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A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea: The Race to Kill the BP Oil Gusher
It was a technological crisis in an alien a blown-out oil well in mile-deep water in the Gulf of Mexico. For the engineers who had to kill the well, this was like Apollo 13, a crisis no one saw coming, and one of untold danger and challenge.
A suspense story, a mystery, a technological This is Joel Achenbach’s groundbreaking account of the Deepwater Horizon disaster and what came after. The tragic explosion on the huge drilling rig in April 2010 killed eleven men and triggered an environmental disaster. As a gusher of crude surged into the Gulf’s waters, BP engineers and government scientists—awkwardly teamed in Houston—raced to devise ways to plug the Macondo well.
Achenbach, a veteran reporter for The Washington Post and acclaimed science writer for National Geographic, moves beyond the blame game to tell the gripping story of what it was like, behind the scenes, moment by moment, in the struggle to kill Macondo. Here are the controversies, the miscalculations, the frustrations, and ultimately the technical triumphs of men and women who worked out of sight and around the clock for months to find a way to plug the well.
The Deepwater Horizon disaster was an environmental 9/11. The government did not have the means to solve the problem; only the private sector had the tools, and it didn’t have the right ones as the country became haunted by Macondo’s black plume, which was omnipresent on TV and the Internet. Remotely operated vehicles, the spaceships of the deep, had to perform the challenging technical ma-neuvers on the seafloor. Engineers choreographed this robotic ballet and crammed years of innovation into a single summer. As he describes the drama in Houston, Achenbach probes the government investigation into what went wrong in the deep sea. This was a confounding mystery, an engineering whodunit. The lessons of this tragedy can be applied broadly to all complex enterprises and should make us look more closely at the highly engineered society that surrounds us.
Achenbach has written a cautionary tale that doubles as a technological thriller.
A suspense story, a mystery, a technological This is Joel Achenbach’s groundbreaking account of the Deepwater Horizon disaster and what came after. The tragic explosion on the huge drilling rig in April 2010 killed eleven men and triggered an environmental disaster. As a gusher of crude surged into the Gulf’s waters, BP engineers and government scientists—awkwardly teamed in Houston—raced to devise ways to plug the Macondo well.
Achenbach, a veteran reporter for The Washington Post and acclaimed science writer for National Geographic, moves beyond the blame game to tell the gripping story of what it was like, behind the scenes, moment by moment, in the struggle to kill Macondo. Here are the controversies, the miscalculations, the frustrations, and ultimately the technical triumphs of men and women who worked out of sight and around the clock for months to find a way to plug the well.
The Deepwater Horizon disaster was an environmental 9/11. The government did not have the means to solve the problem; only the private sector had the tools, and it didn’t have the right ones as the country became haunted by Macondo’s black plume, which was omnipresent on TV and the Internet. Remotely operated vehicles, the spaceships of the deep, had to perform the challenging technical ma-neuvers on the seafloor. Engineers choreographed this robotic ballet and crammed years of innovation into a single summer. As he describes the drama in Houston, Achenbach probes the government investigation into what went wrong in the deep sea. This was a confounding mystery, an engineering whodunit. The lessons of this tragedy can be applied broadly to all complex enterprises and should make us look more closely at the highly engineered society that surrounds us.
Achenbach has written a cautionary tale that doubles as a technological thriller.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published April 5, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
June 17, 2022
Many readers enjoy the genre of adventure dramas but in this case, drama was factual and the environmental and economic damage was all too real as well. From the executives visiting the Deepwater Horizon drilling into the Macondo Prospect to the explosion and the numerous attempts to shut down the connection to the reservoir gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Compared to the Apollo 13 disaster as both were in a hostile environment - one in space while the other was over 5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf although it was 18,360 feet to the reservoir. One could have resulted in the death of 3 individuals while the other had already killed 11. For all the attempts - so many failed for an assortment of reasons and the reader has to wonder why the engineers - especially those familiar with underwater drilling - didn't realize any possible complications ahead of time. Perhaps the need to be seen doing 'something' was more crucial than evaluating the entire procedure and problems beforehand.
