Category Archives: Energy

Ask a Stupid Question

11/8/2010 – 8:57 pm

The presidential commission on the BP oil spill seems to be fulfilling the task of all such blue-ribbon commissions: ask the wrong questions, draw the wrong conclusions.
The commission’s general counsel, Fred Bartlit, burst across the media Monday with his claim that he could find no cost cutting leading to the April 20 blowout and the [...]

By floegel | Also posted in Asides | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Broken in Two

10/14/2010 – 12:33 pm

I attended the Gulf Gathering at Weeks Bay, Alabama last week. It was a conference of grassroots groups from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, coming together to try and figure how to put their region together again after the BP oil disaster.
This being the gulf, implications from the other recent disaster – [...]

By floegel | Also posted in Commentary, Global Warming | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Cleanup Theater

10/7/2010 – 6:37 am

BILOXI, MS – I’m back in the Gulf of Mexico, nearly six months after BP’s Macondo well blew out and spewed 4 million barrels of oil into one of the northern hemisphere’s most fragile and fecund ecosystems.
The government and BP will both tell you things are going great. They want this to be over. [...]

By floegel | Also posted in Commentary, Oil | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (1)

Whistling Past the Gas Station

7/15/2010 – 12:29 pm

I started writing about peak oil in this space in 1999; the last time I wrote about it (if I can believe my own search engine) was May 2008. Why so quiet lately?
The recession. In that May 2008 post, I noted that Goldman Sachs was predicting an oil price of $200/barrel in 2010. [...]

By floegel | Also posted in Commentary, Iraq Invasion, Peak Oil | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Who’s in Charge?

5/20/2010 – 10:02 am

Today is the one-month anniversary of BP’s massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and it’s still spilling. Much has been said, much less done. The question that looms largest in my mind 30 days later is: Who’s in charge?
If you’ve been paying attention, the answer is clearly: BP. There’s some [...]

By floegel | Also posted in Commentary, Oceans, Oil | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Unanswered Questions

5/13/2010 – 10:51 am

It’s now been over three weeks since BP’s oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded, burned and sank in the Gulf of Mexico. These have been hectic weeks for all concerned, no doubt, but the paucity of information available to the public is at best, discouraging.
How much oil is flowing / has flowed into the Gulf [...]

By floegel | Also posted in Commentary, Oceans, Oil | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

You Can Hide, But You Can’t Run

5/12/2010 – 9:57 am

Now that BP’s jury-rigged contraption to contain its massive Gulf of Mexico oil spew has failed, the company’s only resort is to continue pumping massive amounts of dispersant into the water near the wellhead, in an attempt to – what exactly?
The dispersant goes by the trade name “Corexit.” It’s supposed to be a pun [...]

By floegel | Also posted in Asides, Oceans, Oil, Toxics | Tagged , , | Comments (0)