oil
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Saudi oil cheaper than American oil
To offshore drilling advocates, the oil-soaked birds washing up on the Gulf shore are a regrettable sacrifice in our pursuit of a higher calling: energy independence. Oil is a nasty business, they admit, but to them, offshore drilling is better than continuing to buy our oil from hostile countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. […]
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BP: The gulf between image and reality
The devastating and escalating events in the Gulf of Mexico underscore an amazing collection of problems: reliance on polluting energy, absence of a coherent national energy plan, the problems with lax government oversight, and dozens of others. Perhaps most clearly, it shows the gulf we should have seen years ago between the image of BP […]
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Ask Umbra’s pearls of wisdom on driving
Dearest readers, Photo: GmanViz via FlickrIn light of the recent oil spill flooding not only the Gulf but also all of our minds here at Grist HQ, I think it’s an apt time to reflect on the larger issue, which is decreasing our dependence on oil. Now obviously one way to do that on an […]
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‘Too big to fail’ isn’t working out in the energy world either
There’s an interesting debate going on right now over whether to raise the liability cap on oil companies drilling offshore, and if so by how much. Just last week, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) blocked an attempt to raise it from $75 million to $10 billion. Yesterday, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) blocked another attempt. (In related […]
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Outcomes, not mechanisms: the effects of the American Power Act
The top-notch climate/energy team at the Peterson Institute for International Economics has just released a comprehensive assessment of “the economic, employment, energy security, and environmental impact of the American Power Act” (by Trevor Houser, Shashank Mohan, and Ian Hoffman). I’ll post their main conclusions below, but first a quick point. PIIE’s analysis focuses on the […]
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10 ways MMS makes FEMA look good
1. You got a problem with paper towels? One big reason the means of cleaning up oil spills have barely changed since the Exxon Valdez spill is that the Minerals Management Service’s budget for oil-spill research has been stuck at roughly $6 million a year since 1990. That’s one-tenth of a penny for every dollar […]
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The real trouble from the oil spill is brewing deep under the sea
It’s been almost a month since the Deepwater Horizon exploded and began spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico. But it’s not your typical oil spill; because of its depth and distance from shore, it has so far brought no images of fouled beaches or blackened, dead sea birds. Whatever damage is being done by […]
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MMS goes under the spotlight
Last week, execs from BP, Transocean, and Halliburton took their Capitol Hill beatdown. This week, federal regulators will be led into the ring. With Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar at the front of the line, they’ll appear before three Senate committees tomorrow and then a House committee on Wednesday, at which members of Congress […]
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Want to phase out a hazardous substance? Dump it in the Gulf!
A U.S. Air Force plane sprays chemical dispersants over the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.Photo: Deepwater Horizon ResponseEPA chief Lisa Jackson, along with other EPA officials and representatives from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, gave a press teleconference on use of dispersants in the Gulf Wednesday afternoon. I attended and got in […]
