Deepwater Oil

Deepwater Horizon Could Result in 2nd Largest Oil Spill in History

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Sometime within the next two weeks the free-flowing Deepwater Horizon well could surpass the second largest oil spill in history. Indeed, if we assume the highest independently measured estimates of the leak’s flow rate, Deepwater Horizon may have already released 84% of the total petroleum that was dumped into the Gulf of Mexico by the Ixtoc I, a similar rig blow-out that occurred in 1979.

Regulating the disaster

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We still don’t have the faintest idea how much oil is spewing out of the well in the Gulf. Nor do we have the faintest idea what the full environmental consequence of what may well be the biggest single-event human-caused. ecological disaster of all time (the very fact that I have to add the word “single-event” to that statement should tell you something). We know that it is almost certainly more than all the low estimates to date, and we know that the ecological consequences will be huge, lasting and we do not understand them.

British Petroleum vs. a sustainable planet: time to ban BP from doing business in the United States

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British Petroleum (BP) portrayed itself this past decade as an oil company investing in renewable sources of clean energy for a “Beyond Petroleum” future. BP had many people convinced that it was a very different kind of oil company, but the catastrophic spill this spring in the Gulf of Mexico is shedding light on the true nature of this transnational corporation.

The principle of subsidiary function

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When a society’s problems are caused by too much complexity, adding more layers of complexity is a recipe for more problems. In the abstract, this is easy enough to grasp, but applying it in practice is quite another matter. Fortunately, the writings of maverick economist EF Schumacher come to the rescue with another of his counterintuitive but valuable insights.

Peak oil, prices, and supplies – May 4

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-BP Fought Safety Measures at Deepwater Oil Rigs
-Toyota’s Bill Reinert on Peak Oil
-How Bad Is the Oil Spill? Ask the Pelicans
-Asean members try to forge agreement on oil and gas rich Spratly Islands
-Track the Gulf of Mexico oil spill movement in animated graphic
-Response options for BP oil spill

Optimism versus reality in peak oil media battle

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The optimists may have long been winning the peak oil media battle – as Matt Simmons observes – but we are beginning to see information coming out on the business pages that allows us to piece together a more balanced story. Right now, much of this focuses on everyone’s favourite cause for optimism, the oil sands…But do the facts support this rampant enthusiasm? I’d suggest not.

Peak oil, prices, and supplies – Apr 29

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-Peak at the polls
-Saudi Arabia global oil exports to wane post-2010
-Drilling and spilling for all the oil that’s left
-Gulf oil spill ‘five times’ larger than estimated
-Flight disruptions in Europe a Foretaste for Period of Oil Decline
-The Imminent Crash Of Oil Supply: Be Afraid
-Peak oil predictions

The costs of complexity

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Joseph Tainter’s The Collapse of Complex Societies has become one of the most-referenced books in those peak oil circles that have confronted the severity of the predicament the industrial world faces in the age of peak oil. From the offices of Goldman Sachs to the scorched wreckage of Deepwater Horizon on the bottom of the Gulf, an uncomfortable number of today’s iconic news stories are beginning to echo his argument.

Deepshit Horizon: Earth Day began with a blow-out, will it end with one?

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On January 28th, 1969 the Union Oil Company’s Platform A, located six miles from Santa Barbara, CA experienced a “blow-out.” Highly pressurized deposits of natural gas pushed upward against the newly bored well causing oil to leak from the pipe and casings…The blow-out was devastating. Ironically, and tragically, this year’s Earth Day celebrations coincided with another oil rig blow-out, this time offshore of Louisiana. Like other recent mining disasters, the explosion and sinking of the rig caused by a well blow-out has claimed the lives of at least eleven workers.