A must see: Online CBS 60 Minutes: The BP Oil Blowout

60 Minute Expose (click)

Some of the best investigative journalism ever.  Mike Williams, the rig's chief electrical engineer survived under the most harrowing circumstances imaginable. He now tells What BP, Halliburton, and Transocean Executives never told the Senators this past Tuesday -- How BP (weeks behind schedule) in a rush to get the oil ignored critical advice to use safer procedures. For BP, Profits trumped safety, 11 workers lost their lives and what may become one of the worst ecological nightmares in history continues. We also learn that there is another BP time bomb in the Gulf -- the Atlantis Rig. Hopefully Mr. Williams will get to tell his story in Congress. 

                Oil slick BP Deepwater Horizon Wellhead: May 6 (Daniel Beltra, Reuters)

Too Deep to Fail = Too Deep to Drill

Listening to the Senators grill BP's Lamar McKay (BP photo, left) and executives from Halliburton and Transocean last week, one thing became very clear --  no one really knows what is going on a mile below the surface. The gush rate may be 5000 or 100,000 barrels a day. According to an article in today's NY Times  scientists have discovered enormous plumes deep in Gulf waters as big as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and as thick as 300 feet thick -- indicating that the release rate may be much greater than BP's 5000 barrel per day estimate. Scientists fear that the submerged oil is likely to deplete dissolved oxygen critical to the survival of marine life. 


And, as BP's repeated failed efforts demonstrate, its very difficult to figure out how to shut off the flow at this depth. As those on the hot seat testified they have virtually no experience with such disasters. According to a number of Internet sources there are very few wells pumping from depths greater than 5,000 feet. 

Photo Source: Oilism

There are very few oil wells that pump oil from these depths. According to Shell's website, the company's Perdido Development (pictured below and pumping for a month) is the deepest installation in the world with a depth of 8000 feet below the Gulf surface some 200 miles from the Texas coast.  Perdido is pumping natural gas as well as crude through separate pipe lines to the shore. Like the BP's operation, remotely controlled robots (designed to withstand the enormous pressures) will patrol the well head area on the sea bed. We can only wonder what would happen if disaster strikes Shell's new installation. (Perdido means lost in Spanish.) Shell plans to use the same floating rig to pump oil from other deep water locations (link above). 


Photo Source: Shell Oil 
                             
It is clear that much tougher regulations and enforcement are in store for offshore oil ventures. However, given the magnitude and duration of ecological destruction and costs to fishing, tourism and residents along the coast additional constraints will be needed. 


According to Shell's website  the Perdido is a floating rig that can be transported to oil rich Gulf sources hundreds of miles from the current location. However, it would make sense to restrict Perdido's production until a complete investigation of the BP disaster and the Perdido installation (accident prevention, accident response and control measures and environmental impact assessments are completed. 


In addition, there should be a complete moratorium on any new drilling in  U.S. coastal waters until the federal government can assure that we won't have any repeats of the BP disaster.  


                                                         

PBS NEWS HOUR LEAKING OIL COUNTER

 PBS NEWS HOUR BP OIL LEAK COUNTER AND RELATED NEWS

Today's news on the Oil in the Gulf

See Great Hightower Humor  on Gov. Rick Perry and the Offshore Oil Debacle. (From Truthout May 13, 2010)

See Also

Criminal Charges Likely From Gulf Oil Spill, Legal Experts Say Wednesday 12 May 2010

by: Marisa Taylor  |  McClatchy Newspapers

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/12/94061/federal-laws-point-to-criminal.html

A report from Louisiana by Willie Fontenot: Big Oil Versus Democratic Rights and the Environment

Editor's Note: Willie Fontenot, an environmental leader from Baton Rouge sent in the following alert along with some encouraging thoughts. His photo appears below and bio following the article. 

While hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil from the BP's gusher into the Gulf, oil companies have been waging a nasty campaign to pass legislation that would close the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic and similar clinics around the state. The Bill is being pushed by the oil and chemical industry. There is an excellent article in today's The Times-Picayune by reporter James Gill: Here is the intro: "Although the bill was conceived as revenge against Tulane, its animus extends to every university law clinic in the state. Students at the clinics provide free legal services to the poor across the legal spectrum. Yet because Tulane has provoked the ire of polluting industries, all the other clinics would be forced to close, or operate under severe constraints. The bill would put the kibosh on four of Tulane's clinics, according to Law School dean Stephen Griffin.

