Posted on 04/30/2010 5:14:12 PM PDT by thackney
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill tragedy is bad and getting worse by the hour. For several days the well was thought to be spewing 1,000 barrels a day from the seafloor. On Thursday morning that estimate was ramped up to 5,000 barrels a day. Louisiana is bracing for an oily sheen to coat coastal swamps as early as Friday night.
If the well continues to flow unabated at 5,000 bpd for two months until BP can cap it, the Deepwater Horizon spill could surpass the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill of 270,000 barrels as the biggest in U.S. history. But to keep things in perspective, this spill would have to continue gushing at this rate for 200 days to break into the top 10 worst spills ever, and for more than a year to enter the top five.
(Excerpt) Read more at financialpost.com ...
ping
Slide Show: The 10 Biggest Oil Spills
http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/29/worst-oil-spills-business-energy-oil-spills_slide_2.html
This was a setup. There rigs have every multiple back up system. This is our foreign and domestic enemies killing domestic energy exploration.
Good find, thanks for posting.
I think so too.
...I don’t like being a conspiracy theorist, but, could this have been deliberately blown up? The environmental movement are probably partying over this. No more drilling for oil! These days I’m skeptical, paranoid, and scared of the booger man. Someone slap me and strap me to a gurney. When they finish the investigation, if I’m wrong, just pad a cell and throw away the key...
This didn’t start with a rig fire/explosion.
This started with a blowout from below the seabed.
What was the net environmental impact of these spills?
What does all this oil really mean environmentally?
Is it a complete disaster or will the local environment recover - quickly, slowly?
Remember they are sliming oil, burning oil and breaking it down with dispersants.
It will depend how much actual oil remains to hit surfaces.
skimming, not slimming.
Anyopne remember the Tory Canyon shipwreck from about 45 years ago? The Brits fired rockets into the ship to try and set the oil on fire so it would not spill into the Atlantic. Finally they airdropped tons of detergents to break up the oil.
Then there was the oil leak about 1835 in an the eastern state. The river actually caught on fire there. Again that was around 1835!
Thanks. What I am trying to put into perspective is the real risk of oil spills. Is this just like airline crashes where they are high profile, but really rare?
Here is a list of the major disasters for rigs.
Small stuff that stayed within reasonable control is not listed.
http://home.versatel.nl/the_sims/rig/losses.htm
Fascinating, thank you.
Are there any good analyses of the long term impacts of these spills/slicks on the environment?
I’d heard, and it could be a “wives tale”, that areas of the coast left untreated did better at recovering than areas that were treated after the Exxon Valdez spill.
What I have read concerning the Valdez clean up was when the oil contact area was steam cleaned, it killed more plant life and was longer to recover.
Different methods were tried in different areas.
Yes, that is it. It was the steam cleaning method that was worse.
Do you know of any sources that analyze clean up procedures?
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