May 12, 2010 09:41 PM EDT
The BP oil spill has its first casualities, and people couldn't be more distressed. Six dolphins washed ashore on the shores of Louisana, Mississippi, and Alabama.Wildlife officials are relatively sure the cause of the dolphins death is oil spill related.
Officials are running tests to be sure of the cause of the animals' death. It is three weeks since the oil disaster, and it looks like wildlife and the ecological system are being affected.
BP has tried to cap the oil leak with a concrete dome which did not succeed, and now they are trying a new smaller dome. The smaller box weighs about 2 tons. The previous bigger box weighed about 100 tons but failed due to ice crystals meeting the oil.
The dolphins continue to wash up on shore. They started to appear on May 2, 2010. This is distressing to everyone but particularly fisherman, and dolphin lovers like me.
Source
The Gulf Oil (and Gas) Gusher Up Close
By ANDREW C. REVKINJust in case you were wondering if it was appropriate to use the phrase “oil spill” to describe the unrelenting seabed gusher in the Macondo prospect 50 miles off the Gulf coast, have a look at the video shot on Tuesday and released today:
There’s more background on the images on The Lede blog, including an explanation of the light and dark variations (resulting from the mix of natural gas and oil).
The video below was shot as the response team lowered the giant containment structure on the main leak. I’ve set the clip to play starting near the end, where you can see the oil boiling up from beneath the walls of the device. In the end, a slush of methane and seawater, called hydrates, clogged the container, putting this idea on the growing scrap heap of solutions.
On Wednesday, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and other government officials were briefed at length by BP engineers and officials and Chu said things were “looking up.”
There’s more background on the images on The Lede blog, including an explanation of the light and dark variations (resulting from the mix of natural gas and oil).
The video below was shot as the response team lowered the giant containment structure on the main leak. I’ve set the clip to play starting near the end, where you can see the oil boiling up from beneath the walls of the device. In the end, a slush of methane and seawater, called hydrates, clogged the container, putting this idea on the growing scrap heap of solutions.
On Wednesday, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and other government officials were briefed at length by BP engineers and officials and Chu said things were “looking up.”
Gulf oil spill: Rep. Stupak says blowout preventer was modified [Updated]
May 12, 2010 | 10:25 am
In the ongoing hearing looking into the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster, U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) focused on the so-called blowout preventer, an apparatus of valves, rams and other devices that is supposed to seal off a well and prevent uncontrolled flow of oil and gas.
The device, Stupak said, was "modified in unexpected ways."
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles), chairman of
Stupak, who heads the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, said, "This leak was found in the hydraulic system that provides emergency power to the shear rams, which are supposed to cut the drill pipe and seal the well."
Stupak said the manufacturer told committee investigators it did not believe the leak was caused by the blowout. Of the significance of the leak, Stupak said, "If the leak deprived the shear rams of sufficient power, they might not succeed in cutting through the drill pipe and sealing the well."
Stupak said congressional investigators also have learned that the emergency controls on the blowout preventer "may have failed."
A representative of Transocean, owner of the drill rig, told the committee that any modification of the blowout preventer would have been done at BP's request. So far, there has been no response from BP on the allegation.
[Updated at 11:03 a.m.: In Tuesday's Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing, Lamar McKay, president and chairman of BP America, said: "We do have reason to believe that it was modified. I don't know the extent of those modifications."]
Jack Moore, chief executive officer of Cameron, the manufacturer of the blowout preventers, told the committee:
Since the BOPs [blowout preventers] were still in place in this circumstance, they may have been activated during this event and may have restricted the flow to some extent. At
this point, we cannot be certain. But we have no reason to believe that they were
not operational – they were jointly tested by BP and Transocean personnel as
specified on April 10 and 17 and found to be functional.
We also do not know whether the BOPs were damaged by the surge that emanated from the well beneath or whether the surge may have blown debris (e.g., cement, casing) into the BOPs, thereby preventing them from squeezing, crushing or shearing the pipe.-- Richard Simon
Photo: Rep. Bart Stupak. Credit: Susan Walsh / Associated Press
BP greenwashing preceded monumental Gulf disaster
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Video #1: 2008 Greenpeace Emerald Paintbrush to BPPosted by: BorderExplorer -
Video #2: Satire of BP commercialPosted by: BorderExplorer
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revised "flower-like" BP logoPosted by: BorderExplorerBP's 2008 public relations campaign was termed "greenwashing" by critics ...
