The numbers tell the story better than anything else could: after 85 days, 16 hours and 25 minutes, oil at last stopped flowing from BP’s busted well in the Gulf of Mexico. Since the evening of April 20, when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, between 93.5 million and 184.3 million gallons of crude have been spilled—blowing the …
Energy
Oil Spill: A Fouled Line Further Delays the Integrity Test
A quick post before I head back out. Yesterday evening BP had begun closing down the valves on its new containment cap, in preparation to pressure test the integrity of the wellbore—and find out whether the well might be able to be fully capped. Overnight, though, they hit a snag—the kill line, one of three valves on the cap that the …
Oil Spill: Now the Pressure is REALLY On
Call it oil spill interruptus. A day after Coast Guard Admiral Thad W. Allen—on the advice of academic and government scientists led by Energy Secretary Steven Chu—abruptly stopped a planned attempt to halt the flow of oil from the new containment cap and measure the integrity of the wellbore, the all-important test is now back on. …
Oil Spill: BP’s Capping Procedures Hit a Snag
When he spoke at a briefing yesterday morning, Coast Guard Admiral Thad W. Allen told reporters that it would be a “very consequential 24 hours.” At the time BP had just connected the new, tighter cap over the blown well and was ready to begin pressure tests that—if successful—would have been one of the last steps to finally stopping …
Is the Deepwater Drilling Moratorium Worse Than the Oil Spill?
I’ve already asked whether President Obama’s deepwater drilling moratorium is a smart policy, given the fact that it won’t do much unless we attack oil demand at the source. But I still thought that a temporary timeout for certain sorts of deepwater drilling made sense. The Deepwater Horizon accident proved not just that well blowouts …
Europe-based Fusion Project Draws Heat Over Funding
There is probably no more sorry field of clean energy research than fusion. The quest to harness the power of the sun—without carbon emissions—has long attracted quixotic dreamers, amateur fusioneers and straight hucksters.
But by its own, low standards, fusion research is in a sorry state. The only large, serious, potentially …
Oil Spill: The Cap Is On—Now the Test Begins
A brief update on BP’s containment procedures while I wait for the presidential oil spill commission to begin its second day of hearings here in New Orleans. (By the way, you can watch the hearing, which begins at 9 AM Central, here.) Yesterday evening BP managed to successfully connect the new containment cap—the 3 ram stacking …
Obama Issues New Offshore Drilling Moratorium
Frustrated twice by the federal courts—which had overturned his original temporary moratorium on deepwater drilling—President Obama Monday evening decided to do what most of us have probably wanted to do when denied by someone in a position of authority: he went ahead anyway. (Sometimes it’s good to be President.) Interior Secretary …
Oil Spill Containment Update: The Pressure’s On
Greetings from New Orleans, where I’m about 1200 miles closer to BP’s complex containment procedures above the site of the Deepwater Hozion sinking—yet I’m pretty much still dependent on subsea camera web feeds like the rest of you. I’m here to check out how the spill—and the cleanup—are progressing, and how the community is …
Could BP Cap the Well Early?
Of course, when we say “early,” it is important to remember that we’ve now passed Day 80 of the oil spill, and up to 150 million gallons of crude have already leaked into the Gulf of Mexico, if not more. But BP may be close to finally ending the leak. On Saturday, the company began a complex multi-day operation that involves removing the …