The non-stop live video of the main plume had people practically shrieking in their demands to stop the spill. Big on demands, small on constructive ideas although BP received over 15,000 suggestions which, unfortunately, failed to consider the thunderous power of the oil, water, gas, sediment flow, the effects of water pressure at depth and the lack of integrity of the remaining technology. Then there was the concern from other nations of the Caribbean and the world with the valid fear the oil spill could be grabbed by the Gulf Stream current and would spread the contamination up the coast of the U.S and even across to Europe.
In the end, the wellhead was capped and the environmental cleanup continued for years. The well is still being monitored. The oil companies had gotten 'sloppy' over the decades of drilling as only 'minor' accidents happened. But this was a major one and I wonder how well the lessons were learned and incorporated into current procedures.
2022-121
Compared to the Apollo 13 disaster as both were in a hostile environment - one in space while the other was over 5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf although it was 18,360 feet to the reservoir. One could have resulted in the death of 3 individuals while the other had already killed 11. For all the attempts - so many failed for an assortment of reasons and the reader has to wonder why the engineers - especially those familiar with underwater drilling - didn't realize any possible complications ahead of time. Perhaps the need to be seen doing 'something' was more crucial than evaluating the entire procedure and problems beforehand.
The non-stop live video of the main plume had people practically shrieking in their demands to stop the spill. Big on demands, small on constructive ideas although BP received over 15,000 suggestions which, unfortunately, failed to consider the thunderous power of the oil, water, gas, sediment flow, the effects of water pressure at depth and the lack of integrity of the remaining technology. Then there was the concern from other nations of the Caribbean and the world with the valid fear the oil spill could be grabbed by the Gulf Stream current and would spread the contamination up the coast of the U.S and even across to Europe.
In the end, the wellhead was capped and the environmental cleanup continued for years. The well is still being monitored. The oil companies had gotten 'sloppy' over the decades of drilling as only 'minor' accidents happened. But this was a major one and I wonder how well the lessons were learned and incorporated into current procedures.
2022-121
September 5, 2011
Joel Achenbach is a Washington Post staff writer who was assigned to cover the BP oil spill in 2010. In this book, armed with information provided by the Marine Board of Investigation, government emails, and interviews, Achenbach guides readers through the events of this massive environmental disaster. The book starts with the events of April 20, 2010 when the BP-leased Transocean rig, the Deepwater Horizon, exploded in flames, killing eleven people. Achenbach then covers both the technical and political response to the unrelenting oil gusher until it was finally stopped. (The oil plume was stopped on July 15th, but the permanent cementing of the Macondo well didn’t occur until mid-September 2010, after some intermediary and exploratory steps.)
Review:
Like many Americans, I had followed the news stories on the BP oil spill with exasperation. A year later, I remembered that the gusher was finally stopped, but was fuzzy on how exactly it had been stopped.
A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea not only cleared up for me how the gusher had been killed, but also why I was fuzzy in the first place. Achenbach does a superb job of showing the disparity between what the American public understood from news reports and what was actually going on behind the scenes.
This seems like it would be a difficult story to parlay into layman’s terms. First of all, there is the complicated science and engineering aspect. Achenbach’s approach to this aspect was to include excerpts of technical documents and then afterwards explain the significance of them – the take-away knowledge. So for those readers who want some scientific detail, that information is there, but for those who don’t have the background for it (like me), shortcuts to basic understanding are provided.
The story is also complicated by the multitude of players from the corporate and government spheres. Occasionally, I needed to reference the index at the back to remind myself of when we had last encountered such-and-such person. Overall, though Achenbach introduced and reintroduced people well enough that I remembered their role in the disaster response as I read.
Not only does Achenbach bring clarity to the BP oil gusher story, but he also writes colorfully and with a nice dollop of humor here and there. Take this following excerpt:
"The well was spewing oil as fast as ever, and BP began to suspect that the flow had gotten worse; that the mudding of the well had scoured it out, opened it up, like nasal mist up a nostril. This would be a debatable point. What’s certain is that Macondo’s hydrocarbons continued to shoot out the well as if they’d been fantasizing about being in open water for ten million years."
p. 149-150
Isn’t that just so vivid? And pretty much the whole book is just that energetic and vivid.