The oil that is currently spewing directly from a BP well in the Gulf of Mexico is vastly more toxic than oil spilled in previous tanker-leaked oil disasters. However, BP has historically spun its corporate image to convince the consuming public that it prioritizes ecological interests. That practice --termed "greenwashing" -involves making misleading claims about the environmental benefits of a product or company. But the Gulf disaster brings ecological toxicity to unprecedented levels.
Radio Netherlands reports that the environmental disaster in the Gulf is unprecedented, not only for the volume of oil being released but also because this oil contains substances that are normally removed from oil in tanker transport. The Gulf leak contains PAKs, substances similar to the black smut found on barbeques that are carcinogenic and dissolve in water. The leaking oil also contains lethal "volatile substances like toluene and benzene that kill fish, plankton and mussels."
The report calls it "a disaster the like of which has never been seen before." The monumental ecological disaster in the Gulf, unprecedented in human history, flows in the wake of BP greenwashing and even as a greenwashing by-product.
In July of 2000 British Petroleum launched a high-profile, $200 million public relations ad campaign portraying the company as environmentally-friendly. It introduced a new slogan, "Beyond Petroleum," and changed its traditional logo to a new green and yellow flower-like sunburst.
"BP is still trying to greenwash its image. Its Web pages are filled with bogus statements, like "We try to work in ways that will benefit the communities and habitats where we do business -- and earn the world's respect," says Anne Landmann on PRWatch.org.
So when, on December 22, 2008, Greenpeace announced the first winner of their new annual Emerald Paintbrush award "for greenwashing above and beyond the call of duty," they awarded it to BP.
Perhaps the first disaster was swallowing BP's public relations spin.
___________
ABOUT THE VIDEOS
Video #1: Greenpeace awards BP its Emerald Paintbrush award in 2008, recording the moment in this mini mocumentary. BP is underwhelmed at the distinction.
Video #2: Satire of a BP public relations commercial, believed to originally have aired on the CBC show This Hour Has 22 Minutes. It illustrates the public relations twists that "whitewash" environmentally questionable companies, painting them as "green."
VIDEO: As House Opens Hearing To Investigate Oil Spill Disaster, House GOP Gathers At Oil Industry Fundraiser
This morning, executives including BP’s chairman Lamar McKay, Transocean CEO Steve Newman, and Halliburton’s Timothy Probert appeared before a hearing in the House Energy and Commerce Committee to dodge responsibility for their respective roles in the Deepwater Horizon Gulf Coast oil spill. About an hour before the investigation began, however, House Republicans gathered a few blocks away for an “oil and gas breakfast” fundraiser with the oil and gas industry to benefit Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX). View a screenshot of the invitation from the Political Party Time blog below:
Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) — the chairman of the Republican committee tasked with raising funds to elect more House Republicans — told us that he saw no conflict with his members raising money from the oil industry just about an hour before BP was scheduled to appear for questioning:
TP: Do you think that on the morning that the House is going to talk to these BP and other oil executives, it’s good that your caucus is meeting with the oil and gas industry for a fundraiser?Watch it:
SESSIONS: You know what I think is really good is that Barack Obama wants oil prices to skyrocket, consumers to pay five dollar gasoline, and to continue his drive to lose ten million American jobs.
TP: I saw that Frank Luntz went into the fundraiser. Did he give you that talking point?
SESSION: No, you see, I put them on the floor of the House every day.
Gulf oil spill: Rep. Henry Waxman focuses on Halliburton cementing job
May 12, 2010 | 9:39 am
Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) started his inquiry into the Deepwater Horizon oil spill Wednesday with sharp words for BP, the well owner; Transocean, which owned the drilling rig; and Halliburton, which cemented the well:
"This catastrophe appears to have been caused by a calamitous series of equipment and operational failures. If the largest oil and oil services companies in the world had been more careful, 11 lives might have been saved and our coastlines protected."But Waxman immediately focused on Halliburton's cementing job as the first in a complex chain of events that ended with an explosion and fire April 20 that left 11 men missing and presumed dead and started a spill of 5,000 barrels per day that now threatens the coastlines of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.
“Before, during or after the cement job, an undetected influx of hydrocarbons entered the wellbore,” Waxman said. "What this means is that there was a breach somewhere in well integrity that allowed methane gas and possibly other hydrocarbons to enter the well."Waxman said the well did not pass a crucial pressure test below the blowout preventer, and that a high pressure reading inside the well likely meant there was an incursion of natural gas.
