EcocentricOil
Last week I wrote a column asking the question: whatever happened to the Gulf oil spill? Thanks to presidential commissions and great investigative reporting, we know a great deal about why the spill happened and what impact it might have on the land and the water of the Gulf. In the news, though, the spill seems largely gone.
But …
EcocentricOil
I’m finishing up the Energy Innovations 2010 conference in Washington, of which more later today, but I wanted to note the news that the U.S. Justice Department has decided to sue BP and a number of other companies over this summer’s oil spill in the Gulf. From Attorney General Eric Holder’s statement today:
We intend to prove that
…
EcocentricOil
It’s only been seven months since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill began, but doesn’t it feel so much longer? Maybe it’s the accelerated pace of modern media, which I attribute to Politico, Twitter or too easy access to Monster energy drinks. The offshore drilling industry is still complaining about government attempts at …
EcocentricOil
[Update 10/29/10: Halliburton has responded to the commission’s report—and unsurprisingly, the company deflects the blame and places the responsibility back on BP’s shoulders. Halliburton questioned the commission’s tests, arguing that the panel’s investigators used a different cement mixture than the one that eventually went into the …
EcocentricOil
New BP CEO Bob Dudley isn’t happy with me. Well, not just me—all of the reporters who dug into BP’s past safety problems and raised questions about the mistakes the company made on the road to the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. And he’s also mad at the environmentalists and scientists who raised the alarm in the wake of the spill, and …
EcocentricPolitics
There’s been no shortage of attention paid to the vast amount of money being poured in the 2010 midterm campaigns by corporations—with the bulk of the cash going to conservative candidates. Given the strongly skeptical views on climate change that now dominate the Republican Party—and especially their
EcocentricOil
A few weeks after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, triggering the biggest oil spill in U.S. history, I wrote the first cover story for TIME on the accident. We called it “The Meaning of the Mess,” and while I spent a few pages recounting how the explosion had occurred, and what the spill would likely mean for …
EcocentricOil
Looks like Ecocentric may need to find something new to write about. On Sunday morning retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen—who may need to find a new job soon—made it official: BP’s blown Macondo well has now been killed. After the long-awaited relief well successfully intersected the original well a couple of days ago, it was …
EcocentricOil
With the blown Macondo well essentially sealed, and with the oil remaining under the water dissipating (though to uncertain ecological effects), focus is now turning to the ongoing investigations into the cause of the biggest oil spill in U.S. history. Wednesday morning BP released the results of its own internal investigation into the …
EcocentricOil
After about 4.9 million barrels of oil, 136 days, over 2 million gallons of chemical dispersants, over 10 million feet of shoreline boom, 411 controlled surface burns, over 4,000 vessels and nearly 30,000 people mobilized, BP’s blown well has been effectively neutralized. Yesterday BP successfully removed the Macondo well’s original …
