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EPA Finds Compound Used in Fracking in Wyoming Aquifer [10Nov11]f - 0 views

  • As the country awaits results from a nationwide safety study on the natural gas drilling process of fracking, a separate government investigation into contamination in a place where residents have long complained [1] that drilling fouled their water has turned up alarming levels of underground pollution. A pair of environmental monitoring wells drilled deep into an aquifer in Pavillion, Wyo., contain high levels of cancer-causing compounds and at least one chemical commonly used in hydraulic fracturing, according to new water test results [2] released yesterday by the Environmental Protection Agency.
  • The findings are consistent with water samples the EPA has collected from at least 42 homes in the area since 2008, when ProPublica began reporting [3] on foul water and health concerns in Pavillion and the agency started investigating reports of contamination there. Last year -- after warning residents not to drink [4] or cook with the water and to ventilate their homes when they showered -- the EPA drilled the monitoring wells to get a more precise picture of the extent of the contamination.
  • The Pavillion area has been drilled extensively for natural gas over the last two decades and is home to hundreds of gas wells. Residents have alleged for nearly a decade [1] that the drilling -- and hydraulic fracturing in particular -- has caused their water to turn black and smell like gasoline. Some residents say they suffer neurological impairment [5], loss of smell, and nerve pain they associate with exposure to pollutants. The gas industry -- led by the Canadian company EnCana, which owns the wells in Pavillion -- has denied that its activities are responsible for the contamination. EnCana has, however, supplied drinking water to residents.
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  • The information released yesterday by the EPA was limited to raw sampling data: The agency did not interpret the findings or make any attempt to identify the source of the pollution. From the start of its investigation, the EPA has been careful to consider all possible causes of the contamination and to distance its inquiry from the controversy around hydraulic fracturing. Still, the chemical compounds the EPA detected are consistent with those produced from drilling processes, including one -- a solvent called 2-Butoxyethanol (2-BE) -- widely used in the process of hydraulic fracturing. The agency said it had not found contaminants such as nitrates and fertilizers that would have signaled that agricultural activities were to blame.
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BP gets Gulf oil drilling permit amid 28,000 unmonitored abandoned wells [25Oct11] - 0 views

  • Since BP’s catastrophic Macondo Blowout in the Gulf of Mexico last year, the Obama Administration has granted nearly 300 new drilling permits [1] and shirked plans to plug 3,600 of more than 28,000 abandoned wells, which pose significant threats to the severely damaged sea. Among those granted new permits for drilling in the Gulf, on Friday Obama granted BP permission to explore for oil in the Gulf, allowing it to bid on new leases that will be sold at auction in December. Reports Dow Jones: “The upcoming lease sale, scheduled for Dec. 14 in New Orleans, involves leases in the western Gulf of Mexico. The leases cover about 21 million acres, in water depths of up to 11,000 feet. It will be the first lease auction since the Deepwater Horizon spill.” [2]
  • Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey objected to BP’s participation in the upcoming lease sale, pointing out that: “Comprehensive safety legislation hasn’t passed Congress, and BP hasn’t paid the fines they owe for their spill, yet BP is being given back the keys to drill in the Gulf.” Environmental watchdog, Oceana, added its objection to the new permits, saying that none of the new rules implemented since April 2010 would have prevented the BP disaster. “Our analysis shows that while the new rules may increase safety to some degree, they likely would not have prevented the last major oil spill, and similarly do not adequately protect against future ones.” [3]
  • Detailing the failure of the Dept. of Interior’s safety management systems, Oceana summarizes: Regulation exemptions (“departures”) are often granted, including one that arguably led to the BP blowout; Economic incentives make violating rules lucrative because penalties are ridiculously small; Blowout preventers continue to have critical deficiencies; and Oversight and inspection levels are paltry relative to the scale of drilling operation. Nor have any drilling permits been denied [4] since the BP catastrophe on April 20, 2010, which still spews oil today [5].
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  • 28,079 Abandoned Wells in Gulf of Mexico In an explosive report at Sky Truth, John Amos reveals from government data that “there are currently 24,486 known permanently abandoned wells in the Gulf of Mexico, and 3,593 ‘temporarily’ abandoned wells, as of October 2011.” [6] TA wells are those temporarily sealed so that future drilling can be re-started. Both TA wells and “permanently abandoned” (PA) wells endure no inspections.
  • Not only cement, but seals, valves and gaskets can deteriorate over time. A 2000 report by C-FER Technologies to the Dept. of Interior identified several  different points where well leaks can occur, as this image (p. 26) reveals.  To date, no regulations prescribe a maximum time wells may remain inactive before being permanently abandoned. [13] “The most common failure mechanisms (corrosion, deterioration, and malfunction) cause mainly small leaks [up to 49 barrels, or 2,058 gallons]. Corrosion is historically known to cause 85% to 90% of small leaks.” Depending on various factors, C-FER concludes that “Shut-In” wells reach an environmental risk threshhold in six months, TA wells in about 10-12 years, and PA wells in 25 years.  Some of these abandoned wells are 63 years old.
  • Leaking abandoned wells pose a significant environmental and economic threat. A three-month EcoHearth investigation revealed that a minimum of 2.5 million abandoned wells in the US and 20-30 million worldwide receive no follow up inspections to ensure they are not leaking. Worse: “There is no known technology for securely sealing these tens of millions of abandoned wells. Many—likely hundreds of thousands—are already hemorrhaging oil, brine and greenhouse gases into the environment. Habitats are being fundamentally altered. Aquifers are being destroyed. Some of these abandoned wells are explosive, capable of building-leveling, toxin-spreading detonations. And thanks to primitive capping technologies, virtually all are leaking now—or will be.” [11] Sealed with cement, adds EcoHearth, “Each abandoned well is an environmental disaster waiting to happen. The triggers include accidents, earthquakes, natural erosion, re-pressurization (either spontaneous or precipitated by fracking) and, simply, time.”
  • Over a year ago, the Dept. of Interior promised to plug the “temporarily abandoned” (TA) wells, and dismantle another 650 production platforms no longer in use. [7] At an estimated decommissioning cost of $1-3 billion [8], none of this work has been started, though Feds have approved 912 permanent abandonment plans and 214 temporary abandonment plans submitted since its September 2010 rule. [9] Over 600 of those abandoned wells belong to BP, reported the Associated Press last year, adding that some of the permanently abandoned wells date back to the 1940s [10].  Amos advises that some of the “temporarily abandoned” wells date back to the 1950s. “Experts say abandoned wells can repressurize, much like a dormant volcano can awaken. And years of exposure to sea water and underground pressure can cause cementing and piping to corrode and weaken,” reports AP.
  • As far back as 1994, the Government Accountability Office warned that there was no effective strategy in place to inspect abandoned wells, nor were bonds sufficient to cover the cost of abandonment. Lease abandonment costs estimated at “$4.4 billion in current dollars … were covered by only $68 million in bonds.” [12] The GAO concluded that “leaks can occur… causing serious damage to the environment and marine life,” adding that “MMS has not encouraged the development of nonexplosive structure removal technologies that would eliminate or minimize environmental damage.”
  • The AP noted that none of the 1994 GAO recommendations have been implemented. Abandoned wells remain uninspected and pose a threat which the government continues to ignore. Agency Reorganization The Minerals Management Service (MMS) was renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) last May after MMS drew heavy fire for malfeasance, including allowing exemptions to safety rules it granted to BP. An Office of Inspector General investigation revealed that MMS employees accepted gifts from the oil and gas industry, including sex, drugs and trips, and falsified inspection reports. [14] Not only was nothing was done with the 1994 GAO recommendations to protect the environment from abandoned wells, its 2003 reorganization recommendations [15] were likewise ignored.  In a June 2011 report on agency reorganization in the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill, the GAO reports that “as of December 2010,” the DOI “had not implemented many recommendations we made to address numerous weaknesses and challenges.” [16] Reorganization proceeded.  Effective October 1, 2011, the Dept. of the Interior split BOEMRE into three new federal agencies: the Office of Natural Resources Revenue to collect mineral leasing fees, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) “to carry out the offshore energy management and safety and environmental oversight missions.” The DOI admits:
  • “The Deepwater Horizon blowout and resulting oil spill shed light on weaknesses in the federal offshore energy regulatory system, including the overly broad mandate and inherently conflicted missions of MMS which was charged with resource management, safety and environmental protection, and revenue collection.” [17] BOEM essentially manages the development of offshore drilling, while BSEE oversees environmental protection, with some eco-protection overlap between the two agencies. [18] Early this month, BSEE Director Michael R. Bromwich spoke at the Global Offshore Safety Summit Conference in Stavanger, Norway, sponsored by the International Regulators Forum. He announced a new position, Chief Environmental Officer of the BOEM:
  • This person will be empowered, at the national level, to make decisions and final recommendations when leasing and environmental program heads cannot reach agreement. This individual will also be a major participant in setting the scientific agenda for the United States’ oceans.” [19] Bromwich failed to mention anything about the abandoned wells under his purview. Out of sight, out of mind. Cost of the Macondo Blowout
  • On Monday, the GAO published its final report of a three-part series on the Gulf oil disaster. [20]  Focused on federal financial exposure to oil spill claims, the accountants nevertheless point out that, as of May 2011, BP paid $700 million toward those spill claims out of its $20 billion Trust established to cover that deadly accident. BP and Oxford Economics estimate the total cost for eco-cleanup and compensatory economic damages will run to the “tens of billions of dollars.” [21] On the taxpayer side, the GAO estimates the federal government’s costs will exceed the billion dollar incident cap set by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (as amended). As of May 2011, agency costs reached past $626 million. The Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund’s income is generated from an oil barrel tax that is set to expire in 2017, notes GAO.
  • With Monday’s District Court decision in Louisiana, BP also faces punitive damages on “thousands of thousands of thousands of claims.” U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier denied BP’s appeal that might have killed several hundred thousand claims, among them that clean up workers have still not been fully paid by BP. [22] Meanwhile, destroying the planet for profit continues unabated. It’s time to Occupy the Gulf of Mexico: No more oil drilling in our food source.
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Obama Greenlights BP's Return to Drilling in the Gulf [24Oct11] - 0 views

