S.T.

December 19, 2022



SNIPPET:

In all, it’s estimated that the Taylor Energy spill has released up to 140 million gallons of oil to date.

Not all stories of abandoned and orphaned offshore wells are like Taylor Energy’s. Some have been decommissioned the right way, while others are long forgotten and pose unknown environmental and marine life risks. Inadequate records and limited monitoring have made it challenging to accurately track the number of abandoned wells and whether they’ve been adequately plugged.

According to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, however, more than 32,000 of the 55,000 offshore wells across the 10.9-million-acre Outer Continental Shelf are abandoned or orphaned.

But why? How can tens of thousands of oil wells sit out in the Atlantic, Arctic, and Pacific Oceans without demanding further attention or accountability?

Offshore wells are abandoned when they do not produce enough to offset operating costs. Some wells never produce at all. Some “dry up,” their accessible reserves exhausted based on current extraction methods. Some of these wells are temporarily abandoned, with the idea or promise that the owner will return to attempt extraction sometime in the future. Yet, the average length of time since the 3,364 “temporarily” abandoned wells in the Outer Continental Shelf were last drilled is 38 years.

Wells are considered orphaned when they have no owner. Offshore oil wells are often orphaned if the companies that own and operate them go bankrupt or close their doors for any other reason. With no known owner, orphaned wells present significant challenges when it comes to shutting in and decommissioning them.

Full article:


https://gcaptain.com/heres-why-32000-abandoned-orphaned-offshore-wells-litter-the-outer-continental-shelf

Agelbert NOTE: Only in the good old United States of Petroleum can a pollution contaminated site, irresponsibly abandonded without plugging and cleanup by profit over planet oil loving greedballs, be affectionately called an "Orphaned" Oil and Gas Well. Friends, if YOU made that kind of a mess in your yard, the authorities would have a hazmat team sent there quickly, followed by the police charging you with unlawful contamination. The wells spewing methane and other (even MORE toxic - i.e. Cancer causing) contaminants were 🦕 IRRESPONSIBLY 😈 ABANDONED, not "orphaned" by an "unfortunate" bit of Hydrocarbon Business "bad luck". It is absolutely breathtaking how the Hydrocarbon Hellspawn keep getting a free pass from the media for in-our-faces toxic pollution dumping on we-the-people.
"Orphaned " Oil and Gas Well❓❓❓

Other euphemisms worthy of Orwell that we have all been subjected to:

😠 ☠️ Highly toxic fisson reactor Uranium fuel 👉   "Enriched" Uranium

😠 ☠️ Abortion 👉 "Reproductive Right"

😠 ☠️ 🦕 "Natural" Gas 👉 "Bridge Fuel"


😠 😈 Greed is Good, 🦍 Might is Right, Losers Finish Last, It doesn't matter how you play the game, but whether you Win or Lose (etc. you get the morally bankrupt Social Darwinist Ideology Idea) 👉 🦖 "Evolutionary Advantage" of "Apex Predators"

AND all this time you actually believed the BIG LIE that "it was the Communists, not the Capitalists", that had the GOAL of CORRUPTING the Language. Now you know better.

January 7, 2023 By BILL MCKIBBEN


SNIPPET:

I have been arguing for some time now that we’ve reached the point in human history where we should stop setting stuff on fire: coal, oil, biomass, or in this case the “natural gas” that’s found on cookstoves across the country. The most important reason is because all that 🦖 combustion is ☠️ cooking the planet 🥵—but a new study published this week reminded us all of another huge virtue. It found that 13% of childhood asthma in the country can be attributed to kids living in houses with 🦕 gas stoves. That’s 650,000 kids—20 Fenway Parks worth of wheezing young people.



It’s like having 🦖 car exhaust in a home,” Brady Seals, a co-author of the research, told the Washington Post. “And we know that children are some of the people spending the most time at home, along with the elderly.”

This isn’t the first study to come up with similar findings. Earlier efforts found that children in households with gas stoves were 42% more likely to come down with asthma. And of course the effect is magnified in poorer households, which are smaller and less likely to be equipped with adequate ventilation.

All in all, living in a house with a gas range is a risk factor equivalent to living in a house with secondhand cigarette smoke.

Full article:
https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/turn-off-the-gas

   
AGelbert COMMENT: Excellent article, Bill!

Although the transition to 100% Renewable Energy sources is not taking place at the speed required to avert immense climate havoc and millions of human deaths, never mind all the mammalian vertebrate species the fossil fuelers and their bought and paid for politicians are dooming to extinction, I think we will get there much sooner than the hydrocarbon hellspawn expect. Here is a quote from around 2016 of a great journalist from Truthout (who sadly died recently of a heart attack) that encapsules the fact that, though we supporters of a 100% Transition to Renewable Energy have caring, reason, logic and common sense on our side, the Polluter Ideology (SEE: Social Darwinism), not just their polluting modus operandi, continues to be an existential threat to all of us.

"There is a terrible desperation to the increasingly pathetic rationalizations from the climate denial camp. This comes as no surprise if you take the long view; every single undone paradigm in history has died kicking and screaming, and our current petroleum paradigm is no different. The trick here is trying to figure out how we all make it to the new paradigm without dying right along with the old one, kicking, screaming or otherwise." - William Rivers Pitt

MONDAY, FEB 13, 2023 - 09:26 AM  by 'BlueApples'

SNIPPETS:


The ongoing crisis in East Palestine represents an environmental and humanitarian disaster that hasn’t been seen in the United States in recent memory. The scenes from East Palestine look as if they’re taken straight out of a horror film depicting nuclear winter. ... ...

