Skeinz is a yarn store. Their current newsletter is sending out a request for penguin sweaters due to the oil spill off New Zealand. Surprisingly, knitted wear for penguins is not a new thing.
posted by curious nu on Oct 19, 2011 - 8 comments

Sometime Sunday evening, an oil pipeline burst over Talmadge Creek near Marshall, Michigan, spilling an estimated 840,000 gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River. [more inside]
posted by Baby_Balrog on Jul 27, 2010 - 31 comments

The pipe spewing oil into the gulf has been cut as part of the next plan to cap the leak. BP had planned to use a diamond edged saw, but it got stuck while cutting through the pipe, and they had to use shears instead. However, the shears "resulted in a jagged cut, meaning that the containment cap will fit less snugly." [more inside]
posted by insectosaurus on Jun 3, 2010 - 255 comments

On May 10th, 2010 ExxonMobile had an oil spill in Nigeria Delta. It is somewhere around the 16th worst oil spill in [wikipedia reported] world history, at 95,000 tonnes (696,350 barrels or 214,475,800 gallons). Nigeria's agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it. Oil spills are a regular occurrence in Nigeria, about 300 a year, it is estimated over the past 50 years about 1.5 million tons have been dumped in the Delta, equivalent to the Gulf War oil spill (the largest spill on record) or 50+ Exxon Valdez. [more inside]
posted by stbalbach on May 30, 2010 - 50 comments

Top kill has failed, and oil is still pouring into the gulf

Doug Suttles, COO of BP: "This scares everybody - the fact that we can't make this well stop flowing" [more inside]
posted by crayz on May 30, 2010 - 387 comments

'Top Kill' seems to have worked, Apparently stopping the flow of oil -- now officially estimated by the government to have been about 12,000-19,000 barrels/day, with 75% most of the volume being gas ABC News Dives below the surface to get a look at plumes of 'dispersed' oil: (spoiler alert: not pretty). And a BP exec takes the 5th, refusing to testify before a federal panel.
posted by delmoi on May 27, 2010 - 235 comments

Kinder Morgan oil pipeline ruptured near Vancouver, British Columbia Thick, black oil dripped from lampposts, splattered across suburban lawns and crept into Burrard Inlet after a geyser of crude spewed from a burst Kinder Morgan pipeline Tuesday. [google news] Work crews ripped into the TransMountain pipeline about 12:30 p.m., causing the oil to "explode," as one witness put it, from the ground and burble up from manholes, pouring down streets toward the ocean, according to witnesses. Kinder Morgan bought the pipeline from a Canadian utility in 2005, and is known as a "poster child for pipeline problems." More Kinder Morgan accidents.
posted by KokuRyu on Jul 24, 2007 - 38 comments

Photos and more photos from the Nautile’s firsts dives to the Prestige wreck, a single-hulled tanker that broke in two while it was towed to open sea after the discovery of a breach in its hull.

It has been an ecologic and economic disaster for Galicia, Spanish’ northwest coastal region famous for its seafood. But it also has been a political scandal for the PP (Partido Popular), in the government both in Galicia’s autonomic parliament and in the central government, because of its late response and efforts to hide the catastrophe manipulating the public broadcast system (and the friendly private networks). Too little, too late, Jose Maria Aznar.

While politicians throw shit to each other, a quarter of the 20.5 million gallons of fuel oil already spilled are now spreading through the coastline covering everything with what locals call “chapapote”, a sticky mix of sea water, fuel oil and sand. The Prestige sits now at 3.500 meters of depth, slowly leaking fuel oil to the surface. The Nautile, one of the few mini submarine that has been used to record and take pictures from the Titanic wreck, it’s being hired by the Spanish government to asses the situation (Spanish language link) and try to stop the leakage.

Popular action in the form of a white tide of volunteers has been phenomenal, forcing the government to act and assume responsibilities. But the issue at hand is much larger: will the European Union effectively ban single-hulled tankers? Why the rules that govern the seas permit flag of convenience ships that can elude so easily its responsibility?

See more images (slideshow).
posted by samelborp on Dec 19, 2002 - 12 comments