  • A lot of people are not pleased with President Obama after he approved a plan for BP to drill in the Gulf of Mexico, the first of its kind since last year's Deepwater Horizon explosion. Among the upset factions is the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, Ed Markey. "Comprehensive safety legislation hasn't passed Congress, and BP hasn't paid the fines they owe for their spill, yet BP is being given back the keys to drill in the Gulf," he said. The New York Times explains the plan: It was another sign that oil exploration in the gulf is coming back to normal, although energy companies continue to complain that the permitting process for drilling new wells remains far slower than before the accident. The federal government’s approval of the BP plan to drill up to four exploratory wells nearly 200 miles from the Louisiana coast was positive news for BP, which has struggled to recover from the April 2010 accident that left 11 workers dead and spilled millions of barrels of oil into the gulf.
  • About those recovery efforts, a study published last week reported that seafood in the Gulf is still not safe for pregnant women and children to eat. All year, a number of environmentalists have been expressing doubts about the Gulf's still struggling ecosystem, despite BP asserting that the recovery effort was finishing up. "It's not OK down there," marine biologist Samantha Joye said in April. "There are a lot of very strange things going on – the turtles washing up on beaches, dolphins washing up on beaches, the crabs. It is just bizarre." The Times wasn't able to get BP to comment on the latest decision but pointed to a brief statement from the company that said, "We are working through the regulatory process."
Dan R.D.

GSDF holds emergency evacuation drill near stricken Fukushima nuclear plant [13Sep11] - 0 views

  • FUKUSHIMA -- The Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) and residents of the zone between 20 and 30 kilometers from the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant held an emergency evacuation drill on Sept. 12.
  • The GSDF held a similar drill without civilian participation in July. The scenario for the drill presupposed further meltdown of the Fukushima plant's No. 3 reactor core, and a local accumulation of radioactive materials emitting 20 millisieverts of radiation within the next four days. A total of some 400 GSDF personnel were deployed for the drill held in the municipalities of Minamisoma, Tamura, Kawauchi, Hirono, Tomioka and Naraha. Thirty-two municipal workers and firefighters along with 18 local residents also joined the drill.
  • GSDF personnel went to assigned homes to drive elderly residents to evacuation points, as well as hospitals to drive and fly patients to medical facilities in the city of Fukushima.
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  • Click here for the original Japanese story (Mainichi Japan) September 13, 2011
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BP to end cleanup operations in Gulf oil spill [09Nov11] - 0 views