It would forbid clinics to 'file a petition, motion or suit' against any government agency or to seek monetary damages for any client. Clinics, except in criminal cases, would not be allowed to raise "state constitutional challenges in state or federal court."


Willie Continues:Two months ago I would have given the bill a 90 percent chance of passing. Today the chances are probably below 10 percent. Just the number of people who responded to the article this morning is a pretty good example of how the public is taking a new look at everything that government does and does not do. The BP disaster has definitely changed many things. This morning on CNN they were doing a story which compared the EXXON Valdez disaster in Alaska 21 years ago and how the waters and wetlands of Alaska have not yet recovered from that oil spill. We now have something which is giving the news media an unusual opportunity they have not had in twenty years.

________

Willie Fontenot has been involved in environmental and social justice issues for forty years. He served in the Environmental Section of the Louisiana Attorney General’s office for twenty seven years. Over the last 40 years he has helped to organize more than 500 community groups throughout Louisiana and more than 30 other states on a wide variety of environmental and social justice issues and problems.

Gold at Record High Prices -- Cost to Ecosystems Skyrockets

What does the high price of gold have to do with the fate of the Amazon Rain Forest?

Although our attention is focused on the disastrous BP Oil gusher in the Gulf, there is another eco-menace at work – it’s the price of gold. As the article in the side page (link) highlights, jittery investors in global stock markets are buying gold, the universal safe bet, driving the price of gold up to a near record high. The soaring price paid for gold is fueling a modern day gold rush -- much of it in ecologically sensitive areas. 

Unfortunately, some of the best deposits are in ecologically critical rain forests. To make matters worse, gold mining is one of the most environmentally destructive processes ever invented.

“Gold mining, however, generates more waste per ounce than any other metal, and the mines' mind-bending disparities of scale show why: These gashes in the Earth are so massive they can be seen from space, yet the particles being mined in them are so microscopic that, in many cases, more than 200 could fit on the head of a pin. ….Extracting a single ounce of gold there—the amount in a typical wedding ring—requires the removal of more than 250 tons of rock and ore.” Source: Stock Block Web

In the Peruvian forest pictured above, mining is done using hydraulic mining of and uses toxic chemicals including cyanide and mercury to separate the gold from the deposits of mud and sand (found in river channels and flood plains). Mercury escaping from the process can form an organic form that biomagnifies in food chains. For an excellent article on the subject see: Mongabay Website 

As the figure from Mongabay shows, gold mining can have a devastating impact on forests. This impact has been escalating dramatically over the past few years.

The figure in the sidebar (click title) demonstrates the strong inverse relationship between the value of gold and the value of stock markets. 

Here is a question: How can the free market alone protect rain forests and other ecosystems from this kind of devastation. Post your thoughts?

APRIL 2010: 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF EARTH DAY

   An Economic and Political Perspective

  Henry S. Cole, Ph.D.

The 40th anniversary of Earth Day happened last week. I participated in the first Earth Day as a young professor and environmental activist back in1970. We had high hopes. People were jumping on the eco-wagon like there was no tomorrow. Well here we are tomorrow, four decades later. And we've had a busy Earth Month. 

President Obama announced his plans to open up more coastal waters to the oil industry,

 n a stroke of bad timing for the President’s policy, one of BP’s big oil rigs exploded and sunk the    Gulf of Mexico (on Earth Day). The resulting oil slick expanded rapidly week and threatens estuaries and fish and shrimp industries in four states. See ABC TV video.  According to the Wall Street Journal, the rig had no remote shut-off switch used in other oil-producing nations  U.S. regulators don’t require them. On Thursday, the head of the Coast Guard’s efforts, Mary Landry said that the situation is deteriorating and the spill may wind up being one of the worst in history.

The good news. After nine long years, the Interior Department finally approved a 130-turbine wind farm off the coast of Cape Cod providing a real boost to the U.S. offshore wind industry. See NY Times coverage; The U.S. has lots of offshore wind. 

But there are other news in the making that may ultimately have a more important impact on the future of the environment. Consider the Senate the revelations emerging from the Senate subcommittee hearing on the impact of Goldman Sachs on the financial system and the broader economy. Thanks to financial experts like Simon Johnson (See Johnson and Kwak’s best-selling 13 Bankers and their Blog, Baseline Scenario) and this week’s Senate hearing (See the video), we can see how the reckless speculation and avarice of the Wall Street investment banks contributed the financial meltdown of 2008 and the worst recession since the Great Depression. According to a recent CNN Report: the Bailout Tracker our federal government has already spent 3 trillion dollars and committed 11 trillion dollars to bailout the “too-big-to-fails” (TBTFs). Now the Mega-banks are again making billions while the 15 million Americans are unemployed and millions have lost their homes.

