cleanup Like Churchill 4. Find Something Better than a Boom 5. Tap the Power of the People 6. Recalibrate Our Energy Policy”
All of these are important, but only #6 will really address the interrelated energy, economic and environmental issues.
BP Board Game Predicted Offshore Oil Spill
http://www.heatingoil.com/blog/bp-board-game-predicted-offshore-oil-spill709/
“In the 1970s, BP created a board game that promised a night of family fun pretending to be BP and trying to overcome the danger and difficulty of offshore drilling to reap huge financial rewards, reports Metro UK. It wasn't popular then, and now that BP is playing the game for real in the Gulf of Mexico, with horrifying results, the board game "BP Offshore Oil Strike" seems like an even worse idea. The game did contain an eerie forecast of the perils of deepwater drilling, though-one of the "hazard cards" that a player could draw reads: Blow-out! Rig damaged. Oil slick clean-up costs. Pay $1 million. Their prediction of the clean-up costs turned out to be way off. So far BP has spent roughly $3 billion cleaning up and trying to halt the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.”
Technology's disasters share long trail of hubris
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jhcf6M5u4DgrphRfJg9ew8S5LAvQD9GSUQIO0
“Even before the oil spill commission holds its first meeting Monday in New Orleans, panel co-chairman William Reilly couldn't help but point out something he's already noticed. The technology to clean up after an oil spill "is primitive," Reilly said. "It's wholly disproportionate to the tremendous technological advances that have allowed deepwater drilling to go forward. It just hasn't kept pace." Then he added that government regulation also hasn't kept pace. And something else hasn't kept up either, Reilly said: how the oil industry assesses and works with the risk of catastrophic damage from spills.”
The Coming Era of Energy Disasters
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175264
“While none of these specific calamities are guaranteed to happen, something like them surely will -- unless we take dramatic steps now to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and speed the transition to a post-carbon world. In such a world, most of our energy would come from renewable wind, solar, and geothermal sources that are commonplace and don't have to be tracked down a mile or more under the water or in the icebound north. Such resources generally would not be linked to the sort of disputed boundaries or borderlands that can produce future resource wars. Until then, prepare yourselves. The disaster in the Gulf is no anomaly. It's an arrow pointing toward future nightmares.”
Majority of Americans Now Against Off-Shore Drilling
http://cleantechnica.com/2010/07/11/majority-of-americans-now-against-off-shore-drilling/
Louisiana Voters Strongly Support Offshore Drilling, Deepwater Drilling
DEEPWATER DRILLING MORATORIUM
Judges rule against Obama administration on offshore oil drilling moratorium
Interior head says new offshore drilling moratorium on its way
http://www.scpr.org/news/2010/07/09/salazar-drilling/
"The president and I strongly believe that we ought not to be moving forward with deep water drilling till we can assure that it's going to be safe," Salazar said. "‘Til we can assure that there is a right containment strategy in place in case there's another blowout and until we can assure that we have the right level of oil response capability."
WILDLIFE, HUMAN AND ECOSYSTEM IMPACTS
State and Federal wildlife agencies, other partners, move to safeguard sea turtle nests; FedEx providing transportation to Florida’s Space Coast
http://www.piersystem.com/go/doc/2931/770415/
“The first of several hundred sea turtle nests on beaches from Alabama across the Florida panhandle was excavated and moved to Florida’s East Coast [on Friday]. The loggerhead nest of roughly 100 eggs was excavated from a site near St. Joseph Bay State Buffer Preserve outside St. Joe, Florida.”
Who Will Pay to Fix Louisiana?
http://www.thenation.com/article/36610/who-will-pay-fix-louisiana
“We have three major actors here, each responsible for a catastrophic loss: the Army Corps of Engineers, which built the major levees and canals; the oil and gas industry, which, for private profit, laid down an even more extensive and damaging web; and the State of Louisiana, which promoted the first two to the hilt, silenced the critics and took its cut. Each, including industry, can now pay its share. We require the chemical industry to clean up old waste sites under Superfund; we ask the same of the coal industry under the Surface Mine Restoration Act. Billing the oil and gas industry for its damages would be nothing new.”
CALIFORNIA
Leaving old drilling-rig pieces in the ocean has big support in Legislature
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/11/local/la-me-oil-rigs-20100711
FLORIDA
Florida shoreline is untouched by BP oil spill disaster
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/07/florida_shoreline_is_untouched.html
This is kind of a misleading headline. They’re talking about the central and southern areas of Florida’s west coast, where tar balls have been determined to be primarily heavy fuel oil “commonly used to power oceangoing ships.” It’s clearly a different situation on the Panhandle. “Along the coast in the far-western Panhandle, where oil from the BP well began to arrive in late May, regular testing of tar balls was soon suspended because local authorities quickly had little doubt about the source of the oil that is blackening their famous white-sand beaches.”
UF expert doubts constitutional drilling ban will make it to voters
