by Jonathan Hiskes
They’re trying a dome
because the robots didn’t work. No, really. Damage control for the oil-rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is sounding like a bad
science-fiction movie:
Engineers are crafting a giant underwater dome to help to
contain an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico after attempts to shut off the leak
using robotic submarines failed.
… While the robots continued their efforts one mile down
and a new rig arrived to drill into the leaking well and plug it in an
operation that could take months, BP said that its dome should trap the
escaping oil and funnel it to tanks on the surface.
The 11 workers missing
after the oil-rig explosion are presumed dead, and the leaking oil is expected to reach the Louisiana
coast as early as Saturday. The spill is 48 miles at its widest, 39 miles at
its longest and has a circumference of 600 miles, according to reports.
And:
Louisiana is one month away from opening its inshore
shrimping season, its crab season is just starting and oyster beds could be
closed if the oil gets into coastal estuaries.
As The Wall Street Journal reports,
this sort of casts a pall over BP’s fantastic quarterly earnings report, which beat
analysts’ forecasts by 18 percent.
At the G20 meeting in
Pittsburgh last fall, President Obama promised to scale back government subsidies to the fossil-fuel industries: “I will work
with my colleagues at the G20 to phase out fossil-fuel subsidies so that we can
better address our climate challenge.”
The continuing Louisiana
disaster provides a favorable political climate to make good on that pledge.
Related Links:
Senate Dem leader vows action on both climate and immigration
14 buildings compete to be the Biggest Loser (of energy waste)
Kerry says climate bill is not dead