Last we heard from BP, the oil giant had agreed to pay $4.5 billion in penalties for its role in the Deepwater Horizon blowout that spewed oil into the Gulf of Mexico for several months in 2010. But that could be just the beginning for BP, as the company has just been hit with a new $34 billion claim from local and state governments to account for economic losses related to the gusher. BP has already paid out about $58 billion for the environmental disaster, and the latest blow could bring that total above $90 billion.

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Post tags: BP, bp fines, bp sued, british petroleum, deepwater horizon, environmental destruction, environmental disaster, gulf of mexico, oil spill, water pollution

The US Department of Justice announced today that Swiss company Transocean Ltd, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded and sank in 2010, has agreed to pay $1.4 billion for the oil spill that spewed millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Under the settlement, the company will plead guilty to violating the Clean Water Act, and it will agree to pay $1 billion in civil penalties and $400 million in criminal fines. The announcement comes just six weeks after BP agreed to pay $4.5 billion in damages for the massive oil spill.

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Post tags: BP, bp oil spill, deepwater horizon, Department of Justice, DoJ, environmental destruction, gulf of mexico, Gulf oil spill, gusher, oil spill, Transocean

On the heels of a massive criminal indictment for BP, it looks like the trouble for the oil giant is far from over. The company is set to head out on the fifth day of a mission under the supervision the US Coast Guard this Thursday to determine whether or not there is still petroleum leaking from the Deepwater Horizon rig. This past September, an new oil sheen was spotted 50 miles off of the coast of Louisiana, and tests confirmed that it was from the infamous Macondo well. A BP underwater vehicle observed that oil was seeping from the containment dome, but declared the leaks fixed after a remote operation in October. However, oil has still been surfacing and has been documented by satellite and aerial photos near the site. It is thought that there still could be an unknown amount of oil remaining in the containment dome and wreckage from the 2010 blast.

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Post tags: BP, California, coast guard, deepwater horizon, gulf of mexico, leak, louisiana, Macondo, Massachusetts, oil slick, rep ed markey, rep henry waxman, spill

In the wake of the most recent $4.5 billion settlement and criminal charges, BP has now been suspended from all new government contracts within the United States. Citing a “lack of business integrity,” the Environmental Protection Agency handed down the decision this Wednesday. While the decision doesn’t impact current holdings by the company, BP will not be permitted to bid on new contracts until it can adequately prove that it has changed its practices to align with federal standards.

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Post tags: BP, congress, deepwater horizon, environmental protection agency, epa, federal court, gulf of mexico, justice department, oil drilling, suspension, united states

Two years after the horrific Deepwater Horizon explosion and massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the verdict is in for oil giant BP. The company has agreed to pay $4.5 billion in penalties and it pled guilty for felony counts of misconduct. A full $1.256 billion of the total fine will be levied towards criminal punishment – one of the largest monetary disciplines in U.S history.

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Post tags: alabama, alaska, BP, clean water act, congress, deepwater horizon, exxon valdez, florida, gulf of mexico, halliburton, London, louisiana, Macondo, macquarie, Mississippi, national academy of sciences, national fish and wildlife foundation, oil spill, Reuters, texas, transocean ltd, us justice department, us securities and exchange commission

According to a report by the international Renewable Energy Industry Institute based in Germany, the total levels of global greenhouse gas emissions reached a record high last year at 34 billion tons. China led the pack with 8.9 billion tons, outpacing the United States at 6 billion tons. Nations around the world have pumped 800 million more tons of CO2 into the atmosphere than in 2010 and show no signs of slowing.