As A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea was published in April 2011, and the events were so recent, I imagined Achenbach writing under a particularly tight schedule. Achenbach’s stylistic choices sometimes had the flavor of under-pressure inspiration. For instance, Achenbach will frequently use the phrase “what comes to mind is” as he makes a comparison. (He has a knack for offbeat but apt comparisons, as seen in the excerpt above). This phrase “what comes to mind is” conjured up for me the image of the writer’s mind busily casting out into his pool of images and analogies. In this way, A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea had a certain raw and transparent quality about it.
I looked forward to reading this book every time I picked it up. The epilogue is called “An Engineered Planet” and I’ll close with an excerpt of some of Achenbach’s big-picture conclusions:
"The human race is gambling that an engineered planet can be made sustainable, nuclear weapons controlled and managed, crops and livestock genetically modified, machines deftly crafted on the nanometer scale, the electrical grid revamped to be more highly networked and “smart,” and perhaps the entire planet “geoengineered” to combat climate change. As we go down this technological path, we will count on complex systems to work correctly. We will assume that someone smart is in charge, looking over our world, protecting us. We will imagine a world full of blowout preventers that will actually prevent blowouts."
p. 251
Review:
Like many Americans, I had followed the news stories on the BP oil spill with exasperation. A year later, I remembered that the gusher was finally stopped, but was fuzzy on how exactly it had been stopped.
A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea not only cleared up for me how the gusher had been killed, but also why I was fuzzy in the first place. Achenbach does a superb job of showing the disparity between what the American public understood from news reports and what was actually going on behind the scenes.
This seems like it would be a difficult story to parlay into layman’s terms. First of all, there is the complicated science and engineering aspect. Achenbach’s approach to this aspect was to include excerpts of technical documents and then afterwards explain the significance of them – the take-away knowledge. So for those readers who want some scientific detail, that information is there, but for those who don’t have the background for it (like me), shortcuts to basic understanding are provided.
The story is also complicated by the multitude of players from the corporate and government spheres. Occasionally, I needed to reference the index at the back to remind myself of when we had last encountered such-and-such person. Overall, though Achenbach introduced and reintroduced people well enough that I remembered their role in the disaster response as I read.
Not only does Achenbach bring clarity to the BP oil gusher story, but he also writes colorfully and with a nice dollop of humor here and there. Take this following excerpt:
"The well was spewing oil as fast as ever, and BP began to suspect that the flow had gotten worse; that the mudding of the well had scoured it out, opened it up, like nasal mist up a nostril. This would be a debatable point. What’s certain is that Macondo’s hydrocarbons continued to shoot out the well as if they’d been fantasizing about being in open water for ten million years."
p. 149-150
Isn’t that just so vivid? And pretty much the whole book is just that energetic and vivid.
As A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea was published in April 2011, and the events were so recent, I imagined Achenbach writing under a particularly tight schedule. Achenbach’s stylistic choices sometimes had the flavor of under-pressure inspiration. For instance, Achenbach will frequently use the phrase “what comes to mind is” as he makes a comparison. (He has a knack for offbeat but apt comparisons, as seen in the excerpt above). This phrase “what comes to mind is” conjured up for me the image of the writer’s mind busily casting out into his pool of images and analogies. In this way, A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea had a certain raw and transparent quality about it.
I looked forward to reading this book every time I picked it up. The epilogue is called “An Engineered Planet” and I’ll close with an excerpt of some of Achenbach’s big-picture conclusions:
"The human race is gambling that an engineered planet can be made sustainable, nuclear weapons controlled and managed, crops and livestock genetically modified, machines deftly crafted on the nanometer scale, the electrical grid revamped to be more highly networked and “smart,” and perhaps the entire planet “geoengineered” to combat climate change. As we go down this technological path, we will count on complex systems to work correctly. We will assume that someone smart is in charge, looking over our world, protecting us. We will imagine a world full of blowout preventers that will actually prevent blowouts."
p. 251
July 5, 2011
If you watched the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf, day after day, you might think there's not much to gain by reading a book that recounts the disaster. However, Achenbach's writing is so lively, and his ability to explain drilling techniques and the chemistry of petroleum is so good that I have to rate this as one of the best books I've read this year.
