Daily Archives: May 4, 2017

BBC News

French election: Macron takes action over offshore claims BBC News The frontrunner in the race for the French presidency, Emmanuel Macron, has filed a lawsuit over online rumours that he has a secret bank account in the Caribbean. Prosecutors in Paris have opened an investigation following his complaint. The news came ... Emmanuel Macron launches legal complaint over offshore account allegations spread by Marine Le PenThe Independent Macron Lodges Complaint With French Prosecutor Over Offshore Account AllegationsU.S. News & World Report Emmanuel Macron files complaint after Marine Le Pen's 'offshore account' claimThe Hindu euronews -NDTV -Firstpost all 1,262 news articles »

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French election: Macron takes action over offshore claims - BBC News

President Trump was the clincher: He wants more offshore oil drilling, so forget it. California is right to put up the barricades.

This guy just cant be trusted. He shows no respect for history or the truth. No way should California place its beautiful beaches in his soiled hands.

One of this presidents latest head-shakers, after all, was to claim in a newspaper interview that Andrew Jackson was really angry about the Civil War. He said, Theres no reason for this.

But Jackson had been dead 16 years before the first shot was fired.

Further wounding himself, Trump added: Why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?

As any middle-school kid could tell him, the Civil War was about slavery. What would have been the compromise? Free the women and children, but keep the men in chains? Phase it out over a few generations?

This is not about Trumps ideology and beliefs. Its about his not seeming to have any beliefs and therefore being unpredictable.

Trump should not be the judge of how much oil spill risk is acceptable to California. The answer is none.

And the oil companies cant be trusted either, despite their repeated insistence that modern drilling has become much safer because of new technologies.

Full confession: I used to buy into that. Nine years ago I wrote a column advocating the renewal of drilling off the California coast. The country needed to reduce its oil imports and produce more of its own, I wrote. Oil exploration provided good paying jobs. California could use the tax revenue.

And drilling had become a lot safer than nearly 40 years earlier when a Union Oil platform six miles off Santa Barbara spilled crud all over the coast from Goleta to Ventura while also fouling the Channel Islands. An estimated 3,500 sea birds were killed, plus dolphins, elephant seals and sea lions.

At the time, in 1969, it was the largest oil spill ever in U.S. waters.

Four decades later, it seemed like the oil industry had become a bit more enlightened. So I plugged more offshore drilling.

Admittedly, I was biased. My dad worked on oil rigs in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties most of his adult life. My first summer job out of high school was in an oil field. While many considered oil derricks unsightly, I found them fascinating.

But I loved the surf and the beaches a lot more. Oil-tinted breakers depicted the devil.

What started turning me around was the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 people and injured 17. An estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil were unleashed in the worlds biggest marine spill. So much for safety. Where theres offshore drilling, no beaches are safe. Period.

Now Trump has asked the Interior Department to reconsider several safety regulations imposed after the Horizon spill. That could make offshore drilling even more dangerous.

And he has signed an executive order that could open the Pacific, Arctic and Atlantic oceans to new drilling in federal waters.

California will fight this every step of the way, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) pledged.

In Sacramento, state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) said shell push legislation that would block any oil pumped in federal waters from reaching Californias shore. It would forbid the state Lands Commission from allowing any new pipeline or other facility to handle expanded oil flow.

If they want to go out and sell leases and try to develop new production in federal waters, were not going to provide them with the infrastructure to transport the oil on shore, Jackson said. Were going to make the three miles we control a no-oil zone.

Updates from Sacramento

Federal waters are those between three and 12 miles off the coast.

Gov. Jerry Brown undoubtedly would sign the bill. He and the Democratic governors of Oregon and Washington released a statement calling Trumps action short-sighted, adding: We cannot return to the days where the federal government put the interests of big oil above our communities and treasured coastline.

The Lands Commission needs no convincing. Its already dead-set against allowing more offshore oil to reach land.

Californias door is closed to President Trumps Pacific oil and gas drilling, announced Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, the commission chairman.

The three Democratic commissioners, Newsom said, will ensure that any oil and gas product from new drilling never makes landfall in California.

Anyway, all these Democrats emphasize, California is leading an effort to save the planet from global warming by dramatically reducing the burning of fossil fuel and increasing reliance on renewable energy. Force the oil companies to develop clean energy sources, they say.

There are 27 oil platforms off the California coast. But there havent been any new leases in state waters since the Santa Barbara spill, and none in federal waters since 1984.

Youre not likely to see any new ones either. The California coast, fortunately, is a dry hole for Trump.

george.skelton@latimes.com

Follow @LATimesSkelton on Twitter

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An earlier version of this article contained a quote from a Union Oil official, published during original coverage of the spill, that turned out to be erroneous. It has been removed.

See more here:

California is right to close its door to offshore drilling Trump can't be trusted with our beaches - Los Angeles Times

Americas first offshore wind farm just helped to shut down a small diesel-fired electric power plant on Block Island, Rhode Island.

Block Island officials on Monday switched on a connection between the island and a cable linking the wind farm to Rhode Islands mainland power grid. The connection allowed the islands only electricity source a small diesel-fueled power plant to shut down. The islands 2,000 residents burned about 1 million gallons of diesel fuel annually.

The emissions that go along with nearly a million gallons of diesel a year thats all going to go away, said Jeff Wright, chief executive of the Block Island Power Co.

Diesel releases more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than any other common petroleum-based fuel except for residential fuel oil, according to the EPA. Less than 1 percent of electricity in the U.S. is generated using liquid petroleum, including diesel.

