Can MMS Reform Fix Drilling Regulation?

The Obama Administration is restructuring the Mineral Management Service, the agency responsible for regulating oil drilling. Clean Skies News investigates the new MMS divisions and whether or not these reform efforts are doing enough to keep the oversight agency from getting too cozy with the industry.

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US Fleets Deliver Greener

The U.S. Postal Service is on the leading edge of transportation technology with a new fleet of electric and alternatively fueled service vans. Clean Skies News tells you just how effective these alternative vehicles and smarter routes actually are.

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ANALYSIS: A Nuclear Lesson for Oil?

Anyone who has followed the nuclear power industry over the last three decades has to have flashbacks watching the BP oil spill unfold.

We don’t yet know exactly what caused the accident now wreaking such havoc in the Gulf of Mexico – but anyone involved in the painful evolution of nuclear energy’s safety culture can outline the final report. It will finger a combination of human errors – both managerial and technical; a technology pushed into unknown territory without any comprehensive analysis of the potential failures, and profit pressures propelling everyone full-steam ahead.

Why am I certain? Because that combination seems to pop up wherever human beings push the high tech envelope and think they’ve finally gotten past those pesky laws of physics. Some areas we can expect to hear about:

'WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE'


First, it IS rocket science – but the failures were probably not.  As they say on Star Trek, the oil and gas extraction industries are literally going "where no man has gone before." Only a decade ago, drilling to 35,000 feet was the stuff of science fiction. The Deepwater Horizon reached that depth in the subsea well drilled just months before this tragedy.

But the failures will be far more mundane. Look at the issues already identified – engineering documents not updated to reflect actual rig configuration, one of the five blowout preventer rams left in test mode, an undetected or ignored (we don’t know which) leak in a hydraulic system powering another ram,  and whether the well bore concrete was allowed to cure long enough to develop full strength. No rocket...

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Environmental Effects of Oil Spill Vary

Clean Skies News talks with LSU's Dr. Edward Overton as he takes a look at the long-term effects and damage which could ultimately result from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

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This Week on Clean Skies Sunday - 5/23/10

Coming up on this week's Clean Skies Sunday, Tyler Suiters talks to incoming UN climate chief Christiana Figueres in her first television interview since her appointment was announced.  Figueres discusses the prospects for success at climate talks this year in Cancun, Mexico.  Also, after living with two nuclear reactors for more than 20 years, a small Georgia town is about to become home to two more.  Town leaders see an economic windfall, but some residents fear they'll pay a high price.   Executive Editor Margaret Ryan goes to Waynesboro, Ga., to hear the controversy.  And Lee Patrick Sullivan looks at the company with the world's largest fleet of alternatively-fueled vehicles.

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New UNFCCC Chief Christiana Figueres Discusses Future of Climate Change

Is the current UN negotiating system broken? Why is Figueres more optimistic about the 2010 conference than her predecessor, Yvo de Boer? Will the major economies dominate the upcoming rounds of negotiations? The woman who will lead the world in climate change talks answers these questions and more with Clean Skies News. This is the first on-air interview Figueres has given since she was appointed to the post.


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Trash Could Become Nat'l Energy Source

Waste-to-energy projects are taking out the trash and putting it to use for entire counties and even states. Clean Skies News takes you to some of these new power plants and investigates how and why this trend works.

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Financing a New Nuclear Reactor With the Government's Help

After 30 years, a new nuclear reactor is under construction.  As Southern Company works on building Vogtle 3 & 4, Margaret Ryan takes a look at the financing behind the multi-million dollar project.

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Author Robert Bryce: Oil Spill Devastating, But Don't Stop Drilling

Clean Skies News talks to Robert Bryce of The Manhattan Institute, and author.  His latest book, Power Hungry: The Myths of "Green" Energy, and the Real Fuels of the Future, discusses why he believes America needs to embrace oil and more oil drilling.

Bryce says the blowout in the Gulf of Mexico is terrible but he fears an extreme backlash against the industry which he believes will deal a terrible blow to the oil industry at a time when America needs a stable energy source.

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Sen. Kerry Talks Climate Bill

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) talks to Clean Skies News about the process of getting together a Senate climate bill and the impact the Gulf oil spill has had on the legislation.

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White House Adding Oil Spill Liability Bill to Congress' Hopper

The Obama administration will ask Congress to raise private company liability for oil spills, speed money for federal response activities from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, and raise the excise tax on oil by a penny a barrel to ensure the trust fund has enough money.


Carol Browner, assistant to the President for energy and climate change, said the legislation being sent to Congress will apply retroactively to the current spill, from BP's wrecked Deepwater Horizon drilling platform.

Current law requires BP to pay the cleanup costs, but limits its liability for other costs like environmental damage to $75 million.  Browner said the White House legislation does not yet include a new...

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CLEAN SKIES EXCLUSIVE: BP-Owned Rig Had Two Blowouts Within Six Months in 2002

A BP-owned rig operating in the Gulf of Mexico had two back-to-back blowouts in 2002, government reports show, causing $2 million in fire damage to the rig and twice forcing its evacuation.

A BP spokesman in London denied that what happened in 2002 was a precursor to the ongoing accident with the TransOcean Deepwater Horizon. That explosion sank the rig, left 11 men missing and presumed dead, and left an undersea well leaking an estimated 200,000 gallons of oil daily.

    Both 2002 incidents were documented in Minerals Management Service investigative reports obtained by Clean Skies News.  According to the reports, the BP-owned rig, the Ocean King, operated by Diamond...

To read the entire story, visit Clean Skies.

Coming Up This Sunday - 5/9/10

Coming up this week on Clean Skies Sunday, ripples from the Gulf oil spill reach Washington, DC, where renewed controversy over offshore drilling is impacting the long awaited Senate climate bill. Also, we look at the history of offshore driling in America. Author Eric Roston and Ken Medlock of Rice University provide analysis. And a nuclear renaissance? Executive Editor Margaret Ryan kicks off a special series focusing on two new reactors under construction in Georgia.

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What Went Wrong with the Blowout Preventer

Why did the blowout preventer on the Transocean Deepwater Horizon rig fail? Clean Skies' Dan Goldstein talks with University of Houston professor Dr. Michael Economides on the technology of offshore drilling rig safety and what can be done to ensure this type of incident doesn't happen again.

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Oil Drilling Accident Spills into Politics

A BP-Transocean rig in the Gulf of Mexico is spewing oil into the ocean. But politicians in Washington, DC, are feeling the effects, as the debate over the future of offshore drilling heats up. Clean Skies Dan Goldstein explains.

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Cape Wind Moves Forward

After nine years, countless reviews, and two administrations the the Cape Wind Project gets the green light from the White House.   Interior Secretary Ken Salazar approved the plan for the country's first offshore farm, but as Clean Skies News' Lee Patrick Sullivan reports, the fight is still not over.

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