We have some disaster company:
July 21, 2010: Five days ago, in the northeastern port city of Dalian, China, two oil pipelines exploded, sending flames hundreds of feet into the air and burning for over 15 hours,....
an estimate of 1,500 tons (400,000 gallons....
The oil slick has now grown to at least 430 square kilometers (165 sq mi), forcing beaches and port facilities to close
Horrifying images from China, where an emergency worker nearly drowned in oil while working to contain a spill that now covers over 150 square miles off the coast of China.
http://www.boston.com/...
These deep water drilling and oil pipelines ideas need some revisiting, stating the obvious.
And, good news,
Just last week, the USEPA called for a reassessment of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline which would cross six states and nearly 2,000 miles transporting tar sands from Alberta to the Gulf Coast. The first Keystone pipeline, which moves tar sands from Alberta to eastern Illinois, has begun to deliver tar sands oil---despite concerns over the quality of steel used and sensitive water supplies that could be impacted by a pipeline failure like the one in Michigan.
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/...
I highly recommend the switchboard.nrdc.org website. Very informative and current.
We know of the other recent oiltastrophies, here's a recap:
Louisiana: A barge crashes into a rig, oil spews.:
US scrambles emergency teams to new Gulf oil leak
(AFP) – 2 days ago
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana — The US Coast Guard dispatched emergency teams Tuesday after a boat crashed into an oil well off the coast of New Orleans, spilling crude into the Gulf of Mexico.
The well, located about 65 miles (104 kilometers) south of New Orleans, was ruptured when it was struck by a dredge barge called Captain Buford pulled by a tug, Pere Ana C.
Reports of a giant fountain of oil were downplayed by US authorities who said only a light sheen was visible on the surface, some six feet (1.8 meters) above the damaged wellhead.
http://www.google.com/...
What? A barge can ram a rig and cause the well to gush? That sounds like a problem. Good thing this doesn't happen that often. Actually, has it happened before?
Michigan:
Enbridge has a pretty spotty record in the region with nearly two dozen spills in Michigan and Minnesota alone in recent years (including one just a few months ago in Minnesota). And in Wisconsin, Enbridge was fined $1.1 million for environmental infractions that, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, impacted forests and wetlands across 14 counties.
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/...
Utah
500 barrels
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Jakarta
Last August, the Montara oil rig blew out in the Timor Sea, polluting waters near East Nusa Tenggara with a large oil slick. The crude has been said to cover 16,420 square kilometers of Indonesian territorial waters.
The well, located 690 kilometers west of Darwin and operated by PTT Exploration & Production Australasia, a unit of the Thai energy major, was staunched 74 days after the spill began.
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/...
New Mexico: Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge
July 28, 2010 Train Derails
New Mexico State Police Sgt. Jason Green said 19 cars went off track, including two carrying petroleum product that spilled into an arroyo and flowed east toward the refuge's wetlands.
"We haven't confirmed the number of cars, but there were a couple of 10,000-gallon petroleum oil tankers," he said.
Green said one tanker was carrying some type of thick petroleum oil and another contained what was believed to be diesel fuel. The product flowed down the arroyo and crossed Highway 1, approximately 200 yards away.
Green said some of the tankers may not have been full, but "a substantial amount of oil crossed the road" and more was absorbed by the soil.
http://www.dchieftain.com/...
An aside: AND TRANSPORTING casks of nuclear waste across country, through our towns and cities, to be stacked about 40 miles west from Salt Lake City, as a 'temporary solution to storing nuclear waste' sounds like a safe idea? Gee, what could possibly go wrong with trains going to all the nuclear plants, loading their nuclear waste onto them, and then careening thousands of miles?
Feds ordered to revisit nuke storage plan in Utah
July 27th, 2010 @ 11:45am
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A judge has thrown out a decision by federal officials to reject a nuclear waste repository on an American Indian reservation in Utah's west desert.
U.S. District Judge David M. Ebel of Denver ordered the U.S. Department of the Interior to re-evaluate the decision.
Ebel put out a 36-page decision Monday saying the government abused its discretion.
The Skull Valley band of Goshute Indians and a group of nuclear-powered utilities sued three years ago, claiming the Interior Department killed the project under pressure from Utah's leading politicians.
The Interior Department had rejected plans for a transfer station on federal lands to offload spent nuclear fuel rods as well as a lease for the repository. Ebel ordered a new decision on both counts.
http://www.ksl.com/...
What will it take for this trend to end?
And, if we must continue to use oil, perhaps it's going to cost more to extract, ship, and refine.
I'd rather see wind mills than oil slicks. If Denmark can go green, so can communities across our great nation.
I bet green is looking even better to the folks along the Gulf Coast these days.
Maybe Jindal will become the King of Green Energy or Haley Barbour.
We're up for miracles.
And we're tired of disasters. Avoidable, unnecessary disasters.