Background of the BP Oil Spill

The Leonard Lopate Show | Aug 9, 2010

Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, and Tad Patzek, Professor and Chair of the Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering at the University of Texas Austin, discuss the technical background of the BP oil spill: what lead to the blowout, and how that well compares to the many others in the Gulf of Mexico. We’ll also look at ways the accident could have been avoided and possibilities why the blow out has been so hard to stop.

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