Richard Heinberg on 100 days of the BP gusher

As the 100 day anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf rolled around this week, WMNF’s Kelly Benjamin spoke with Richard Heinberg, senior fellow at the Post Carbon Institute and former advisor to the National Petroleum Council on Peak Oil and the ramifications of the BP tragedy. Benjamin asked Heinberg what should […]

BP’s ‘Kill’ Start May Be Delayed Due to Storm Debris

BP’s “static kill” procedure may be delayed by a day because the company first has to remove debris at the bottom of the relief well drilled to permanently plug the source of the largest oil spill in the U.S. history. The so-called static kill procedure, aimed at more fully sealing the damaged Gulf of Mexico […]

A Critical Examination of Matt Simmons’ Claims on the Deepwater Spill

Matt Simmons, author of Twilight in the Desert, has long been one of the most famous and influential voices on the subject of peak oil. After the release of his book, Simmons rose to fame as Saudi Arabian oil production declined and global oil prices skyrocketed. However, Simmons has lately been making hyperbolic claims related to […]

World’s population up

As the world’s population grows, Russia’s population will be declining, the experts forecast. The world’s population in 2009 made 6.8 billion, and by 2025 it will make up to 8.1 billion, and a quarter of a century later – up to 9.4 billion. Africa’s population will be growing most quickly. By 2050, it will double […]

CSMonitor: Gulf oil spill: Where has the oil gone?

Since BP capped its ruptured well, the Gulf oil spill has shrunk dramatically. The Gulf itself is breaking down the oil at top speed, but past spills indicate the effects could linger for decades. By Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer / July 27, 2010 Since BP capped the renegade Macondo well at the center of the […]

Another Oil Leak Is Spotted in the Gulf

A wellhead in southeastern Louisiana was spewing oil up to 20 feet into the air on Tuesday morning, local officials said, at least the third unrelated oil leak in the area since the Deepwater Horizon spill began 99 days ago. The well, owned by the state, is in Barataria Bay, about 65 miles south of […]

Is Australia’s population a problem?

“Australia should not hurtle down the track towards a big population”. Instead, she called for a “sustainable population”. Almost four weeks on, however, Labor’s policy has no details — just lots of rhetoric designed to pander to fears that immigration (particularly asylum seekers) is causing a raft of social problems. Countries with much larger populations […]

E.P.A. Considers Risks of Gas Extraction

ANONSBURG, Pa. — The streams of people came to the public meeting here armed with stories of yellowed and foul-smelling well water, deformed livestock, poisoned fish and itchy skin. One resident invoked the 1968 zombie thriller “Night of the Living Dead,” which, as it happens, was filmed just an hour away from this southwestern corner […]

Second Federal Analysis Gives Further Clues about Location and Movement of Subsurface Oil

July 23, 2010 The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) today released its second peer-reviewed, analytical summary report about subsurface oil monitoring in the Gulf of Mexico. The report contains preliminary data collected at 227 sampling stations extending […]

Why I Garden

My husband has been studying and writing about oil and energy resources for the past six years. Not a day goes by that we don’t talk about peak oil or the transition into the post-industrial era. So, we decided to live in a place that is close to a grocery store and the downtown where […]

After the Climate Bill Failure

With the Senate slinking away from any effort to control climate-altering carbon emissions, the frustrated and perplexed are asking, now what? Can federal and state governments move ahead under existing law to achieve some or all of the greenhouse gas reductions envisioned in the failed legislation? Just in time comes a report from the respected […]

Matt Simmons Says Gulf Clean Up Will Cost Over $1 Trillion, Sees BP At $1, Says “We Have Now Killed The GoM”

Matt Simmons shares some startling revelations in his latest Bloomberg TV interview, in which he says none of the propaganda matters on TV 24/7 (photoshopped or not) as the ultimate clean up cost will likely be well over $1 trillion, and a result he is unconcerned about his BP short. He ultimately see the stock […]

Nature Often Resilient in Recovering From Oil Spills

do not underestimate nature’s powers of recovery. After most big oil spills, scientists are pleasantly surprised by how quickly the oil disappears and the marine life reappears. This is true even in Alaska, where the sheltered waters, low temperatures and abundant wildlife conspired to make the slick damaging and persistent. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric […]

BP’s latest bid to plug well could be this weekend

BP could begin a so-called “static kill” to plug its blown-out Gulf of Mexico oil well by this weekend if bad weather does not force a delay, the top U.S. official overseeing the spill response said on Wednesday. Retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said at a briefing that if he approves the effort, BP […]

