E2 Round-up: BP commonly uses well design called risky, BP’s spill costs reach $2 billion, the failsafe device that failed, and a new study finds dire climate threats to oceans

“A Journal analysis of records provided by the U.S. Minerals Management Service shows that BP used the less costly design—called ‘long string’ — on 35% of its deepwater wells since July 2003, the earliest date the well-design data were available. Anadarko Petroleum Corp., a minority partner of BP’s in the destroyed well, used it on 42% of its deepwater Gulf wells, though it says it doesn’t do so in wells of the type drilled by BP.”

The ultimate failsafe device at BP’s well provided a false sense of security

The New York Times digs deeply into the failure of a critical part of the BP well’s blowout preventer: the powerful “blind shear rams” that are supposed to cut off and seal out-of-control wells.

“An examination by The New York Times highlights the chasm between the oil industry’s assertions about the reliability of its blowout preventers and a more complex reality. It reveals that the federal agency charged with regulating offshore drilling, the Minerals Management Service, repeatedly declined to act on advice from its own experts on how it could minimize the risk of a blind shear ram failure,” their investigation finds.

The story later adds:

“As it turns out, records and interviews show, blind shear rams can be surprisingly vulnerable. There are many ways for them to fail, some unavoidable, some exacerbated by the stunning water depths at which oil companies have begun to explore.”

“But they also can be rendered powerless by the failure of a single part, a point underscored in a confidential report that scrutinized the reliability of the Deepwater Horizon’s blowout preventer. The report, from 2000, concluded that the greatest vulnerability by far on the entire blowout preventer was one of the small shuttle valves leading to the blind shear ram. If this valve jammed or leaked, the report warned, the ram’s blades would not budge.”

BP has now spent $2 billion on its oil spill response

“And with no end yet in sight, that number is expected to keep rising,” the Associated Press reports in this story, which also notes that BP has paid out $105 million thus far to 32,000 claimants.

Their piece also checks in on the effort to stop the oil flow into the Gulf of Mexico for good.

“The news came as teams drilling the relief wells designed to stop the oil gushing into the Gulf continue a daunting task — hit a target roughly the size of a salad plate about three miles below the water’s surface,” it states.

Report: Greenhouse gases imperiling the world’s oceans

A new study published Friday in Science magazine sounds the alarm about warming and acidifying oceans.

“The world’s oceans are virtually choking on rising greenhouse gases, destroying marine ecosystems and breaking down the food chain — irreversible changes that have not occurred for several million years, a new study says,” Reuters reports in this story on the study.

“The changes could have dire consequences for hundreds of millions of people around the globe who rely on oceans for their livelihoods,” the story adds.