Lisa Margonelli, the author of Oil On the Brain: Petroleum’s Long Strange Trip to Your Tank has written a startling piece for The Atlantic, “The End of Magical Oil.“ Fun facts:
- Between 1995 and 2004, deepwater production grew by 535%.
- By 2008, 25 to 30 percent of the reservoirs in the Gulf had pressure issues, which MMS and industry were trying to figure out.
- Since 1997, MMS has issued only one notice on deepwater blowout preventer inspections.
- Deepwater production was projected to jump to 2.1 million barrels a day by 2016.
Read the whole article. It’s disturbing and frustrating.