Another oil spill is taking place in the world right now from an off-shore drilling operation.

The incident was at Chevron’s deep-sea drilling operation off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state in Brazil. The country’s federal police says information released by Chevron does not match what they have seen, that is, the spill is larger, and they only saw one cleanup ship.

Chevron said the oil spill was between 400 and 650 barrels of oil and that it had contained the leak. But Brazil’s oil regulator National Petroleum Agency estimated 1,000 barrels had leaked to the surface and until earlier this week said it was not sure whether the well had been plugged (apparently, it has been by now).

Non-profit SkyTruth, which uses satellite imagery to detect environmental problems, went further and said the oil spill extended 918 square miles and on Tuesday on the spill rate was at least 3,738 barrels per day.

The organization wrote on its blog yesterday that it hopes that next satellite image it will get will reveal a much smaller spillage area now that the leak has been stopped. The last image was from November 12th as SkyTruth hasn’t been able to get new images since then due to cloudy weather.

Brazil’s federal police has launched an investigation into the incident while Brazil’s Energy Minister Edison Lobão said the company will “severely punished” if it has not done what it should have to contain the spill.

The incident illustrates once again the dangers of deep-sea oil drilling and why we should be moving towards alternative energy.

(Via San Francisco Gate)

You should follow us here.

Technorati Tags: Brazil oil spill, Campos oil spill, Chevron oil spill, environmental disaster, SkyTruth

Photo: Flickr/Dougtone

While the law does not seem mainly focused on a shift to alternative energy, it does include it, although the main objective of the law is to increase efficiency and promote a paradigm shift amongst local people.

Efficiency Maine Trust has been put in charge of implementing the changes and developing a plan by 2012. According to a blog post on the Natural Resources Defense Council, among the options the trust is considering include:

NRDC highlights that by reducing oil consumption Maine can cut down air pollution, keep tax dollars at home and spur a local green economy.

There seems to be a trend amongst state leaders to make moves towards decarbonizing the economy. Hawaii recently announced a plan to meet 70% of its energy needs from renewable sources by 2030. Besides, Hawaii has been increasing its generation of solar energy.

You should follow us here.

Technorati Tags: alternative energy, American states, Hawaii energy, Maine energy, oil dependency, Renewable energy

Via Wikipedia

The USA Today writes that much of the damage caused by the spill is invisible to the eye, therefore impossible to measure.

The Houston Chronicle presents a balance of what has changed, and what hasn’t, in terms of regulation in the wake of the spill.

Gulf Coast residents are the least happy about the way things have unravelled since the disaster and complain they were “treated like criminals”.

Probably there is no better group than water-loving surfers to express grief over the devastation in the Gulf. Nearly 50 surfers with the Surfrider foundation came out to St.Petersburg to remember the anniversary.

Let’s not forget the marine animals affected by the spill; images of dolphins fenced in by the spill and birds covered in oil travelled the world through news outlets. In order to gauge how much dolphins have been affected by the spill, a researcher who has studied dolphins locally for 40 years is applying his expertise to find out whether there are long-term adverse effects from the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, writes Bradenton.

Technorati Tags: Deepwater Horizon, Gulf spill, Gulf Spill First Anniversary

From Left: Co-Director Jeremy Wagener, Narrator Peter Gallagher, and Co-Director Scott D. Roberts

Gas Hole (Dir: Jeremy Wagener and Scott D. Roberts) is a film about the methods that the oil industry has employed to crush clean fuel alternatives and keep them away from the market.

Described as a cross between “Who Killed the Electric Car”, “Fuel” and “Chinatown”, it features celebrities Joshua Jackson and Peter Gallagher who are known for their support of fuel efficiency.

Amongst the topics explored in Gas Hole are inventions such as the water injected carburetor from the 40s which is said to give the 1946 Buick Roadmaster mileage close to 100 mpg.

It also shares the story of Tom Ogel and his “vapor car” of the 70s, besides proposing current technologies such as biodiesel and hydrogen.

Below is a sample of the film. To see other excerpts, visit Gas Hole’s Vimeo page and the official website. The film is due out on DVD on April 19th to coincide with Earth Day and to remember the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.