  • Focus will turn to restoring areas damaged in the oil spill, which the coast guard says represents an important milestone
  • BP will officially be off the hook for any deposits of oil that wash up on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico – unless they can be traced directly to the Macondo well, it has emerged.Under a plan approved by the Coast Guard on 2 November, the oil company will end active cleanup operations and focus on restoring the areas damaged by last year's oil disaster.The plan, which was obtained by the Associated Press, sets out a protocol for determining which areas of the Gulf still need to be cleaned, and when BP's responsibility for that would end.
  • The plan "provides the mechanisms for ceasing active cleanup operations", AP said.It went on to suggest the biggest effort would be reserved for the most popular, heavily visited beaches. More oil would be tolerated on remote beaches. BP will be responsible for cleaning up thick oil in marshes – unless officials decide it is best to let nature do its work.The agency quoted coast guard officials saying the plan represented an important milestone in restoring the Gulf. BP has set aside about $1bn for restoration.The Obama administration has been indicating for some time that the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, which began on 20 April 2010 with an explosion on board the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that killed 11 workers, was moving into a second phase.Earlier on Tuesday, the US government rolled out a new five-year plan for selling offshore drilling leases.The proposal was a radically scaled back version of the president's earlier plans for offshore drilling – put forward just a few weeks before the Deepwater Horizon blowout – that would have opened up the Arctic and Atlantic coasts for drilling.
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  • Oil companies will still be able to apply for leases in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and in two unexplored areas off the northern coast of Alaska.But the government has placed the Atlantic and Pacific coasts off-limits."It will have an emphasis in the Gulf of Mexico," the interior secretary, Ken Salazar, told a meeting. "We see robust oil and gas development in the Gulf of Mexico."A number of commentators described the plan as an attempt to please two implacable enemies: the oil industry and the environmental movement.But the proposals drew heavy criticism from both sides. Oil companies said the plan did not go far enough while environmental groups were angry that Obama was opening up pristine Arctic waters to drilling.
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American Energy Fields - Three Projects in Early Stage Uranium Exploration [08Jul11] - 0 views

  • American Energy Fields, Inc. (OTCBB:AEFI), formerly Sienna Resources, Inc. is a uranium exploration and development company based in Arizona. Their focus is uranium deposits in the United States. The Company’s three main projects (in which they have sole interest) are  the Coso and Blythe  projects in California, and Artillery Peak project in Arizona. All three properties have been previously explored and developed, and are currently in early exploration stages.  A 43-101 technical report for the Artillery Peak project is available for review on American Energy Field’s website. What we like about American Energy Fields, Inc: Over 9.2 million pounds U3O8 historic resources with 2.8 million pounds 43-101 verified More than $25 million in development work, by past operators, has been spent on AEFI’s current projects Committed to near term production of low cost U.S. Uranium
  • The Artillery Peak property consists of 1,777 acres of federal land and is located 112 miles northeast of Phoenix, Arizona. American Energy Fields’ historic records indicate 1.7 million pounds of uranium was previously identified through exploration on Artillery Peak. There has been significant exploration work completed on the property, including over 400 holes drilled by Jacquays Mining, Homestake Mining, Hecla Mining, Getty Oil, Public Service Company of Oklahoma, and Santa Fe Mining between the 1950s-1970s. A 1979 report by Central and South West Fuels, Inc. found that the northern portion of the property contains a historical resource of 1.7 million pounds U3O8 with an average grade of 0.113%. In 2007/2008 new exploration was conducted which included 34 additional drill holes to verify historic drilling and further delineate mineralization. In 1979, the Department of Energy conducted an evaluation of the Date Creek Basin and the Artillery Mountains where they estimated that the area could contain as much as 1,260,000,000 pounds of U3O8. The Company will begin a preliminary exploration program to verify the historic data reported by Central and South West Fuels Inc.
  • Coso – Inyo County – California The Coso project covers 169 federal mining claims and 800 state-owned acres and was previously developed by Western Nuclear, Pioneer Resources, Federal Resources, and Union Pacific Mining/Rocky Mountain Energy. An estimated U.S. $20,000,000.00 was spent on exploration and development of the project, including an engineered pit design, where exploration records indicate 5.5 million lbs. of uranium was identified with an average grade of 0.07 U3O8. American Energy Fields recently received its exploration permit for the 800 state-owned acres from the California Land Department and is currently developing an exploration plan to confirm the historic data with the goal of moving the project towards production. Blythe – Riverside County – California The Blythe project consists of 66 Federal mining claims in Riverside County, California covering 3 historic mines, the Safranek, the McCoy Wash, and the Little Ore Hill operated by Humbug Mining and Bokum Corporation. According to Bokum’s records during the years of 1963 to 1964, the Safranek Mine produced and shipped 1,400 tons of uranium ore averaging 0.80% U308 to the VCA mill in Salt Lake City, Utah for processing. These records also indicate the Safranek site currently contains 100 tons at 0.40% U3O8 and 4,000 tons at 0.30% U3O8 of stockpiled ore, while the McCoy Wash has 3,000 tons of stockpiled ore with a grade of 0.20% U3O8. Bokum Corporation drilled the property in the early 1970s and the results indicated approximately 153,000 lbs of U3O8 while outlining a further potential for an additional 2,000,000 lbs of U3O8. American Energy Fields aims to identify, expand, and develop the ore body with the goal of putting the past producing mines back into production. Management
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Tepco Drills a Hole in Fukushima Reactor ... Finds that Nuclear Fuel Has Gone Missing [... - 0 views

  • After drilling a hole in the containment vessel of Fukushima reactor 2, Tepco cannot find the fuel. As AP notes: The steam-blurred photos taken by remote control Thursday found none of the reactor’s melted fuel …. The photos also showed inner wall of the container heavily deteriorated after 10 months of exposure to high temperature and humidity, Matsumoto said.
  • TEPCO workers inserted the endoscope — an industrial version of the kind of endoscope doctors use — through a hole in the beaker-shaped container at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant’s No. 2 reactor …. The probe failed to find the water surface, which indicate the water sits at lower-than-expected levels inside the primary containment vessel and questions the accuracy of the current water monitors, Matsumoto said.
  • And while cold shutdown means that the water inside the reactors is below the boiling point, CNN reports: Massive steam and water drops made it difficult to get a clear vision…. Given that steam forms when water boils, this is an indication that the reactor is not in cold shutdow
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  • Mainchi points out that reactors 1 and 3 are probably in no better shape: The fuel inside the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors is believed to have melted through the pressure vessels and been accumulating in the outer primary containers after the Fukushima plant lost its key functions to cool the reactors in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami on March 11 last year.
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Confirmed: Tepco to drill hole in Reactor No. 2 containment vessel - Will start in Janu... - 0 views

  • TEPCO to conduct endoscopy of Fukushima reactors, NHK, Dec. 26, 2011: Tokyo Electric Power Company says it will use an industrial endoscope to study the inside of a damaged reactor at the Fukushima Nuclear power plant. [...] The firm will start drilling a hole in the northwest wall of the containment vessel at the No. 2 reactor next month so that the high-level radiation proof endoscope can be inserted through it. [...] See also: Ex-Fukushima Worker: Tepco to open up a hole in Reactor No. 2 containment vessel by year's end (VIDEO)
Jan Wyllie

