Wolf Blitzer: “Billion potential barrels of oil” under BP well; “Could really explode” expert says

Florida Oil Spill AW ^ | June 17, 2010 | jackie

[jackietree]

CNN’s first mention of concerns about the structural integrity of BP’s blown-out well occurred on the June 16 edition of the Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, during an interview with a member of the government’s Flow Rate Technical Group, Professor Steven Wereley.

Blitzer described a conversation he had with an expert who said, “They’re still really concerned about the structural base of this whole operation.” “This thing could really explode,” added Blitzer, “And they’re sitting, what, on — on a billion potential barrels of oil.”

Wereley responded, “I’ve heard concerns about the structural integrity of the well.” More precisely, the structural concerns were if “the casing of the well is — is faulty at some point.”

SNIP

[Gulf War One]

Well said. I too am getting tired of the hype.

[Natural Born 54]

After doing research to find out who the geologist is referenced in the Hoagland interview, I believe I found the man’s identity and background information and a confirmation of his involvement in the Deep Water Horizon well.

FROM WIKI:

Safety Boss is an oil well fire fighting company based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

The company and its CEO, Mike Miller, became most famous by becoming the number one fire-fighting company in Kuwait after the 1991 Gulf War. The company doused 180 out of the 600 fires, more than any other company there. Safety Boss set the rapid pace that had to be matched by other companies in Kuwait, and as a result, the fires were out within nine months, instead of the many years that was initially given as the earliest possible date to put out the fires.

The last fire to be put out was set up by Safety Boss to be doused by the push of a button by the Emir of Kuwait.

The technology that allowed Safety Boss to take the lead was the Smokey fire truck, developed in 1983 after an especially stubborn and damaging oil fire in Alberta.

___________________________________________________

FROM THIS LINK: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/58817/title/Science_%2B_the_Public__BP_oil_rig%E2%80%99s_sinking_and_gushing_crude_raise_questions

“Among them: Mike Miller, chief executive officer and senior well-control supervisor at Safety Boss. Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, his half-century old Canadian company specializes in fighting oil-well fires, blowouts, pipeline ruptures and processing-facility fires. He’s curious why BP rushed to put out the rig’s fires.

“At least while the rig was burning, all of the effluent from the well was coming to the surface and burning at the surface,” Miller notes. Indeed, burning oil — even on the sea surface — is an accepted spill-mitigation technique. So he’s puzzled why water boats were deployed to dowse the burning platform.

A mile down and out of sight
“What they did was fill the rig up with water. At which point it sunk,” Miller says — a full 5,000 feet to the seabed. And that, he maintains, violated “the first rule in offshore fire-fighting, which is not to sink the ship.” The reason: As soon as the rig submerged, it took down the riser pipe, which in this case was a 5,000-foot-long tethered straw through which the oil was gushing up from a reservoir 13,000 feet below the seafloor.

This riser didn’t just break loose and fall down when the platform sank: It crumpled. And where it suffered acute bends, it weakened, opening up at least two secondary gushers. So instead of having the oil coming out as a single fountain at the Gulf’s surface — one that people could reach — it’s now spewing from multiple holes in a damaged pipe nearly a mile beneath the surface.”

___________________________________________________

As far as confirming that Mike Miller is one of the legitimate sources for the gas bubble story, at least I have the correct person and company name. If and when I find a connection between him and the Hoagland statements, I’ll post it here.

[Quix]

THX THX

[steve86]

Yeah, it is a nice 1200. Especially like the accessory pipes. The HDs have port FI now, right? I saw your Versys and Roadliner, too.

I have to take the IT250 out again before next week to finish the shake down before next week’s trail ride. I have provoked three or four little failures recently so glad I got them fixed early. One of the things I had forgotten to put in the tool kit was spare fuel line so that is included now. Took me a day to get the jetting right but it should be perfect at that elevation now.

On that old Honda 175, I didn’t get a trophy but returned it to my dad without a scratch. That was saying something. Later he sold it to a kid who put kerosene in the gas and trashed it. Went from perfect to junk in just a week or two.

[Myrddin]

I was pretty set on a 2008 model to ensure it had fuel injection, double disk brakes in front, cast rims with tubeless tires and 4.5 gallon gas tank. The Roadster also has 5.6" of ground clearance compared to the other models at 3.9". The bike I purchased didn't have the factory alarm. I'm going to pay the $350 to add it. I spent 2 hours yesterday installing a Kriss headlight modulator. The headlamp shell is smaller on post 2007 Sportys, so I had to cut off the factory connector to the lamp and go through some serious gyrations to dress the modulator and wires back into the shell.

Good thing you did a shake out on the bike before the trip. A failure in the dirt can be a real pain to recover if you are far from a paved road. Do you have materials to fix a flat if that happens. Tire irons, tube, CO2 bottle to reinflate or a pump?

My 175 had one serious flaw during the time I owned it. The camshaft bearing and seals failed. It was a very expensive repair compared to the original purchase price of the bike. Otherwise, it was an outstanding bike. Very versatile.

[steve86]

All of a sudden the IT250 started running very lean and wouldn’t take any throttle at all. I was puzzled because of just having worked on the jetting but then saw fuel running out of the fuel filter. The brand new filter had split and had mostly air in it. I did get it patched up with epoxy to ride back to the truck but now have the spare filter line that could be swapped in for the whole thing.