Technorati Tags: Fossil fuel industry, Gas Hole, History of oil

Via Flickr/EnvironmentalDefenseFund

The organization said the announcement represents a victory for Alaska’s polar bears and other Arctic wildlife, who are vulnerable to devastating losses if a blowout were to occur in the Beaufort Sea.

NRDC joined forces with Earthjustice to challenge clean air permits that the Obama Administration issued to Shell last year. Those permits would have allowed Shell’s fleet of ships to emit tons of pollutants into the Arctic environment, harming both Native communities and wildlife, it said.

The legal action resulted in a federal appeals board ordering the Administration to withdraw the clean air permits and start the process all over again.

“Mother polar bears will come ashore in the Arctic Refuge this fall to give birth just as they’ve done for thousands of years – undisturbed by drilling rigs, toxic pollution and a flood of deadly oil”, NRDC said in a press statement.

Technorati Tags: drilling in Alaska, Natural Resources Defense Council, polar bears, Shell in Alaska

Via Amazon Watch

According to Amazon Watch, between 1964 and 1990, Chevron operated a large oil concession in the northeastern region of the Ecuadorian Amazon. The company admitted that its oil extraction system led to the deliberate discharge of approximately 18 billion gallons of chemical-laden “water of formation” into streams and rivers of Ecuador’s Amazon, home to six indigenous groups.

Here’s a list of environmental damages Chevron was found guilty of:
• The company abandoned more than 900 unlined waste pits gouged out of the jungle floor that leech toxins into soils and streams;
• It contaminated the air by burning the waste pits;
• It dumped oil along roads;
• It spilled millions of gallons of pure crude from ruptured pipelines.

Internal company documents show that Chevron officials ordered field workers to destroy records of oil spills. The company refused to develop an environmental response plan or pipeline maintenance program, and Chevron never conducted a single health evaluation or environmental impact study despite the obvious harm it was causing.

The consequence of this colossal environmental contamination was the decimation of several indigenous groups and the exposure of more than 9,000 people to increased risk of cancer over the coming decades.

Scientific evidence submitted during the trial definitively proves that all of Chevron’s 378 well and production sites, most of which were built in the 1970s, are extensively contaminated.

Chevron has vowed to appeal the decision. It has already asked a judge for clarification to the ruling, which means the judgement is suspended until the judge responds.

According to a BBC report, the verdict was not met with a triumphant atmosphere by those who fought for it. Indigenous leader Guillermo Grefa said the outcome was just the beginning. He said the fine was not going to be enough to fix the damage done to nature. “Our pachamama [Mother Earth] is dead,” he told the BBC.

Technorati Tags: Chevron, enviromental damage, oil extraction in Ecuador

Via:Vizworld

Called MyGulfAction.com, the website was designed to “allow individuals to reduce their personal use of fossil fuels, calculate the effects of those reductions, and see how their reductions, combined with others from the My Gulf Action community, add up to offset the Gulf oil spill”, says SmartPower, the non-profit behind the project.

Each commitment to reduce oil use will be added to other reductions on the site’s homepage, showing how many gallons of leaking oil have been offset by the MyGulfAction.com community.

The campaign is a partnership with several leading environmental groups, including 350.org, Waterkeeper Alliance and Save Our Gulf, League of Conservation Voters, Clean Water Action, Center for Resource Solutions and Gulf Future, a joint initiative of the Gulf Coast Fund and Gulf Restoration Network.

The website is available for free to anyone. Users are kept informed of the latest news on Twitter and Facebook.

What the Gulf catastrophe illustrates graphically is that our dependence on fossil fuels and increasingly risky offshore drilling operations has become a very dangerous business.

“It’s time for Americans to take action – not just throw up our hands and look to President Obama, the Coast Guard and BP,” said Brian F. Keane, President of SmartPower. “With My Gulf Action, everyone can channel our collective frustration into positive change and set our nation and the world on a dramatically sounder course.”
 
For more information, please visit www.smartpower.org.

Technorati Tags: Community, Gulf spill, My Gulf Action, Website

Brazil takes a lot of pride in the fact that 48% of its energy matrix is renewable, mostly thanks to hydropower, the source of 80% of the electricity consumed in the country, and ethanol, which has been powering vehicles in the country since the late 1970s. In Brazil, energy accounts for only 2.5% of the country’s carbon emissions, unlike deforestation, which accounts for 75% of it and is caused mainly by livestock. But dam building may be one of the threats to the Amazon forest, as the country looks to the region to build new hydropower plants.

