The Experiment

In Deep Water: The Anatomy of a Disaster, the Fate of the Gulf, and Ending Our Oil Addiction.

Deepwater Horizon was BP’s cutting edge energy explorer that drilled five thousand feet below that the surface of the Gulf of Mexico to extract millions of barrels of crude. On April 20, 2010, its Macondo well blew up resulting in a massive explosion that killed eleven men and spilled million of gallons of oil into the Gulf. Why did this happen and how can another deepwater drilling disaster be prevented? Yesterday, President Obama lifted the moratorium on deepwater oil exploration, a move criticized by environmentalists but welcomed by oil workers and the industry. Bob Deans is the co-author of In Deep Water, the first book to appear on the BP oil disaster. What harm has the blowout done to the Gulf, and how will residents be affected in the long term?

Guest:

Bob Deans, associate director of communications at Natural Resources Defense Council and co-author with Peter Lehner, the executive director of NRDC, of In Deep Water: The Anatomy of a Disaster, the Fate of the Gulf and How to End Our Oil Addiction. Deans is also the author of The River Where America Began: A Journey along the James and was the chief Asia correspondent for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and other Cox newspapers. He spent eight years covering the White House. He is a former president of the White House Correspondents' Association.