Posted on 05/17/2010 5:31:20 AM PDT by Scythian
"Researchers have found more underwater plumes of oil than they can count from the blown-out well, said Samantha Joye, a professor of marine sciences at the University of Georgia. She said careful measurements taken of one plume showed it stretching for 10 miles, with a 3-mile width."
The Christian Science Monitor also reports now that as much as 3.4 million gallons of oil may be leaking into the Gulf every day!
"The oil that can be seen from the surface is apparently just a fraction of the oil that has spilled into the Gulf of Mexico since April 20, according to an assessment the National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology. Significant amounts of oil are spreading at various levels throughout the water column... Scientists looking at video of the leak, suggest that as many as 3.4 million gallons of oil could be leaking into the Gulf every day – 16 times more than the current 210,000-gallon-a-day estimate, according to the Times."
(Excerpt) Read more at naturalnews.com ...
I just posted the story, didn’t say it was true
Spottswoode: From what I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.N.C.E has gathered, it would be 9/11 times 100.
Gary Johnston: 9/11 times a hundred? Jesus, that’s...
Spottswoode: Yes, 91,100.
Chris: Basically, all the worst parts of the bible.
Wrong.
You didn’t simply “post a story”.
You picked out a specific ridiculous paragraph in it, and highlighted it. You followed the typical Old Media playbook, and now you want to simply say, “not my fault” “I just posted the story”. You are not going to get away that easily. I don’t care why, and as I said, I don’t care to know what you are smoking.
The way that people have been attempting to shamelessly exploit this spill is instructive and atrocious. The way it reveals how little people are capable of independent thought is instructive.
Your hatred for the exceptionalism and brilliance of companies who work for us, and your desire to thwart our energy independence has come through in almost every thread that has been posted on this subject over these weeks.
It has also become clear that you have no ability for independent thought or you would have pointed out how ridiculous that statement is instead of trying to focus people’s attention on a liberal talking point. That is NOT what you did. It isn’t that the math is difficult to do - I knew immediately from first rough calcs that the article is complete hyperbole. Despite that lack of trying logical thought, you continue to pretend that you have some useful insight about this spill and the eeeeevil companies and stupid engineers and technologists. It is clear you don’t, and it is time for you to drop the pretense.
“...Researchers from the University of Georgia
have found more plumes of oil than they can count...
-
Well, just how high can they count, any way?
There are actually a lot of disappointed people who are still waiting to see the tar-covered beaches of the GOM, so they can say: See: Oil Bad. Economies based on oil Bad.
Somehow, the fact that govt agencies stopped lawful fishermen, shrimpers, etc from earning a living immediately after the accident is the greater crime and should have more focus from the “compassionate” media.
>>Simple arithmetic reveals that your one large “plume of oil” is 7.5 BILLION CUBIC METERS... about 8 BILLION TONS, or 40 BILLION BARRELS of fluid.<<
Would you give me your arithmetic please?
“Doesn’t oil float on water? Wouldn’t the underwater oil gradually rise to the surface? Or will the scientists find some explanation for why that oil stays lurking underwater ...”
###
“The depth of the gushing leaks and the use of more than 560,000 gallons of chemicals to disperse the oil, including unprecedented injections deep in the sea, have helped keep the crude beneath the sea surface.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37192352/ns/us_news-environment
Law of unintended consequences?
Quick -- graft more fingers on their hands.
As oil naturally oozes from the ocean floor, I would think that the ocean would naturally handle the oil eventually, otherwise wouldn't the oceans of the earth resemble an unmixed bowl of salad dressing?
You want me to “show my work”? ... LOL ... I am in a good mood.
Mostly it was done in my head but here you go:
Plume “10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet” ... Being a scientist, I first call make this metric with assumption of “rectangular”
15kilometers x 5klicks x 100meters ...
15,000 meters x 5,000m x 100m
7.5 with a bunch of zeros...... how many...? ...
nine of them...
7.5 Billion Cubic Meters - and since a cubic meter of water weighs one metric ton (definition) and one metric ton is equal to 1.1 US tons ... we’re at about 8 billion Tons.
There are approximately five barrels of per ton of oil ... suppose I ought to double check that... Oops - I guess the correct number is more on the order of 7 barrels per ton.
So we are talking about 56 BILLION barrels (scratch 40GBBL) in this one “plume” that Scythian mentioned.
For Oil Consumption per day, check out http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html
I was at a gov’t office a few days ago in line...
I’ve no idea how the subject came up, but it did, and I simply asked “What happened to the oil of Ixtoc 1? That 1979 spill was about a hundred times worse than this one and it was in the GOM?”
Of course, no ANSWER. ... Which led me into my professorial mode -— people have become so duped by the idiots who peddle nonsense about things like this.