He is passionate but fair and conveys great respect for the engineers and scientists who fought desperately to bring the Macondo well under control. He can be very funny, e.g., a speech he suggested that Obama might have (but of course didn't) deliver to vent his frustration with all the experts. He is also a thoughtful person, who reflects carefully on the long-term implications of the disaster, whose full impact won't be know for years.
One of the most interesting points he raises is a book by Charles Perrow, published in 1984, called "Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies." Perrow contends that disasters, while rare, are to be expected from the very nature of complex systems. Or as Achenbach concludes, "When doing something risky, remember that risk builds like plaque" and "low-probability, high-consequence events become more likely, given enough time and opportunity."
He is passionate but fair and conveys great respect for the engineers and scientists who fought desperately to bring the Macondo well under control. He can be very funny, e.g., a speech he suggested that Obama might have (but of course didn't) deliver to vent his frustration with all the experts. He is also a thoughtful person, who reflects carefully on the long-term implications of the disaster, whose full impact won't be know for years.
One of the most interesting points he raises is a book by Charles Perrow, published in 1984, called "Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies." Perrow contends that disasters, while rare, are to be expected from the very nature of complex systems. Or as Achenbach concludes, "When doing something risky, remember that risk builds like plaque" and "low-probability, high-consequence events become more likely, given enough time and opportunity."
December 9, 2016
This book was a fairly decent and somewhat technical overview of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. It starts when the rig sunk but mostly covers the months and months BP & the government tried to figure out how to stop the gusher.
I recommend you read Fire On The Horizon: The Untold Story Of The Gulf Oil Disaster before reading this book, because it does a much better job of explaining the technical details.
I recommend you read Fire On The Horizon: The Untold Story Of The Gulf Oil Disaster before reading this book, because it does a much better job of explaining the technical details.
August 28, 2017
Interesting and insightful
A very interesting telling of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, with particular focus on the efforts after the blowout and sinking of the rig to stop the oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico. Very interesting look at the overall complexity of modern technological systems that make serious problems like the blowout and oil rig disaster that killed 11 men and possibly fully unknowable environmental damage should not be unexpected.
A very interesting telling of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, with particular focus on the efforts after the blowout and sinking of the rig to stop the oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico. Very interesting look at the overall complexity of modern technological systems that make serious problems like the blowout and oil rig disaster that killed 11 men and possibly fully unknowable environmental damage should not be unexpected.
Read
July 21, 2021This wasn't a bad book, but....I finished it still to really knowing what happened.
November 10, 2015
This was a gripping book. It brought back very vivid memories of that summer, and accurately captured the feeling that pervaded the atmosphere - the desperation, the despair, the sickening nausea at the pit of my stomach. Even though I didn't live there, I drove down to the coast myself, to witness a little of what was actually happening - the deserted beaches at the height of summer, the dead fish and globs of oil washing up, the sensation of entering a ghost town of sorts (or several ghost towns, in my case). I have family and friends there that were directly impacted, and even for those that didn't/don't, this story still affects us all.
Even with all of the painful parts, this book had the effect of retroactively soothing my soul, in part. There were so many things that were covered that I never had the least notion were occurring as they happened. Numerous scenarios were workshopped; some were attempted, some not. From a political point of view, I can understand them ("them" being the government and BP) not sharing their every plan with the public. However, it definitely made it harder for their image among the public in many ways; because we weren't aware of their plans, it felt like nothing was happening. At the time, I felt like probably someone had to be working on something; the lack of details, however, filled me with doubt and immense frustration. There were many people working around the clock on this issue, and this book goes into detail on them and what they did.