Fracking floors energy giants - Business Analysis & Features - Business - The Independent - 0 views

  • A fortnight after writing $2.84bn (£1.84bn) off the value of its Fayetteville shale gas business in Arkansas, BHP is poised to reveal on Wednesday that the charge helped push down its profits by a massive 40 per cent – to $14.2bn – in the year to June 30.
  • The FTSE 100 mining giant was forced into the writedown after a decade-long stampede into the brave new world of US shale gas produced so much of the stuff that its price tumbled to 10-year lows, taking the value of its producers with them.
  • "The problem is exacerbated because the minerals leasing system in the US obliges lessees to drill fairly quickly or relinquish their drilling rights," he added.
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  • US gas price fell from $3.88 per thousand cubic feet when the deal was struck to as little as $1.91 in April, before recovering slightly to now hover around $2.75. Today's mildly-improved US gas price is well below its peak of $14 per thousand cubic feet in 2005
  • hile protests in the US have largely failed to curb the shale gas industry's development, the plummeting gas price is now doing the job for them. The number of shale gas rigs operating in the US has tumbled by 44 per cent in the past year to stand at about 300 now, according to industry estimates.
  • Hydrocarbon producers such as Chesapeake and BHP are furiously switching their fracking resources from gas to oil, which is unlikely to suffer the same depression in its price as gas as the US has the infrastructure in place to export much of the additional oil it produces from shale. As a result, the number of shale oil rigs has leapt by 35 per cent to about 860 in the past year.
  • as an expected flurry of LNG export terminals begin to come onstream in about three years, fracking companies will have a valuable further outlet for their gas – the relatively lucrative European and Asian markets.
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U.S. Government Confirms Link Between Earthquakes and Hydraulic Fracturing at Oil Price - 0 views

  • On 5 November an earthquake measuring 5.6 rattled Oklahoma and was felt as far away as Illinois. Until two years ago Oklahoma typically had about 50 earthquakes a year, but in 2010, 1,047 quakes shook the state. Why? In Lincoln County, where most of this past weekend's seismic incidents were centered, there are 181 injection wells, according to Matt Skinner, an official from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the agency which oversees oil and gas production in the state. Cause and effect? The practice of injecting water into deep rock formations causes earthquakes, both the U.S. Army and the U.S. Geological Survey have concluded.
  • The U.S. natural gas industry pumps a mixture of water and assorted chemicals deep underground to shatter sediment layers containing natural gas, a process called hydraulic fracturing, known more informally as “fracking.” While environmental groups have primarily focused on fracking’s capacity to pollute underground water, a more ominous byproduct emerges from U.S. government studies – that forcing fluids under high pressure deep underground produces increased regional seismic activity. As the U.S. natural gas industry mounts an unprecedented and expensive advertising campaign to convince the public that such practices are environmentally benign, U.S. government agencies have determined otherwise. According to the U.S. Army’s Rocky Mountain Arsenal website, the RMA drilled a deep well for disposing of the site’s liquid waste after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “concluded that this procedure is effective and protective of the environment.”  According to the RMA, “The Rocky Mountain Arsenal deep injection well was constructed in 1961, and was drilled to a depth of 12,045 feet” and 165 million gallons of Basin F liquid waste, consisting of “very salty water that includes some metals, chlorides, wastewater and toxic organics” was injected into the well during 1962-1966.
  • Why was the process halted? “The Army discontinued use of the well in February 1966 because of the possibility that the fluid injection was “triggering earthquakes in the area,” according to the RMA. In 1990, the “Earthquake Hazard Associated with Deep Well Injection--A Report to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency” study of RMA events by Craig Nicholson, and R.I. Wesson stated simply, “Injection had been discontinued at the site in the previous year once the link between the fluid injection and the earlier series of earthquakes was established.” Twenty-five years later, “possibility” and ‘established” changed in the Environmental Protection Agency’s July 2001 87 page study, “Technical Program Overview: Underground Injection Control Regulations EPA 816-r-02-025,” which reported, “In 1967, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) determined that a deep, hazardous waste disposal well at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal was causing significant seismic events in the vicinity of Denver, Colorado.” There is a significant divergence between “possibility,” “established” and “was causing,” and the most recent report was a decade ago. Much hydraulic fracturing to liberate shale oil gas in the Marcellus shale has occurred since.
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  • According to the USGS website, under the undated heading, “Can we cause earthquakes? Is there any way to prevent earthquakes?” the agency notes, “Earthquakes induced by human activity have been documented in a few locations in the United States, Japan, and Canada. The cause was injection of fluids into deep wells for waste disposal and secondary recovery of oil, and the use of reservoirs for water supplies. Most of these earthquakes were minor. The largest and most widely known resulted from fluid injection at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal near Denver, Colorado. In 1967, an earthquake of magnitude 5.5 followed a series of smaller earthquakes. Injection had been discontinued at the site in the previous year once the link between the fluid injection and the earlier series of earthquakes was established.” Note the phrase, “Once the link between the fluid injection and the earlier series of earthquakes was established.” So both the U.S Army and the U.S. Geological Survey over fifty years of research confirm on a federal level that that “fluid injection” introduces subterranean instability and is a contributory factor in inducing increased seismic activity.” How about “causing significant seismic events?”
  • Fast forward to the present. Overseas, last month Britain’s Cuadrilla Resources announced that it has discovered huge underground deposits of natural gas in Lancashire, up to 200 trillion cubic feet of gas in all. On 2 November a report commissioned by Cuadrilla Resources acknowledged that hydraulic fracturing was responsible for two tremors which hit Lancashire and possibly as many as fifty separate earth tremors overall. The British Geological Survey also linked smaller quakes in the Blackpool area to fracking. BGS Dr. Brian Baptie said, “It seems quite likely that they are related,” noting, “We had a couple of instruments close to the site and they show that both events occurred near the site and at a shallow depth.” But, back to Oklahoma. Austin Holland’s August 2011 report, “Examination of Possibly Induced Seismicity from Hydraulic Fracturing in the Eola Field, Garvin County, Oklahoma” Oklahoma Geological Survey OF1-2011, studied 43 earthquakes that occurred on 18 January, ranging in intensity from 1.0 to 2.8 Md (milliDarcies.) While the report’s conclusions are understandably cautious, it does state, “Our analysis showed that shortly after hydraulic fracturing began small earthquakes started occurring, and more than 50 were identified, of which 43 were large enough to be located.”
  • Sensitized to the issue, the oil and natural gas industry has been quick to dismiss the charges and deluge the public with a plethora of televisions advertisements about how natural gas from shale deposits is not only America’s future, but provides jobs and energy companies are responsible custodians of the environment. It seems likely that Washington will eventually be forced to address the issue, as the U.S. Army and the USGS have noted a causal link between the forced injection of liquids underground and increased seismic activity. While the Oklahoma quake caused a deal of property damage, had lives been lost, the policy would most certainly have come under increased scrutiny from the legal community. While polluting a local community’s water supply is a local tragedy barely heard inside the Beltway, an earthquake ranging from Oklahoma to Illinois, Kansas, Arkansas, Tennessee and Texas is an issue that might yet shake voters out of their torpor, and national elections are slightly less than a year away.
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Big Oil CEO Says Oil Drilling in Arctic Spells 'Disaster' [26Sep12] - 0 views

