Thu, 2013-04-11 17:05Guest
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INFOGRAPHIC: 13 Oil Spills in 30 Days: The Dirty Business of Moving Oil

by Heather Libby. Originally posted at tkctcktck.org

Moving oil is a dirty business, and never has that been more clear than this past month. In the past 30 days the global oil industry has had 13 spills on three continents. And it's not just pipeline leaks - oil has spilled offshore and on, at train derailments and during routine maintenance. In North and South America alone, they've spilled more than a million gallons of oil and toxic chemicals - enough to fill two olympic-sized swimming pools. 

How bad has it been? Here's an infographic I made of all the oil spills, leaks and transport derailments in the past 30 days.

 

Read more: INFOGRAPHIC: 13 Oil Spills in 30 Days: The Dirty Business of Moving Oil
Wed, 2013-04-10 17:48Steve Horn
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ExxonMobil Arkansas Tar Sands Pipeline Gash 22 Feet Long, Attorney General McDaniel Confirms

Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel announced today that ExxonMobil's Pegasus pipeline suffered a 22 foot long gash that led to the rupture that gushed up to 294,000 gallons of tar sands dilbit down the streets of Mayflower on March 29.

McDaniel revealed the news of the 22-foot gash at a press conference this afternoon and stated that - to the best of his knowledge - ExxonMobil had complied with the dictates of the initial subpoena for documents he issued on April 4. 

That subpoena was issued in response to the March 29 rupture of Exxon's Pegasus Pipeline, a 20-inch tube carrying 95,000 barrels of tar sands crude per day - also known as diluted bitumen, or "dilbit" - from Patoka, Illinois to Nederland, Texas. 

"We received 12,587 pages of documents, including more than 200 blueprint-sized diagrams. Our investigation is ongoing," Aaron Sadler, Spokesman for McDaniel told DeSmogBlog.

The cause of the Pegasus gash is still unknown.

In February, the Tar Sands Blockade group revealed photographs that appear to indicate that TransCanada - which is now building the southern half of the Keystone XL pipeline in Texas - may be laying poorly-welded pipe there.

Could it be a faulty or corroded weld that led to the gash in the 65-year-old Pegasus pipeline? Did it corrode due to its age or as a result of error on Exxon's part?

The 12,587 pages of documents will hopefully have some answers. 

Read more: ExxonMobil Arkansas Tar Sands Pipeline Gash 22 Feet Long, Attorney General McDaniel Confirms
Wed, 2013-04-10 13:23Steve Horn
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Stephen Colbert Highlights DeSmog's Exxon Arkansas Tar Sands Spill No Fly Zone Investigation

The Colbert Report last night featured DeSmogBlog's investigative findings on the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) delegating authority over its "no-fly zone" above the Mayflower tar sands spill site to ExxonMobil "aviation advisor," Tom Suhrhoff.

Stephen parodied Exxon's secrecy at the site of ExxonMobil's Pegasus tar sands pipeline spill, honing in on the fact that the "private empire" threatened a reporter at Inside Climate News with arrest when she sought to ask a spokesperson questions at the spill relief command center headed by Exxon.  

On March 29, Exxon's Pegasus pipeline spilled up to an estimated 7,000 barrels of tar sands diluted bitumen ("dilbit") into Mayflower's neighborhoods and surrounding wetlands, causing the evacuation of 22 homes. Exxon's poor handling of the spill clean-up was also featured in the April 8 edition of "The Rachel Maddow Show."

Check out "The Colbert Report" segment:

Read more: Stephen Colbert Highlights DeSmog's Exxon Arkansas Tar Sands Spill No Fly Zone Investigation
Tue, 2013-04-09 20:52Connor Gibson
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Koch & Exxon-funded Willie Soon Challenged by Students at Climate Denial Event

Crossposted from PolluterWatch.

Rarely do we meet those who have made careers selling us lies. Consider the oddball doctors who took tobacco money to deny a link between cigarette smoking and cancer, or the handful of scientists who take oil and coal money to discredit global warming science, or the people who have done both.

Last week, students in Wisconsin and Michigan stepped up to such an opportunity when CFACT Campus, the student arm of a well-known cabal of fossil fuel apologists, hosted climate change denier Willie Soon at several campus events around the country.

Read more: Koch & Exxon-funded Willie Soon Challenged by Students at Climate Denial Event
Tue, 2013-04-09 05:00Steve Horn
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Ties That Bind: Ernest Moniz, Keystone XL Contractor, American Petroleum Institute and Fracked Gas Exports

Congress will review the Obama Administration's nomination of Ernest Moniz for Secretary of the Department of Energy (DOE) in hearings that start today, April 9.

Moniz has come under fire for his outspoken support of nuclear power, hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") for shale gas and the overarching "all-of-the-above" energy policy advocated by both President Barack Obama and his Republican opponent in the last election, Mitt Romney. 

Watchdogs have also discovered that Moniz has worked as a long-time corporate consultant for BP. He has also received the "frackademic" label for his time spent at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). At his MIT job, Moniz regularly accepted millions of dollars from the oil and gas industry to sponsor studies under the auspices of The MIT Energy Initiative, which has received over $145 million over its seven-year history from the oil and gas industry. 

MIT's "The Future of Natural Gas" report, covered by many mainstream media outlets without any effort to question who bankrolled it, was funded chiefly by the American Clean Skies Foundation, a front group for the shale gas industry's number two domestic producer, Chesapeake Energy. That report concluded that gas is a "bridge fuel" for a renewable energy future and said that shale gas exports were in the best economic interests of the United States, which should "not erect barriers to natural gas imports and exports." 

As first revealed on DeSmogBlog, Moniz is also on the Board of Directors of ICF International, one of the three corporate consulting firms tasked to perform the Supplemental Environmental Impact Study (SEIS) for TransCanada's Keystone XL (KXL) tar sands pipeline. KXL is slated to bring tar sands - also known as "diluted bitumen," or "dilbit" - from Alberta to Port Arthur, TX, where it will be sold to the highest bidder on the global export market. 

Moniz earned over $300,000 in financial compensation in his two years sitting on the Board at ICF, plus whatever money his 10,000+ shares of ICF stock have earned him. 

Read more: Ties That Bind: Ernest Moniz, Keystone XL Contractor, American Petroleum Institute and Fracked Gas Exports

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