Following the controlled burn, local authorities received multiple concerning reports from residents outside of the mile-long radius of the evacuation area conveying that the emergency posed by the disaster was far from over. One local farmer reported the sudden deaths of many of the animals on the premises of his farm, Park Dairy. The farmer, Taylor Holzer, also works with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources as a registered foxkeeper. Following the disbursement of chemical agents into the air from the controlled burn, many of the foxes on Holzer’s farm experienced fatal effects from the air quality surrounding the area.

“Out of nowhere, he [a fox] just started coughing really hard, just shut down,” Holzer recalled to local media outlet WKBN 27 News. “This is not how a fox should act. He is very weak, limp. His eyes are very watery and weepy. Smoke and chemicals from the train, that’s the only thing that can cause it, because it doesn’t just happen out of nowhere,” he added.

“The ☠️ chemicals that we’re being told are safe in the air, that’s definitely not safe for the animals…or people.”


Holzer’s concerns were echoed by reports from other residents who described similar conditions near their own properties. One of those residents was Katlyn Schwarzwaelder, the operator of a local dog kennel in nearby Darlington, Pennsylvania. The catastrophe caused her to leave her home despite the fact that it lies more than 10 miles away from the site of the controlled burn. After fleeing to Boardman, Ohio, 15 miles away from the derailment, Schwarzwaelder stated she received multiple reports of dead chickens, fish, and other animals from friends and acquaintances. One affected resident told Schwarzwaelder that they let their 2-year old dog out to use the bathroom only for it never to return. When they embarked upon a search for their missing pet, they found it dead in their yard.

Full article with more video: 👀
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/ohios-apocalyptic-chemical-disaster-rages

MedicineNet

Murez HealthDay Reporter
WEDNESDAY, April 19, 2023


SNIPPET:

The cleanest U.S. cities were Asheville-Marion-Brevard, N.C.; Bangor, Maine; Greenville-Kinston-Washington, N.C.; Lincoln-Beatrice, Neb.; Rochester-Batavia-Seneca Falls, N.Y.; urban Honolulu, Hawaii, and Wilmington, N.C.

Read more:
https://www.medicinenet.com/americas_worst_cities_for_dirty_air/news.htm

September 12, 2023 by Mike Schuler



The bulk carrier Gingo has become the first capesize ship to sail the Northern Sea Route, according to Russian media reports. Separately, a non ice-strengthened tanker is currently conducting a transit—marking another first.


The Gingo departed the Port of Murmansk on a 13-day eastbound voyage to China carrying 164,600 metric tons of iron ore concentrate, marking the largest single cargo to be transported via the NSR. The ship was assisted by two Atomflot icebreakers.

Ship traffic along the Russian-controlled Northern Sea Route is increasing due to warmer winters and longer navigation seasons, with Russia even looking to conduct year-round navigation through the route.

According to Russia’s Minister for the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic, freight traffic along the NSR has increased from 4 million tonnes in 2014 to 34 million tonnes in 2022, having become a major transport corridor for the export of oil, LNG, mineral fertilizers, metals and other products. Russia is looking to increase the capacity of the NSR to up to to 100 million tonnes by 2026 and 200 million tonnes by 2030.

In a separate but related event, a report today from High North News indicates that Russia has sent a non-ice class Aframax oil tanker, the Leonid Loza, on a voyage through the Northern Sea Route from Murmansk to Ningbo, China, as Russia seeks to boost crude oil shipments to China. The report said the voyage marks the first time a conventional oil tanker will use the Arctic route, calling it a “watershed” moment for shipping through the Arctic.

“Even in this day and age, a fully-laden crude oil tanker is probably the last type of ship that should be sent through the #NorthernSeaRoute without any ice-strengthening,” Aker Arctic wrote in a post published to “X”. Aker Arctic is a leading builder of icebreakers.

https://gcaptain.com/first-capesize-bulk-carrier-and-non-ice-class-tanker-transit-the-northern-sea-route-to-china/

August 6, 2024 by Mike Schuler



SNIPPET:

Smit Salvage South Africa general manager, Richard Robertson, detailed the significant challenges posed by the harsh winter weather. After initially retrieving about eight tons of lubricating oils and low sulfur fuels, the vessel was battered by inclement weather and broke into four pieces. This breach led to a fuel and oil spill, necessitating a major clean-up operation along the adjacent coastal area.

“It is not called the Cape of Storms for no reason,” said Robertson, acknowledging the daunting task ahead.

The briefing also included insights from the vessel insurer’s representative, Michael Heads, Managing Director of 2Oceans P&I Correspondents, Rudolph Pint, Salvage Master at Smit Salvage South Africa, SAMSA Chief Operations Officer, Sobantu Tilayi, and Siboniso Ngema, Commercial and Human Resources Director at SpillTech.

You can watch the media briefing below:


Read more:
https://gcaptain.com/salvage-of-grounded-ultra-galaxy-complicated-by-cape-of-storms/