The Deep Water Horizon explosion and oil spill off the coast of Louisiana in 2010 demonstrated how little improvement in oil cleanup technology had been made since the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989.

FORBES: Fulfilling The President's Green Dreams Through Private Competition

The Aswan high dam, for example, is often cited as a cautionary example, a quixotic construction that now reduces the mighty Nile to a dribble before it trickles to the sea, leaving behind an explosion of water hyacinth, outbreaks of bilharzia, polluted irrigation channels and a build-up of sediment inland that would otherwise compensate for coastal erosion from Egypt to Lebanon.

ECONOMIST: Small projects often give better returns

Employees at the Pemex annex said that the basement of the building, where he explosion is believed to have originated, housed a water treatment facility, storage areas and archives.

CNN: February 1, 2013 -- Updated 1937 GMT (0337 HKT)

At 8:20 p.m. on the day of the explosion the pressure data suggest there was a constant flow of sea water being pumped into the drill pipe that was displacing the heavier mud system which was the primary pressure control for the well.

WSJ: The Oil Disaster Is About Human, Not System, Failure