DC Bureau - Investigative Journalism, Environmental News, and National Security Stories That Matter

The fire Thursday at an oil platform off the Louisiana coast may not, in the end, do much harm to the Gulf of Mexico. But it could still mean trouble for both the Obama administration and the oil industry - by raising new questions about the gulf's oil fields.

Since 1996, Statoil, the Norwegian state-owned energy company, has disposed of almost 13m tonnes of CO2 by burying it under the ocean floor. Thus far, it has shown no signs of leakage. That has made Norway something of a holy site for believers in carbon capture and storage.