drill baby drill

Sadly, he's not alone, which is why this is worth debunking. Gingrich's sense that oil fields can be brought rapidly online, and his "we beat the Nazis and went to the moon so we can do this" statements reflect the general cultural misunderstandings about how oil is extracted that are endemic in our culture. While his claim that we could "open up enough oil fields in the next year that the price of oil worldwide would collapse. Now, that's what we would do if we were a serious country." is a bit of idiocy, it probably isn't atypical idiocy in a country that knows nothing about the basic…

We know that the right wing revels in stupidity; Willful stupidity and well practiced stupidity are thought to be the way elitist anti-populous tax-the-middle-class Republicans capture support from the masses. Seems to work rather well. But increasingly this trope of (ig)noble ignorance is being supplemented by large doses of mean spirited in your face angry verbal assault. Imagine a member of congress saying to an expert witness at a committee hearing "As long as I'm sitting here and you're sitting there, I can call you whatever I want." Seriously. The last time I heard that kind of…

This is a bit long but you will benefit from watching all of it. It gets extra hot at 31:30. I love the look on that woman's face at 31:38 and again at 31:47. LOL. This particular member of congress, Don Young from Alaska, needs to get unelected. Frank J. Vondersaar seems to be the guy running against him, and this seems to be his web site. You can donate money to help Frank's campaign here. I was originally made aware of this testimony from a blog post at Get Energy Smart blog, HERE. Please go check that out.

An offshore oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday, west of the site of the April blast that caused the massive oil spill. A commercial helicopter company reported the blast around 9:30 a.m. CDT Thursday, Coast Guard Petty Officer Casey Ranel said. Seven helicopters, two airplanes and four boats were en route to the site, about 80 miles south of Vermilion Bay along the central Louisiana coast. The Coast Guard said initial reports indicated all 13 crew members from the rig were in the water. One was injured, but there were no deaths. details

Which is not the "going away" of oil. More info here. hat tip: Diandra Leslie-Pelecky

The Alaskan Oil Pipeline closed down yesterday for a routine maintenance, as one notable oil spill related to that line is still being dealt with, and a more recent smaller spill is being managed, we hope. And amid this news, there are rumblings that BP, which owns 46% of the company that runs the pipeline, may be selling out and moving on.

The word on the street: Yes.

Break down the oil slick, keep it off the shores: that's grounds for pumping toxic dispersant into the Gulf, say clean-up overseers. Susan Shaw shows evidence it's sparing some beaches only at devastating cost to the health of the deep sea.

What matters is if he gets an obscene exit deal which essentially rewards him for overseeing the destruction of the Gulf of Fucking Mexico, or if he is tossed out on his ear and disgraced. I don't expect BP to do the right thing, but they will apparently do something soon.

It looks like the possible worst case scenario is more than a theoretical possibility. The news on this is vague and unclear, but it seems as though pressure reductions under the newly placed well cap have been detected, indicating that oil and gas in the deep sea wll are going somewhere. The fear would be that this indicates that the bore running from the deep deposit to the surface is leaking into surrounding sediments. If that really happens, it could be detected by gas coming from the surface near (but not directly from) the bore. Eventually, if this leak is for real, oil could start…

Apparently, BP's well cap on Deepwater Horizon is holding, as the closure of the well cap plays a role in testing the device itself. The cap will stay closed for only a short time, then oil will be allowed to flow to surface ships again while relief wells are drilled into the deposit. One of the relief wells is currently a very short distance (several meters) from the shaft of the main boring. The relief wells can probably be doing their job by mid August. So, over the next month, oil will continue to be "processed" on the surface (which I assume means that much of it will be burned, but I…

First the good news, then the bad news. Well, first the bad news that precedes the good news. BP has put a cap on the well, but a crucial test of the cap was delayed because of an unexpected leak. But basically, this is good news, the cap is on. The cap is not closed ... the well is still gushing oil. But once they close the third of three valves on the cap, the well will be sealed. Then over coming weeks or months, relief wells in the same oil deposit can extract enough underground oil to make this well less of a threat. But ... There is a possibility that this could go terribly wrong.…

The Gulf oil spill dwarfs comprehension, but we know this much: it's bad. Carl Safina scrapes out the facts in this blood-boiling cross-examination, arguing that the consequences will stretch far beyond the Gulf -- and many so-called solutions are making the situation worse.

Jonathan Foley, Director of the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment. Professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior and Head of the Global Landscapes Initiative speaks about what is happening with the latest ecological disaster and what lessons can be learned from it. Hat Tip: Emily

And an interesting animation of the spill so far:

... Or not . And if not, and if this keeps going for, say, a total of one year, this is what we can expect: That animation is from the University of HawaiÊ»i at MÄnoa. The possible spread of the oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon rig over the course of one year was studied in a series of computer simulations by a team of researchers from the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Eight million buoyant particles were released continuously from April 20 to September 17, 2010, at the location of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. The…

Oh. Hey, what do you say, the next person who says "environmentalists have always made these extreme predictions and they never come true" gets a boot. Somewhere. Somewhere deep. The dozens of dolphins and the sperm whale trapped in the oil, dead or near death, start at around 6:20. The end is a little strange.

I know you don't like when I say this, but you people living in Florida through Louisiana (and points in between) are not exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer. As it were. (I said it that way because I figure you won't understand what I mean.) I think it's funny that I enraged people with my comments on Florida being full of stupid people the other day. And I explained why I said those things (click here), but none of you managed to click on the link (click here) to understand the bigger picture. Apparently, you are even less smart than I was giving you credit for. (click here) At…

According to some sources, yes. News has just emerged from the Gulf Coast that BP is burning endangered sea turtles alive. 1 A boat captain who has been leading efforts to rescue the endangered turtles says BP has blocked his crews from entering the areas where the animals are trapped, effectively shutting down the rescue operation. BP is using "controlled burns" to contain the oil spill. Shrimp boats create a corral of oil by dragging together fire-resistant booms and then lighting the enclosed "burn box" on fire. If turtles are not removed from the area before the fire is lit, they are…