More catastrophic oil spills to come

[Turborama]

As we tap out the last of the Earth's "easy oil," exploration moves into more experimental territory. Riskier territory. More remote and, too often, more environmentally vulnerable territory.

As our world continues in its fire-breathing-vampire-of-petroleum ways, we're likely to see more frequent and more devastating spills like the Deepwater Horizon, as geologist http://scienceblogs.com/highlyallochthonous/2010/05/drilling_for_oil_is_more_risky.php">Chris Rowan's blog over at ScienceBlogs rather chillingly warns:

In an attempt to quench this thirst, attention is moving into more technically challenging areas, with more complex geology and often in the deeper waters of the outer continental shelf. The increasing complexity of the equipment required to drill in such areas increases the number of things that can go wrong, and the location of the drilling makes dealing with catastrophic failures much more difficult, as we are seeing all too clearly this week.

As the world's desperation for oil piques and the cost of oil increases, oil companies will be more and more inclined to ignore risk. Already we see the hungry, lidless eye of big oil gazing with lust at the oil fields of the Arctic, where decreasing sea ice, ironically driven by global warming, is making exploration there more economically attractive. We need to put a lid on that -- and a damn sight faster than BP is putting a lid on the Gulf spill.

=snip=

Chris Rowan concludes that since oil demand isn't going away, and the oil companies are going to be reaching further, regulation needs to mitigate the danger of future spills:

(Oil) demand is driving drilling in places where accidents of this sort - major, hard to stem leaks - are going to be a major risk, and our safety regulations should be evolving to adjust to this new reality. As a start, I'd propose that emergency shut-off valves cease to be an optional extra on drilling rigs.

Continues: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/more-catastrophic-oil-spills-to-come/blog/11745

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[gateley]

1. "Chris Rowan concludes that since oil demand isn't going away..."

And it's our fault for not going balls to the wall researching and implementing alternative energy sources. By "our" I mean the Corporations, Governments, Big Money.

If for some reason we learned that every drop of oil was going to disappear from the planet in one year, don't you think we'd have some pretty viable alternatives pretty damn quick?

[Jennicut]

2. It is a shame there is no viable and totally in place alternatives yet.

We just are not dealing with reality, even many everyday people. Well, most conservatives. These people think we can drill our way out of this mess. And for how long? At what cost to us and the environment? Its obviously not just oceanic life getting effected by this current oil spill, it is people's livelihoods: shrimping, fishing, tourism.

[gateley]

5. You nailed it -- we are not dealing with reality. nt

[FBI_Un_Sub]

6. Corn EtOH is probably viable

Plus an added benefit of corn based EtOH-

There are two competing end uses for corn products (beyond flat bread, pita, and tortilla)

• high fructose corn syrup -- which can lead to obesity and TYPE 2 DIABETES and eventually totally bankrupt medicare and health insurance.
  
• motor fuel -- which is NOT petroleum based
  

[Turborama]

8. I reckon it won't be long before they have to take algae a lot more seriously

I mean the same "they" gateley was referring to, big money and corporations.

Grow mass amounts of algae and produce 20,000+ gallons of bio-fuel on one acre. With the amount of farm space of 1/10 the size of New Mexico we could produce enough fuel to fulfil the United States' need for oil.

Some facts and figures:

1 acre of corn = 18 gallons of oil per year

1 acre of palm = 7 to 800 gallons of oil per year

1 acre of open pond algae = 20,000 gallons of oil per year

1 acre of vertically grown algae = 100,000 gallons of oil per year

In search of sustainable fuel.

Tuesday, 24th June 2008
Source : Virgin Atlantic

Threatened by the latest rises in fuel costs - visionary airlines and a leading fuel technology innovator join forces.

Leading global air carriers Air New Zealand, Continental, Virgin Atlantic Airways, and biofuel technology developer UOP LLC, a Honeywell company, today announced they will be the first wave of aviation-related members to join the newly formed Algal Biomass Organization (ABO).

Together with Boeing, which co-chairs the ABO, the airlines are advocating for the identification and acceleration of new generations of fuel sources for the industry that have lower life cycle carbon emissions; in this case sustainable algae-based biofuels.

Full article: http://www.4hoteliers.com/4hots_nshw.php?mwi=4650

Algal Biomass Organization's website (quite a large list of big corporate sponsors there now): http://www.algalbiomass.org/

Science Channel's Ecopolis Looks At Valcent Algae Biofuel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsGFLXNVG1Q

Vertigro - Gas, Diesel, Biofuel production from algae (parts 2, 3 & 4 are on the right)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxNeBQCRv1c&feature=Play...

Air New Zealand - Jatropha Biofuel Test Flight
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5g5Z3GTNwk

More details in posts I made...

here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4509092&mesg_id=4510016

here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=4501189

And here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=385&topic_id=242374

[Jennicut]

10. Wow, I had no idea algae could produce more fuel then corn.

It is definitely something that needs to be invested in and looked into.

[sixmile]

3. PESWiki Directory: Best Exotic Clean Energy Technologies

I could spend days on this site:
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Best_Exotic_Clean_Energy_Technologies

[Turborama]

9. Thanks a lot for that link

I'm going to watch the Top Ten videos later.

:thumbsup:

[Ruby the Liberal]

4. What makes them certain that the "relief well" isn't under the same pressure?

[mod mom]

7. Yep, especially since Halliburton bought a co that fights Oil-well firefighting :

Halliburton to Buy Boots & Coots, Adding Oil-Well Firefighting Services
by on APRIL 10, 2010
By Vivek Shankar April 10 (Bloomberg) — Halliburton Co. agreed to buy Boots & Coots Inc. for about $240.4 million in stock and cash, adding equipment and services to fight oil-well fires. Boots & Coots holders will receive $1.73 in cash and $1.27 in Halliburton stock per share, Halliburton said in a statement yesterday. The combined price, $3, is 28 percent more than Boots & Coots’ closing price yesterday. Both companies are based in Houston. The addition of Boots & Coots will allow Halliburton to offer a more complete suite of services to customers, said Marc Edwards , a senior vice president. Halliburton is the world’s second-largest oil-field services company after Schlumberger Ltd. Edward “Coots” Matthews , who died on March 31 at 86, founded the company in 1978 along with Asger “Boots” Hansen . For 20 years prior to that, they had worked with Red Adair, whose skill at battling oil-well fires was portrayed in the 1968 movie “Hellfighters,” starring John Wayne as Adair. Both Matthews and Hansen were involved in fighting well- known oil-well blowouts, including the “Devil’s Cigarette Lighter” in Gassil Touil, Algeria, in 1961 and another at Lake Maracaibo in 1991. They also extinguished the fires from 700 oil wells in Kuwait, blazes set by retreating Iraqi troops near the end of the first Gulf War in 1991, according to the company. For 2009, Boots & Coots reported net income of $6 million, or 8 cents a share, on revenue of $195.1 million. Halliburton said the boards of both companies had approved the transaction and it will close this summer. Boots & Coots had 80.13 million shares outstanding as of March 2, according to Bloomberg data. The stock fell 3 cents to $2.35 yesterday. It’s up 42 percent for the year. Halliburton fell 9 cents to $31.57 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading yesterday. The shares have climbed 4.9 percent this year. To contact the reporter on this story: Vivek Shankar in San Francisco at [e-mail]


http://industry-news.org/2010/04/10/halliburton-to-buy-boots-coots-adding-oil-well-firefighting-services/

[lonestarnot]

11. They won't stop unless they kill everything that lives and breaths.

[madmax]

12. +1