"According to James Dupree, the BP senior vice president for the Gulf of Mexico, the well did not pass this test. Mr. Dupree told committee staff on Monday that the test result was “not satisfactory” and “inconclusive.” Significant pressure discrepancies were recorded.
As a result, another negative pressure test was conducted. This is described in the fourth bullet: “During this test, 1,400 psi was observed on the drill pipe while 0 psi was observed on the kill and the choke lines.But Waxman said attorneys for BP have found that another pressure test hours later was satisfactory, and that work on sealing the well for later production was continued.
According to Mr. Dupree, this is also an unsatisfactory test result. The kill and choke lines run from the drill rig 5,000 feet to the blowout preventer at the sea floor. The drill pipe runs from the drill rig through the blowout preventer deep into the well. In the test, the pressures measured at any point from the drill rig to the blowout preventer should be the same in all three lines. But what the test showed was that pressures in the drill pipe were significantly higher. Mr. Dupree explained that the results could signal that an influx of gas was causing pressure to mount inside the wellbore."
"What happened next is murky. Mr. Dupree told the committee staff that he believed the well blew moments after the second pressure test. But lawyers for BP contacted the committee yesterday and provided a different account.Cementing problems have been an early focus of inquiries into the Deepwater Horizon disaster. A UC Berkeley scientist told the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday that BP documents suggest cement could have been contaminated by "hydrates," or methane and related gases that are liquid under pressure.
According to BP’s counsel, further investigation has revealed that additional pressure tests were taken, and at 8 p.m., company officials determined that the additional results justified ending the test and proceeding with well operations.
This confusion among BP officials appears to echo confusion on the rig. Information reviewed by the committee describes an internal debate between Transocean and BP personnel about how to proceed.
What we do know is that shortly before 10 p.m. – just two hours after well operations apparently resumed – gas surged from the well up the riser and the rig exploded in a fireball."
These hydrates likely gasified and escaped from the cement, entered the well core and expanded as they rose to the rig, where they ignited in the huge fireball that doomed the Deepwater Horizon, according to Robert Bea, who directs UC Berkeley's Center for Catastrophic Risk Management.
Testimony is continuing before the Oversight and Investigation subcommittee, part of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
-- Geoff Mohan, Richard Simon
Photo: Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles). Credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press
Artificial Islands Can't Save La. Coast, Say Geologists
Building islands may seem like a simple way to protect Louisiana's shores, but critics say it's too simple.
THE GIST
- Louisiana's governor has proposed building up islands off the Mississippi Delta to stop oil and hurricanes.
- Experts describe barrier islands not as shields but as "tombstones" of the delta.
- This is because the Mississippi Delta area is continually sinking.
An aerial view of the northern Chandeleur barrier islands shows sheens of oil reaching land, May 6, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. Gov. Jindal has proposed building new islands to further protect the shore.AP Photo/David Quinn
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has a plan to save his state from both the BP oil slick and future hurricanes: Rebuild and reinforce barrier islands to shield the shorelines.
Sites have already been approved for dredging, according to reports, and the plans have been rushed to the federal government for expedited approval.
"It would be so much easier to clean oil off this (dredged) sand than to deal with in our marshes," Jindal said in a recent news conference.
Artificial islands, dikes and other sorts of coastal engineering projects have a long history, and they can help some coastal areas in some ways. Aside from the fact that there may not be the months or years needed to build such barriers before the oil arrives, there are a couple of catches with the sand barriers proposed by Jindal, say independent experts.
First, the project will cost enormous sums of money to implement and maintain. And second, it won't work on the Mississippi delta's rapidly subsiding landscape.
"This is another one of those myths that people have in their minds about Louisiana geology: That the barrier islands are the first line of defense against hurricanes," said Roy Dokka, executive director of the Center for GeoInformatics and a professor at Louisiana State University. "That's just not true."
Unlike along the coast of Florida or the Atlantic seaboard, barrier islands in the Mississippi Delta area are all sinking, just as the delta sinks, Dokka explained. It's the way large river deltas work as sediments pile onto them from the rivers and press down on the crust of the Earth or slowly slump into the sea. That sinking feeling is accentuated by rising sea levels caused by global warming.
Related Links:
Louisiana's barrier islands are all doomed, as were the barrier islands that came before them which are now part of the sea bottom off shore. It's part of a process that has been going on for eons.
