Home/Posts Tagged ‘BP’
Posts Tagged ‘BP’
Politics, Pollution, Apr 4th, 2013,
As the Deepwater Horizon trial progresses in Louisiana, with US District Judge Carl Barbier pruning down the defendants to three (Halliburton, Transocean and BP), another little-known, but related story is resurfacing. Investigative journalist Greg Palast writes on his website about an almost identical blowout on another BP oil platform in the Caspian Sea. The Caspian rig blowout occurred 17 months before the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, which resulted in the deaths of 11 crewmembers. Both rigs had the same cement plug malfunction – a nitrogen gas explosion. To prevent blow-outs, drilled wells must be capped with…
Tags: BP, Deepwater Horizon, Greg Palast, Keystone XL
Politics, Pollution, Apr 15th, 2011,
Documents accessed under the Freedom of Information Act show BP attempting to influence independent research into the effects of the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Environmental activist group Greenpeace got a hold of incriminating emails and passed them on to the Guardian. Those concerns go far beyond academic interest into the impact of the spill. BP faces billions in fines and penalties, and possible criminal charges arising from the disaster. Its total liability will depend in part on a final account produced by scientists on how much oil entered the gulf from its blown-out well, and the…
Tags: BP, Gulf, Mexico, oil, protest, research, spill
Climate Change, Green living, Feb 3rd, 2011,
A new study by the WWF says it’s possible to cut global carbon emissions by 80% by the year 2050 by investing heavily in green tech. Kind of like China is doing, but without all the investment in fossil fuels that they are also doing. The report claims that we could source 95% of our energy from renewables. While we are currently using and demanding more and more energy intensive goods and services, energy saving measures are in fact reducing the actual energy we use. From an article in the Ecologist Before pouring billions into creating a new generation of…
Tags: BP, energy, renewables, Shell, UK, WWF
Politics, Videos & Documentaries, Jan 25th, 2011,
Remember the US’s worst ecological disaster in history? You may have to try pretty hard as it was way back in the spring of 2010. Here are some of the latest developments in that sad, sordid, and shameful story: A presidential commission in the US is set to lay most of the blame for the disaster on BP, yet not enough to stop the energy giant’s stocks from recovering almost two thirds of their value after losing half in the wake of the disaster. The overall blame, however, is placed on “systematic failures” including BP, Halliburton, Transocean and US government…
Tags: BP, Deepwater Horizon, disaster, Gulf, Halliburton, Transocean
Politics, Pollution, Videos & Documentaries, Sep 19th, 2010,
A special report from France24 explores current conditions in the Gulf of Mexico and Louisiana in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. As BP is preparing to permanently seal the damaged well in the Gulf, the local community, environment and economy struggle to recover as oil and dispersant pollution continues to inflict damage. The France24 report explores BP’s ongoing influence in the Gulf of Mexico, including the legal and scientific communities there, the flow of information about conditions on the ground and in the water; and the oil giant’s shoddy, superficial cleanup efforts. Scientists in the Gulf States were…
Tags: BP, France24, Gulf, Mexico, oil, report, video
Climate Change, Politics, Pollution, Aug 27th, 2010,
Poor BP. After the Deepwater Horizon mishap they have been tarred by their own brush, so to speak. But lets face it, despite BP’s exceptionally bad safety record, it’s a bad brush all around; whether you’re a pelican in the Gulf of Mexico or a person living beside Alberta’s tar sands or in the Niger River Delta. Of course BP has the well-deserved worst rap at this point in time and so they won’t be able to share in the spoils of the next – and probably last – oil frontier: the pristine icy waters of the Arctic. The company…
Tags: arctic, BP, Cairn, Climate change, Deepwater, disaster, energy, greenland, Gulf, Horizon, Mexico, oil, tar sands
Pollution, Videos & Documentaries, Aug 22nd, 2010,
Though around half of the oil spilt into the Gulf of Mexico following the Deepwater Horizon explosion in April remains unaccounted for, scientists have mapped out a 22-mile (35 km) underwater plume of petrochemicals. The fact that so much oil has remained underwater instead of floating to the surface is surprising to scientists and also problematic because it makes the oil more difficult to locate. This means that they don’t know what damage may still be occurring in the Gulf and where. Other unknowns include why the oil didn’t disperse as expected and the unpredictable – and undependable – nature…
