Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: BP, deepwater drilling, energy, GOM, holding station, Hurricane Isaac, jackups, oil production, oil supply, peak oil, platforms, rigs, shut in, Transocean, US oil production
Updated August 30. Almost all of Gulf shut down.
Based on data from offshore operator reports submitted as of 11:30 a.m. CDT today, personnel have been evacuated from a total of 509 production platforms, equivalent to 85.4 percent of the 596 manned platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Production platforms are the structures located offshore from which oil and natural gas are produced. Unlike drilling rigs, which typically move from location to location, production facilities remain in the same location throughout a project’s duration.
Personnel have been evacuated from 50 rigs, equivalent to 65.79 percent of the 76 rigs currently operating in the Gulf. Rigs can include several types of self-contained offshore drilling facilities including jackup rigs, submersibles and semisubmersibles.
via BSEE Hurricane Isaac Activity Statistics: August 30, 2012 | BSEE.
Filed under: maps | Tags: Baldwin-Felts, Boulder County coal, Boulder County history, coal mining, debt slavery, Industrial Mine, Lafayette, Marshall, northern field, peonage, Superior, United Mine Workers
Rocky Mountain Fuel Company was one of the worst employers imaginable.
Q. Now, as to the strike conditions existing in Boulder County … let me ask you first whether or not any system of peonage has been or is being maintained in Boulder County, so far as your knowledge goes? — A. Well, I investigated reports that came into our office of the existence of peonage in Boulder County in 1910 — several times — and I covered them in my reports.
Q. Did you or not find that peonage did exist there? –A. I would say that they did.
Q. Why? –A. Because men were held in the camps who didn’t want to stay.
Q. By whom? –A. By company guards.
Q. Now, you say that they were held by company guards. What causes you to make that statement? What information have you to justify you in making any such statement? –A. Well, at the time — at that time the restricted confines of the camp of the coal property in Boulder County — at least those that I visited — there were certain definite lines — they were not always stockaded — they didn’t always have fences, but certain lines were the limits of the camp, and those lines were patrolled by armed guards.
Q. Employed by whom? –A. The coal operators.
Q. What company? –A. Different companies.
Q. Name them. –A. I think the National Fuel and — really, I don’t know that I can name the companies. I can name the mines better.
Q. Do that. –A. Superior, Monarch, Bijou, Gorham — it is some years back and I don’t recall them rightly.
Q. How were the guards employed — jointly? –A. No; each company employed their own guards. I don’t think the companies went together to employ guards.
Q. You say, in your opinion, peonage did exist there? –A. Yes, sir.
Q. Tell us why you say that. –A. Well, I found the men in the camp wanted to leave — in fact, I took them out of the camps.
Q. You say you took them out? –A. Yes, sir.
Q. Well, give us the names of them. –A. I can not give you the names now off-hand.
Q. Have you any record of them? –A. I imagine there is a record in our office; yes, sir.
Q. You say you imagine — did you make any report? –A. I made a report, but I don’t believe I mentioned the names when I made the report; as a matter of fact, I didn’t know anything about the peonage law at all then.
Q. How many men did you say you took out of the mines? –A. I took one bunch, I think, of about eight.
Q. What became of them? –A. I turned them loose when we got them outside of the mine. Some of the mine workers put them in the car and sent them to Denver.
Q. Where did you take them from? –A. I think I took that bunch from — if you will let me look at my report a minute — that was at Superior, Colo. That is the mine at Superior; I don’t know whose mine that is. I don’t know what company runs that mine.
Q. It was the Superior mine? –A. Yes, sir; the Superior mine, up north there.
Q. Where did you find these men? –A. They were inside the camp.
Q. Were they inside or underground? –A. No, sir; they were just within the limits of the camp.
Q. Was there anything to prevent them from leaving? –A. You bet there was.
— Testimony of Eli Gross, Colorado Dept. of Labor official, Conditions in the Coal Mines of Colorado: Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Mines and Mining, United States Congress, United States Government Printing Office, 1914.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Alliance for Biking and Walking, bicycle infrastructure, bicycling advocacy, bicycling infrastructure, Bikes Belong, cycling, LAB, lobbyists, urban cycling, wheelmen
Ho hum.
Some months ago there was a lot of talk of three of the major cycling advocacy groups in the United States merging to form a super-group. Now, after months of steady dialogue and face-to-face meetings, the leaders of the Alliance for Biking & Walking, Bikes Belong and League of American Bicyclists have decided not to pursue full unification at this time….
via Proposed merger of three major advocacy groups now unlikely | Bicycle Times Magazine.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: keystone cops, nuclear material, nuns, Oak Ridge, private security, privatization, rent-a-cops, security guards, Wackenhut
Attention terrorists: After seven stages of privatization Wackenhut! stands at the ready between you and the dirty bomb material you crave. So don’t you even think about it!
Wyatt, the Y-12 spokesman, said after the plant ended its stand-down that the main security force operated by WSI Oak Ridge, formerly Wackenhut, has been downgraded to a subcontractor in response to the incident. Other improvements also were made, but he declined to provide specifics because the information is considered sensitive.
via Page 2: Intrusion Embarrasses 'Fort Knox of Uranium' – ABC News.
I’m sure their bid was very competitive.