"Barrier islands are the tombstones of the delta," said Dokka. The islands were once part of the mainland, then were cut off as the land subsided. "So when you see barrier islands in Louisiana it means its time is almost up."
Trying to rebuild such islands or create new ones, therefore, ignores the basic geological processes of the region. But that hasn't stopped people from already trying.
Take, for instance, the efforts to build up Louisiana's East Timbalier Island, said Dokka. A lot of money was spent dredging and building up the ground. Yet today, just a few years later, that work is under several feet of water. In order to keep such projects from literally losing ground, islands would have to be continually rebuilt.
"You are talking about a public works project that will never end," said Dokka. And so the cost is not in the hundreds of millions, as Jindal has said, but would be incalculable.
The Mississippi delta isn't the only region where geo-engineering is meeting its match. Low-lying places in California's Sacramento River Delta and San Francisco Bay are also facing the reality of sea level rising and exposing new areas to potential flooding.
Even Holland has begun to acknowledge that its dikes are no match for sea level rise, and so people are moving further from the sea, said geologist and coastal hazards researcher Gary Griggs of the University of California at Santa Cruz.
"It's a massive problem and it's a global problem," Griggs told Discovery News. Unfortunately, when there are lots of factions demanding loudly that something be done, as in Louisiana, seemingly simple ideas that have little scientific basis can get a lot of traction.
"For a complicated problem there is always a simple solution that's always wrong," said Griggs.
Sites have already been approved for dredging, according to reports, and the plans have been rushed to the federal government for expedited approval.
"It would be so much easier to clean oil off this (dredged) sand than to deal with in our marshes," Jindal said in a recent news conference.
Artificial islands, dikes and other sorts of coastal engineering projects have a long history, and they can help some coastal areas in some ways. Aside from the fact that there may not be the months or years needed to build such barriers before the oil arrives, there are a couple of catches with the sand barriers proposed by Jindal, say independent experts.
First, the project will cost enormous sums of money to implement and maintain. And second, it won't work on the Mississippi delta's rapidly subsiding landscape.
"This is another one of those myths that people have in their minds about Louisiana geology: That the barrier islands are the first line of defense against hurricanes," said Roy Dokka, executive director of the Center for GeoInformatics and a professor at Louisiana State University. "That's just not true."
Unlike along the coast of Florida or the Atlantic seaboard, barrier islands in the Mississippi Delta area are all sinking, just as the delta sinks, Dokka explained. It's the way large river deltas work as sediments pile onto them from the rivers and press down on the crust of the Earth or slowly slump into the sea. That sinking feeling is accentuated by rising sea levels caused by global warming.
Related Links:
- Current Could Push Oil Spill Up East Coast
- NASA-Inspired Aerogel Could Sponge Up Oil Spills
- HowStuffWorks.com: How do you clean up an oil spill?
- Volatile Methane Could Spark More Drilling Disasters
Louisiana's barrier islands are all doomed, as were the barrier islands that came before them which are now part of the sea bottom off shore. It's part of a process that has been going on for eons.
"Barrier islands are the tombstones of the delta," said Dokka. The islands were once part of the mainland, then were cut off as the land subsided. "So when you see barrier islands in Louisiana it means its time is almost up."
Trying to rebuild such islands or create new ones, therefore, ignores the basic geological processes of the region. But that hasn't stopped people from already trying.
Take, for instance, the efforts to build up Louisiana's East Timbalier Island, said Dokka. A lot of money was spent dredging and building up the ground. Yet today, just a few years later, that work is under several feet of water. In order to keep such projects from literally losing ground, islands would have to be continually rebuilt.
"You are talking about a public works project that will never end," said Dokka. And so the cost is not in the hundreds of millions, as Jindal has said, but would be incalculable.
The Mississippi delta isn't the only region where geo-engineering is meeting its match. Low-lying places in California's Sacramento River Delta and San Francisco Bay are also facing the reality of sea level rising and exposing new areas to potential flooding.
Even Holland has begun to acknowledge that its dikes are no match for sea level rise, and so people are moving further from the sea, said geologist and coastal hazards researcher Gary Griggs of the University of California at Santa Cruz.
"It's a massive problem and it's a global problem," Griggs told Discovery News. Unfortunately, when there are lots of factions demanding loudly that something be done, as in Louisiana, seemingly simple ideas that have little scientific basis can get a lot of traction.
"For a complicated problem there is always a simple solution that's always wrong," said Griggs.
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