Tags: BP, debate, Deepwater Horizon, Gulf, Mexico, oil, plume, spill, unknown
Politics, Videos & Documentaries, Aug 15th, 2010,
BP has agreed to pay $50.6m (€39.7m) in fines to US government’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for failing to rectify safety hazards after a 2005 explosion at a Texas City oil refinery killed 15 workers and injured 170. BP already paid a $21.3m (€16.7m) record breaking fine to OSHA following the deadly 2005 explosion. Besides both fines BP has agreed to set aside $500m to correct safety conditions at the refinery for current workers. From an RTT News report: The settlement resolves 270 of 709 citations OSHA issued at the Texas refinery in October 2009, BP said in…
Tags: 2005, BP, explosion, Gulf, Maddow, Mexico, oil, OSHA, Rachel, refinery, safety, Texas, violations
Conservation, Health, Nature, Pollution, Wildlife & Flora, Aug 10th, 2010,
This summer has been pretty crazy for the south, dealing with the oil spill clean up, the seafood industry, and threatening storms in the area. Sounds like a great way to spend a summer vacation, right? Fortunately, the end to the whole fiasco is drawing nearer (hopefully), but before I go into that, let’s check out some other things that have happened recently, first. To start with, Texas filed a lawsuit against BP, claiming the oil giant put profits before environmental safety. Surprisingly, this doesn’t have so much to do with the oil spill as it does with a refinery,…
Tags: blue crab, BP, drill, food chain, Gulf Coast Oil Spill, indicator species, lawsuit, oil change, relief well, Texas, updates
Politics, Pollution, Videos & Documentaries, Aug 7th, 2010,
As estimates of the oil spilling from the busted well in the Gulf of Mexico shot up like a post-Perestroika stock market on an almost daily basis, so plummeted the credibility of BP and the US government’s estimates regarding the volume of leaking oil. Accuracy apparently is not their strong suit. Won’t get fooled again. Or will we? What choice do we have without our own personal oil spill experts replete with super submarines? Even James Cameron wasn’t allowed to look – and he made Avatar, Aliens and Terminator. Surely that’s gotta open some doors? None of this means the…
Tags: BP, credibility, estimates, government, Gulf, Maddow, oil, Rachel, spill, spin
Politics, Pollution, Aug 6th, 2010,
Yesterday and today BP crews are attempting to securely seal the leak on the blown out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico by pumping in cement. Operation ‘static kill’ has so far been successful in halting the flow of oil into the Gulf, which began on April 20th with the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil platform. The latest effort began with BP crews pumping in special mud to stop the leak and will hopefully conclude – after the cement on top has dried – with the drilling of two relief wells. The Obama administration recently announced that around…
Tags: BP, cement, Gulf, marshes, oil, positive, scientists, seal, spill, spin, well
Politics, Pollution, Aug 5th, 2010,
Despite low public opinion on deep sea drilling and an overall global shift away from the practice, including the Obama administration’s moratorium in the US, the UK government – the ‘greenest government eva’ – has decided to go against the grain and allow exploratory drilling in the North Sea. A spokeswoman for the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change was quoted in an article in the Independent: We will not consent to the drilling of any well unless we are convinced that it is designed to the very highest standards, that the equipment used is fully tested and that…
Tags: ban, BP, coalition, deep, Deepwater, drilling, government, Greenpeace, Gulf, Italian, Libya, Mediterranean, Mexico, moratorium, North Sea, oil, sea, spill, UK
Politics, Pollution, Wildlife & Flora, Aug 4th, 2010,
BP has successfully stopped the oil flowing out of the ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico by filling the well with a special kind of mud. It could be necessary to pump more mud into the well and workers may seal the top with concrete to assist in the proposed lasting solution of the two relief wells currently being drilled. From a BBC News report: The US government says the well leaked 4.9 million barrels of oil before being capped last month, with only 800,000 barrels being captured. The US government is expected to announce today that the remaining…
Tags: BP, chemical, cleanup, Deepwater Horizon, dispersants, government, Gulf, Mexico, mud, oil, static kill, US, well
Climate Change, Politics, Aug 2nd, 2010,
