Everything from high-tech imaging gear to plastic bags with screens is being tested by a "skunk works" team at BP set up to evaluate cleanup methods in the Gulf of Mexico.
The oil company's High Interest Technology Team, based in Mobile, Ala., is currently sifting through thousand of proposals to fix the leak or reduce damage to the environment. BP recently began testing some new products, including a machine that removes oil from sand and an oil-water separator made from hardware store components, including plastic bags, mesh from lawn furniture, and plastic pipes.
If you think you have a technology that can help clean up the Gulf oil disaster, then BP says it wants to hear from you.
Shortly after the oil started spewing in April, BP set up an Alternative Response Technology Web site to solicit ideas for stemming the flow and cleaning up the environment. With the Gulf accident being so severe and high-profile, it has captured the attention of thousands of entrepreneurs.
BP, still mired in the ongoing Gulf oil disaster, has signed a deal to acquire the cellulosic ethanol fuel business of Verenium.
BP said Thursday it will pay $98.3 million in cash for Verenium's technology and ethanol plant in Jennings, La.
Cambridge, Mass.-based Verenium, which has business lines other than ethanol, will retain its commercial enzyme business and its biotech-related research and development.
The Louisiana site, which is a pilot-scale plant as opposed to a commercial-scale one, uses bagasse, the residue from sugar cane processing. The bagasse is used to make ethanol, which is then blended with … Read more
MOSCOW/WASHINGTON--His face wracked by age and his voice rasping after decades of chain-smoking coarse tobacco, the former longtime Russian minister of nuclear energy and veteran Soviet physicist Viktor Mikhailov knows just how to fix BP's oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.
"A nuclear explosion over the leak," he says, nonchalantly puffing a cigarette as he sits in a conference room at the Institute of Strategic Stability, where he is a director. "I don't know what BP is waiting for, they are wasting their time. Only about 10 kilotons of nuclear explosion capacity and … Read more
Dissatisfied with what he sees as tepid effort on behalf of oil giant BP to stop the flow of petroleum from an exploded well in the Gulf of Mexico, a New York-based video producer named Adam Quirk has started raising money for a stunt designed to irritate its executives to no end with vuvuzelas--those buzzing horns that have been everywhere at the World Cup soccer confab in South Africa (and, by proxy, the Internet) this summer.
"In order to put a bit of public pressure on them, we plan to buy 100 vuvuzelas and hire 100 vuvuzela players off … Read more
Virgin Group CEO and entrepreneurial icon Richard Branson promised "one hell of a party" for the kickoff flight for air carrier Virgin America's first international route from San Francisco to Toronto on Tuesday, and if the trays of mimosas and acai-cranberry cocktails that kept getting toted past his first-class seat were any indication, his promise would not be broken.
Branson, a British national who was knighted in 1999, has become one of Silicon Valley's icons of late for his enterprises in green energy and the fledgling Virgin Galactic space company, and Virgin America is headquartered in … Read more
BP said it had spent $300 million on its Gulf of Mexico oil spill response effort in the past three days, hitting the $100 million-per-day spend rate for the first time and bringing its total bill to $2.65 billion so far.
The figures, which BP released in a statement on Monday, include the cost of trying to cap the well, clean up the environmental damage caused by the leaking crude, and pay compensation to those affected by the spill.
BP added that it remained on track to complete its relief well, which aims to kill the leaking well at … Read more
As the BP oil spill enters its 63rd day, word comes that the worst-case scenario of the amount of oil gushing from the damaged well, has climbed to 100,000 barrels a day. Initially, BP put the daily tally from the Deepwater Horizon at around 1,000 barrels.
Journalists have reported on the spread of the spill in print and video. As the anecdotal evidence of a mounting environmental disaster accumulates, the challenge of quantifying the enormity of the problem is made that much harder by the piecemeal nature of this developing story.
But now, several hundred miles above the … Read more
WASHINGTON--Lawmakers accused BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward of evasion and ducking responsibility for the worst oil spill in U.S. history when he appeared before them on Thursday to answer charges his company cut corners on its blown-out Gulf of Mexico well.
In his first appearance before Congress since the start of the 59-day-old crisis, a tired-looking Hayward sat alone at the witness table as lawmakers took turns during more than three hours of questioning to lambaste the British energy giant.
"Under your leadership BP has taken the most extreme risks," Democratic lawmaker Henry Waxman told Hayward, who sat impassively during the lawmakers' barrage.
"BP cut corner after corner to save a million dollars here and a few hours or days there," Waxman said, his comments reflecting public anger over BP's handling of the crisis.
Hayward, a 53-year-old geologist with a reputation for blunt speaking, kept largely to a well-rehearsed brief and repeatedly declined to go into detail pending the results of investigations into the spill. He said it was too early to conclude the company had cut corners.
Waxman snapped back, saying, "You are not taking responsibility. You are kicking the can down the road."
Several lawmakers grew visibly annoyed by Hayward's answers, accusing him of evasion and telling him they were less interested in his expressions of regret and more concerned about finding out what had gone wrong.
The Briton said he had seen no evidence of reckless behavior and repeatedly said he was not involved in the decision-making about the methods used to dig the well. "I am not stonewalling," Hayward said at one point. … Read more
In Duck vs BP for iPhone, it's your job to save the world's last surviving duck by plugging oil-spewing pipes.
If only life could imitate app. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could fix this catastrophe and rescue wildlife with a few screen taps?
I suppose it was only a matter of time before an app directly referenced the BP oil spill. This one's a game, and a decidedly simplistic one at that, but it is filled with interesting and educational facts about the environment.
Using your iPhone or iPod accelerometer, you "steer" your … Read more
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