My only real complaint with the book was the sometimes highly technical parts that were sort of skimmed over. I wished that he had gone into more detail at times. He would mention things - machinery, parts, processes - and then move on, without providing a clearer picture for the more uneducated (in drilling) mind. Maybe I just have weak spatial thinking skills, but I had a difficult time visualizing some of the things that he talked about - the machinery, the size of things, the rig itself, certain procedures they used, and so on. I wished that some images could have been included in the book, illustrating the concepts that he discussed. I did a lot of Google-imaging, which helped.
All in all, a highly informative and engrossing read.
Even with all of the painful parts, this book had the effect of retroactively soothing my soul, in part. There were so many things that were covered that I never had the least notion were occurring as they happened. Numerous scenarios were workshopped; some were attempted, some not. From a political point of view, I can understand them ("them" being the government and BP) not sharing their every plan with the public. However, it definitely made it harder for their image among the public in many ways; because we weren't aware of their plans, it felt like nothing was happening. At the time, I felt like probably someone had to be working on something; the lack of details, however, filled me with doubt and immense frustration. There were many people working around the clock on this issue, and this book goes into detail on them and what they did.
My only real complaint with the book was the sometimes highly technical parts that were sort of skimmed over. I wished that he had gone into more detail at times. He would mention things - machinery, parts, processes - and then move on, without providing a clearer picture for the more uneducated (in drilling) mind. Maybe I just have weak spatial thinking skills, but I had a difficult time visualizing some of the things that he talked about - the machinery, the size of things, the rig itself, certain procedures they used, and so on. I wished that some images could have been included in the book, illustrating the concepts that he discussed. I did a lot of Google-imaging, which helped.
All in all, a highly informative and engrossing read.
July 28, 2012
X-Post:
http://noladishu.blogspot.com/2012/07...
A Hole in the Bottom of the Sea focuses on the post-blowout oil spill response (capping, top kill, top hat, etc.). In Fire on the Horizon, the rig didn't blow until page 200 or so. In this book, the rig blows up on page 30 and the well intervention lasts past page 200.
The writer has a background as a science writer for National Geographic. On the plus side, that means he has a firm understanding of things like measurement uncertainty, error bars, etc. On the downside, he has no technical background so there are some errors that are pretty blatant (for instance, he confuses erosion and corrosion, two completely different processes) that still make it into this edition.
Note that I picked up the post-Fukushima paperback copy. This book has been through at least 3 editions, from what I gather. That probably fixed a lot of earlier errors.
The writer has one soapboxy-bit: 'We now live in an engineered world and we'd better accept it.' Achenbach also probably managed to have carnal knowledge of his thesaurus as he wrote this book.
If you're interested in the well intervention (and only the well intervention) this is a great book, but the definitive Deepwater Horizon book has yet to be written. I'm waiting on David Hammer to write it...
Also-
Track 6 Here:
http://www.legalsounds.com/download-m...
http://noladishu.blogspot.com/2012/07...
A Hole in the Bottom of the Sea focuses on the post-blowout oil spill response (capping, top kill, top hat, etc.). In Fire on the Horizon, the rig didn't blow until page 200 or so. In this book, the rig blows up on page 30 and the well intervention lasts past page 200.
The writer has a background as a science writer for National Geographic. On the plus side, that means he has a firm understanding of things like measurement uncertainty, error bars, etc. On the downside, he has no technical background so there are some errors that are pretty blatant (for instance, he confuses erosion and corrosion, two completely different processes) that still make it into this edition.
Note that I picked up the post-Fukushima paperback copy. This book has been through at least 3 editions, from what I gather. That probably fixed a lot of earlier errors.
The writer has one soapboxy-bit: 'We now live in an engineered world and we'd better accept it.' Achenbach also probably managed to have carnal knowledge of his thesaurus as he wrote this book.
If you're interested in the well intervention (and only the well intervention) this is a great book, but the definitive Deepwater Horizon book has yet to be written. I'm waiting on David Hammer to write it...
Also-
Track 6 Here:
http://www.legalsounds.com/download-m...