The Wall Street fiasco is an outgrowth of the deregulation that started under President Reagan and continues to flourish. Environmental regulation and enforcement was especially hard hit under Reagan and George W. Bush. 

Hopefully Congress will enact legislation strong enough to rein in the TBTFs that profit by betting against the rest of us. However, ultimately, the real solution is for Congress to ensure that no corporation is powerful enough to wreck havoc on our economy or on the environment.

The juxtaposition of these stories points to a monumental fork in the road – not just a choice between renewables and fossil fuels, but a deeper choice about the way that decisions are made and for whose benefit. It’s about whether mega-corporations or “We the People” will mold the future.  

If permitted, large energy corporations will not only “drill, baby, drill,” but will attempt to squeeze oil from shales and tar sands regardless of the environmental consequences. Big Energy also wants a free hand to reopen uranium mines to fuel a new generation of nuclear power plants with big government subsidies regardless of the environmental and financial risks. Note that the President’s energy plan includes tens of billions of dollars in loan guarantees to entice reluctant banks to invest in nuclear power.

The CEO of one of these companies is likely to use the following strategy (1) use political power to regulatory concessions; (2) get big government subsidies (3) make big profits but saddle the tax paying public with the risks (4) suggest that your firm may leave town if you don’t get what you want. The latter is especially scary to a governor in an economically depressed state with high unemployment. So he or she instructs the head of the state environmental department and the Senator to go easy on the guy with the big smoke stack. Somehow the threat of losing another 500 jobs seems a bit more compelling than a few more cancers or a melting glacier on a far off mountain.

Finally, one should ask what if the trillions used for bailouts had been invested directly in the small, local businesses and community-oriented banks. What if we invested to help state and local governments solve their budget crises?  Imagine if even a small part of the $$$ were invested to boost wind and solar industries and to restore damaged ecosystems. Then we might just be able to celebrate fully on the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day. 

 Please join the conversation with a post

We present President Obama the Flip Flop of the Year Award for his remarkable switch on offshore drilling.

In response to our April Fools Day parody of President Obama's speech announcing a big expansion in offshore drilling, We received a reminder from an anonymous subscriber reminding us that Candidate Obama opposed basically the same plan when it was proposed by McCain and Palin as in "drill baby drill!" Here is a quote from candidate Obama's speech in Jacksonville, FL on June 8, 2008.


"This is a proposal that would only worsen our addiction to oil and put off needed investments in clean, renewable energy. It's not the kind of change that the American people are looking for."

If this is hard to believe, go the linked website and read or see a video of his speech in 2008. He blasts offshore drilling.


You may be interested in several related stories that illustrate the problems with offshore drilling: 

• The Diane Rehm show, April 1, 2010. One issue discussed is the need for additional refining capacity (currently at 98 % capacity); what east coast city will want another oil refinery?

• Local opposition to drilling, refining and transportation facilities is likely to be intense and to create bitter divides between opponents and supporters. Case in point: 

          Culver City challenges new oil drilling

A Texas company wants new wells in the Inglewood Oil Field, which lies along the city's    border and already has 1,463 active, idle and abandoned wells. By Louis Sahagun, April 3, 2010
See also yesterday's article on the poor safety record of oil refineries:  Study Shows US Refineries Have Bad Safety Record: Report shows US oil refineries have bad safety record as blast kills 4 in Washington state, 




By SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer, 

WASHINGTON April 2, 2010 (AP)

 

President's April First Clarification on Offshore Drilling and Energy Policy

Early this morning we received this advance copy of the opening comments that President Obama will give at a press briefing late this afternoon. I'm sure you'll feel relieved. 

April 1, 2010: White House Rose Garden

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you, everybody. Thank you so much for coming out on this beautiful day (Applause.)  Please have a seat. My speech yesterday that announced the opening up our coastal waters to offshore drilling drew a great deal of heat. Today, I am here to clear up any confusion I may have caused. Yesterday’s speech was meant to be an April Fools Joke. As a candidate I promised to safeguard the environment, and I mean to do so. Unfortunately, the White House schedulers thought yesterday was April first. Apparently they thought that March only had 30 days.

