Blowout in the Gulf: The BP Oil Spill Disaster and the Future of Energy in America

by William R. Freudenburg, Robert Gramling

The story of how a chain of failures, missteps, and bad decisions led to America’s biggest environmental disaster.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2010

Reviews

[R · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book on the politics of oil in the US. Specifically the politics and history of oil and off shore drilling.

[Harikrishnan Tulsidas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cutting corners and lack of concern for safety by operators and poor regulatory oversight were apparently the two primary factors responsible for Deepwater Horizon disaster on April 20, 2010. The accident killed 11 personal on board of the oil rig and injured 17 others. When the leak was finally capped after three months on July 15, it had spewed about 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Inadequate cleanup efforts will ensure that most of the oil will remain in the sea. The actual damage to marine and wildlife habitats and the impact on fishing and tourism will take years to be assessed, and the damage will continue for centuries. Freudenburg and Gramling, who have studied this overtly greedy enterprise for more than 30 years, gives a graphic account of the high risk game that is being played in some of the most dangerous places on the planet.

The oil industry over years has made profit the prime motive and made a whole series of cutbacks to further increase profits. Safety and regulatory compliance were given short shrift. The book traces the events leading to this major disaster, where the operators have defaulted many times in past. The authors however focuses on the four major fateful decisions: 1. improper installation of the final section of the casing; 2. using only six centralizers instead of the recommended 21 for cementing the final casing; 3. shorter time period over which mud was circulated in the well prior to cementing and; 4. canceling the test to test the integrity of the cement. All these deviations were purportedly made to save time and money. Poor management culture, especially where safety was concerned, both top-down and bottom-up was ultimately the root cause of this costly disaster.

While tracing the history of oil industry in the US and its moving from land to off-shore and then to deep off-shore the authors carefully document the perils of this endeavor and the factors that exacerbate them. The government regulators were pointedly lax with inspections and risk assessments. Money, sex and drugs figure in many of the controversies the concerned agency has courted in recent years. This was compounded by a situation where it was long known that officials, law-makers and even judiciary have strong oil interests at stake.

USA from being a major producer of oil in the 50s, continues to be a major consumer today though with only 7% stake in the world production and less than 2% of the remaining global resources. Even though warning signs were sounded as back as 1900s, the political games that were played in the aftermath of World War II made the country more and more depended on oil by destroying its public transport systems, discouraging multi-family housing and building inter-state highways. Instead of conserving this finite resource and using them judiciously, the country's policies rapidly decimated it in over a century. In return the country receives the lowest royalty rates in the world for its oil, and doles out maximum tax holidays and subsidies.

The attended risks in venturing into the deep sea with was well demonstrated by Santa Babara oil spill, Exxon Valdez and the now the Deepwater Horizon disaster. All have also equally shown the inadequacy and low technology of clean-up efforts, usually employing paper towels and such, which leaves behind more than 90% of the spilled oil in the seas. Learning from the past and preventing such costly mistakes involves improvements in safety techniques and having multiple checks in place - rather than one blow out preventer - and improving the odds by placing attention to each step of the procedures and assuring better corporate safety and public accountability culture. The authors call for exclusion - excluding errant companies -; regulation and refocusing to address these issues.

The books examines the myth of energy independence initiatives promoted for decades that has made the US more and more depended on foreign oil. The authors conclude with a call to rational thinking and policies that promote conservation to maximize life of the remaining oil; finding substitutes and alternate energy sources for the future; and end all policies that subsidizes and make oil cheap.

[Alec · Rating 4 out of 5]

BLOWOUT IN THE GULF was one of those non fiction books that doesn't bore you to death with information that nobody cares about. It kept me interested the whole way through which is hard for me personally. The authors of the book did a good job of explaining how the Deepwater Horizon exploded and the aftermath of the disaster. They also went on in detail about the first oil rigs of America and how they turned out. Another aspect of the book I liked was that it gave real world statistics to back up what they were trying to say. I gave this book a 4 out of 5 because a couple of times it did get wordy, but other than that it was a very interesting book. The recommended audience in my opinion would be a junior in high school and up due to the complex wording at times.

[Erika Westman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Freudenburg and Gramling know their stuff. Blowout in the Gulf was written as the Deepwater Horizon drama was unfolding, but the authors had intimate knowledge of the situation from years of research on the oil industry, risk, and disaster. What I like most about this book is the historical perspective it gives, how oil developed in the US from the mid to late 1800s, how the US has changed from the world's largest producer to an energy dependant, and how we got to the point where we're taking extreme risks -- politically and geographically -- to develop ever more scarce oil fields.

[Diener · Rating 4 out of 5]

Important, informative, and accessible, I highly recommend this book to anyone responsible for the consumption of fossil fuels (i.e., everyone).

[Dhanny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really useful book to understand what happen during the oil spill. It might not be perfect but it provides the necessary knowledge at times of less sources.