November 30, 2012
Remember that summer when there was a horrible oil leak in the Gulf, and no one could stop it, and everything sucked because that oil was gushing and gushing ALL day EVERY day? And people were constantly ranting about how come we can have a space program but we can't fix this leak?
This book explores what was actually going on in those horrible months before the Web spill cam finally showed clear water. Namely:
--There was a 'Super Friends' style response team composed of national geniuses who worked alongside BP. They emailed each other constantly, debating stuff. One of them refuted another's point by scanning and emailing 7 pages of handwritten notes from Enrico Fermi. (He just happened to have those lying around.)
--All the good investigative work about blame for the disaster happened in a very low-budget meeting room in a Holiday Inn.
--Verizon tried to cut off a conference call between the rig workers and Houston just as they were beginning the delicate operation that would lead to the plugging of the well.
And more. Entertaining and emotional, Achenbach's book does lack a couple of things I would have liked to see. Like diagrams. And some discussion of why reporters were kept away from crucial oil spill areas, preventing them from reporting on the extent of the disaster. But still, very much worth a read, especially with BP back in the news.
This book explores what was actually going on in those horrible months before the Web spill cam finally showed clear water. Namely:
--There was a 'Super Friends' style response team composed of national geniuses who worked alongside BP. They emailed each other constantly, debating stuff. One of them refuted another's point by scanning and emailing 7 pages of handwritten notes from Enrico Fermi. (He just happened to have those lying around.)
--All the good investigative work about blame for the disaster happened in a very low-budget meeting room in a Holiday Inn.
--Verizon tried to cut off a conference call between the rig workers and Houston just as they were beginning the delicate operation that would lead to the plugging of the well.
And more. Entertaining and emotional, Achenbach's book does lack a couple of things I would have liked to see. Like diagrams. And some discussion of why reporters were kept away from crucial oil spill areas, preventing them from reporting on the extent of the disaster. But still, very much worth a read, especially with BP back in the news.
April 18, 2011
I found this book to fairly represent all parties involved in this complex disaster. Written by Joel Achenbach, of the Washington Post, I found his writing style to be informative, based on fact, and devoid of finger pointing. I certainly have a better understanding of the facts to date and realize that it may be years before the true problems with the Macondo oil well are fully understood. It did educate me regarding the danger of deep water drilling and why legislation related to deep water drilling needs to be carefully balanced against our need to cut our dependancy on foreign oil. In addition, there were many kernels of wise business advice dispersed throughout the book, especially for those that work in teams that need to coordinate together, but work parallel with each other rather than in a continual collaborative work style. I highly recommend the book - I learned a great deal and found it time well spent.
July 3, 2011
This is one of the most thought-provoking books I've read all year, and, although I'm not sure Achenbach intended it to be so, a powerful argument in favor of patience and moderation in the face of technological disaster. One of the lessons from the response to the BP spill was that, believe it or not, everyone did a pretty good job -- federal government and BP included -- while the public, misinformed by an impatient and judgmental media, demanded symbolic action that distracted from actually shutting off the well. (Although it also makes clear that the blowup shouldn't have happened in the first place -- and you CAN blame BP and the government for that, in whatever proportion suits your political leaning.)
Very good sourcing and documentation, extremely well told by one of the masters of explanatory journalism, and you'll learn a lot.
Very good sourcing and documentation, extremely well told by one of the masters of explanatory journalism, and you'll learn a lot.
April 19, 2011
Light, breezy, easy-to-read. Short on technical details but correspondingly accessable for the average reader. The author's heritage as a newspaper reporter shines through in ways both good and bad. The upside is that the story reads like a potboiler. The downside is that the style often overwhelms the story. Fortunately, the author's style is both entertaining and produces good writing. Bottom line: this book won't provide any conclusive technical insights into the disaster, but does provide much needed perspective that goes past the first layer of media hype and pre-packaged characterizations of villians and heroes around the story.
