Image of the Day

Orleans federal court next month to work out its guilty pleas to criminal
charges in connection with the Deepwater Horizon explosion. The oil
giant has agreed to pay a record $4.5 billion in a criminal settlement with
the U.S. Justice Department. But far more money could be at stake in civil
litigation stemming from the oil disaster.
USA: Coast Guard Approves Deepwater Horizon Investigation
Investigation of the BP Macondo wellhead and Deepwater Horizon
drillship has been approved by the Coast Guard, to determine whether they
are the source of the sheen at the site in Gulf of Mexico.
BP’s Dispersant Allowed Oil To Penetrate Beaches More Deeply
In an attempt to deal with the 206 million gallons of light crude oil
erupting from the Deepwater Horizon blowout in 2010 BP unleashed
about 2.6 million gallons of Corexit dispersants (Corexit 9500A and
Corexit EC9527) in surface waters and at the wellhead on the seafloor.
From the beginning the wisdom of that decision was questioned. I wrote
extensively about those concerns in BP’s Deep Secrets.
BP engineer says government records
should exonerate him in spill case
NEW ORLEANS – When federal prosecutors investigated BP for
lying about how much oil was coming out of its ruptured Gulf well in
April 2010, the first person they charged with obstruction was BP engineer
Kurt Mix.
U.S. scientists search for lessons in Fukushima
to improve nuclear safety
American scientists met in Tokyo this week to study the Fukushima
nuclear crisis in hopes of finding lessons to improve the safety of U.S.
atomic power reactors.
Lack of Humility and Fear of Public Misunderstandings
Led to Fukushima Accident
TOKYO—Speaking to a visiting committee of American experts, a
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) official conceded that the root
causes of the Fukushima nuclear disaster stemmed from a lack of humility
in anticipating the full effects of natural disasters and a reluctance to share
internal concerns about nuclear power risks with regulators and the public.