Groundhog (Choking On Oil) Day

Oil-related catastrophes simply refuse to leave me alone. I mean, WHAT.

840,000 gallons of oil from a corroded Enbridge Energy pipeline have leaked into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River near Battle Creek this past week. More specifically, “The oil is moving from Talmadge Creek into the Kalamazoo River, which flows from near the city of Battle Creek into Lake Michigan.” Swell.

Edward Vielmetti, friend of New Orleans and lead blogger at AnnArbor.com has been doing yeoman’s work staying on top of the story and associated political foibles as it unfolds. Follow Ed on Twitter for up to the minute information. For more, I suggest you follow Canadian news on this story because a) Enbridge Energy is a Canadian company and b) there’s a certain sheen, shall we say, to the quality of FoxMSNBCNN reporting: CBC News says 3.7 million litres while CNN says 19,500 barrels. Been there, done that, right?

Some other things that ought to sound terribly familiar to Gulf Coast residents. Here’s #2: Michigan oil spill: U.S. warned Canadian company about pipeline monitoring

3) Expect the same old disheartening song and dance from the Yankee right. The Michigan Messenger reports:

State Sen. Glenn Anderson (D-Westland) has introduced legislation in the State Senate to lift a cap on costs oil companies have to pay for clean ups associated with their pipelines.

Anderson told Jack Ebling on WILS 1320 AM radio Wednesday that right now, state law caps the damages a company is liable for at $15 million.

But the Senate, which is dominated by Republicans, adjourned for a mid-summer break without acting on Anderson’s legislation.

“They chose to do nothing with it,” Anderson said. “They passed a resolution that called on officials from the federal government to the locals to do all they can. That’s nothing but talk.”

3a) Chicago’s Mayor Daley: Michigan oil spill worse than Asian carp so “Michigan better do something about the investigation, the criminal and civil investigation. Who’s paying for it, and who had the oil spill in the Kalamazoo River, because it’s flowing into Lake Michigan.” Blarghblarblar.

And 4) @Enbridge_PR “Lake Michigan is not as big as the Gulf of Mexico, but we’re gonna try to beat those filthy Brits at their own game! @bpglobalpr” Right down to the fake Twitter account.

Wake me up when it’s all over, ferchrissakes.

July 29, 2010 | Filed under: energy,environment,government,media,midwest,we are not ok,wtf | No Comments »

Day 101

LiveScience | What Will Happen During the Next 100 Days of the Oil Spill?

… scientists say it could take decades to comprehend the toll the last 100 days took on wildlife — from sea turtles to bacteria.

Currently, oil covers approximately 638 miles (1,026 kilometers) of Gulf shoreline, according to the Deepwater Horizon Incident Joint Information Center

… can only hope that about 35 years from now, when these hatchlings reach maturity, they will still have the same instinct to return to the beaches where their mothers nested to lay eggs.

The size of the “dead zones,” where low oxygen levels cause marine life to languish and die, may grow in the coming days … [But] “the Gulf, with the warm temperature and the sunshine, can break down the oil really fast,” [University of Texas Marine Science Institute marine researcher Zhanfei] Liu said. “It spreads out, the bacteria attacks the oil really fast. This is not like the oil spill in Alaska.”

Undoubtedly, hurricanes will visit the Gulf within the next 100 days — hurricane season won’t end until the beginning of December … But scientists cannot predict how a hurricane might disperse the oil.

Put differently, our fate is similar to that of Joel, Crow and Tom Servo, trapped on a spaceship and forced to watch this low-budget horror movie play out until god knows when.

Image from Photoshop of Horrors: Wired Readers Show BP How It’s Done

| Filed under: energy,environment,louisiana,we are not ok,wtf | No Comments »

Day 100 Not Yet Dead

100 FRAKING DAYS.

Christian Science Monitor | From ‘static kill’ to ‘bottom kill’: next steps in Gulf oil spill – best explanation of the Static Kill followed by Bottom Kill methodology I’ve seen yet.

[Bottom kill] will come after “static kill,” which has a tentative start date of next Monday. Static kill would deposit the same mixture of materials into the top of the well. Unlike “top kill” in late May, which employed the same tactic, static kill is considered a more realistic solution to preventing oil flow because the container cap, installed in mid-July, is providing a tighter seal around the wellhead and therefore won’t allow oil and gas to escape.

And why things have seemingly slowed down over the last couple of weeks. Copious amounts of champagne after the last container cap worked Bonnie and all that casing.

Both operations are being prepared simultaneously. Monday the well lines are being reattached to the riser pipes that extend from the seafloor to near the surface, after they were temporarily abandoned this weekend due to the threat of tropical storm Bonnie. Both lines will be flushed to remove sediments.

Starting Wednesday and continuing through Sunday, the lines will each be fitted with a 2,000-foot internal casing pipe that will carry the materials downward. Once they are in place, the static kill operation will occur, likely Monday. The entire endeavor is set to prepare the launch of the relief well operation.