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Post tags: BP, china, CO2, Doha, germany, India, Japan, kyoto protocol, norbert allnoch, qatar, renewable energy industry institute, russia, un framework convention on climate change, unfcc, united states

Have you seen those BP commercials that talk about how the Gulf Coast is “open for business”? These ads are little more than BP-sponsored propaganda to assuage people’s fears about swimming in water contaminated by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill. (Spoiler: there’s still plenty of oil washing up on Gulf Coast beaches). BP seems to think that their controversial dispersants did the trick, breaking down the oil until it was no longer visible on the ocean’s surface. But a recent study of the Gulf Coast shows that naturally occurring bacteria – not the Corexit BP dumped by the airplane full – are responsible for cleaning up the majority of the spill.

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Post tags: bacteria, BP, corexit, deepwater horizon, dispersants, gulf coast, nasa, oil spill

Just over two years ago, an explosion at the Deepwater Horizon oil rig operated by BP killed 11 crew members and sparked the worst oil spill in US history. The accident released almost 5 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico and caused irreparable damage to marine and wildlife habitats, but no criminal charges had been filed — until now. NPR reports that the first criminal charges in connection with the spill have been filed against former BP engineer Kurt Mix, who has been arrested for obstruction of justice for deleting text messages after the spill.

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Post tags: BP, bp oil spill, criminal charges, deepwater horizon, environmental destruction, fossil fuels, gulf of mexico, Gulf oil spill, Kurt Mix, offshore oil drilling, oil gusher

In 2008, two years before the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, another BP offshore oil rig suffered a blowout in the Caspian Sea. According to a new report on EcoWatch.org which was released today, the company had concealed the details of the earlier accident from the energy industry and the U.S. government. The investigation reveals a trail of cost-cutting measures and shoddy construction methods similar to what unfolded in the Gulf during 2010.

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Post tags: Azerbaijan, baku, BP, bp oil spill, cover up, deepwater horizon, deepwater horizon disaster, deepwater horizon oil spill, ecowatch.org, environmental impact of offshore oil drilling, gulf of mexico, Gulf oil spill, moratorium on offshore drilling, offshore oil drilling, offshore oil production, offshore oil rig, offshore oil rig risks, offshore oil risks, offshore oil well, oil rig, oil spill, risk of oil spill, risks, robert f. kennedy jr. gulf of mexico

The Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill are now confirmed to be responsible for deep sea coral deaths in the Gulf of New Mexico. Scientists say that almost two years after the BP Macondo well oil spill, coral communities as far as 4,000 feet beneath the sea’s surface show that oil from the blowout site bear the well’s chemical “fingerprints.” What had once been full of vibrant colors, researchers say, is now an area sullied with brown, dull and dying coral.

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The media is buzzing this morning with news that federal prosecutors are preparing the first criminal charges against BP in connection with the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The disaster, which killed 11 people and took over 5 months to seal, made headlines last year as the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. Sources say prosecutors are focusing on numerous engineers and employees at British Petroleum who may have provided false safety and risk information about the well to regulators.

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Post tags: BP, bp criminal charges, bp news, BP oil, bp oil rig, bp oil spill, breaking news, criminal charges oil spill, deepwater horizon, deepwater horizon criminal charges, deepwater horizon disaster, deepwater horizon news, deepwater horizon oil spill, inhabitat-news, oil spill charges, oil spill news

After 40 years, BP just announced plans to drop its solar power division. The giant oil company has declared their commitment to spending $8 billion on renewable power by 2015, but it will now fill that quota with only onshore wind and biofuel. With the recent news of Google’s enormous investment to bring solar power into 3,000 homes and even Warren Buffet’s purchase of a $2 billion solar power farm just weeks ago, BP’s decision seems to be poorly timed, if not extremely short-sighted.