Since the environment and appearing to be green are increasingly in vogue, yet consumerism is more rampant than ever, a curious corporate, consumer and governmental culture is emerging. It’s the culture of ‘lets not and say we did’. For example, let’s go on about cutting emissions, but then expand offshore drilling. Or let’s make our corporate logo a green flower and then have the worst environmental safety standards among all large oil companies. Let’s call ourselves the greenest government ever and then cut environmental programs. Let’s fight climate change by moving manufacturing to the developing world where emissions are less…
Tags: bonfire, BP, China, consumerism, corporate, David, emissions, environment, environmental, government, greenwashing, Hayward, iPhones, let's not and say we did, logo, Mitchell, Tony
Pollution, Science & Technology, Jul 19th, 2010,
Though the cap on the damaged oil well in the Gulf of Mexico is reportedly holding, hydrocarbon leakage has been detected on the seabed. The hope has been that the cap – successfully placed over the wellhead last week – would stop the flow of oil into the Gulf until permanent relief wells are in place. US Admiral Thad Allen has written to BP chief of operations Bob Dudley demanding answers. He is quoted in a report in the Guardian: I direct you to provide me a written procedure for opening the choke valve as quickly as possible without damaging…
Tags: Admiral, Allen, BP, cap, detected, government, Gulf, hydrocarbons, leak, oil, plan, seepage, US, well
Politics, Pollution, Jul 18th, 2010,
As the world’s attention is still focused on the BP Gulf of Mexico disaster the EU’s energy commissioner, Gunther Oettinger, is calling for a moratorium on deep water oil drilling in Europe. The energy commissioner met with oil industry representatives on Wednesday and clearly stated that he is in favor of banning deep sea oil drilling and instituting a freeze on issuing new drilling permits. This would mostly affect drilling in around the UK. From a BBC News report: Mr Oettinger wants the Union’s member states to call a halt to drilling around Europe, including the Mediterranean and Black Sea,…
Tags: ban, BP, commissioner, deep, drilling, energy, EU, Europe, Gulf, Oettinger, oil, sea, water
Pollution, Videos & Documentaries, Jul 16th, 2010,
Check out this clip from last night’s Rachel Maddow show on the situation in the Gulf of Mexico in light of BP’s successful capping of the oil well leak. Rachel is joined by NBC’s chief environmental affairs correspondent Anne Thompson to discuss possible scenarios such as hurricanes and contingency plans as well as the eventual relief well, which should offer a permanent solution to the leak in the Gulf. What next for the Gulf? Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Keep up to date on the situation in the Gulf via this Associated Press…
Tags: BP, Gulf, leak, Maddow, oil, Rachel, well
Pollution, ,
You thought it might never happen, but yesterday evening BP successfully stopped the flow of oil from the broken well in the Gulf of Mexico. The cap is a temporary fix – with the lasting solution being the drilling of a relief well scheduled to take place in a few weeks time. Both US President Barack Obama and BP’s chief expressed cautious optimism at the news that the oil leak in the Gulf was under control for the first time in 87 days. From a report in the Guardian: Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer, said engineers would be checking…
Tags: BP, cap, Gulf, leak, Mexico, oil, spill, well
Nature, Pollution, Wildlife & Flora, Jul 14th, 2010,
BP’s crucial test of the new well cap over the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been postponed yesterday. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and his team of advisers, who raised concerns that the operation could put damaging pressure on the busted well and make the leak worse, requested the postponement. By closing the source of the spill the pressure increase could cause the oil to start leaking in other places. The drilling of relief wells still remains the only proven way to stop the spill permanently, by intercepting the ruptured one. By the end of this month the…
Tags: BP, BP postponed new cap testing, British Petroleum, disaster, Gulf of Mexico, new cap testing, oil spill
Politics, Pollution, Science & Technology, Jul 10th, 2010,
Just soon as the US sent a hot Russian spy back home, an offer to help stop the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico emerged from the former ‘Evil Empire’. Russian submarine captain Yevgenii Chernyaev has told the BBC that two unique submersibles from Russia, which are capable of diving 6,000 meters deep, would be able to cap the leak. The subs are currently exploring for gas hydrates in Lake Baikal – the deepest lake in the world – in eastern Siberia. Anatoly Sagalevich of Russia’s Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, which owns the vessels, said that he had an…
Tags: Baikal, BP, cap, Gulf, lake, leak, moratorium, oil, Russia, Russian, Siberia, stop, sub, subs
