EcocentricUncategorized
Going into the integrity test being performed on BP’s blown well in the Gulf of Mexico, we were told that the longer the test was carried out, the better it would be for the wellbore—and for the chances of putting an early end to the oil spill. If the test—which began on July 15, after BP managed to stop the flow of oil from its new …
EcocentricOil
Quick update on BP’s well containment efforts while I’m waiting for the weather to clear in Louisiana, where the sky is leaking like a blown well. After shutting the containment cap yesterday afternoon and closing off the flow of oil, BP began pressure testing the integrity of the wellbore. About 18 hours after they began, BP vice …
EcocentricUncategorized
From the Department of Gripes:
You might not think of Hong Kong as a trove of natural serenity, but actually, the seven million people living here are squished into a remarkably small area. We all live piled on top of each other and jockey for space on impossibly narrow sidewalks while about 75% of the land of the Special …
EcocentricOil
When I heard that BP has successfully close all the valves on its new containment cap Thursday afternoon—effectively stopping the flow of oil for the first time in nearly three months as it began its well integrity tests—I was at a town meeting in Port Sulphur in Louisiana’s Plaquemines parish, ground zero for the oil spill. Kenneth …
EcocentricOil
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 …
EcocentricOil
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 …
EcocentricRegulation
From the department of (mostly) good news, a major study released today by London-based NGO Chatham House offers one of those rare beasts in the jungle of environmental reports: improvement.
The report finds that the collective efforts of government, civil society and the private sector in 12 countries have yielded big …
EcocentricOil
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. …
EcocentricOil
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 …
EcocentricUncategorized
Pity the pangolin. The nearly blind anteater, with only its keen sense of smell and razor-sharp plates of armor to rely on, doesn’t look like it has much of chance at making it in our modern world, and illegal wildlife smugglers seem to be doing their best to seal that fate.
Last week, customs officials in Guangzhou, southern …