Photo: The President's April Fools Speech mistakenly made on March 31. The speech was given in a hangar at Andrews Air Force (MD). The fighter jet is the Green Hornet, which will run on 50 % biofuels,

So today, I am proud to announce our real energy policy – no jokes about it. Let me say it loudly and unequivocally.

1. There will be no additional offshore drilling for oil during my administration. The risks are much greater than the benefits.
2. My announced multi-billion dollar loan guarantees for nuclear power was another bad joke. Lindsey, my good friend from S. Carolina, you wouldn’t want to mess up Myrtle Beach, would you?
3. Clean coal is another bad joke and is off the table. No more mountain-top mining. Senator Byrd – you’ll have all the wind power you want for those long ridges.
4. Gas mileage for vehicles – that wasn’t part of the April Fools Day fiasco -- they stay.

 

This energy policy decision is based on our needs in three critical areas: economics, the environment, and national security

Economics: Millions of jobs in our coastal states depend on tourism and fishery. No one will eat fish that tastes like a can of Mobil 5W30. And no one likes to sun themselves on a beach covered with oil goo. Then there is nuclear power. If the banks won’t provide the loans for nukes why should the tax payers? These things are expensive, take years to build and if there’s an accident who shells out the billions to clean up the mess? Sounds like too big to fail to me.

The Environment:  Spending so much on coal, oil and nuclear simply encourages their use; we build the very parts of the economy that are most unsustainable. And in doing so we sap vital resources from wind and solar energy that contribute to the solution of our environmental problems. Let me say something else about nuclear power. As we all know, the high level wastes stay deadly for hundreds of centuries. I asked our Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to see if he could find a governor who wanted a permanent nuclear repository in their state. He told me he got a few unnamed takers, but only if we agreed to bail out their deficits for the next ten thousand years.

Then there is an issue that not many talk about. My good friends at the Southwest Research and Information Center have reminded me that hundreds of abandoned uranium mines have not been cleaned up and present health risks in many Navajo communities. In addition to this, Navajo communities now have to face proposed new uranium solution mining that threatens the only source of drinking water for 10,000 to 15,000 people living in the Eastern Navajo Agency in northwestern New Mexico. Besides my daughters made me watch Avatar. (See http://serc.carleton.edu/research_education/nativelands/navajo/environmental.html)

And on biofuels. Biofuels won’t work if they require huge government subsidies, and if they require massive application of fertilizers and pesticides that harm the environment – or if they promote the destruction of rain forests and other critical ecosystems.

National Security: Our generals keep telling us that our dependence on foreign sources of oil is a threat to our national security. I share their call for energy independence. We all want it. But let’s talk about real energy independence. Do we want to shift our dependence to large multi-national corporations who are only interested in big centralized solutions that suck capital out of our communities and our domestic economy? Surely it would be better to invest in energy solutions that spread the wealth to communities across the country. Solutions like energy efficiency which lowers costs for families and businesses; wind power – there are lots of family farms in windy places. The experts our telling us that our nation is beginning to lag behind in the development of renewables; we are losing out to Europe and China and we are losing out important opportunities to create millions of jobs. The bottom line: without energy security, there is no national security.

Thank you very much;  I will now take your questions.

President: Yes, Sam

Sam Donaldson: Mr. President, Happy April Fools Day. 

Please submit your questions and comments for the President by clicking on post! We will send them to the White House. 

Join a Credit Union, good for your finances -- good for the economy

What do these two pictures have in common? The “leaf litter,” the uppermost layer of soil, represents nature’s credit union.  The fallen leaves in the photo represent a savings deposit made by nearby oak and tulip trees. A host of creatures turn the leaves into organic rich humus that replenishes the nutrient content, beneficial structure and the capacity of soil to hold water. These “savings” will payoff in subsequent growing seasons. This is just one of the many economic lessons that ecosystems have to offer. The lesson here – put your savings in something that helps to build the community, like the Wisconsin Credit Union shown in the second photo. The mega-banks on the other hand provide mega-profits to absentee investors and mega-bonuses to the executives.                        

Why should we join credit unions? We have started to shift our family and business finances to a credit union.  Here’s why. Unlike banks, credit owners are owned by their members (savers and borrowers); as non-profits credit unions are exempt from taxes. As non-profits they can payer higher rates on savings and charge lower rates on loans than commercial banks. They also pay dividends to their members – members of the community. There are other advantages to cooperative financial institutions. Our family has its home mortgage with a non-profit lender, Colonial Farm Credit, a non-profit lender that provides loans for both farms and homes. Like a credit union, the FCT is owned by the members, in this case the borrowers. Not only do we get a good (constant) rate, but we get on the order of $2000 per year in dividends.