Exxon still aids climate sceptics

ONE of the world’s largest oil companies has broken its pledge to stop funding groups that promote scepticism about man-made climate change. ExxonMobil gave almost £stg 1 million ($1.75m) last year toorganisations that campaigned against controls on greenhouse gas emissions. Several made outspoken attacks on climate scientists at the University of East Anglia and argued […]

Feds: BP’s cap stays on, new leaks insignificant

BP and the government had been at odds over the company’s desire to simply leave the cap in place and employ it like a giant cork in a bottle until a relief well being drilled deep underground can be used to plug up the well permanently. Allen initially said his preference was to pipe oil […]

BP: Oil Seep is Natural

BP believes an unspecified amount of hydrocarbons seeping from the seafloor near the leaking Macondo well is natural and unrelated to the test of its new containment system, a company spokesman said Monday. “We understand it’s natural seepage,” the spokesman said. The seepage is located at about two miles from the well. The U.S. government […]

Kunstler: What If Simmon is Right about BP Spill?

Simmons makes two additional points that are pretty radical: he says that several states along the Gulf ought to begin systematic evacuations in counties along the shore now. From his experience in Houston with Hurricane Rita (2005), he says a last-minute evacuation is bound to be a disaster — the highways jammed hopelessly, drivers ran […]

Feds let BP keep Gulf oil cap closed despite seep

The federal government Monday allowed BP to keep the cap shut tight on its busted Gulf of Mexico oil well for another day despite a seep in the sea floor after the company promised to watch closely for signs of new leaks underground, settling for the moment a rift between BP and the government. The […]

Hans Rosling on global population growth

The world’s population will grow to 9 billion over the next 50 years — and only by raising the living standards of the poorest can we check population growth. This is the paradoxical answer that Hans Rosling unveils at TED@Cannes using colorful new data display technology. Famed for his informal motto: “Let my dataset change […]

Well cap may keep blocking oil until permanent fix

The custom-built cap that finally cut off the oil flowing from BP’s broken well held steady Sunday, and the company hopes to leave it that way until crews can permanently kill the leak. That differs from the plan the federal government laid out a day earlier, in which millions more gallons of oil could be […]

Podcast: Technogenic Catastrophe

“If you translate “industrial accident” into Russian and then back into English, you’re likely to end up with “technogenic catastrophe.” Might the Gulf Oil Spill be the American Chernobyl? KMO welcomes Dmitry Orlov back to the podcast to examine these questions and to explain why collapse is still the optimistic scenario, why it isn’t necessary […]

In the Gulf of Mexico, Natural Gas Reaches 100,000 Times Normal Level

Too little oxygen could result in a condition similar to what is found today at the bottom of the Black Sea, where little or no life exists. Tiny microbes naturally found in the ocean will consume the gases. But the process also means the depletion of oxygen, with the microbes needing almost five times more […]

The Oil Cap Is Holding — Now What?

For now, at least, there is no oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. That could last until Saturday, if BP carries out its well integrity test for a full 48 hours. Engineers are checking pressure inside the well every six hours, trying to determine if the well and casing are intact. If it works… […]

NRC Estimates Climate Changes for Centuries to Millennia

The report estimates that for every one degree increase in global temperature, rainfall would rise or fall 5% to 10%, in different regions around the world, corn crops would be reduced by that same amount and the amount of area burned by wildfires will increase two to fourfold. In order to stabilize the amount of […]

BP says new cap works

If cap holds up under pressure, it should contain oil until well plugged Officials are now monitoring the cap to see if it holds, more than 85 days after the explosion of a BP oil rig killed 11 workers & triggered the environmental disaster MSNBC

Setback: BP cap in limbo over gov’t questions

BP’s work on capping the Gulf of Mexico gusher was frozen Wednesday after the federal government raised concerns the operation could put damaging pressure on the busted well that could make the leak worse. An administration official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the talks with BP, said the government […]

Whither Cap & Trade?

Just a year ago it seemed a near-certainty that the US would eventually adopt some form of cap & trade mechanism for greenhouse gases (GHGs). After repeated failed attempts to pass cap & trade legislation in the Senate, the House of Representatives narrowly passed the Waxman-Markey bill, HR-2454, and the Senate was expected to follow, […]

Post: Historic oil spill fails to produce gains for U.S. environmentalists

For environmentalists, the BP oil spill may be disproving the maxim that great tragedies produce great change. Traditionally, American environmentalism wins its biggest victories after some important piece of American environment is poisoned, exterminated or set on fire. An oil spill and a burning river in 1969 led to new anti-pollution laws in the 1970s. […]

New cap put on leaking BP oil well

BP robots attached a new, tighter-fitting cap on top of the gushing Gulf of Mexico oil leak Monday, raising hopes that the crude could be kept from polluting the water for the first time in nearly three months. Placing the cap on top of the leak was the climax of two days of delicate preparation […]

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