Fact is that the oil that seeps naturally into the GOM is on the order of this spill... and previous to our drilling 50 years or so ago the natural seepage was likely five times greater than now. Our drilling has relieved a good deal of seepage!
Someone please tell me why people have such a desire to believe that man is automatically a scourge on this planet?
You are right - it is ridiculous how so many are hoping for the end of life due to this spill. This is clearly a problem to address, and I don’t want to suggest it be ignored. It needs to be dealt with, and in some reasonable manner, effects should be mollified. However to say that it is going to lead to the end of civilization (which I have actually seen suggested) defies any logical reasoning.
Isn’t it remarkable how a “stayathomemom” has more logical reasoning power than dozens of government agencies and “mainstream” reporters?
You are completely accurate. The oil will be somewhat mixed into the water, even though it has a “tendency” to float. Think salad dresssing. It also gets nabbed by sediment, dead animal shells, dirt, and other such effluvia ... much of which then settles to the DEAD sea bottom and remains there to be recycled in some millions of years into new rock, some of which undoubtedly will be oil bearing. Another portion will completely mix and enter into solution with the water. Another portion will rise to the surface and a large part of that will evaporate. A small amount will wash up on a beach- giving some fool environmentalist a job of “saving the birds” and taking pictures of the “disaster”. Mostly, we are now seeing the “where did it all go” fools trying to explain how GOD set this whole thing up... They are so shallow that if they couldn’t figure it out it must not have been able to happen and it is a complete mystery.
I’m OK with your math. I’m thinking that if there is that much oil, wouldn’t it be possible to suck it up through Kevin Cosners vacuum system and recover it.
Where I have serious difficulties is in the chart. Going back to Ixtoc 1, if we knew how much oil was dispersed from it, why are we having difficulties determining how much is being pumped out of this tiny leak. They should be able to give us an exact amount all the way down to half gallons per minute. I’m thinking that they are blowing this completely out of proportion or else we have seen bays,beaches and thousands of seabirds covered in oil.
Instead we’ve had what - one Brown Pelican that made the news. Poor thing, it deserves a wonderful, free from hunger and vermin lifestyle since it had to suffer through all those cameras and reporters.
Well, my first clue about the reliability of this whole premise comes from the source mentioned......
Something I'll be a lot of people never knew. I didn't.
Thanks for the information and pinging me to this thread.
FWIW, I think the adding surfactants to the oil to disperse it is a mistake.
Compelling post. I’ll be quoting you in Monster Ping. [Link in profile.]
It is pretty darned difficult to do anything 5000 ft below the surface. You have to bring your own power even your own light. The pressure is on the order of 150 times atmospheric ~= 150 tons per square foot. The temperature is on the order of 4C. Natural gas rapidly enters into a crystalline form with water, rather than bubbling up to the surface. Other components of crude oil do not behave as they do at STP (Standard Temperature and Pressure). It really is a different world than the laboratory experiments most of us are familiar with, and it is very dangerous to assume that oil will behave in an “expected” manner.
metmom communicated to me skepticism about injecting dispersants. I share that skepticism, but I am NOT at all an expert. I suspect that the good scientists and technologists in BP and other oil companies are skeptical too since it is their job to be good. They are much more familiar with how oil behaves than I ever will be, so I gladly defer to their expertise about this.
The amount being released now from DH is not at all clear. Perhaps in time there will be a better idea. Calculations can be made, but they are subject to great uncertainty. Visual estimates can be done, but they are even more uncertain. In reality - it doesn’t matter - it simply has to be dealt with no matter greater or smaller than the guesstimates.
It is also important to realize the seldom stated truth that this is a “dynamic” situation - the oil coming out of the reservoir erodes the reservoir - not only the drill hole, but the oil formation itself. The erosion eventually will cause collapse of the reservoir, and will even seal the well. The oil rushing through it erodes the “riser” - and rapidly - due to the sand that is carried along by the oil. If one of the “kinks” in the riser wears through, not only will there be more leaks along the pipe, the flow will increase due to a resulting decrease in the frictional forces slowing the flow through the riser.
All these things are known, and I’ve seen them discussed in some oil industry organs (I am not very familiar with the industry myself, by the way). BP seems to have done a reasonable job about trying to inform without overwhelming. They have taken a lot more information into account than the fool presstitutes and mediots and bureaucrats give them credit for. Still, this is rather unexplored intellectual territory, and as is ALWAYS true in such situations, there will be much more failure and many more surprises.
It is important to realize that the BP and other technologists working with them are THE BEST on the planet in understanding what is occurring now 5000ft below the surface, and they are applying that knowledge as well as effectively as possible to deal with the problem.
People have such a huge need to drag down others in order to enhance their self-image, but in a case like this, it is important to resist that temptation, and call out the bureaucrats and mediots who are doing that for their own self-aggrandisement.
“scientists” Still don’t know how big the spill is the fun thing with number one can just make them up if no real data is at hand.
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