Expects lots of forthcoming post-mortems on comprehensive climate and energy legislation, which effectively died (for now) last week when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid decided not to include a carbon cap or renewable energy standard on the stripped-down bill he intends to introduce this week. I’ve already had my say—today in the …
BP
Oil Spill: Goodbye, Mr. Hayward
When Tony Hayward became CEO of BP in 2007, replacing a disgraced Lord John Browne, he was taking over a company in turmoil. BP was still recovering from a 2005 fire at its Texas City refinery that killed 15 people—one of the worst industrial accidents in recent memory, and a result of Browne putting profits over safety. Hayward—a …
NOAA Confirms: There’s Oil Underwater
Back in mid-May, a team of scientists announced that they had discovered enormous underwater plumes of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, presumably due to the BP oil spill. While BP steadfastly maintained that almost all of the oil spewing from a partially blown well was flowing directly to the surface, where it showed up as massive slicks, the …
Can Carbon Be Cut Without Climate Legislation?
Carbon cap-and-trade is dead—at least for this political lifetime. And while the circular firing squad among Democrats and greens has already begun, it’s worth taking a deep breath and remembering that there are other tools that can be used to deal with climate change. As TIME’s Joe Klein points out, the Supreme Court ruled more than …
Cap and Trade is Dead (Really, Truly, I’m Not Kidding). Who’s to Blame?
The headline has been written countless times, but this time it is true: carbon cap-and-trade of any sort will not come out of this Congress—and perhaps it never will. Instead of comprehensive economy-wide carbon cap that Senator John Kerry had urged—and that the House had already passed a year ago—or even the compromise …
Oil Spill: Debating the Static Kill
Like recovering alcoholics who’ve just come out of an AA meeting, the joint BP-government team overseeing the well containment efforts is taking it one day at a time. At his afternoon briefing, retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad W. Allen announced that he had authorized BP to keep the containment cap shut and the well integrity tests going …
Oil Spill: The Well Holds—For Now
In my last post on the oil spill—and trust me, I’ve long since lost count—I asked whether reports of seepages on the seafloor and anomalies near the wellhead indicated that the integrity tests that BP had been carrying might have damaged the well itself, causing leakages. Turns out I didn’t have to wait long for my answer—at a …
Military Veterans Against the Oil Spill
Didn’t get a chance to link to this earlier, but on the way back from New Orleans on Friday I wrote and posted a piece on the mainpage about a trip I took to see the oil spill with military veterans from Operation Free. It’s a new think tank/advocacy group that is making the oil dependency and climate change case on national security …
Oil Spill: Is the Well Damaged? (Update)
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 …
Oil Spill: For Now the Pressure Holds
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 …