  •  
    We Can't Do It Without You! CommonDreams.org
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Fracking - energy revolution or skillfully marketed mirage? [27Jun11] - 0 views

  • The New York Times published an article on Sunday, June 26, 2011 titled Insiders Sound an Alarm Amid a Natural Gas Rush. The article quotes a number of emails from natural gas industry insiders, financial analysts that cover the gas industry and skeptical geologists to produce a number of questions about the long term viability of an increasing dependence on cheap natural gas from hydraulic fracturing. The message is that the gas industry has been engaging in hyperbole regarding its capacity to expand production at current prices to meet market demands.
  • the people quoted in the NY Times article do not agree that the technique magically produces low cost gas in unprecedented abundance.
  • “Our engineers here project these wells out to 20-30 years of production and in my mind that has yet to be proven as viable,” wrote a geologist at Chesapeake in a March 17 e-mail to a federal energy analyst. “In fact I’m quite skeptical of it myself when you see the % decline in the first year of production.”
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  • “In these shale gas plays no well is really economic right now,” the geologist said in a previous e-mail to the same official on March 16. “They are all losing a little money or only making a little bit of money.”
  • Around the same time the geologist sent the e-mail, Mr. McClendon, Chesapeake’s chief executive, told investors, “It’s time to get bullish on natural gas.”
  • Aubrey McClendon, whose name is not terribly familiar to people outside of the energy industry, has an enormous financial interest in encouraging customers to become addicted to natural gas so that they will keep buying even if the price shoots up – like it did in the period from 2000-2008. During that time McClendon and his company rode a wave that resulted in growing a company from tiny to huge based on debt-financed investments in leases and drilling rigs designed to produce gas in the midcontinent region of the US. A high portion of the company’s wells were stimulated with hydraulic fracturing.
  • When the price of natural gas collapsed in 2008, mostly as a result of the contraction in demand caused by the financial crisis and resulting economic recession/depression, McClendon nearly lost control of his company. He had to sell “substantially all” of shares at a dramatically lowered price in order to pay off creditors and meet margin calls.
  • No U.S. chief executive officer has bought more of his own company’s stock in recent years than McClendon, even as the shares reached all-time highs. His appetite for Chesapeake stock made him “a darling of Wall Street,” Tulsa money manager Jake Dollarhide said. But his purchases were made on margin, meaning he used borrowed money. As the value of the stock fell, McClendon was forced to raise cash to meet margin calls. Recent losses — Chesapeake shares have plummeted 60 percent in the past three weeks — left him unable to fulfill those requirements.Read more: http://newsok.com/market-slide-wipes-out-ceos-chesapeake-holdings/article/3310107#ixzz1QSst9NnL
  • McClendon responded vigorously to the NY Times’s suggestion that the gas revolution was more mirage than miracle in a lengthy letter to Chesapeake Energy employees that was published on the company’s public Facebook page. (Note: The timing of this letter with regard to the NY Times article is telling. The article appeared in the Sunday edition of the Times on June 26, 2011. The letter to employees included a time stamp indicating that it was released at 8:37 pm on the same day while the Facebook page indicates that it was posted to the world by 11:27 pm. In other words – there is no rest for the weary in the Internet era.)
  • McClendon’s letter blamed the NY Times article on environmental activists that proclaim a desire to supply all of the US energy needs from wind and solar energy. It also issued a call to action for Chesapeake Energy employees:
  • We hope that every Chesapeake employee can be part of our public education outreach. At more than 11,000 strong, we are an army of “factivists” – people who have knowledge of the facts and the personal knowledge and ability to spread them. You can do this by talking to your families, friends and others in your spheres of influence (schools, churches, civic organizations, etc) about the kind of company you work for and the integrity of what we do every day for our shareholders, our communities, our states, our nation, our economy and our environment. You don’t have to be an expert to stand up and tell folks that Chesapeake is committed to doing what’s right – and that commitment is expressed every day by you and your colleagues across the company.
  • You can also get involved by joining Chesapeake Fed PAC, our political action committee. Our opponents are extremely well funded and organized. We need to make sure our voice is heard in Washington, DC and with elected officials who are making decisions that affect our industry, our company and our ability to operate in the many states in which shale gas and oil have been discovered.
  • After describing how Chesapeake has 125 active drilling rigs and how it has developed a “swat team” with more than 100 employees that works with environmental groups to produce legislation designed to slow the development of new coal fired power plants and to hasten the closure of existing coal plants, Tom Price said the following:
  • “It’s been said before, but the demand side of the equation is extremely important right now. I mean this really is a zero sum game. I think that there are a number of very progressive utilities out there that recognize the challenges that they are facing with regard to climate change, but the Transport Rule, Clean Air Act and various others.”
  • I remain convinced that there is a market battle going on between natural gas and nuclear energy.
D'coda Dcoda

