“Really, the worst part of the disaster in Japan, as far as the industry goes, is that it’s going to make it that much harder to convince the public that nuclear power can be safe, clean, and efficient. To put it in perspective, in 2008 Next Big Future calculated how many people are killed per terawatt-hour of electricity generated. On average, there are 161 fatalities related to energy generation from coal for each one of those terawatt-hours, which comprise a quarter of the energy we use on Earth. 36 people die per TWh of oil energy, which is 40% of our energy use. Nuclear power has a deaths per TWh rate of only 0.04 while producing 6% of our energy, which makes it about ten times safer than solar power once you take into account how many people fall off roofs while installing it, and twice as safe as hydro power.”
“Exploratory drilling off Israel’s northern coast this week has confirmed the existence of a major natural gas field — one of the world’s largest offshore gas finds of the past decade — leading the country’s infrastructure minister to call it ‘the most important energy news since the founding of the state.’”
“From 1956 to 2006, for every dollar invested in all forms of rail, the nation invested six dollars in aviation and 16 dollars in highways.”
“My challenge to you, the average citizen, is simply to care. Believe me, I’d love to hang up my tweetin’ trousers sometimes. I’ve already posted 440 tweets about bp and I’m ready to write about other things, but we can’t let BP slide. We have to keep shining a light on them. Look at the way they’ve acted thus far! Do you think they’re going to change now that the well is capped? They are going to keep trying to play it down, shirk their responsibilities and in the meantime, they’re going to pursue bigger and potentially more dangerous drilling operations. We have to pay attention, we have to care or this could happen again.”
“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me eight times, am I a fucking idiot? … The last eight presidents have gone on television and promised to move us toward an energy independent future.” -Jon Stewart
From a comment on The Oil Drum:
Contrary to what most of us would think as logical to stop the oil mess, actually opening up the gushing well and making it gush more became direction BP took after confirming that there was a leak. In fact if you note their actions, that should become clear. They have shifted from stopping or restricting the gusher to opening it up and catching it. This only makes sense if they want to relieve pressure at the leak hidden down below the seabed…..and that sort of leak is one of the most dangerous and potentially damaging kind of leak there could be. It is also inaccessible which compounds our problems. There is no way to stop that leak from above, all they can do is relieve the pressure on it and the only way to do that right now is to open up the nozzle above and gush more oil into the gulf and hopefully catch it, which they have done, they just neglected to tell us why, gee thanks.
