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William R. Freudenburg

Blowout in the Gulf: The BP Oil Spill Disaster and the Future of Energy in America (The MIT Press) Hardcover – October 18, 2010

by William R. Freudenburg (Author), Robert Gramling (Author)

3.5 18 ratings

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

On April 20, 2010, the gigantic drilling rig Deepwater Horizon blew up in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven crew members and causing a massive eruption of oil from BP's Macondo well. For months, oil gushed into the Gulf, spreading death and destruction. Americans watched real-time video of the huge column of oil and gas spewing from the obviously failed “blowout preventer.” What was missing, though, was the larger story of this disaster. In Blowout in the Gulf, energy experts William Freudenburg and Robert Gramling explain both the disaster and the decisions that led up to it.

Blowout in the Gulf weaves a fascinating narrative of failures, missteps, and bad decisions, explaining why this oil spill was a disaster waiting to happen―and how making better energy choices will help prevent others like it.

Print length

272 pages
Language

English
Publisher

The MIT Press
Publication date

October 18, 2010
Dimensions

5.38 x 0.88 x 8 inches
ISBN-10

0262015838
ISBN-13

978-0262015837
See all details

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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

A gush of books about the BP oil disaster approaches as the investigation into its causes proceeds apace. Freudenburg and Gramling have a head start: they’ve been studying and writing about energy issues and offshore oil drilling for three decades. Drawing on their deep knowledge, they set the deadly BP blowout within a technologically precise history of oil in America, from the first primitivelyconstructed well on land to the development of offshore rigs, explaining that the Deepwater Horizon was actually a technical marvel—if only its operation hadn’t been compromised. Here is a full accounting of BP’s many previous accidents and violations—the company was the worst in the industry for its safety-sacrificing cost cutting. Freudenburg and Gramling also tell the story of the corporation’s first incarnation as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1909 and how it became British Petroleum in 1954. Science, commerce, and the politics of oil are all newly illuminated here, accompanied by invaluable explanations of the risks of offshore drilling and a pragmatic look at the energy conundrums we now face. --Donna Seaman

Review

For a comprehensive and systematic walk-through of how the BP spill played out before, during, and after the Macondo blowout, this book's a good pick. Exploring the technical side of things without sacrificing readability, the authors explain the disaster in its social, political, and scientific contexts.

―Green Life (Sierra Club)

For readers interested in knowing more about events leading up to the spill, Blowout in the Gulf provides a solid description of what is now known. The authors examine the technology, geology, management decisions, and regulatory actions involved, and they also provide enough background for general readers to digest these specifics.

―Times Higher Education

Here is a full accounting of BP's many previous accidents and violations―the company was the worst in the industry for its safety-sacrificing cost cutting. Freudenburg and Gramling also tell the story of the corporation's first incarnation as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1909 and how it became British Petroleum in 1954. Science, commerce, and the politics of oil are all newly illuminated here, accompanied by invaluable explanations of the risks of offshore drilling and a pragmatic look at the energy conundrums we now face.

―Booklist

In this intelligent and refreshingly readable―f inevitably depressing―expose, Freudenburg and Gramling, professors of environmental studies and sociology respectively, and longtime collaborators and observers of the oil industry, analyze the origins of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and its aftermath....Readers interested in energy crisis, peak oil, environmental and climate change issues will appreciate the straightforward analysis and will hope this important book finds its way into the hands of policy makers.

―Publishers Weekly

The authors make solid points about the way the U.S. government has allowed big oil companies to march into public waters, about how the much-admired interstate highway system contributed to a fateful boom in U.S. oil consumption and about the way Americans ravenously consume oil and gas today.

―The Washington Post

An excellent book for seminar courses on energy. Highly recommended.

