The BP Oil Commission’s lead investigator, Fred Bartlit, refused to blame any firm involved in the Gulf of Mexico spill, saying that a combination of factors caused the deadly explosion at the Macondo oil well on April 20. Bartlit presented preliminary findings at the opening of the presidentially appointed commission’s Nov. 8-9 public meeting in Washington, D.C. He said BP and workers on the oil rig made conscious decisions to depart from the planned procedures in light of unexpected developments, and some of those decisions may have made sense. There is no evidence to suggest those decisions were financially based,
With dozens of cement trucks, two large batch plants and more than 1,000 workers scurrying about the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the former nuclear-weapons production site appears to be a massive construction project. In fact, the activity now supports a massive deconstruction project, boosted by a $1.4-billion federal stimulus infusion, to accelerate decommissioning and demolition of 75% of the legacy mission of the 310-sq-mile U.S. Energy Dept. site near Aiken before 2012. D&D work had been ready and on the shelf for years, officials say. “This was a natural fit for the [American Recovery and Reinvestment Act],” says
Halliburton Co. is denying that unstable drilling cement foam triggered the April 20 deadly explosion at the Macondo well, although the Houston-based oil-field services company admits it did not test the final cement mixture for stability before using it. On Oct. 28, Fred Bartlit Jr., the lead investigator for the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, issued a report on Oct. 28 stating the cement foam was unstable and may have contributed to last spring’s blowout. Bartlit reported that tests performed by Chevron Corp. on a cement-slurry, or drilling mud, mixture— similar to that
Two Indonesian tsunami warning buoys, put in place after a 2004 earthquake and tidal wave killed more than 230,000 people, failed to activate on Oct. 25 when a 7.7 magnitude temblor hit the country’s Mentawai Islands. This time, more than 400 died. Even if the buoys had been operational, islanders would not have had enough time to evacuate, since the earthquake that triggered the tidal wave occurred too close to shore, according to the U.S. National Weather Service. After the 2004 event, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration donated two Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) buoys to
Cement slurry used in the Macondo well was unstable and may have contributed to the April 20 blowout aboard the Deepwater Horizon, according to a report issued Thursday by Fred Bartlit Jr., lead investigator for the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. Related Links: Gulf Oil Spill In his report to the presidential-appointed commission, Bartlit said that Houston-based Halliburton and BP both knew from previous tests that the nitrogen-based cement, as planned to be used in the Macondo well, would be unstable. “Halliburton (and perhaps BP) should have considered redesigning the foam slurry before
More environmental cleanup work may be on the horizon for remediation contractors as a result of a $773-million settlement that will set up a trust fund—the largest of its kind—to clean up and repurpose numerous former General Motor sites across the country. The settlement, filed on Oct. 20 in the Manhattan court overseeing the bankruptcy proceedings, is between the liquidation company that now owns the assets of the old General Motors Corp. (Old GM) and the United States, 14 states and a tribal government. Under the agreement, Old GM will commit $773 million for the cleanup in 14 states of
The world’s longest tunnel, Switzerland’s 57-kilometer-long Gotthard Alpine rail crossing, broke through on Oct. 15. The Gotthard twin tunnels will be the longest of several being built through the Alps on the Milan, Italy, to Basel, Switzerland, corridor. The joint-venture Tunnel AlpTransit-Ticino (TAT) broke northward from its Faido section of the east drive into the awaiting Sedrun stretch, roughly halfway along the tunnel. The west tunnel’s breakthrough is scheduled for next spring. TAT used 8.8-meter-dia Herrenknecht Gripper tunnel-boring machines for most of the excavation. Because of difficult ground conditions on the south drives, including the Faido and Bodio sections, the
The Tennessee Valley Authority has invested nearly $100 million over the last year to shore up coal waste disposal facilities at its powerplant sites, and will spend up to $2 billion more to convert wet coal-ash storage sites to dry ash storage. But it’s not likely other utilities will follow suit until federal requirements become clearer. In the wake of the 2008 coal-ash spill at TVA’s Kingston, Tenn., plant site—the biggest environmental disaster of its kind in U.S. history—most utilities have inspected their coal- ash waste ponds to make sure they are not a hazard to life or property. But
The U.K.’s North Sea gas reserves are running out. But rather than let gas pipes go to waste, the national transmission network owner plans to use some of them to send carbon dioxide captured from a Scottish coal-fired powerplant for disposal in depleted offshore wells. Photo: Courtesy of Scottish Power With E.ON U.K. dropping out of the CCS race, ScottishPower’s Longannet powerplant in Scotland is the last project standing in the competition for funding a carbon-capture facility. Photo: Courtesy of TCM Norway’s Technology Centre Mongstad hopes to complete its nearly $900-million CCS test facility by 2018. Related Links: Ten Minutes
Extreme losses in oil, gas and utility properties along the Gulf Coast over the next 20 years can be averted or mitigated by billions of investment by the public sector and private industry, according to a report released Wednesday by Entergy Corp: and the America’s Wetland Foundation. The study found that the Gulf Coast is vulnerable to a total of more than $350 billion in economic losses by 2030 — more than 30% in the coastal oil and gas sector. “With the multiplier effect, the amount of economic loss to the Gulf Coast could rise to $700 billion, the gross
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