DK Matai: The Full Price of Oil: Scientific American Podcast. Federal frustration on oil spill mounts. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar frustrated that oil leak has not been stoppedBP official says the oil company is "devastated" by the undersea gusher'Top kill' planned for next week; other options still on the table (CNN) -- Saying BP has "from day one, frankly not fulfilled the mission it was supposed to fulfill," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar expressed frustration Sunday with the delay in stopping an underwater oil gusher 33 days after an oil rig exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico. "I have no question that BP is throwing everything at the problem," Salazar said. "Do I have confidence that they know exactly what they're doing? No. " But he and other federal officials likened the task to an "Apollo 13" mission.
Complete coverage of the Gulf oil spill Marcia McNutt, director of the U.S. Salazar and Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano will lead a bipartisan Senate delegation to the region Monday, authorities said. Video: Sec. Video: BP director: BP is 'devastated' On BP's credibility, U.S. Gulf Oil Spill: Latest Federal Government Estimate Still Understates Oil Flow. Last week's much-ballyhooed new federal estimate of how much oil is spewing into the Gulf of Mexico -- 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day, or two to four times as much as the original estimate -- remains a low-ball figure. The numbers released by the government last week and quickly adopted by the mass media actually represent the lower range of "lower bounds" generated by using conservative assumptions and flawed measures, according to documents released on Thursday.
The newly-released summary of the report from the Department of Interior's "Flow Rate Technical Group" doesn't disclose the higher bounds, however, declaring that a reliable upper figure was incalculable due to -- get this -- "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns. " (It was Bush-era Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who first coined those terms in February 2002 when asked for evidence of a direct link between alleged Iraq weapons of mass destruction and terrorist organizations.) Even for BP, that's real money. Thad Allen: Oil Spill Fight Will Last Into Fall. Admiral Thad Allen, U.S.
Coast Guard, National Incident Commander on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, on "Face the Nation," Sunday, June 6, 2010. CBS Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the point man for the federal government's response to the oil spill in the Gulf, said today that the fight to stop and contain the oil will be a "long-term campaign" that will last for several more months. "We're fighting on three fronts," Allen said on CBS' "Face the Nation," noting the fight to stop the oil coming up, the oil that is on the surface, and the oil that has made it to the shore already. Sen. "This will only end when we intercept the well bore, pump mud down it to overcome the pressure of the oil coming up from the reservoir and put a cement plug in. "But even after that, there will be oil out there for months to come. Allen used a "siege" metaphor several times during the interview.
"This is a siege that is going to go on for a long time. "And that's just for the beginning of this. US Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, Schema-Root news. Coast Guard officials told of potential oil spill response problems years ago. U.S. Coast Guard officials have apparently known for years that there could be significant problems in the federal and industry response to a major oil spill. The report that followed a 2004 "Spill of National Significance" training exercise concluded, "Oil spill response personnel did not appear to have even a basic knowledge of the equipment required to support salvage or spill clean up operations.
" Warnings ignored Mobile-area scientists warned BP PLC officials and Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen a week ago that the use of dispersants both on the surface and underwater at the Deepwater Horizon well could have grave consequences for the Gulf ecosystem. The scientists, Bob Shipp of the University of South Alabama and George Crozier of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, said they felt their concerns were ignored at the time.
BP did not respond to the Press-Register's questions. Read the complete story: Mobile scientists' warnings about oil dispersants ignored by BP, Coast Guard. Homeland Security Declares Oil Spill Is Of 'National Significance' : The Two-Way. Federal frustration on oil spill mounts. The BP Cover-Up. Illustration: Tim O’Brien Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily. Read also: The rest of this special report and MoJo‘s complete BP coverage. WE’RE SWINGING ON ANCHOR this afternoon as powerful bursts of wind blow down through the Makua Valley and out to sea.
The gales stop and start every 15 minutes, as abruptly as if a giant on the far side of the Hawaiian island of Oahu were switching a fan on and off. We sail at the gusts’ mercy, listing hard to starboard, then snapping hard against the anchor chain before recoiling to port. The intermittent tempests make our work harder and colder. I’m accompanying marine ecologist Kelly Benoit-Bird of Oregon State University, physical oceanographer Margaret McManus of the University of Hawaii-Manoa, and two research assistants aboard a 32-foot former sportfishing boat named Alyce C. Click on the image to expand to full size. And no one is ready for it. What's wrong with the sun? - space - 14 June 2010. Read full article Continue reading page |1|2|3 Video: Sun spots SUNSPOTS come and go, but recently they have mostly gone. For centuries, astronomers have recorded when these dark blemishes on the solar surface emerge, only for them to fade away again after a few days, weeks or months.
But for the past two years, the sunspots have mostly been missing. The sun is under scrutiny as never before thanks to an armada of space telescopes. The stakes have never been higher. , and disputes over the sun's role in climate change, are adding urgency to these studies. Sun behaving badly Sunspots are windows into the sun's magnetic soul. When sunspot numbers drop at the end of each 11-year cycle, solar storms die down and all becomes much calmer. What's special about this latest dip is that the sun is having trouble starting the next solar cycle. The first sign that the prediction was wrong came when 2008 turned out to be even calmer than expected. More From New Scientist More from the web (YouTube) Clean Water Act Module. In Spill’s Aftermath, Conflict of Interest Worries. 'Whale' superskimmer drops out of Gulf oil spill response. The Coast Guard said “thanks, but no thanks” to the superskimmer “A Whale” Friday, as the 1,100 foot-long converted iron ore freighter failed to make a sizeable dent in the Gulf oil spill during a 24-hour testing period.
Brought to the Gulf by Taiwanese shipping magnate Nobu Su to help sop up the vast blanket of oil covering parts of the Gulf, the massive A Whale held a tantalizing promise for Americans frustrated by the slow pace of the spill clean-up. Under ideal conditions, the ship's owners said, the A Whale could gather more oil in a day than all the other skimmers on the Gulf combined. In reality, the A Whale gathered a "negligible" amount of oil over a 24-hour period while nearly 600 smaller skimmers sucked up 25,551 barrels of oily water and recovered 12,800 barrels near the source of the spill. Skip to next paragraph Subscribe Today to the Monitor Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS ofThe Christian Science MonitorWeekly Digital Edition IN PICTURES: The Gulf oil spill's impact on nature. Coast Guard leads intergovernmental disaster response drill « Coast Guard Compass. Posted by Christopher Lagan, Thursday, March 25, 2010 PORTLAND, Maine - The crew of Coast Guard Cutter Marcus Hanna work to deploy a vessel of opportunity skimming system from the deck of the ship as part of Spill of National Significance Drill, March 24, 2010.
(Photo by U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Etta Smith) What would happen if an oil spill on the scale of Exxon Valdez happened off the coast of New England? That is one of the many questions being answered this week during SONS 2010. The Spill of National Significance exercise represents the best opportunity for more than 50 state, local and federal government agencies representing the United States and Canada to train side-by-side in preparation for the unthinkable. The disaster response drill is being conducted to increase national preparedness and test the nation’s ability to respond to such an emergency at all levels of the government. PORTLAND, Maine- Rear Adm. Wetlands cleanup may be impossible - Disaster in the Gulf.
NEW ORLEANS — The gooey oil washing into the maze of marshes along the Gulf Coast could prove impossible to remove, leaving a toxic stew lethal to fish and wildlife, government officials and independent scientists said. Officials are considering some drastic and risky solutions: They could set the wetlands on fire or flood areas in hopes of floating out the oil.
But they warn an aggressive cleanup could ruin the marshes and do more harm than good. The only viable option for many impacted areas is to do nothing and let nature break down the spill. More than 50 miles of Louisiana's delicate shoreline already have been soiled by the massive slick unleashed after BP's Deepwater Horizon burned and sank last month. Officials fear oil eventually could invade wetlands and beaches from Texas to Florida. Louisiana is expected to be hit hardest. Plaquemines Parish officials on Louisiana's coast discovered a major pelican rookery awash in oil on Saturday. That plan is awaiting approval from the U.S. BP's Bad Breakup: How Toxic Is Corexit? Mar. 24, 2009 - Portland chosen for nation’s largest oil spill exercise. Nick Turse: How Taxpayers Are Subsidizing BP's Disaster Through the Pentagon. Crossposted with TomDispatch.com.
Residents of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida are livid with BP in the wake of the massive, never-ending oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico -- and Barack Obama says they ought to be. But there’s one aspect of the BP story that most of those angry residents of the Gulf states aren’t aware of. And the president hasn’t had a thing to say about it. Even as the tar balls hit Gulf beaches, their tax dollars are subsidizing BP and so far, President Obama has not shown the slightest indication that he plans to stop their flow into BP coffers, despite the recent call of Public Citizen, a watchdog group, to end the nation’s business dealings with company. In fact, the Department of Defense, which has a longstanding, multi-billion dollar business relationship with BP, tells TomDispatch that it has no plans to sever current business ties or curtail future contracts with the oil giant.
Talking Tough Repeat Offenders As an institution, the Pentagon runs on oil. Matt Simmons Tells Bloomberg Only Way To Contain Oil Leak Is With Small Nuclear Bombs, "Top Kill" Is Just A Distraction. Bp-wants-houston-judge-with-oil. MIAMI — Facing more than 100 lawsuits after its Gulf of Mexico oil spill killed 11 workers and threatened four coastal states, oil giant BP is asking the courts to place every pre-trial issue in the hands of a single federal judge in Houston. That judge, U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes, has traveled the world giving lectures on ethics for the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, a professional association and research group that works with BP and other oil companies. The organization pays his travel expenses. Hughes has also collected royalties from several energy companies, including ConocoPhillips and Devon Energy, from investments in mineral rights, his financial disclosure forms show.
Hughes, appointed to the bench in 1985 by then-President Ronald Reagan, declined to comment for this report. Legal experts say the request for a single judge, while not unprecedented, is unusual, and they surmise BP is seeking rulings from a judge well-versed in the company's issues. Pentagon's "Full-Blown Effort" to Halt Spill. A worker secures ropes on a crew boat after departing from the oil skimmer Louisiana Responder, which is assisting in the collection of oil from a leaking pipeline that resulted from last week's explosion and collapse of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico near the coast of Louisiana, April 27, 2010.
AP Photo/Patrick Semansky Updated at 7:02 p.m. ET The Navy sent equipment to help with cleanup of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and the Pentagon said Thursday it stands ready to expand its response to the disaster. Navy spokesman Lt. Myers Vasquez said that trucks carrying 66,000 feet of inflatable boom and seven skimming systems have begun arriving at the Navy base in Gulfport, Miss.
The help is being provided under an existing pollution cleanup agreement between the Navy and Coast Guard. Oil Spill Expected to Hit U.S. He was unaware of any military personnel who might be sent to help with the cleanup. The company also said it would set up a 24-hour watch to monitor the spill. BP Fake Twitter Account: The Most Ridiculous Tweets Yet (PHOTOS)
In Spill’s Aftermath, Conflict of Interest Worries. Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake, since those readings will be used by the federal government and courts to establish liability claims against BP. But the laboratory that officials have chosen to process virtually all of the samples is part of an and gas services company in Texas that counts oil firms, including BP, among its biggest clients. Some people are questioning the independence of the Texas lab. Taylor Kirschenfeld, an environmental official for Escambia County, Fla., rebuffed instructions from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to send water samples to the lab, which is based at TDI-Brooks International in College Station, Tex. He opted instead to get a waiver so he could send his county’s samples to a local laboratory that is licensed to do the same tests.
Mr. Kirschenfeld said he was also troubled by another rule. “Everywhere you look, if you look, you start seeing these conflicts of interest in how this disaster is getting handled,” Mr. Political Patience Washing Away Fast For BP Execs As Gulf Oil Spill Grows Worse. WASHINGTON — Bad wiring and a leak in what's supposed to be a "blowout preventer. " Sealing problems that may have allowed a methane eruption. Even a dead battery, of all things. New disclosures Wednesday revealed a complex cascade of deep-sea equipment failures and procedural problems in the oil rig explosion and massive spill that is still fouling the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and threatening industries and wildlife near the coast and on shore.
The public also got its first look on Wednesday of oil gushing from the broken pipe that rests nearly a mile under water as BP PLC, the well's operator, released a video taken by a remotely controlled camera. Oil flowing from a break in the yellowish pipe becomes lighter in color as it mixes with natural gas. Over the past 21 days more than 4 million gallons of oil have been released. A senior BP executive, Lamar McKay, cautioned, "It's inappropriate to draw any conclusions before all the facts are known. " In other developments Wednesday: Rep. In Gulf Spill, BP Using Dispersants Banned in U.K. The two types of dispersants BP is spraying in the Gulf of Mexico are banned for use on oil spills in the U.K. As EPA-approved products, BP has been using them in greater quantities than dispersants have ever been used in the history of U.S. oil spills. BP is using two products from a line of dispersants called Corexit, which EPA data appear to show is more toxic and less effective on South Louisiana crude than other available dispersants, according to Greenwire.
As we've reported, Corexit was also used after the Exxon Valdez disaster and was later linked with human health problems including respiratory, nervous system, liver, kidney and blood disorders. One of the two Corexit products also contains a compound that, in high doses, is associated with headaches, vomiting and reproductive problems. Given that the dispersants are EPA-approved, the choice of which ones to use was left to BP, which had stockpiled large amounts of Corexit and is now ordering more. Report Shows Spill Poses Little Additional Risk. Bomb Designer, Mars Expert Sent by Obama to Fix Oil Spill. Gulf Oil Spill: Markey Demands BP Broadcast Live Video Feed From The Source. Spill of national significance 2009.