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Until now, Block Islands power grid was completely isolated from the mainland. The construction of the wind farm and its connection to the mainland allowed the island to connect to the New England power grid for the first time.

Mike Jacobs, an energy analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the Block Island connection is an example of how renewables are helping to displace fossil fuels on the power grid.

Though offshore wind farms are common in Europe, the Block Island Wind Farm is the first ever built in the U.S. a demonstration meant to help prove the viability of offshore wind in the U.S.

The farm marked a historic moment last December when its five wind turbines generated electricity commercially for the first time. The occasion marked the birth of an industry that the Obama administration hoped would flourish off the Atlantic coast, helping to wean the U.S. away from electricity generated using fossil fuels.

The offshore wind power potential in the U.S. is huge. If fully developed, offshore turbines could supply four times todays total U.S. electricity generating capacity enough to power roughly 800 million homes.

Having an operating project demonstrates to the rest of the industry, including the supply chain, that a project can be built, and the same to state governments whose political and financial support for these early projects will be critical, said Jeremy Firestone, director of the Center for Carbon-Free Power Integration at the University of Delaware.

In recent months, developers have won leases from the federal government to build other offshore wind farms along the Atlantic Coast. Projects likely to be completed in the next several years include wind farms off the coasts of Long Island, Maryland, and Delaware, Firestone said.

The shutdown of the Block Island diesel plant came three days after President Trump signed an executive order taking steps to lift restrictions on offshore oil and gas development. One of the administrations main goals is to expand fossil fuel development as much as possible across the U.S. and offshore. At the same time, it has shown no sign that it will stand in the way of expanding offshore wind development, Jacobs said.

Broadly, theres been positive support from the Trump administration for offshore wind, Jacobs said.

More here:

The first U.S. offshore wind farm just shut down a diesel plant - Grist

Photo: Steve Gonzales, Staff

Alek Kolin, a technical adviser at Liebherr, demonstrates a virtual reality crane at the Offshore Technology Conference.

Alek Kolin, a technical adviser at Liebherr, demonstrates a virtual...

Suddenly, the waves rose higher, the weather turned and the giant machine began wobbling as Farrel Alexander tapped a few keys controlling the offshore crane simulation.

In the hallways of the Offshore Technology Conference on Wednesday, the virtual crane operator compensated for the rough seas as he tried to latch the crane's hook to a stack of pipes. After several failed attempts - it's a delicate procedure - it finally worked.

More than 100 people tried their luck on German crane manufacturer Liebherr's five-screen simulator at the OTC this week, operating a heavy offshore crane with twin joysticks and a multitude of buttons. It's probably the biggest workout the simulator has had in a while.

Before the oil bust began in 2014, the manufacturer trained dozens of new crane operators on the simulator at a training center in Miami. But last year, the company trained exactly zero new workers for offshore cranes used at oil and gas platforms and rigs, said Alexander, service manager for offshore cranes at Liebherr.

"Traffic has really slowed down," he said. "Customers aren't going into projects yet because of the price of oil."

Liebherr uses the simulator to train crane operators to become proficient at the controls of big, dangerous equipment. If the driver steers it into the oil platform, for example, things get hairy, quickly. For OTC visitors, it's a fun ride, and it draws plenty of people into Liebherr's booth. But it's not translating into more business.

Even though oil prices are relatively higher and OPEC has cut crude production, Alexander still hasn't seen any sign that offshore crane operators need new workers to learn how to maneuver cranes. It's likely that Liebherr's clients in the oil industry have laid off all but the most seasoned crane operators, and with few new upcoming projects, there's little need for training.

It's yet another sign at the OTC that offshore exploration and project development remain in virtual stasis despite the higher oil prices that have spurred a drilling boom in the United States.

To read this article in one of Houston's most-spoken languages, click on the button below.

"It hasn't changed the dynamic," Alexander said. "It takes some time. Notwithstanding, there's a lot of optimism. But the levels of requests from customers haven't followed oil prices."

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Crane simulator captures ups - and downs - of offshore industry ... - Houston Chronicle

By Tele Reporter,4 May 2017 6.00am

A Dundonian former health and safety manager in the oil and gas industry has designed a garment aimed at saving the lives of offshore workers in the event of an accident at sea.

Simon Lamont came up with the idea for the Centurion 3 which is specially engineered to immediately produce heat when submerged in cold water after the 2009 Super Puma crash in the North Sea.

It is designed to be worn under offshore survival suits and is also slash resistant. It improves heat retention, generates heat and resists fire, and a coating means the wearer should remain warm for at least one hour.

Simon said: The helicopter crash left so many of us stunned, and when I discovered that the garments worn were insufficient when dealing with cold shock, I set to work designing and developing a product to remedy this.

He set up Iron Ocean and has secured more than 100,000 in funding through Business Gateway, with an aim to launch the product next year.

Simon added: In my previous job, I managed safety protocols and led incident and accident investigations but Im really enjoying being in full creative control of everything we do at Iron Ocean.

More importantly, however, our design can save lives and there is nothing I value more than that.

Working with Heriot-Watt Universitys School of Textiles and Design to create a prototype, Simon has also competed in various business events.

Michelle Shepherd, business adviser at Business Gateway Dundee, said the organisation knew instantly that Simons idea had huge potential.

She added: Since then, we have worked very closely with Simon, helping him identify funding opportunities, as well as supporting him as a new business owner.

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Dundee man's garment designed to save lives of offshore workers - Evening Telegraph