Three fingers of blame point back at Obama in Oil Spill

Creating Orwellian Worldview ^ | 5/17/10 | Alaphiah

[Alaphiah123]

I call it the paradox of finger pointing at the finger pointers. In a holier-than-thou sermon last Friday which was meant to be an update to the American people regarding the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico president Barry Hussein Soetoro pontificated on the evils of companies finger pointing at one another and not owning up to their corporate responsibilities.

However in the midst of the president’s homily if one listened closely one could hear the faintest mea culpa also in a speech which resonated largely in, “do as I say, but don’t finger point as I do” tones.

Yet unbelievably, president Barry Hussein Soetoro admitted that he is responsible for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. That’s right he did. Did he say I’m responsible for the oil spill in the Gulf? No he didn’t. But would you expect a man who has spent his entire presidency up until now finger pointing at “the previous administration” to willingly and openly except responsibility for anything?

So why do I say he admitted guilt? Because he did in the only way he knows how to, hidden in plain sight in language said and unsaid. Once you understand the double speak which he and his fellow Democrats employ and once you know the facts, it’s quite easy to decipher what he meant from what he said.

[alloysteel]

Deep-well drilling on the ocean floor is a very new technology, and things are being discovered that only a few years ago, were unknown and could not be anticipated.

At great ocean depths, there exists a layer of Methane Hydrate on the ocean floor. Apparently, this is much thicker than once imagined to be, and especially so at the depth where the burst in the pipe occurred. This was the factor that caused the failure of the first inserted concrete dome, because that icy sludge Methane Hydrate completely plugged the upward pipe from that fixture, making it essentially useless.

The warm crude oil from the earth’s depths sufficiently warmed the Methane Hydrate from the ocean’s floor, that it underwent a phase change, and sent a huge bubble of natural gas to the surface, causing the first disruption that capsized and ignited a firestorm at the drilling rig. The methane-water mixture made the drilling rig much less buoyant, and the vast quantity of fuel present in contact with atmospheric oxygen needed only the least spark to detonate the fireball. The sinking debris smashed the underwater complex of piping, exacerbating the oil spill by a great margin. It was the perfect underwater storm, that set up conditions of nightmare proportions, by first scattering junk all over the ocean floor in the vicinity, then by continuing to gush a mixture of crude oil and natural gas under water.

Part of the natural gas has been reabsorbed by the ocean, because the conditions (temperature of 38 degrees F, enormous pressure at that depth of ocean) were right for rapid and widespread formation of Methane Hydrate, which sifted back down to the ocean floor. Thus only the petroleum fractions of the spew rose to the surface and formed the oil slick, the methane that provided the propulsion out of the gusher was gone and never reached the surface.

Out of all this catastrophe and chaos, there is one factor that should be put into all future calculations for extracting energy from natural resources that lay all about us.

A possible engineering application for the harvest of Methane Hydrate from the ocean floor:

Methane Hydrate is somewhat heavier than saline water, and naturally sinks to the bottom. It is amorphous, that is, it has no crystalline structure, but is kind of a gel. Machinery that is rather like either a large suction apparatus, could pull this substance up, or a simple dredge line could scoop pieces up and convey them to a submerged receiving chamber. Here, the debris would be allowed to fall away, all the while keeping the Methane Hydrate stored near the temperature where it would be stable, 38 degrees F., which is the temperature everywhere at depths of 1,500 feet or greater. When the debris is cleared out of the submerged chamber, then warm water from the surface is drawn down and allowed to warm the Methane Hydrate, which then goes through phase change, and the methane is released from its containment through a vertical pipe, to a collection and compression apparatus on the platform above. The practical application is to compress and cool the released methane to liquified natural gas, and transport it in refrigerated ships to the port, where it is transferred to storage units until it is warmed and sent into natural gas distribution pipelines.

Methane does not liquify until it is cooled to -260 degrees F. Otherwise, it remains a gas, one that may be greatly compressed, and for use as a vehicle fuel, would have to be. Methane has a rather low energy density per pound, and even compressed, takes up a comparatively large volume per pound. But internal combustion engines burn the fuel quite cleanly, there being almost complete combustion and virtually no carbon monoxide formed in the exhaust, much cleaner than Diesel or even good quality gasoline.

There is a way to convert methane to other, longer-chained alkanes, such as octane, nonane and decane, the major components of gasoline and Diesel fuel, by keeping it under pressure, in the presence of a nickel-iron catalyst, and applying heat. This may be, in fact, a much simpler way to transport the extracted methane than by cooling it and transporting it as a liquid. And as it is already compounded to almost the exact requirements for motor fuel, very little additional refinement would be necessary.

It is estimated that on the ocean floor, there is enough of this Methane Hydrate to equal from four times to ten times the amount of the total of all the known and estimated reserves of coal, natural gas and petroleum in the world. Methane Hydrate is formed continuously, because under the conditions of temperature (38 degrees F.), and pressure six to ten times atmospheric, that exist at the bottom of the ocean continental shelf, the physical fixing of this substance is the stable configuration. Methane is being continuously as the final decomposition product of ALL organic matter. After all, what do you think became of whale poop? It drifts to the bottom, where highly specialized anaerobic bacteria combine the elements in water and organic materials, to form the methane and carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide combines with water, in turn, to form carbonic acid, which then reacts with other minerals (chiefly calcium and magnesium) in the water to form carbonate rock, the basis of the formation of limestone.

There is no such thing as “peak petroleum” as it is being constantly produced, by largely abiotic means, continuously. There is no limited supply of “dinosaur soup” that we shall use up in our lifetimes, and if we do, we have the technical capability to transform other organic substances into the amount and quality of synthetic petroleum we need.

[Alaphiah123]

Thank you for that insightful reply.
Al

[SaraJohnson]

Oh Noes! Someone pointed fingers at Dear Reader after he warned you not to do it! He’s not going to tolerate that stuff out of us “racist haters.”