As a result of the ongoing nuclear disaster in Japan, Americans have turned strongly against expanding nuclear power. The important question for the industry will be whether this disaster results in significant long-term increases in opposition to nuclear power, or if it is just a temporary dip that will only last as long as Fukushima remains prominent in the news.

Halliburton and the other companies involved, like Transocean, have been pointing the finger at BP, and vice versa. At stake is responsibility for the tens in billions in expected fines for violating the Clean Water Act and other environmental statutes, as well as claims from individuals seeking damages.

Douglas Bevington’s The Rebirth of Environmentalism comes at a very important moment. The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the largest in U.S. history. Then another in Michigan. Heat waves and record temperatures across the South and along the East Coast. Massive fires in Russia, that ripped into wheat supplies and sent prices soaring. Floods in Pakistan that have displaced at least 20 million people, one-fifth of that country’s population.

It’s a good thing for the White House that future voters in the 12-to-16-year-old age group wasn’t polled by Gallup.

US scientists put out a new estimate last night of the flow rate of the BP oil disaster, and determined that almost five million barrels, or 200,000,000 gallons, of oil released out of the busted Macondo well since the explosion on April 20 — an amount over ten times the initial estimates of flow rate from BP at the outset of the disaster.

Look for an additional delay in the “injectivity test” and static kill operations. A new leak on the well apparatus is shown in video captured August 3 at 9 am Eastern. In addition, oil appears to be leaking from the Gulf floor near the well.

The whole PR strategy for BP has been to keep the oil off the shore, so people like TIME’s Michael Grunwald would bail them out with articles about how the disaster isn’t all that bad. But just because we can’t see the insides of the organisms in the food chain, that doesn’t mean their intake of oil and other chemicals isn’t devastating for the ecosystem and for the industries which rely on the marine food chain.

So, in addition to giving Tony “I want my life back” Hayward his life back, the BP Board of Directors this week reported a $17,000,000,000 loss for the quarter and announced that they would set aside $32,000,000,000 to pay claims in their Gulf of Mexico fiasco.

Last week the House passed the Oil Pollution Research and Development Program Reauthorization Act of 2010, a bill that amends the post-Exxon Valdez legislation in order to fund research on oil spills.

As part of this bill, Rep. Alan Grayson attached two amendments to, in his words, “expand research on the effects of these spills on the human beings assigned to clean them up.” Critically, the amendments target both oil and dispersants — ingredients in the toxic stew affecting BP Oil Disaster cleanup workers.

As you can see from the illustration where I have superimposed the location of the Macondo Well (link is pdf; 28.4 deg. North, 88.2 deg. West ) on the latest (2 am Eastern, July 23) wind speed probability map from the National Hurricane Center, Tropical Storm Bonnie is on a course that is expected to take it directly over the blown out well.