Harnessing the Heat of Indonesia's Volcanoes [07Jul11] - 0 views

  • The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa killed some 40,000 people, and for centuries Indonesians have lived under constant threat from the 400-plus volcanoes that dot the country’s 18,000-odd islands. Now a project by Chevron (CVX) in Java is taking advantage of those smoldering mountains. The U.S. oil major has drilled 84 wells to a depth of two miles beneath the rainforest to tap not crude or gas, but steam. The vapors, which reach 600F, spin turbines 24 hours a day, generating electricity for Jakarta, a city with a population of 9.6 million.
  • Chevron is about to get some competition. General Electric (GE), India’s Tata Group, and other companies are building geothermal projects in Indonesia, and the investment ultimately may add up to more than $30 billion. The companies are responding to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s promise in February to boost government subsidies for clean energy. Former Vice-President Al Gore has called Indonesia the first potential “geothermal superpower.”
  • Geothermal is central to Indonesia’s push for alternatives to fossil fuels such as oil, which the country once exported and now must import. Brownouts are frequent on the main island of Java, and 35 percent of the nation’s 245 million population lacks access to electricity, according to the International Energy Agency. Yudhoyono wants to eliminate energy shortages that threaten his target for as much as 6.6 percent annual economic growth through his term’s end in 2014. His government plans to add 9.5 gigawatts of geothermal capacity by 2025, equal to about 33 percent of Indonesia’s electricity demand from about 3.5 percent now, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Iceland, also a volcanic island, gets 27 percent of its power from geothermal.
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  • Indonesia has signed contracts for 2.3 gigawatts of plants, Bloomberg New Energy Finance data show. A gigawatt is about equal to the output of a new atomic reactor, and requires $2 billion to $4 billion of investment. “There’s a remarkable opportunity for Indonesia to increase the amount of power generated from geothermal,” says Stephen W. Green, former head of Chevron’s Indonesia and Philippines operations and now its vice-president of policy, government, and public affairs. “There are synergies between oil and geothermal and it makes sense for us to exploit that.”
  • Unocal negotiated Indonesia’s first foreign-partnership geothermal license in 1982 with the help of U.S. President Barack Obama’s late stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, who worked for the U.S. company as a government liaison. Chevron acquired Unocal in 2005. At the plant in Java, which lies inside a nature preserve, hot water and steam are pumped from as deep as 10,535 feet below the earth’s surface through 34 miles of pipes to turn turbines to make power. Each well takes as much as 90 days to drill and costs up to $7 million, Chevron says. The company is now planning additional plants in Indonesia, including a potential 200-MW facility in South Sumatra.
D'coda Dcoda

Whistle-blower talks, container vessel is melting like honeycomb [03Jan11] - 0 views

  • A whistle-blower of Tepco leaked the actual situation of Fukushima plant. He left his comments on a Japanese forum. Here are the messages.
  • Boring survey around reactor 2 is coming to the climax. As a result, the announcement of the government and Tepco has to be denied. If it’s soft material, they can do horizontal boring with such a weak equipment (like the top picture ) but when it comes to the concrete of the reactor building it’s impossible. They need to do boring with a foreign heavy equipment at an angle. They do boring to reach to under the container vessel. (like the bottom 2 pictures)
  • When they do boring where they don’t need to take a sample they drill roughly with this green rotary diamond bit but the dust is lethal because it’s too radioactive. When they need to take a sample, they change the diamond bit to hole saw type of bit. However, diamond is weak for the heat so when it’s hotter than 500℃ they use the standard type of the tungsten carbide instead.    The bottom 3 pictures are the samples taken.
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  • Taking a part of the concrete slag sample. Put it into the lead case (Chiyoda technol) and take it to a lab. I don’t know if it’s because they gave sea water to cool down or because it’s brackish area, if natrium (sodium salt) of sea water made a chemical reaction with calcium carbonate in the concrete to become diuranate natrium (sodium diuranate) or not, it looks yellow as yellow cake
  • Probably the iron part of the core is uranium pellet unreacted – not sure yet because it’s still before the analysis. It’s beyond the max reading of 500X100 CPM. These yellow concrete slags come out from under the building one after one. It means that the container vessel is melting like honeycomb at least – doesn’t it? Otherwise why would metal uranium comes out of there ?
  • made up my mind to take out the slags from the shelter to take pictures of them. wore protective clothing. When it’s taken out, it was over 400 ℃ but now it’s cooled down to 100 ℃. Can you see this big metal crystal (extremely radioactive) and the oxidized concrete looking like yellow cake? Can you believe it is out of the container vessel. It’s over 500 mSv/h, my geiger counter went over the limit. was scared so put it back to the shelter soon as I took a couple of the pictures.
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    Lots of good photos
D'coda Dcoda

Avoiding Fracking Earthquakes May Prove Expensive: Scientific American - 0 views

  • With mounting evidence linking hundreds of small earthquakes from Oklahoma to Ohio to the energy industry's growing use of fracking technology, scientists say there is one way to minimize risks of even minor temblors. Only, it costs about $10 million a pop.
  • A thorough seismic survey to assess tracts of rock below where oil and gas drilling fluid is disposed of could help detect quake prone areas.
  • The more expensive method will be a hard sell as long as irrefutable proof of the link between fracking and earthquakes remains elusive. "If we knew what was in the earth we could perfectly mitigate the risk of earthquakes," said Austin Holland, seismologist at the Oklahoma Geological Survey. "That is something that we don't have enough science to establish yet." A 4.0 New Year's Eve quake in Ohio prompted officials to shut down five wells used to dispose of fluid used in the hydraulic fracturing process. That comes less than a year after Arkansas declared a moratorium due to a surge in earthquakes as companies developed the Fayetteville Shale reserve.
D'coda Dcoda

Preparations going on for Reactor #2 endoscopy [17JAN12] - 0 views

  • Preparations are under way to use an endoscope to examine the inside of a containment vessel of the damaged No. 2 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. At the No.1, 2, and 3 reactors of the plant, the nuclear fuel has melted down, but the exact state of the fuel and details of the inside of the containment vessels are yet to be confirmed. This is causing a big problem for the operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, in its continued efforts to stabilize the cooling of the reactors and its plans to decommission them. The reactors were damaged by the March 11th earthquake and tsunami.
  • On Tuesday, 10 groups of 4 workers each entered the first floor of the No.2 reactor building from the northwestern side. The workers drilled a hole in the containment vessel to insert an endoscope. An industrial endoscope that can withstand high levels of radiation will be used. The utility says the workers were exposed to up to 3 millisieverts of radiation. The company says the workers had rehearsed the job at the No. 5 reactor, the same type as the No.2, in order to minimize their exposure.
  • TEPCO says Tuesday's operation went smoothly and it will insert the endoscope on Thursday as scheduled. It hopes to gain the first internal view of one of the damaged reactors since the accident.
D'coda Dcoda