Márcio Zimmermann (Via Jornal da Energia)

“We have carried out careful environmental assessment studies in the region. Besides, we have one of the strictest legislation to implement hydropower”, he said during the press meeting. But environmentalists disagree, including film director James Cameron, who came to country in April to join the chorus of protest. Opponents to the project say 40,000 people are set to be displaced and hundreds of square miles of rainforest will be flooded. Besides, wildlife will be seriously impacted. Since the turmoiled $17bn auction in April, Belo Monte’s future looks uncertain and its very existence the subject of severe criticism, not just from environmentalists but also from experts and the mainstream press.

As I write this article, another hydroelectric project has run into trouble. According to a Reuters report published on Sunday (25), “400 Indians from several different tribes occupied a power plant they say was built on an ancient burial site”. The incident took place at the Dardanelos dam on the Aripuana river, about 250 miles north of the Mato Grosso state capital Cuiaba. The dam was due to come online in January 2011. A representative of the government’s agency of indigenous affairs (Funai) said the company didn’t take into account the situation of the Indians and dynamited part of an archaeological site. Now the Indians want a compensation. The construction company in charge of the place said it has been in touch with Funai to design a community development program for them.

Belo Monte deforested site (Via AFP)

Despite the controversy and risks, the Lula government is bent on pushing hydropower to the Amazon region, with 12 projects in the works. Besides hydropower, Zimmerman also believes that nuclear power has a role to play. “Brazil has the 6th largest uranium reserve in the world. From 2019, nuclear will play a bigger role. It is an irreversible process”, he said. As to oil exploration in the Amazon, the Minister believes it should always follow Urucu’s model, although “our biggest reserves are not in the Amazon”, he added.

In fact, Brazil’s biggest oil reserves are off-shore. The country has just started drilling deepwater, pre-salt layer wells along its coast. Pre-salt oil has become a major marketing staple of Lula’s government program and PR machine. But Zimmerman insists that all this new oil will not alter the country’s renewable energy matrix. “We will meet our domestic demand and export the rest”, he said. “The country currently consumes 2 million barrels per day. In 2015 we’ll have an export balance of 1.5 million barrels per day. In 2019 that figure will jump to 2-2.2 million.”

In the face of the Gulf and China oil spills, shouldn’t Brazil have waited until it started drilling its pre-salt reserves? “There are no expectations to discover on-shore reserves. The future is off-shore and the natural tendency is deep water exploration”, said Zimmerman. “Brazil intends to investigate the causes of the spill. Our legislation is very strict and we will look at the three reports that will be published by the American congress, government and judiciary”, he said. The country has sent a team to the Gulf to follow the clean-up process.

Pre-salt region in Brazil (via Brazil and Business)

In this scenario of hydropower, ethanol (18% of the country’s energy matrix) and oil exploration (23% of the global total), do solar and wind power have a place? He says the country acknowledges the need to diversify its energy matrix and has introduced an auction system to stimulate the use of renewable energy. The second auction took place recently and contracted 1,805,7 MW in wind power. A new auction is scheduled to take place in August. Most of wind power mills in Brazil are in the northeast of the country.

All those efforts seem to be paying. Brazil’s place in the renewable market is increasingly recognized internationally. Just before last week’s meeting with Mr. Zimmermann in Brasilia, the minister had been invited to Washington for a Major Economies Forum (19-20 July) to talk about the country’s public policies for renewable energy and exchange information with other countries.

It’s an exciting time for the country. The economy is growing, by the end of the first semester of 2011 the whole country will be, for the first time, connected to electricity and coal only provides 2% of the electricity consumed there. As Brazil prepares to become the fifth global economy, energy is one of its biggest challenges – and so is the preservation of its natural resources, especially the Amazon. The world is watching how the growing giant will perform this balancing act, which could provide a model for other economies.

Disclosure: Energy Refuge’s trip to Brazil was sponsored by Apex, a governmental agency that promotes trade and investment in Brazil, with funding provided by Petrobras, Eletrobras and Banco do Brasil.