Filed under: maps | Tags: bike race, Boulder, Boulder Canyon, elevation profile, Flagstaff Mountain, Golden, Highway 93, Leipheimer, Lyons, Nederland, Phinney, Pro Cycling Challenge, South Saint Vrain, stage 6, USA Pro Cycling Challenge
Much of the course of the 2012 USA Pro Cycling Challenge seems like it was designed by Chambers of Commerce, not bike racing professionals. The Breck – CS stage, for instance, which begins with Hoosier Pass then rolls flat and downhill for a zillion miles to the finish, is almost a waste. But stage 6, Golden to Boulder (by way of Nederland and Lyons), is going to provide a lot of action and a lot of separation. There aren’t any flat roads on this route — even the flat sections are hilly. There will be some desperate moves on the final climb up Flagstaff Mountain. Great stage. Saturday. (Wednesday’s Gunnison – Aspen stage includes two big passes and should also provide some G.C. fireworks — watch that final descent into Aspen, very tricky.)
Filed under: maps | Tags: bike race, Colorado bike race, Durango stage, Durango to Telluride, Pro Cycling Challenge, stage race, USPCC
Because if you go looking for it on the official website, it’s almost like they don’t want you to know.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bike rental, bike share, Citi, Citibike, New York, NYC DOT, public bikes, Sadik-Khan
Pushed back to 2013… Interesting.
“New York City demands a world-class bike share system, and we need to ensure that Citi Bike launches as flawlessly as New Yorkers expect on Day One,” said DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. “The enthusiasm for this program continues to grow and we look forward to bringing this affordable new transportation option to New Yorkers without cost to taxpayers.”
via NYC DOT – Press Releases – NYC DOT, NYC Bike Share Announce March 2013 Citi Bike Launch.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: nuclear materials, nuke the nuns, nukes, nuns break in, Oak Ridge, security breach, Sister Mary Rice, Sister Rice
This New York City-born nun, who taught school in Africa for years, has already been arrested more than 40 times for civil disobedience. But this latest operation required her to complete tasks worthy of James Bond: Rice and her two partners made their way through the wooded Oak Ridge compound in Tennessee, using bolt cutters to get past fences and dodging armed guards and motion sensors.
Sister Rice is 82.
There’s only one thing that will stop a wild pack of nuns and that thing is five or ten thermonuclear devices.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Chinese oil demand, oil demand, peak oil, petroleum demand, Robert Rapier
Continued to rise even as prices doubled, tripled…Explained in a nice little article by Rapier..
The 20th barrel the average person in the U.S. consumes each year might allow us to drive that 12,000th mile. But the first barrel that someone in a developing country consumes might allow them to drive that very first mile and have heat in their home for the first time. They will be willing to pay a lot more for those initial barrels than we are for our excess barrels, and this explains why their consumption has increased even as oil prices have risen.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9386#more
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Coldstone Creamery, Ken Holt, Long Island Sound, Millstone, Millstone Power Station, nuclear plant, nuclear power, Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Millstone nuke plant shuts down, unable to cool reactors with excessively warm seawater; Coldstone Creamery closes early, unable to cool iced treats with excessively warm coldstones.
Unit 2 of Millstone Power Station has occasionally shut for maintenance or other issues, but in its 37-year history it has never gone down due to excessively warm water, spokesman Ken Holt said on Monday.
Water from Long Island Sound is used to cool key components of the plant and is discharged back into the sound. The water cannot be warmer than 75 degrees and following the hottest July on record has been averaging 1.7 degrees above the limit, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said.
via Warm Seawater Forces Conn. Nuclear Plant Shutdown – ABC News.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Bresset, Georgia Gould, Hadleigh Farm, mountain bike race, Olympic Mountain Biking, Sabine Spitz
This is a pretty good summation —
She reached that front group at the end of the first of six laps. Then very quickly that lead group became the medal group. Riders were spit off the back like pebbles from rear tires. By Lap 3, Gould had joined France’s Julie Bresset and Germany’s Sabine Spitz and had put 21 seconds on the chase group. It wasn’t long before Bresset showed the world the future of women’s mountain biking. Only 23, she started pulling away and when Spitz went over her handlebars in front of Gould on the rock ledge, it held up both of them. Bresset cruised home for gold with a time of 1 hour, 30:52.
via Gould rides to bronze in women's Olympic mountain biking – The Denver Post.
See also Georgia Gould is Noticing Things
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: fixed gears, fixed wheel, fixie, Sam Turner, Track Shack
Filed under: maps | Tags: 12 men, 2012 Olympics, august 11, London Olympics, mountain bike, mountain bike racing, MTB, Olympics, travel
August 11 women, August 12 men.
I fully expect Taylor Phinney to take fourth.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: B-Cycle, Bank of America stadium, bicycle-sharing program, bike share, Charlotte, Democratic National Convention, DNC, surveillance
Use ‘bike share’ to get to Bank of America Stadium to hear those big speeches!
I think the purpose of these bike-share programs in Dems’ convention cities is to divert attention from the sudden proliferation of high-tech surveillance.
Just in time for the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte next month, the city has started offering a bicycle-sharing program that it says is the largest in the Southeast. Charlotte B-cycle, part of the Wisconsin-based B-cycle national network, comprises 200 commuter-style bicycles at 20 stations uptown (Charlotte’s downtown) and nearby. Most of the stops are near bus, shuttle and light-rail stops.
For Delegates in a Hurry, The Bike Lane Beckons – NYTimes.com.