Credit Unions: good for small, local businesses, good for jobs: Henry S. Cole & Associates, Inc. (my company) has had a Bank of America Small Business Credit Card for more than a decade; we have paid our bills on time. Both the company and my family have numerous accounts with Bank of America. Despite the long term relationship, I recently received a letter from Bank of America stating that my company’s credit line was cut from $20,000 down to $1700 (just $200 over my balance). My company is not at all unique in this regard. The major banks have virtually stopped loaning to small businesses. A number of these banks including Bank of America received billions in a tax-payer funded bailout (politely called the Troubled Asset Fund or TARP). The major bank executives who received major bonuses must be laughing all the way to the bank. But small business owners are not welcome.

So how have credit unions faired during the financial crisis and recession?

The following graphs presented by Ronald Covey, President of St. Mary’s Bank Credit Union in his testimony to the House Small Business and Financial Services Committee this past week. He spoke on behalf of CUNA the Credit Union National Association. Not only have credit unions increased their lending to businesses, but have done so with less risk than banks for all sorts of loans. (Second graph bars show lost loans). 

Congress needs to act: The potential role of credit unions in spurring economic recovery is limited by federal restrictions on the share of a credit union's available funds that can be loaned to businesses. 

Major credit unions and their associations are 

lobbying to lift the cap. Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) introduced legislation in December that would lift the lending cap to 25 percent. A similar bill is pending in the House. Not surprisingly, banks against the lifting these important bills. The Obama  Administration, despite its effort to increase loans to small businesses seems to be blind to the potential of credit unions to further expand its loans to job generating local businesses. 
Bottom Line: Tell your members of Congress to support this bill .... and join a credit union!

Nature has a full employment economy - The U.S. economy -- eliminating livable-wage jobs by the millons

The theme of this blog is learning from nature. Ecosystems (free from human onslaught) are basically resilient, full employment economies; they have many mechanisms which prevent the loss of resources including soil and nutrients. Roots hold the soil. The decomposition of fallen leaves releases organic matter and nutrients into the soil where they help nourish the plants in the forest and the animals and microorganisms which depend on plants for their food. The biosphere run entirely on solar power meets the basic needs of an amazingly diverse biota.  
In sharp contrast, it becomes clearer and clearer that the dominant global economies including the U.S. are failing to provide for the basic needs of their people. Consider this quote from an excellent article in Today's NY Times by Peter Goodman, "The New Poor: Millions of Unemployed Face Years Without Jobs." 
A New Scarcity of Jobs

 "Some labor experts say the basic functioning of the American economy has changed in ways that make jobs scarce…Large companies are increasingly owned by institutional investors who crave swift profits, a feat often achieved by cutting payroll. The declining influence of unions has made it easier for employers to shift work to part-time and temporary employees. Factory work and even white-collar jobs have moved in recent years to low-cost countries in Asia and Latin America. Automation has helped manufacturing cut 5.6 million jobs since 2000 — the sort of jobs that once provided lower-skilled workers with middle-class paychecks. 

“American business is about maximizing shareholder value,” said Allen Sinai, chief global economist at the research firm Decision Economics. “You basically don’t want workers. You hire less, and you try to find capital equipment to replace them.” Graph from NY Times, Feb. 21, 2010.                                         

But the same drive for profit without regards to consequence is also displacing traditional peoples and their economies in many poor nations. 

Consider the following: 

"Indigenous people are being pushed off their lands to make way for an expansion of bio-fuel crops around the world, threatening to destroy their cultures by forcing them into big cities." The  clearing of forests to make room for these new crops is jeopardizing the survival of the 60 million indigenous people who depend on these forests. "

Tauli-Corpuz, Chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

One might be tempted to say that bio-fuels as a renewable resource will reduce carbon emissions and global warming. However,bio-fuels will require heavy inputs of fertilizer, and its hard to imagine that they will over the long-term match the ability of a forest to absorb carbon. In fact bio-fuels will drastically reduce bio-diversity and the resilience of forests. .

             

But, it get's worse. Agribusiness (e.g Monsanto et al.) pushing to expand cash crop monocultures, another trend that marginalizes and displaces large numbers of people. Without major structural change the globally dominant financial system these trends will continue to create needless poverty and suffering -- so that a small minority with untold wealth can continue their binge. 

Whereas natural economies are restorative, the G-economies are based on massive extraction and disruption.