Yes, I have the tire repair stuff but the Slime has been working including the other day. Just one small dot of green on the outside of the tire casing and the leak was sealed. Where I’m going it isn’t especially rocky so I doubt there will be a flat problem.

Up by Vantage/Ellensburg is a different matter where down by the river there is a tire slasher rock every 10 feet or so and a hundred lesser rocks between. But it is worth navigating around those to get to the hundreds of miles of ORV trails in the area.

[Myrddin]

The only time I managed to get the bikes out (TW200, DR650SE and my wife's Vespa LX150) on the trailer to Craters of the Moon, I was rewarded with a nail in the rear tire of the DR650. My wife and son enjoyed riding around Craters on the bikes. I pulled the trailer with the DR650 sitting on it. We've never had another good weather weekend with all of us off work to try again. My upcoming 6 week business trip to San Diego puts that on the back burner for yet another year.

[SaraJohnson]

Thanks for the info, NB. Oh, brother!

[Natural Born 54]

Note to Lucy T - look up thread a bit. I posted another confirming story and forgot to include you. (sorry)

MORE VERIFICATION OF “GAS BUBBLE” UNDER THE GULF STORY:

Associated Press Writers-NEW ORLEANS (AP) — It is an overlooked danger in oil spill crisis: The crude gushing from the well contains vast amounts of natural gas that could pose a serious threat to the Gulf of Mexico’s fragile ecosystem.

The oil emanating from the seafloor contains about 40 percent methane, compared with about 5 percent found in typical oil deposits, said John Kessler, a Texas A&M University oceanographer who is studying the impact of methane from the spill.

That means huge quantities of methane have entered the Gulf, scientists say, potentially suffocating marine life and creating “dead zones” where oxygen is so depleted that nothing lives.

“This is the most vigorous methane eruption in modern human history,” Kessler said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9133315

---

And just because it is interesting, here are some but not all of the methane-connected events of the last couple of months:

Columbia mine disaster- METHANE
http://www.todayonline.com/BreakingNews/EDC100617-0000314/Explosion-in-Colombian-coal-mine-kills-16,-leaves-dozens-trapped-methane-buildup-suspected

W. VA Massey Mine explosion- METHANE
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703280004575309181898099708.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines

Mexico explosion cause mile-long crack- METHANE
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.eluniversal.com.mx%2Fnotas%2F687979.html&sl=es&tl

CT Kleen Energy massive explosion, killing many
http://depletedcranium.com/information-comes-out-about-kleen-energy-explosion/

Texas natural gas refinery explosion - METHANE
http://cbs13.com/national/explosion.oil.well.2.1737736.html

---

There’s a new story out that I don’t have a good source on - that the oil is also radioactive. (can you imagine what what some posters on this thread would say if they came back and saw this!?!).

People are saying they now understand why BP wanted the oil to sink below the surface where it could not get collected. On one forum site for people in the Gulf region, a poster connected with a university was able to test an oil sample with a geiger counter. He confirmed the presence of radioactivity but said the amount was quite small. Wonder what is making the clean up workers sick - the oil/gas mixture with its known dangers, Corexit, radioactivity or all of the above?

Will post here if I get an acceptable source for this and will keep tracking down the gas (methane) bubble warning story.

One last thing. Found this highly detailed aerial sat. view of the Gulf taken on the 18th of June (large file in png format):
http://ge.ssec.wisc.edu/modis-today/index.php?satellite=t1&product=true_color&date=2010_06_18_169&overlay_sector=false&overlay_state=true&overlay_coastline=true&sector=USA7&resolution=250m

I do not have an eye trained to recognize oil but you can see where you think it is and it is really wide spread IF what looks to be oil IS oil.

[Natural Born 54]

This short You Tube video from the History Channel’s Mega Disasters series demonstrates what a professor at N.W. Univ. thinks has happened and will happen when a methane bubble breaches the ocean surface. Not good at all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25BE42PzZZc&feature=player_embedded

[LucyT]

Back to the thread. - Check out # 129 and # 130.

[Thanks, Natural Born 54.]

[Quix]

Interesting issues.

THX

I don’t think the slight radioactivity would cause the workers any great problem—particularly in such a short time span.

Might depend on what sort, wave lengths?? it was?

[Quix]

thanks for the link.

[Jedidah]

That is one of the most frightening things I’ve ever watched.

[thecodont]

1. Has Obama returned the 70,000 in campaign funds from BP, before they got the permit for this well?

I read somewhere that the Dems claimed Michele Bachmann received campaign contributions from BP, and they've decided to focus on that instead.

[Natural Born 54]

I agree. I have a lot of friends in Florida and debated whether to share that with them or not, but finally decided to do so. My comment with the link was a request that they follow the gas bubble story closely and if it begins to get verification, they should get the heck out of Dodge asap. How far you’d have to go I don’t know but certainly well out of Florida.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I believe that to be wild speculation with no rational basis...

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Raw SCARE TACTIC...speculation story....

I am referring to the Giant Bubble...

Goes along with the sea floor collapsing...story...

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Things are getting crazy on this website.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

We seem to have our share of people that will pick up on any scary story the lefties want to feed us with....helps them get away from the Global Warming is caused by Man...

Now we have something so profound that only God could have set this trap up!