U.S. nuke regulators weaken safety rules [20Jun11] - 0 views

  • Federal regulators have been working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nation's aging reactors operating within safety standards by repeatedly weakening standards or simply failing to enforce them, an investigation by The Associated Press has found.Officials at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission regularly have decided original regulations were too strict, arguing that safety margins could be eased without peril, according to records and interviews.The result? Rising fears that these accommodations are undermining safety -- and inching the reactors closer to an accident that could harm the public and jeopardize nuclear power's future.
  • Examples abound. When valves leaked, more leakage was allowed -- up to 20 times the original limit. When cracking caused radioactive leaks in steam generator tubing, an easier test was devised so plants could meet standards.Failed cables. Busted seals. Broken nozzles, clogged screens, cracked concrete, dented containers, corroded metals and rusty underground pipes and thousands of other problems linked to aging were uncovered in AP's yearlong investigation. And many of them could escalate dangers during an accident.
  • Despite the problems, not a single official body in government or industry has studied the overall frequency and potential impact on safety of such breakdowns in recent years, even as the NRC has extended dozens of reactor licenses.Industry and government officials defend their actions and insist no chances are being taken. But the AP investigation found that with billions of dollars and 19 percent of America's electricity supply at stake, a cozy relationship prevails between industry and the NRC.Records show a recurring pattern: Reactor parts or systems fall out of compliance. Studies are conducted by industry and government, and all agree existing standards are "unnecessarily conservative."
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  • Regulations are loosened, and reactors are back in compliance."That's what they say for everything ...," said Demetrios Basdekas, a retired NRC engineer. "Every time you turn around, they say, 'We have all this built-in conservatism.' "The crisis at the decades-old Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear facility in Japan has focused attention on nuclear safety and prompted the NRC to look at U.S. reactors. A report is due in July.But the factor of aging goes far beyond issues posed by Fukushima.
  • Commercial nuclear reactors in the United States were designed and licensed for 40 years. When the first were built in the 1960s and 1970s, it was expected that they would be replaced with improved models long before their licenses expired.That never happened. The 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, massive cost overruns, crushing debt and high interest rates halted new construction in the 1980s.Instead, 66 of the 104 operating units have been relicensed for 20 more years. Renewal applications are under review for 16 other reactors.As of today, 82 reactors are more than 25 years old.The AP found proof that aging reactors have been allowed to run less safely to prolong operations.
  • Last year, the NRC weakened the safety margin for acceptable radiation damage to reactor vessels -- for a second time. The standard is based on a reactor vessel's "reference temperature," which predicts when it will become dangerously brittle and vulnerable to failure. Through the years, many plants have violated or come close to violating the standard.As a result, the minimum standard was relaxed first by raising the reference temperature 50 percent, and then 78 percent above the original -- even though a broken vessel could spill radioactive contents."We've seen the pattern," said nuclear safety scientist Dana Powers, who works for Sandia National Laboratories and also sits on an NRC advisory committee. "They're ... trying to get more and more out of these plants."
  • Sharpening the pencilThe AP study collected and analyzed government and industry documents -- some never-before released -- of both reactor types: pressurized water units that keep radioactivity confined to the reactor building and the less common boiling water types like those at Fukushima, which send radioactive water away from the reactor to drive electricity-generating turbines.The Energy Northwest Columbia Generating Station north of Richland is a boiling water design that's a newer generation than the Fukushima plants.Tens of thousands of pages of studies, test results, inspection reports and policy statements filed during four decades were reviewed. Interviews were conducted with scores of managers, regulators, engineers, scientists, whistleblowers, activists and residents living near the reactors at 65 sites, mostly in the East and Midwest.
  • AP reporters toured some of the oldest reactors -- Oyster Creek, N.J., near the Atlantic coast 50 miles east of Philadelphia and two at Indian Point, 25 miles north of New York City on the Hudson River.Called "Oyster Creak" by some critics, this boiling water reactor began running in 1969 and is the country's oldest operating commercial nuclear power plant. Its license was extended in 2009 until 2029, though utility officials announced in December they will shut the reactor 10 years earlier rather than build state-ordered cooling towers. Applications to extend the lives of pressurized water units 2 and 3 at Indian Point, each more than 36 years old, are under NRC review.Unprompted, several nuclear engineers and former regulators used nearly identical terminology to describe how industry and government research has frequently justified loosening safety standards. They call it "sharpening the pencil" or "pencil engineering" -- fudging calculations and assumptions to keep aging plants in compliance.
  • Cracked tubing: The industry has long known of cracking in steel alloy tubing used in the steam generators of pressurized water reactors. Ruptures have been common in these tubes containing radioactive coolant; in 1993 alone, there were seven. As many as 18 reactors still run on old generators.Problems can arise even in a newer metal alloy, according to a report of a 2008 industry-government workshop.
  • Neil Wilmshurst, director of plant technology for the industry's Electric Power Research Institute, acknowledged the industry and NRC often collaborate on research that supports rule changes. But he maintained there's "no kind of misplaced alliance ... to get the right answer."Yet agency staff, plant operators and consultants paint a different picture:* The AP reviewed 226 preliminary notifications -- alerts on emerging safety problems -- NRC has issued since 2005. Wear and tear in the form of clogged lines, cracked parts, leaky seals, rust and other deterioration contributed to at least 26 of the alerts. Other notifications lack detail, but aging was a probable factor in 113 more, or 62 percent in all. For example, the 39-year-old Palisades reactor in Michigan shut Jan. 22 when an electrical cable failed, a fuse blew and a valve stuck shut, expelling steam with low levels of radioactive tritium into the outside air. And a 1-inch crack in a valve weld aborted a restart in February at the LaSalle site west of Chicago.
  • * A 2008 NRC report blamed 70 percent of potentially serious safety problems on "degraded conditions" such as cracked nozzles, loose paint, electrical problems or offline cooling components.* Confronted with worn parts, the industry has repeatedly requested -- and regulators often have allowed -- inspections and repairs to be delayed for months until scheduled refueling outages. Again and again, problems worsened before being fixed. Postponed inspections inside a steam generator at Indian Point allowed tubing to burst, leading to a radioactive release in 2000. Two years later, cracking grew so bad in nozzles on the reactor vessel at the Davis-Besse plant near Toledo, Ohio, that it came within two months of a possible breach, an NRC report said, which could release radiation. Yet inspections failed to catch the same problem on the replacement vessel head until more nozzles were found to be cracked last year.
  • Time crumbles thingsNuclear plants are fundamentally no more immune to aging than our cars or homes: Metals grow weak and rusty, concrete crumbles, paint peels, crud accumulates. Big components like 17-story-tall concrete containment buildings or 800-ton reactor vessels are all but impossible to replace. Smaller parts and systems can be swapped but still pose risks as a result of weak maintenance and lax regulation or hard-to-predict failures.Even mundane deterioration can carry harsh consequences.For example, peeling paint and debris can be swept toward pumps that circulate cooling water in a reactor accident. A properly functioning containment building is needed to create air pressure that helps clear those pumps. But a containment building could fail in a severe accident. Yet the NRC has allowed safety calculations that assume the buildings will hold.
  • In a 2009 letter, Mario V. Bonaca, then-chairman of the NRC's Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, warned that this approach represents "a decrease in the safety margin" and makes a fuel-melting accident more likely.Many photos in NRC archives -- some released in response to AP requests under the federal Freedom of Information Act -- show rust accumulated in a thick crust or paint peeling in long sheets on untended equipment.Four areas stand out:
  • Brittle vessels: For years, operators have rearranged fuel rods to limit gradual radiation damage to the steel vessels protecting the core and keep them strong enough to meet safety standards.But even with last year's weakening of the safety margins, engineers and metal scientists say some plants may be forced to close over these concerns before their licenses run out -- unless, of course, new regulatory compromises are made.
  • Leaky valves: Operators have repeatedly violated leakage standards for valves designed to bottle up radioactive steam in an earthquake or other accident at boiling water reactors.Many plants have found they could not adhere to the general standard allowing main steam isolation valves to leak at a rate of no more than 11.5 cubic feet per hour. In 1999, the NRC decided to allow individual plants to seek amendments of up to 200 cubic feet per hour for all four steam valves combined.But plants have violated even those higher limits. For example, in 2007, Hatch Unit 2, in Baxley, Ga., reported combined leakage of 574 cubic feet per hour.
  • "Many utilities are doing that sort of thing," said engineer Richard T. Lahey Jr., who used to design nuclear safety systems for General Electric Co., which makes boiling water reactors. "I think we need nuclear power, but we can't compromise on safety. I think the vulnerability is on these older plants."Added Paul Blanch, an engineer who left the industry over safety issues, but later returned to work on solving them: "It's a philosophical position that (federal regulators) take that's driven by the industry and by the economics: What do we need to do to let those plants continue to operate?"Publicly, industry and government say that aging is well under control. "I see an effort on the part of this agency to always make sure that we're doing the right things for safety. I'm not sure that I see a pattern of staff simply doing things because there's an interest to reduce requirements -- that's certainly not the case," NRC chairman Gregory Jaczko said in an interview.
  • Corroded piping: Nuclear operators have failed to stop an epidemic of leaks in pipes and other underground equipment in damp settings. Nuclear sites have suffered more than 400 accidental radioactive leaks, the activist Union of Concerned Scientists reported in September.Plant operators have been drilling monitoring wells and patching buried piping and other equipment for several years to control an escalating outbreak.But there have been failures. Between 2000 and 2009, the annual number of leaks from underground piping shot up fivefold, according to an internal industry document.
Jan Wyllie

