Tag Archives: climate

Sealing the Well Updated – BP

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Author Anthony Ricigliano: The last time I wrote about sealing the BP well that is responsible for the biggest oil spill in U.S. history, the relief well was sitting within four feet of the blowout wellbore. Much to everyone’s surprise, it’s still sitting there After pumping 500 barrels of cement into the casing and announcing that the status of the well was “static” it appeared that the next phase of connecting the relief well to the blowout wellbore was imminent.

Since that time, there has been talk of pressure readings all over the board, a new pressure test, a lot of vague non-answers. That’s when someone is around to answer questions. Kent Wells, who has managed to provide no technical information at BP’s "Technical Briefings" hasn’t been around for almost a week.

The purpose of the "new ambient" pressure test has yet to be defined but hounding spill watchers and the Daily Kos website finally prompted BP to release some information regarding pressure readings but, true to form BP left out basic information such as “the starting point, whether the well is shut in at the surface or seafloor, the fluid in the riser, etc., so the data is pretty much useless”, similar to the other tidbits which have been released over the last four months.

What is known is that there are three aspects of the well which are of concern:

  • The flex joint, right on top of the old stack
  • The riser adapter
  • The transition spool

In every one of the tests BP has conducted, the top kill, the well integrity test, the injectivity tests, and static kill, the pressures that BP announced exceeded the rated pressures of at least one of those components. This means that one or all of these components could rupture as pressure in the well returns to normal.  The focus has now been shifted pressure readings on the blowout protector (BOP) and the talk is now centered on replacing the stack in total before doing anything else.

The changing focus, the delays, and intentional vagueness are alarming and lend to the possibility that BP still doesn’t know how to seal this well permanently. The static kill effort, which may or may not have been successful, remains a mystery as well.  It is also becoming apparent that no one has any idea where all the cement and mud went exactly.  This has complicated efforts on permanently sealing the well and added another element of uncertainty on how to proceed. It all remains to be seen. Everyone appears to be feeling the strain, including Admiral Allen, who is stuck between a public trying to learn as much as possible and BP who either doesn’t know what to say or doesn’t want to say anything at all.

By Anthony Ricigliano

Shall We Just Agree to Call It Climate De-stabilization?

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By Anthony Ricigliano: With the term “global warming” being such a hot button issue, maybe we should just start calling the wild summer weather across the northern hemisphere this summer more evidence of climate de-stabilization. Record heat waves and drought across Russia have taken lives and resulted in the loss of one-fifth of its wheat harvest to raging wildfires which are burning out of control southeast of Moscow. Crops in the neighboring countries of Ukraine and Kazakhstan are also being damaged by the drought, as the wildfires continue their westward march.

Pakistan’s weather problems are exactly the opposite of Russia’s as monsoon rains have fallen in volumes that had never before been seen.  Peshawar, located in northern Pakistan, saw six times the monthly average rainfall in only 24 hours. The monsoonal downpours have continued since then, with flooding affecting an estimated 14 million people and killing over 1,300 people. Flood waters now cover about one-fifth of the country.

Despite being approximately 2,500 miles apart, both of these disasters are linked to a single meteorological cause. A huge area of high pressure, which has stayed in place for weeks over western Russia, has blocked the jet stream, altering its path while baking the western region of the country. These high pressure areas form on a regular basis but normally move eastward after a few days in the northern hemisphere. The high pressure area causing the problems for Pakistan and Russia is called a “blocking high” and acts as an obstacle for the jet stream which has changed its path around it. This altered path has forced part of the jet stream to divert south to Pakistan, where it normally would not be found during mid-summer.

With the jet stream delivering storm after storm to the same areas flooding occurs, as seen in Poland and Germany recently. In Pakistan, the southern diversion of the jet stream brought storms which would normally track much further north. These storms combined with normal summer monsoons to deliver record volumes of rainfall. The storms passing through Pakistan via the jet stream would typically be delivering rainfall and relief from the heat in the areas of western Russia were it not for the stationary high pressure zone.

The debate rages on about whether these extreme conditions are the result of global warming or of naturally occurring cycles such as El Nino and La Nina. Scientists do agree that global temperatures this year have been the warmest on record but cannot link the high temperatures to these events. Many believe that these types of events and other extreme weather conditions will become more common should global temperatures continue to go higher. In the case of Russia and Pakistan, the cause has been a blocking high. Other extreme conditions can be triggered by completely different weather conditions. The trend seems to be that increasing extremes are following warmer temperatures. For now maybe we should all agree that the global climate is being de-stabilized and as a result people are dying. Maybe then we start from the same page and find out if there is something we can do about it before weather disasters start claiming millions of victims per event on a regular basis.

Author Anthony Ricigliano

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What About Water?

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By Anthony Ricigliano – News By Anthony Ricigliano: The world may never run out of water but an increasing number of people around the world could easily face an extreme shortage of drinkable water. According to Matthew Simmons, an early proponent of “peak oil”, many of the world's largest cities, with populations of more than 10 million people, are currently facing water shortages. The list of cities facing potable water shortages includes Mexico City, Beijing, and Cairo. The World Bank recently reported that 80 countries now have potable water shortages that threaten health, sanitation, and economies and that 40% of the world’s population, approximately two billion people, have no access to clean water or sanitation.

One of the primary causes of the looming global water shortage is the steadily increasing world population. This population growth and the industrial, agricultural and individual water needs which come with it are now doubling demand for water every 21 years, according to World Bank estimates. With the global population currently at six billion and United Nations’ projections for nine billion people by 2050, the justified fear is that water supplies will not be able to keep pace with demand, as populations soar and cities explode. Water supplies will continue to tighten as countries around the world continue to develop and raise their standard of living, as well. Like oil, the United States is a huge user of water on a per capita basis at 600 liters per day. Outside the U.S., the per capita usage amounts to 50 liters a day and growing.
These shortages, combined with certain geographic considerations have the potential to fuel hostility and potential warfare over this precious resource. In fact, more than a dozen countries receive more than half of their water from rivers that cross borders of neighboring countries viewed as hostile. Of those, seven countries receive 75% or more of their fresh water from rivers flowing out of often hostile upstream neighbors. These include Botswana, Bulgaria, Cambodia, the Congo, Gambia, the Sudan, and Syria.

The Middle East, a region well-known for its political and religious animosities is now witnessing heightened tensions regarding adequate water supplies as well. Israel and Syria have had recently contentious discussions about water supplies while Iraq, Syria and Turkey have exchanged verbal threats over their use of shared rivers. It’s not hard to imagine tensions rising if one country wants to dam a river for hydroelectric purposes that a neighboring country relies on.
The scramble for solutions to the problem is growing apace. One of the more promising solutions already exists in the form of desalinization plants of which there are 11,000 in operation around the world. The biggest issue with these plants is the cost per gallon of desalinized water. The answer to the cost issue could lie in the advance of alternative energy solutions which could run the plants with renewable energy sources such as solar, tidal, wind, and/or wave power.  Advances in these solutions will bring their costs down which in turn could make desalinization both a clean and cost effective proposition.

About Anthony Ricigliano