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It is coming to fists again over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. This time, however, it isn’t the people of the gulf against big oil, it is the oil companies against each other. BP is accusing Halliburton of knowingly destroying the results from a test on cement slurry at the site and seemingly losing computer modeling of the cement at the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Both are considered pieces of evidence that could prove Halliburton installed faulty cement at the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, causing the well to rupture and spill 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

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Post tags: BP, bp oil spill, dangers of drilling for oil, deep water drilling for gas, deep water drilling for oil, deepwater horizon, faulty cement, gulf of mexico, gulf of mexico oil spill, Gulf oil spill, halliburton, halliburton faulty cement, halliburton oil well, oil drilling safety, oil slick, oil spill

When BP’s Deepwater Horizon well started gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, it soon became clear that neither BP nor the US government were equipped to deal with such a disaster. Next time (sadly, there almost certainly will be a next time), that hopefully won’t be the case – a company from Illinois won the top prize at the Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X Challenge last week for producing a revolutionary machine that skims oil out of water four times faster than the previous industry standard. Team Elastec/American Marine took home a $1 million prize for the oil skimmer, which uses a series of grooved plastic discs with a scraper at the top to separate oil from water.

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Post tags: BP, Elastec/American Marine, oil spill, renewable energy, Wendy Schmidt, X Challenge

Read the rest of BP’s Green-Roofed Refinery Office in The Netherlands is Explosion Proof

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Post tags: "sustainable architecture", BP, bp offices, Daylighting, dune, earth bermed, earth sheltered, eco design, green architecture, Green Building, green design, green roof, green roofed office, group a, man made dune, oil refinery, rooterdam, rotterdam, Sustainable Building, sustainable design, the netherlands

Just a few days ago we reported that a mysterious oil sheen that has appeared in the Gulf of Mexico not far from the BP Deepwater Horizon Well that burst last year. It turns out that our suspicions have been realized and the oil bubbling up to the surface matches that of BP’s “sealed” well. Scientists confirmed that they have established a chemical link between the sheen and the hundreds of millions of gallons of oil that spewed into the Gulf last summer.

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Post tags: BP, bp environmental damage, bp oil spill, Daren Beaudo, gulf of mexico, gulf oil spills, gulf water damage, macondo well, new gulf oil spill, Oil Leakage, Oil sheen, oil spill, press register, Stuart Berman

A mysterious sheen on the Gulf of Mexico is making waves, with all eyes focusing in on BP as the culprit. Floating near the Green Canyon Block of the Gulf of Mexico, the potential spill is suspiciously close to BP’s Macondo well, which ruptured last year. Although denying they are the cause, BP has sent in boats and mini submarines to investigate the supposedly sealed well.

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Sigh. Yet another oil spill has ravaged America’s great outdoors. As recovery crews work tirelessly along the Yellowstone River to clean up the mess caused by ExxonMobil’s damaged pipeline, a BP pipeline in Alaska burst during maintenance testing, sending some 4,000 gallons of methanol and oily water onto the Alaskan Tundra. Reports say that the leak has frustrated the oil giant as they’re still trying to rebuild their reputation after the Gulf oil spill, but the only people who should be frustrated are Americans. Hasn’t enough of our environment already been ravaged by our country’s dependence on oil? It’s high time our politicians took renewable energy way more seriously.

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Yesterday, the U.S. government announced that the epic BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was caused by a faulty underwater blowout preventer and the subsequent failure of the attached cutting device’s ability to shear and seal the leaking oil well. The cutting device was off-kilter and allowed oil to leak out at an alarming rate, a forensic study says.

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Post tags: blowout preventer, BP, Cameron International, Edward Markey, gulf oil disaster, Macondo, oil spill, oil spill disaster

Six months ago — just before the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill — a team of researchers studied the methane consuming microbes that live deep in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and found that they consume up to 100 times more gas than previously thought. The resulting study is about to be published in a new issue of Deep-Sea Research II but there’s no doubt that their research has been helping us all along in this great disaster cleanup. Their studies in the Gulf revealed the most effective microbes ever recorded and their hope is that these little natural wonders can lend us bumbling humans a helping hand.

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Post tags: BP, british petroleum, deepwater horizon, dispersants, environmental protection agency, epa, gas eating microbes, gulf coast, microbes, offshore drilling, oil eating microbes, oil spill, toxic, toxicity