Louisiana sinkhole, bubbles, 1000s quakes link to oil, gas ENMOD - National Human Right... - 0 views

  • On Monday, as officials warned an explosion is possible from gas in Louisiana’s sinkhole area where radioactive waste has been pumped into a cavern and the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) authorized drilling a new well in the danger sinkhole zone, a seismologist told the Examiner that seismic activity exists in that zone and that fossil fuel industries’ environmental modifications (ENMODs) causing the gas bubbles, giant sinkhole and thousands of quakes resulting in the State of Emergency, is a “real possibility.”
  • Seismic activity is being detected from Louisiana’s giant sinkhole area, according to Horton, whose work at University of Memphis involves monitoring the New Madrid fault line for the United States Geological Survey (USGS) as well as the Louisiana disaster.
D'coda Dcoda

BP's Deception in the Gulf : Part 1- The farcical 3 leaks on the broken riser story [10... - 0 views

  • Of all the lies that came out of the Gulf disaster, the most preposterous has been the 3 leaks on the riser story. Figure 165-0a to 165-0c were the first few schematic illustrations of BP’s blowout incident. They were so embarrassingly stupid and logic defying, most experts believed the schematics were deliberately drawn by cartoonists to confuse the average Joe Public. The patchwork of realities resembled a makeshift car hastily assembled from parts of different size vehicles. Obviously a mini car body does not match the oversize truck tires. It is obvious the 5½ inch drill pipe at leak(3) cannot be the same 21inch diameter riser (actually a well casing) at leak(2). Yet the world's technical experts willfully overlooked this fundamental discrepancy and allowed the criminals to get away with murders. And America, the world's greatest nation shouting human rights abuses all over the world, allowed this hideous crime of mass destruction in its own backyard to go unpunished? In China, the corporate criminals responsible for this environmental carnage would have been executed instead of having their lives back. Can the 11 dead crewmen, their young families and thousands of Gulf victims who suffered numerous medical problems from the toxic contaminated Gulf waters and corexit sprayed on them, ever have their lives back?
  • Surely the world's most technologically advanced country could not have been so easily fooled by this “3 wells & 3 leaks on a single riser” fairy tale (concocted Beyond Phantasm). Besides the many controversial circumstances surrounding the sinking of the burning rig (DWH) and the sudden breaking of the super-strong riser in calm water, how could a third open-ended leak (3) be even possible beyond the completely severed riser at the second leak (2)? See fig165-0c. Leak(2) has to be the blown crater of well no.#3 as illustrated in many of our previous articles and irrefutably shown in Figure 165-5 with the right coordinates in the few undoctored videos.
  • “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” S Homes.
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  • ince June 2010, we have illustrated many physics of impossibilities concocted by BP. Two years later, it seems the world has not awaken from its ignorantly blissful slumber. This disaster is more than just a disastrous mega oil spill. If the world's foremost scientists and investigators cannot figure out the many fundamental flaws in the simple “3 leaks-3 wells” fairy tale, how can there be any hope of ever solving problems beyond kindergarten level? Forget the carbon tax, the ban on hazardous gas emission and just about any anti-pollution measures designed to improve the global environment. All these schemes have sinister undertones with profiting on mass miseries of others.
  • In the Gulf disaster, you have the biggest environmental polluter in human history. The punishment for a crime of mass destruction that could have been averted, was just a slap on the wrist? If this is not the clearest proof of corruption at the highest level and biggest HSE (health, safety & environment) farce, then what is?
  • It was not the failure of safety regulations but the enforcement of regulations. The government admitted this much by sacking MMS's director and changing it to BOEMRE. It was not the failure of technology but the devious use of technology to cloak unfair business practices or safety farce at the very least. But would shrewd corporate criminals risk billions of investment dollars just to skimp on some daily operation expenses and safety devices? Just like the fairy tale of the 3 leaks, this was just the red herring. The oil industry will start on its decline just as the coal industry did, after its replacement by alternative cheaper and cleaner energy sources (The Future of Free Energy).
  • Giant global oil corporations may not have the next 10 years to recover their mega billion dollar investments. With the writings on the wall and their failures to control (prevent) the advent of free energy, the oil oligarchs had to devise emergency exit schemes before oil independence becomes public knowledge. High crude oil prices cannot be manipulated too high or long enough to recoup their billions of investment dollars globally. They risk becoming economic dinosaurs.
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    Lengthy article with lots of visuals, only partially annotated so read the entire article at the site
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