Author Archives: Steve Maley

The Daily Beast’s Rick Outzen is like a dog with a bone. Rick (along with a legion of other self-imagined experts on the ‘net) is getting a lot of mileage out of the notion that an acoustic switch (see diagram … Continue reading →

Bob Woodward, Meet the Press, Sunday, May 23

With great fanfare, President Obama dispatched Interior Department “S.W.A.T Teams” to all 29 active deepwater drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Their charge: Perform a thorough, complete drilling inspection of each deepwater rig. Key on the BOP [blowout preventer] … Continue reading →

Deepwater Well Construction 101 The Times-Picayune sketch above conveys quite a bit of information – most of it correct – about how the BP blowout well was constructed. It also gives a couple of hints as to possible failure mechanisms. … Continue reading →

Only by being rational about assessing the environmental threat from the Deepwater Horizon spill can we be prepared to deal with the consequences. Journalists, scientists, Congressmen and bureaucrats have been jockeying to see who can make the most calamitous prediction. … Continue reading →

It’s a lie, a gross distortion or a paranoid delusion. Take your pick. In a Daily Beast article, blogger Matthew Yglesias does his best to shoehorn a few bits of truth into the Obama gang’s favorite narrative: “It’s Bush’s fault!” … Continue reading →

Yesterday FoxNews.com carried an opinion piece written by your humble correspondent: “We Can’t Stop Drilling Off America’s Shores”. It’s sort of a rewrite of a RedState piece from a couple of weeks back: “Q: Why Was BP Drilling in 5,000 … Continue reading →

Day #8 of wildlife rescue response to the BP oil spill, and Oiled Bird #2 has been rescued. That’s not to imply that there’s no threat to the bird population, however. It’s nesting season in the refuge. In response to … Continue reading →

Don’t bogart that joint … of drill pipe, I mean. Straight from the Gaian People’s Republic of Boulder comes this fresh idea for stopping the flow of oil from the BP blowout in the Gulf of Mexico: meditation! “The basic … Continue reading →

Caution: Heads Exploding — especially the man with his boot on BP’s neck After the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, warmly referred to as “OPA90”. OPA90 provided for an emergency spill … Continue reading →