The Environment / Oil Spills

• Winners and Losers from The Gulf Oil Spill

  The oil well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico provides a near-perfect onshore platform for political demagoguery. That demagoguery was evident last week during just a few minutes of channel surfing. Rachel Maddow was on MSNBC denouncing BP and all things oil while Laura Ingraham was on Fox laying waste to all things Obama and the president’s inability to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, President Barack Obama declared that he was trying to figure out “whose ass to kick” for the blowout. But amidst all of the headlines about ass kicking, top kills, flow…

• The Gulf Oil Spill and Efforts to Cap the Well

  Below is a Q and A Interview with Frank Verrastro, senior vice president and director of the Energy and National Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) here in Washington, D.C.Frank discusses the latest issues BP is having with capping the well, potential policy implications for the industry in general and scalable alternatives of renewable energy technologies. Q1: What is the status of BP's latest attempt to cap the Gulf oil well? A1: After pumping a total of over 30,000 barrels of heavy muds (achieving rates of up to 80,000 barrels of fluid/minute), BP abandoned its…

• Will a Tactical Nuclear Weapon be Used to stop the Gulf Oil Spill?

  I have never been able to use my talents both as a securities analyst and a nuclear weapons designer simultaneously, but British Petroleum (BP) has at last enabled me to rise to the call. Back before personal computers, the Internet, and hedge funds were invented, most mathematicians, like myself, ended up working for the Defense Department in some form or another. In my case, that involved a summer with the Atomic Energy Agency working on the neutron bomb at the nuclear test site in Nevada in the early seventies.  There, yields meant millions killed, not interest paid. After BP's serial…

• Just How Much Oil is Leaking into the Gulf

  The question of the week seems to be just how much oil is leaking from the damaged well in the Gulf of Mexico. I have steered away from the controversy over these dueling estimates until now, because I didn't think I had anything relevant to add. But this mystery has intrigued me for days, particularly as the gap between the official estimate and those from outside scientists grew to alarming--and suspicion-provoking--proportions. How can there be such a wide disparity on something that seems like it should be so simple, and who is right, or at least closer to right? Two…

• A Detailed Guide of BP’s plan to Stop the Oil Spill: The Top Kill

  The next attempt to shut off the flow from the leaking BP well in the Gulf is still aimed to occur early Wednesday. The attempt will use the “top kill” method to try and kill the well. While I have described this in earlier posts, the Unified Command have put out a video animation of the process, and there was an earlier diagram. So I am going to use these, which are simplified explanations, with some additional comments and tie it in to more facts that came out of briefings today, to try and give a more detailed explanation. Here…

• Could There Be A Bright Side To the Gulf of Mexico Disaster

  Although the US petroleum industry is understandably in a state of panic after the recent spill in the Gulf of Mexico and some, both friend and foe, have even resorted to outrageous speculation that the accident would mean “the end of offshore oil,” there is an optimistic take to the events. Properly handled by the industry and credible experts, it may educate the American public – who, during the past few years, have become bigger and bigger victims of ideologically driven misinformation – on the realities of energy production. The April 20 blowout of a BP well that was drilled…

• White House Covers Up Menacing Oil "Blob"

  In an exclusive for Oilprice.com, the Wayne Madsen Report (WMR) has learned from Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sources that U.S. Navy submarines deployed to the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast have detected what amounts to a frozen oil blob from the oil geyser at the destroyed Deep Horizon off-shore oil rig south of Louisiana. The Navy submarines have trained video cameras on the moving blob, which remains frozen at depths of between 3,000 to 4,000 feet. Because the oil blob is heavier than water, it remains frozen at…

• Is There Rehab for This Oil Overdose? Black Tar Has Just Taken on a Whole New Meaning

  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. Essentially what Williams tells us is that the Deep Water drilling operation was under unparalleled pressure to drill faster and deeper, cutting corners and defying essential aspects of the industry’s…

• Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill: Who to Believe?

  As we enter a week without further news as to whether BP's efforts to place a containment vessel over the oil leak in the subsurface, two news articles were published... http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100514/D9FMI8SG1.html Discusses that more than 35% of the spill has evaporated and 10% has been sopped up.  This because the crude is light, meaning it is dominated by short chain hydrocarbons, and thus much lighter than water with a strong propensity to float.  However, scientists disagree. Although I am sure there is a consensus somewhere that we will hear about shortly, especially if tied to massive research spending by the government…

• U.S. to Restructure Offshore Drilling Regulatory Agency in Wake of Oil Spill

  The Obama administration said it will restructure the little-known agency overseeing offshore drilling, splitting is regulatory oversight duties from its lease management responsibilities – a joint task critics say is rife with conflict of interest. U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he will separate the safety and environmental enforcement activities of the Minerals Management Service into a separate, independent entity, after the agency has been blamed for decisions that may have led to the accident at Deepwater Horizon and the subsequent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  “The job of ensuring energy companies are following the law and protecting…