Blowout in the Gulf: The BP Oil Spill Disaster and the Future of Energy in America
A gush of books about the BP oil disaster approaches as the investigation into its causes proceeds apace. Freudenburg and Gramling have a head start: they’ve been studying and writing about energy issues and offshore oil drilling for three decades. Drawing on their deep knowledge, they set the deadly BP blowout within a technologically precise history of oil in America, from the first primitivelyconstructed well on land to the development of offshore rigs, explaining that the Deepwater Horizon was actually a technical marvel—if only its operation hadn’t been compromised. Here is a full accounting of BP’s many previous accidents and violations—the company was the worst in the industry for its safety-sacrificing cost cutting. Freudenburg and Gramling also tell the story of the corporation’s first incarnation as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1909 and how it became British Petroleum in 1954. Science, commerce, and the politics of oil are all newly illuminated here, accompanied by invaluable explanations of the risks of offshore drilling and a pragmatic look at the energy conundrums we now face. --Donna Seaman