July 21, 2011
Achenbach mostly succeeds at writing about the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster as a thriller. However, he can't avoid getting mired in technical details about top hats, blind shear rams, and blowout preventers for a hundred pages or so. I admire him for not dumbing-down the story, but even though (or maybe because) I work for the pipeline regulators, I found myself needing to re-read several pages to try to understand what the heck was happening. This book gave me a new perspective on BP's role in and responsibility for the disaster. Surprisingly, I now feel more goodwill towards BP than I have since the well blew out.
September 23, 2011
Here's what I tell people about this book: it reads like a novel, and periodically you remind yourself that this horrible thing actually happened. The research goes well beyond asking what happened, but digs into the how's and why's as well. You may be disappointed to recognize yourself somewhere among the characters in this book, because there is human error and hubris throughout. What really set this book apart, for me, was the way that the author pulls the themes together in the final chapter, so that it's not just a book about one crisis, but a book that examines the lessons that are learned (sometimes very painfully) from a crisis. A spectacular non-fiction read.
April 24, 2011
Even if you did not follow this story at all, except maybe to say "how awful," you should read this book. The people that were snippets in the news are characters here, and it gives you an understanding both of what happened--all the difficult and sciencey concepts are well-explained in a non-annoying way--and who was affected and how. (And then part of what you realize is that we all are.) Really good.
May 22, 2011
Because of my background as a petroleum geologist I was very interested in the details of the BP oil spill and followed the news closely while the eforts were underway to contain the blowout.
I read this book hoping to get some additional detail on what exactly went wrong. I got none at all, so I can't rate the book more than 2 stars.
This book could be a 3 or even a 4 star book for the general reader interested in a non-technical overview of the disaster.
I read this book hoping to get some additional detail on what exactly went wrong. I got none at all, so I can't rate the book more than 2 stars.
This book could be a 3 or even a 4 star book for the general reader interested in a non-technical overview of the disaster.
April 29, 2011
Lively and informative book that gives narrative detail to the 2010 Gulf oil spill. Achenbach, a Washington Post reporter and blogger, is a terrific writer with a great sense of humor and a knack for making complicated science and technology understandable without pandering. Also recommend his "Why Things Are" books, volumes I and II, and "George Washington's Potomac and the Race for the West."
May 30, 2012
The book is actually very well researched and written. For me it bordered on waste of time, it repeated what was covered extensively in the press during this ecological tragedy. I picked up the book because the author got my attention in the book festival last month. It's not that the book had nothing new, but nothing new that was close to shattering............
August 25, 2013
Joe Achenbach is an exceptional writer who lays bare each step that led to the Deepwater Horizon explosion. He manages to take volumes of technical information and make them easily accessible to the average reader. In addition, Achenbach's book is thrilling, compelling, and as interesting as the best mystery novels.
November 17, 2013
A very comprehensive depiction of the BP Oil Gusher, and the causes of that horrific event. The nature of the subject matter-- very technical descriptions about machinery & technology most people know nothing about-- made the book slightly dry.
September 16, 2014
This book really brought to light the human tragedy of the Macondo well, Deepwater Horizon disaster as well as the technical and legal complications. The author did a great job of explaining everything in layman terms and the private accounts and discussions of the incident were very interesting.
August 8, 2011
An excellent look at the response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster by the government and BP, illuminating their often conflicting viewpoints and methods of responding to the crisis.
October 5, 2011
Ahenbach makes this read more like a story not a live event. It provides an interesting look into what was going on behind the scenes with the DeepWater Horizon event.
January 5, 2012
Good blow-by-blow, but too much editorializing. Achenbach should let the characters and the events speak for themselves.
Read
August 18, 2011Joel is a genius.
June 23, 2012
My only critique would be: too short.
March 9, 2012
Fascinating and snarky behind-the-scenes look at the oil gusher. Doesn't give anyone a pass on their contribution to the disaster.
February 23, 2012
Great book, really great description of the disaster. If you are interested in the entire event, I strongly reccommend this book.
May 8, 2016
An interesting look at what happened and how experts and BP tried to solve it. Also a thoughtful piece in the epilogue about disasters and how we react to increasingly complex technology.
December 26, 2016
Technical view of Deepwater Horizon accident- way too technical!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews