DK Matai: The Full Price of Oil: Scientific American Podcast. Federal frustration on oil spill mounts. 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.)
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. 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.
Homeland Security Declares Oil Spill Is Of 'National Significance' : The Two-Way. Federal frustration on oil spill mounts. The BP Cover-Up. 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. Thanks to their efforts, we know that sunspot numbers ebb and flow in cycles lasting about 11 years. But for the past two years, the sunspots have mostly been missing. 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.
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) 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. 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.
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. 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. The help is being provided under an existing pollution cleanup agreement between the Navy and Coast Guard. Oil Spill Expected to Hit U.S. 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. “Everywhere you look, if you look, you start seeing these conflicts of interest in how this disaster is getting handled,” Mr. Interior officials declined to make Ms. Patrick A. 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.
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. U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu signaled his lack of confidence in the industry experts trying to control BP Plc’s leaking oil well by hand-picking a team of scientists with reputations for creative problem solving. Dispatched to Houston by President Barack Obama to deal with the crisis, Chu said Wednesday that five “extraordinarily intelligent” scientists from around the country will help BP and industry experts think of back-up plans to cut off oil from the well, leaking 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) below sea-level.
Members of the Chu team are credited with accomplishments including designing the first hydrogen bomb, inventing techniques for mining on Mars and finding a way to precisely position biomedical needles. “I don’t think there is a lot of confidence in BP in Washington right now,” David Pursell, a managing director at Tudor Pickering Holt & Co.
LLC in Houston, said by phone. Steven Chu, U.S. energy secretary, speaks to members of the media after meeting with... Gulf Oil Spill: Markey Demands BP Broadcast Live Video Feed From The Source. Spill of national significance 2009.