Gulf spill estimates revised up — again
Let's review the bidding. Since the Deepwater Horizon explosion on April 20, estimates of the volume of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico have gone steadily up. They began at zero, then 1000 barrels a day, then 5000 barrels (210,000 gallons), a number that has been repeated over and over in media reports. But that number may be way too low. By May 1, SkyTruth was reporting, based on analysis of aerial pictures of the oil slick, an estimate of more than 26,000 barrels p...
CONTINUE READINGMurkowski Favors Bailout for Big Oil, Not for Failing Banks
I thought one of the most audacious political stances I'd seen in many years was the Republican position -- dreamed up by GOP pollster Frank Luntz -- that a tax on big banks was actually a big bank bailout. Converting a tax to a government bailout was pure political chutzpah, and some sick form of genius. Now it's the Democrats' turn to cry bailout. Several Democratic Senators -- Lautenberg and Menendez from New Jersey, Nelson from Florida -- have proposed rai...
CONTINUE READINGMore Intrigue for India’s Environment Minister
India's current Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh, is not a man to hold his tongue, and has become the most powerful minister in that post since it was founded. Recently, he's been in a lot of hot water for a speech he gave in China, where he castigated other government ministries for being "alarmist" and "paranoid" about "Chinese businessmen entering the industrial sector in India." Already, the Indian press is talking about Ramesh being taken down a peg. But wai...
CONTINUE READINGEPA’s Clean Air Act tailoring rule finalized today
Just a quick post to point you to the fact sheet on the final tailoring rule, the final rule itself, and an early Greenwire piece on its content. Sure enough, as Adminstrator Jackson had been signaling for some time, the final rule significantly increases the GHG emission thresholds that will trigger New Source Review / PSD coverage, as compared with thresholds put forth in the proposed rule issued last fall. Here's the summary: -For the first five months of the pr...
CONTINUE READING100% Failsafe? There’s No Such Thing!
The blowout prevention device, which was touted as providing absolute protection against blowouts, not surprisingly turns out to have some flaws. In a 2001 document, according to the Washington Post, drilling rig operator Transocean said there were 260 "failure modes" that could require removal of the blowout preventer. Nothing is failure-proof unless the laws of physics make failure an impossibility -- and even then, human beings can probably still screw things up....
CONTINUE READINGHell on earth
If you need an argument for aggressive greenhouse gas emissions reduction, geoengineering, or both -- or if you just want to be depressed -- consider this. Steven Sherwood and Matthew Huber report in PNAS (subscription required, see this description and story in New Scientist's Short Sharp Science blog) that by 2300 the earth could be too hot for human life. They calculate that burning all the available fossil fuels could cause global mean warming of as much as 12°C (21...
CONTINUE READINGThe New Senate Climate Bill
The text plus descriptions are available here. I'm sure there will be a lot of discussion of the merits of the proposal on this blog and elsewhere. For now, I merely wanted to alert readers to a few key features. Goals: Reduce GHCs to 95.25% of 2005 levels by 2013, 83% by 2020, 58% by 2030, and 17% by 2050. Carbon Market: The cap-and-trade component targets firm that produce more than 25,000 tons of carbon pollution annually. (7,500 factories and power plants). Produ...
CONTINUE READINGCongressional review begins
UPDATE: The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is also getting in on the act this afternoon with a hearing on economic and environmental impacts of the oil spill starting at 2:30 EDT. Witnesses include representatives of the three companies, and representatives of fishing, tourism, and state interests. An environmental law perspective will be provided by Meg Caldwell of Stanford's Law School and Center for Ocean Solutions. Tomorrow is the first of what will s...
CONTINUE READINGWhat We Know About Kagan and the Environment
Basically, the answer is "nothing." Nada. Zip. I thought about leaving the body of this post blank in order to communicate that, but I figured that would simply look like I'd pushed the "publish" button by mistake. Anyway, it's not quite true that we know nothing at all. Actually, there are a few tiny straws in the wind: She favors presidential authority over the executive branch, and in particular, judicial deference to agency positions that come from the White ...
CONTINUE READINGA Corporate Culture of Carelessness
[updated 3 p.m. 5/9] According to the NY Times, BP is unusually accident-prone: BP continues to lag other oil companies when it comes to safety, according to federal officials and industry analysts. Many problems still afflict its operations in Texas and Alaska, they say. Regulators are investigating a whistle-blower’s allegations of safety violations at the Atlantis, one of BP’s newest offshore drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. . . . “BP has systemic sa...
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