Category Archives: 2010

226. The price of oil: 5 – Deepwater Horizon and the missing toolkit

Posted on 29 July, 2010 by | 4 comments

florida beaches oil risk deepwater horizon press cutting july 2010Dear Don
And so they’ve capped the well for now, although storms aren’t far away and the oil is still out there across the Gulf. I really hope your Florida beaches manage to avoid it.

Elsewhere around the coast it’s a mess, and although hurricanes might spread the oil, a silver lining from experience of the Braer oil spill off the Shetland Islands in the 1990s is that severe storms may finally help to dissipate the slick.

bp poster wildcat road heathrow airport london england july 2010 by roadsofstoneDeepwater drilling is challenging. High Pressure / High Temperature drilling is difficult.

Combining these operations into drilling HP/HT deepwater wells is new within the past decade, pushing the technological envelope while incorporating the difficulties of both.

Although vilified for his PR gaffes, finally Tony Hayward did get it exactly right in one of his pronouncements last month, when he said that the real problem is we just didn’t have the toolkit to deal with problems in this setting.

In that sense, the Deepwater Horizon, just like the Sea Gem or Piper Alpha, will be a disaster which changes the way we do things for ever more beyond.
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Posted in 2010, divided by an ocean, economics, environment, geology, history, peak oil

225. Running on Roman Road 2 – from Stane Street to Guildford

Posted on 22 July, 2010 by | 2 comments

stane street roman road slinfold sussex by roadsofstoneIt’s late on a summer’s evening and I’m cycling homeward along one of the most beautiful country roads in England.

This morning’s London to Brighton bike ride is well behind me now and I’m rolling towards the sunset on the longest day of the year.

Eighty miles are in my legs by the time I pass the pretty Saxon village of Slinfold, with twenty more ahead to Guildford.

Beyond the church, I slowly climb a steady rise and turn right onto the main A29. One of my favourite cycling stretches, this — perfect blacktop, arrow straight, and for now at least, heading gently downhill towards the river.

This is Stane Street — the Roman road from Chichester to London. Built in the 1st Century AD, it’s more than good enough for me now. I pause to eat and think at the bridge across the Arun. Here, inside the meander of the river, the Romans built a staging post or mansio.
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Posted in 2010, cycling, Guildford, history, summer, Surrey and Sussex

224. Leviathans of the deep – oil rigs in the Cromarty Firth, Scotland

Posted on 10 July, 2010 by | 3 comments

winter dusk on the bridge inverness scotland by roadsofstoneAs evening falls beneath the deepest black of a December northern sky, a thin veil of dark blue hangs streaked with vivid orange just above the pine trees.

The homeward rush hour in Inverness is a muted, half-hearted affair, and in minutes we’re sailing past the bright lights of the bridge towards the darkness of the Black Isle.

Half an hour ahead, the lights of Cromarty barely touch the depths of nightfall. The white houses of the Royal Burgh are hiding low against the shoreline.

There’s a menace to the silence now, faintly interrupted as it is by the bleak moanful sounds of grinding metal and hammering. Across the water, just half a mile offshore, the leviathans of the deep are waiting.

winter dusk snowy mountains oil rig cromarty firth scotland by roadsofstoneHere in the Cromarty Firth, oil rigs from around the world are waiting for the calmer seas of spring, wintering inshore through maintenance and upgrade programmes to equip them for ever deeper, more challenging drilling as our quest for oil expands.
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Posted in 2010, geology, heroes, history, peak oil, Scotland, winter

223. Cycling on Surrey and Sussex hills – from White Down to Ditchling Beacon

Posted on 1 July, 2010 by | 17 comments

climbing ditchling beacon london to brighton bike ride sussex england by roadsofstoneDitchling Beacon is the high point of the London to Brighton Bike Ride each year, in lots more ways than one.

A whole year of training is finally distilled into one breathless blur of uphill climb.

cycling ditchling beacon london to brighton bike ride sussex england by roadsofstoneAnd no matter how many hills I’ve toiled all winter, it never seems that success on Ditchling is guaranteed — because it’s the toughest ascent I do.

Here’s a map and a profile of the hill, and a comparison with White Down, the steepest climb in the Surrey Hills close to where I live, and the last training test I do before setting off to Brighton each year.
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Posted in 2010, cycling, summer, Surrey and Sussex, training

222. Cuba 2 – Viñales: Talking ’bout a revolution

Posted on 3 June, 2010 by | 1 comment

revolucion es unidad roadsign peninsula zapata bay of pigs cuba by roadsofstone I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will even go further:
… In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear.
— US President John F. Kennedy: 24th October, 1963

Daybreak, 210 km from Havana.

dawn in the rainforest vinales pinar del rio cuba by roadsofstoneIt’s dawn. The rainforest stands still etched in grey, the air dank and humid with half-forgotten warmth.

The sky is dimly promising a future brightening through blue, already revealing white-topped clouds in the firmament above.

Behind me, the friendly valley calls. The massive limestone mogotes above Viñales rise to frame a monochrome outline of last night’s perfect Cuban sunset. I turn the other way and run towards the sunrise.

tropical sunset in vinales pinar del rio cuba by roadsofstoneThe track is damp from unseen rain fallen in the night. The air is heavy, silent, folded thick amongst the trees and scrub lurking close around the path.

The Cuban Revolution started somewhere like this, in the Sierra Maestra above Santiago. The 82 men who sailed from Mexico in December 1956 on the yacht Granma were swiftly cut down to twelve when they landed on Cuba’s swampy southeastern shores.

che guevara mural bus shelter pinar del rio province cuba by roadsofstoneThe survivors, among them a charismatic Argentinian doctor named Che Guevara, fled for the refuge of the mountains where they could regroup and recruit fresh rebels for their cause.
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Posted in 2010, Cuba, divided by an ocean, history, politics, summer

221. Back to the white and black – Oslo, Norway

Posted on 10 May, 2010 by | 4 comments

winter night train arriving at Oslo station Norway by roadsofstoneThe March sun was warming the first Spring evening in London just a few hours ago, but it’s a winter’s tail that tells of Scandinavia now. Thirty centimetres of snow drape the train tracks in the station.

I fumble my way outside, and pull my coat around me. A mile of dark, uncertain streets leads past the midnight girls and drug dealers (who thought this city knew such things?) to my hastily-booked hotel.

No alarm call needed, as morning brings the sounds of a building site next door. The day is lightening outside my window, and pretty soon I’m running beneath a chill grey sky as deserted shopping streets lead me towards the Cathedral.

ss norge winter oslo harbour oslofjord norway by roadsofstoneI take a short diversion to reconnoitre the address for my meeting, and then my mental map of Oslo runs out.  Five circular minutes later I’m slithering across white snowy gardens around the Akershus Fortress, and then on to reach the waterfront.

The Oslofjord lies black and still before me, the quaysides completely empty. Five minutes of quiet is the time I need to clear my mind and think.
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Posted in 2010, heroes, history, politics, Scandinavia, united in a future, winter