“The week after next we will have the potential … to begin killing the well.”

Did anyone hear Jon Stewart saying last night that Tony Hayward started at BP as a geologist at the age of 22 and with a PhD? Ah, that famous one-year University of Edinburgh PhD. Ok, it turns out he was 25. Either way, it’s the first I heard he started out in the industry as a production geologist before “rising quickly through the ranks in a series of technical and commercial roles in BP Exploration” and “coming to Lord ‘Culture of Complacency’ Browne‘s attention.” The shame.

In other news, a plan to kill American geologist with poison beer. The terrorists know our weakness.

July 28, 2010 | Filed under: energy,geology,louisiana | No Comments »

Day 99 Failed Boom & Brown Cloudies

* Anatomy of an Oil Spill Part I: The Sea Shepherd‘s Bonny Schumaker recently flew New Orleans blogger Dambala out over the Gulf of Mexico’s shelf. He photodocuments the flight from New Orleans over  Raccoon Island, LA (Louisiana’s most important seabird nesting site west of Breton Sound) to the Deepwater Horizon site and then to Horn Island, MS and Ocean Springs Airport, MS and back.

One thing which became immediately apparent was the large amount of failed boom, not just at Racoon, but all over the barrier islands.

… After leaving Racoon, we took off toward the Horizon well site.  We immediately ran into signs of oil and dispersant, on a rather large scale.  We spotted a small pod of dolphins right about a mile from the Racoon area, but after that … nada.  I’ve flown over the Gulf before and been out in boats, and I was very spooked at the overall absence of dolphins.

As we progressed, the oil became more and more apparent in different forms and textures.  It was like Baskin Robbins 32 flavors of Hell …

* I don’t know how many of you caught this piece of news over the weekend but a Deepwater Horizon chief engineer revealed to federal investigators that fire and gas alarms aboard the rig had been disabled for at least a year “because the rig’s leaders didn’t want to wake up to false alarms.” Having spent several nights onboard another Transocean drilling vessel, this makes me feel all kinds of lucky and freaked out. Safety culture, you betcha.

* JoeJoeJoe pointed me to this NatGeo article with a photo gallery which explains how “UV light could help cleanup crews pinpoint hard-to-see oil that might then be treated with oil-eating bacteria.” A neat idea, but too many times have we started yet another environmental disaster to combat a previous one. I suggest that we dig trenches on beaches that have supposedly already been cleaned up and shine the UV light in there.

* Remember, BP’s expenses from the cleanup are tax-deductible.

July 27, 2010 | Filed under: energy,environment,louisiana,we are not ok | 4 Comments »

Day 95 The Bonnie Situation

LiveScience | What Will Happen to Gulf Oil if Bonnie Strikes?

What happens will depend in part on which way the wind blows. Hurricanes move in a counter-clockwise direction and so tend to move water from east to west — the opposite direction from the way the oil has generally been spreading so far. That means a tropical storm or hurricane passing to the west of the oil slick could drive oil to the coast, while one to the east could push oil away from the coast, according to NOAA.

July 23, 2010 | Filed under: energy,environment,louisiana,new orleans,weather | No Comments »

Day 91 Well Integrity & Relief Well

A good general primer on WTH is going on with the blown out well’s integrity and the function of the relief well in this morning’s Q&A with John Hofmeister, former Shell president.

What needs to happen right away?

The near term fix is to release the cap and control the flow of oil to surface ships. Secondly, complete the relief well drilling to try and cement both inside and outside the casing shut at the point of intervention.

How is the relief well expected to work?

… use the relief well to cement both inside and outside the well casing in hopes of stopping any flow. The probability of success is uncertain but it’s still the best option for now.

The relief well comes in at the bottom of the column instead of the top. As mud and cement are pushed into the pipe way down the well it will build a column of weight on the oil column climbing the well. That weight ultimately should subdue the reservoir and seal in the well.

The following is an interesting statement by Hofmeister with respect to prevention of further oil volcanoes

… the original damage to the blowout protector, pre-blowout, needs to be fully understood to determine whether blowout protectors need improvement overall with more redundancy built in.

given that the failed blowout preventer was modified in China instead of in the US.

Experts say that the practice of having such engineering work carried out in China, rather than the US, saves money and is common in the industry.

… There is no evidence that the significant modifications to the blowout preventer (BOP), which were carried out in China in 2005, caused the equipment to fail. But industry lawyers said BP could be made liable for any mistakes that a Chinese subcontractor made carrying out the work. It would be almost impossible to secure damages in China, where international law is barely recognised.

Saved a lot of money there! Read about Chinese engineering for offshore concerns gone wrong over at NOLA-Dishu. I have all kinds of questions and scenarios about immunity from liability floating in my head now.

More, including the debate over whether the oil flow should restart, at The Oil Drum.

What is the status of the relief well? ETA?

July 19, 2010 | Filed under: energy,environment,global,we are not ok | No Comments »
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