Multiple apologies again for the skimpy posting lately--things have been busy here at the D&S office.  I hope we can begin posting more regularly soon.

For now, here are some items on the BP Gulf oil spill that have been accumulating on my desk;  I will do an post of oil- and tarball-free items later today or tomorrow.

(1) BP Out of Its Depth: D&S e-subscriber and WordPress helper Shaun S. also has a blog, Counter Economics. I had dinner with Shaun the other day, meeting him in person for the first time, and he was citing some technical info about the oil spill that I hadn't heard from my usual sources.  He said he's been reading engineering sites, and that some of his findings can be found on his blog.  Here's a sample:

Interesting comments from different articles on the disaster.

According to Robert Kennedy Jr., there is now conclusive evidence that BP was drilling to 25,000 feet, even though they only had a permit to drill to 18,000 feet. Of course the question should be “why?” the platform was not periodically reviewed and its records checked. Another question which should be raised is if no well has ever been capped at 5000 feet (the sea floor depth of the well, not the overall well depth), how did BP get a permit to drill there in the first place? Do we make a habit of providing permits for activities that if there is an accident, there is no proven method of stopping the damage? If so, why?

Here's the rest of the post.

(2) The Spill, Climate Change, and a Carbon Tax.  An interesting item by longtime Boston-area economics reporter David Warsh, from his online column Economic Principals:

What would be the cost, going forward, of increasing tenfold the precautionary apparatus installed at every undersea well-head around the world? Fifty cents a barrel?  A dollar?  That's not much in a world of $75/bbl oil—surely not much more than a penny a gallon at the pump.  That the costs of enhanced safety methods, including better governmental oversight, will be borne, mostly by the consumer, is a foregone conclusion

The really daunting risks have to do not with the production of oil but with humankind's accelerating consumption of it, and other fossil fuels—not that this is a bad thing in itself, except that it has undesirable side effects that may be accelerating even faster.

He goes on to talk about a review by philosopher of science Philip Kitcher of a bunch of books on climate change, and Kitcher's comments about the state of skepticism of science today.  Read the full column here.

(3) Twitter Satire:  Hat-tip to our new intern Elizabeth M. for pointing out the satirical Twitter feed BPGlobalPR, which affirms that "We are not associated with Beyond Petroleum, the company that has been destroying the Gulf of Mexico for 51 days," yet has these hilarious tweets:

We bought google, bing gave 100k to help. Come on yahoo! Buy $100,000 worth of free "bp cares" t-shirts! #bprebrand about 11 hours ago via TweetDeck

Proud to announce we've partnered with Google to turn the Information Superhighway into a Corporate Bus Route. #bpcares about 16 hours ago via web

Surprised ourselves by getting emotional on the coast today. Turns out the wind blew dispersant in our eyes. #BPrebrand about 19 hours ago via web

Alright, back to work everyone! It's World Ocean Day! Everybody do your part! #BPrebrand http://twitpic.com/1v5ayp about 19 hours ago via Twitpic

We at BEYOND POLLUTION Global PR are unhappy to announce yet another $10,000 donation to @healthygulf #BPrebrand about 20 hours ago via web

Check out the full Twitter page.

(4) What Toxic Crap Will We Get This Time? A huge and full hat-tip to our business manager Paul P. for finding this juicy tidbit on the Wikipedia page on the Exxon Valdez spill:

In the case of Baker v. Exxon, an Anchorage jury awarded $287 million for actual damages and $5 billion for punitive damages. The punitive damages amount was equal to a single year's profit by Exxon at that time. To protect itself in case the judgment was affirmed, Exxon obtained a $4.8 billion credit line from J.P. Morgan & Co. This in turn gave J.P. Morgan the opportunity to create the first modern credit default swap in 1994, so that J.P. Morgan would not have to hold so much money in reserve (8% of the loan under Basel I) against the risk of Exxon's default.

The Wikipedia article cites this 2009 New Yorker article for this bit of history.

The question is: if the Exxon Valdez spill gave us the credit default swap, what kind of destructive and toxic "innovation will the BP/Deepwater Horizon/Gulf Oil Spill give us?