―Choice

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ The MIT Press; First Edition (October 18, 2010)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0262015838
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0262015837
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.38 x 0.88 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,901,307 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #236 in Waste Management
- #2,283 in Natural Resources (Books)
- #2,311 in Environmental Policy

Customer Reviews:
3.5 18 ratings

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3.5 out of 5

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ls

Not bad info but not what I wanted

Reviewed in the United States on February 3, 2011

Verified Purchase

The first 2 chapters in this book are about the BP oil spill...the 3rd chapter is also somewhat helpful but most of this book is about the oil industry with the added context of the oil spill which is not what I was wanted. If you want a comprehensive report of exactly what happened in the gulf this is not what you want. You want the final report at oilspillcommission.gov. Granted it's fairly long but it includes a lot of good information and is totally free.

One person found this helpful

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JimBob

Wonderful book! Finally something that explains the problem

Reviewed in the United States on November 22, 2010

Verified Purchase

This is a great book (although I agree the Kindle version is pretty frustrating as the charts don't show up). Rather than just stating "Oil Bad!", the authors do a great job of explaining the history of oil drilling in general and deep water drilling in particular. I was also surprised to hear how many years it has been since the United States was even marginally "energy independent". This book presents an excellent wake-up call for the rest of us! Highly recommended, but get the print version

5 people found this helpful

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David A. Mccrae

Looking Through Your Rear View Mirror

Reviewed in the United States on October 23, 2010

Verified Purchase

I was on shore when I saw the Deepwater Horizon burning on CNN. I mentioned that the ocean was the only thing that was going to put that fire out, which it did about 4 hours later. I've been waiting to read a book-length exposition of the chain of human failures leading to what I knew then was going to be an area problem for twenty years. This is not the book.
This is a good collection, all in one spot, of the author's collection of 3x5 index cards, loosely organized to show the historical development of the extraction of natural resources for our use here in America, and the failure of responsible management along the way. The truth is that engineering resources have provided an amazing opportunity these past hundred years for people and companies to supply convenience and simultaneously earn mind boggling sums of money, and that opportunity has been largely unrestrained up to now.
I'm still looking for a book that can give us a responsible path forward. I can recommend '$20 per Gallon' in this genre of work, or the biographies of Howard Hughes or Armand Hammer for more background information. If you haven't read through the 'Confessions of an Economic Hitman' series yet, your time and money would be better spent.
As more information on the Deepwater Horizon comes out in various courts, I expect we'll see dramatic changes in practice and oversight.

6 people found this helpful

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J.A. (John) Turley, author, The Simple Truth

From a fellow author, J.A. (John) Turley

Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2012

Verified Purchase

Blowout in the Gulf is a good read. The academic authors address the impact of BP's blowout and link it to a number of chapters about the environmental tragedy, social impacts, politics, and energy independence. Their book became a good resource as I wrote my book about the cause of the disaster . . . The Simple Truth: BP's Macondo Blowout

One person found this helpful

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Ngo Bao

Get a printed copy

Reviewed in the United States on November 20, 2010

Verified Purchase

Do not get a Kindle version of this book, at least until Amazon figures out how to convert figures and charts. Most of the "figures" in the book are just black boxes.

4 people found this helpful

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L.W. Brittian

as advertised

Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2014

Verified Purchase

as advertised

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Harikrishnan Tulsidas

Future in balance

Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2011

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.

Helpful

Kenneth W Oyler

Some good info, but written too soon

Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2011

This book has a lot of background information about the current state of the oil production and demand. However, they quickly jumped on the "all oil companies are greedy" bandwagon, without taking a pure independent view of how things work. For instance the arthurs repeatedly state how low the royalty rate is the USA. They simply blame "backdoor deals" with congress without taking an objective view of the numbers and why the royalty rates need to stay low in the USA. Higher royalty rates will simply make many oilfields unprofitable, and thus actual total royalty revenue will go down. The arthurs fail to even mention this possiblity. I also suggest the authors go back and amend the chapters dealing with the Horizon incident as many of their claims have now been proven false. Sadly, many will read this book in the future and take it as gospel, with out realizing the truth.

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