Running the Numbers on the Spill (one-millionth of an ounce of oil in a bathtub full of water)

Rush Limbaugh .com ^ | 6/16/10 | The Maha

[scottteng]

I have seen the tractors out on the name beaches raking up the seagrass, flotsum and jetsam plus assorted unmentionables from the night before now there are areas where this is not done one can recognize those by the stinking rotting vegetation at the high tide line but it is natural and oil is too, there are usually some man made products collecting there as well. My grandfather was a dedicated beach comber and I will occasionally go that route. I lived in the big bend area for many years and the man made beach was maintained the little natural beach down the road was solid grass.

[Oceander]

Thanks for the link! Those are some serious images.

[SkyDancer]

Yeah ... eleven and nineteen are heartbreaking ....

[Star Traveler]

You were saying ...

There is always oil and other yucky stuff on the beaches that is why the public beaches are groomed just like a golf course before the hordes show up. Look up oil seepage if you want to know more.

Ummmm... sorry..., this is not "seepage" that is going on here ... LOL ...

We're talking about what the government "upped" yesterday to possibly 60,000 barrels of oil a day. Others (in the industry) have said that they think it's actually 120,000 barrels a day, spewing out.

That's not "seepage" ... which is quite diluted and hardly noticed by anyone. Take a look at how this looks and how this affects things ... hoo-boy!

[Star Traveler]

From another FReeper's post in the following thread ...

BP Official Admits to Damage BENEATH THE SEA FLOOR

His post is Post #183 ...

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The following information comes from recent measurements from the EPS and NOAA:

The Deepwater Horizon was an ultra-deep well, meaning that the well itself drilled down to as far as 18, to 25,000 feet, nearly throw the Earths crust, we could every well have hit a strata of oil or a Bathetic of oil. Oil at those depths can reach levels of pressure of 70,000lbs psi. There is no technology known that can handle that pressure. Normal psi for a well is 1,500psi.

What this is doing is eroding the pipe and the surrounding area and digging a bigger fissure, much like if you stick a high-pressure hose in the ground, only in this case from the bottom up. This is causing other streams to open up, hence why we're seeing plumbs appearing miles away from the original rupture.

But that isn't the worst part. As bad as the oil is it is biodegradable. Along with the oil, deadly gases are escaping at the following unprecedented levels (from resent EPA measurements).

Hydrogen Sulfide - safe level = 5-10 parts per billion.
What's been measured: 1,200 parts per billion.

Benzine - safe level = 0-4 parts per billion.
What's been measured: 3,000 parts per billion.

Metholine Chloride - safe level = 61 parts per billion.
What's been measured: 3,400 parts per billion.

These gases can cause massive health effects ranging from shortness of breath to cancer to death. In fact, we've seen some surface workers hospitalized.

Insiders are now saying that there now may be only one way to stop this monster: Nuke it. However there is no guarantee that this wouldn't make matters even worse by opening up even a bigger rupture or creating multiple fissures in the sea floor.

If nothing at all is done, there is reason to believe this rupture will go on for years, possibly decades.

And if this isn't bad enough, Corexit 9500, the dispersant being used, is many times more damaging than the oil itself. Its highly toxic. At the temperatures in the Gulf waters this toxicity is magnified and turns into a gas that can be picked up by clouds and return to Earth as a toxic rain. This "death from above" precipitation may have the ability to destroy life from micro organisms up through the entire entire ecosystem. So the chemical "solution" to the hydrocarbon Extinction Level Event may turn out to be a localized environmental holocaust.

I really wish I had been wrong about this.

---

Formatted a slight bit differently than in the post, itself ...

[TXnMA]

Whoever wrote that ignorant piece of crap needs to go learn some chemistry — or STFU!

[jacquej]

I am a loyal Rush fan, and was listening today while driving my husband home from a Drs. appt.

I heard him say this, and thought to myself that Rush isn’t taking into consideration that the oil isn’t spread out all over the gulf, but is in bunches, and the bunches are washing ashore, killing the marshes.

The marshes are where most of the gulf life spawns, and are protection from the storms and hurricanes. They can’t be cleaned the way beaches and birds can.

I understand his point, but not sure I agree with him on this.

[Star Traveler]

You were saying ...

Whoever wrote that ignorant piece of crap needs to go learn some chemistry — or STFU!

I included the original poster so you can check his sources. I'm sure he would be glad to help you with it. If he should know something, then perhaps you could tell him about it.

I'm passing it on from a FReeper who regarded the source as reliable ... and I've found that poster to be right on with many other things, too ... so he's a reliable FReeper. But, if he's got something wrong here, I'm sure he would be glad to hear from you ... :-)

[Minn]

oil floats, it does not mix with the water, but rises to the surface.

It does and it doesn't. Crude oil is not like salad oil in vinegar. It doesn't just bob to the surface. I follows currents up and down. It eventually tars up, sinks to the bottom, and stays there. Of course if the bottom is a marsh, it's a problem.

[Michael.SF.]

After posting what I did I also realized that there is another issue. The oil spewing is also has a mixture of gases contained within the oil/fluid that is being emitted. Some of those gases are being absorbed into the water.

I did not hear Rush, but my reaction is, he did not think this out enough. Admittedly I am guilty of the same thing.

[WOSG]

So much BS, so little time.

DiHydrogenOxide is in much higher concentrations there, and large doses are known to KILL PEOPLE.

[Liz]

THIS JUST IN The Progressives say Obama'a flopola BP speech was too "professorial" for his target audience. Translation: His speech flopped b/c Ohaha and the Progs are too smart for the "little people."

===========================================

THE FACTS ARE THESE Ohaha's speech reeked of Rahm and Axelrod's political calculations. Some of the phrases used---the allusion to our fighting men----the Reaganesque "God Bless America"----show the WH mob had calculatedly written the speech using focus-grouped phrases intended to suck Ohaha out of the political sinkhole he's made for himself. In fact, the speech was so well-rehearsed-----even down to the orchestrated voice inflections and gestures-----that Ohaha must have channelled Lee Strassberg.

========================================

The speech was slaughtered by Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and Howard Fineman. Highlights of leftie thoughts on Obama's Oval Office Address on the oil spill.

Olbermann: "It was a great speech if you were on another planet for the last 57 days."

Matthews compared Obama to Carter.

Olbermann: "Nothing specific at all was said."

Matthews: "No direction."

Howard Fineman: "He wasn't specific enough."

Olbermann: "I don't think he aimed low, I don't think he aimed at all. It's startling."

Howard Fineman: Obama should be acting like a "commander-in-chief."

Matthews: Ludicrous that he keeps saying [Secretary of Energy] Chu has a Nobel prize. "I'll barf if he does it one more time."

Matthews: "A lot of meritocracy, a lot of blue ribbon talk."

Matthews: "I don't sense executive command."

Rachel Maddow hung her head in despair.....too disgusted to even speak.

VIDEO: Obama: Oil Disaster "Most Painful And Powerful Reminder" That We Need Clean Energy

VIDEO: Krauthammer: Obama Gave It A Shot, But The Story Will Not Be His Speech

VIDEO: Frank Luntz Focus Group On Obama's Address: "Negative"

SOURCE http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/06/15/msnbc_trashes_obamas_address_compared_to_carter_

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If anyone is stultifyingly sophmoric it's Ohaha and his speechwriters. They promised a brighter day.....tomorrow.......Gosh, can you all wait til Daddy Warbucks comes back to Little Orphan Annie?

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

Also, that’s why North Carolina is called the “Tar Heel” state because of all that oil stuff washing up on the beaches ...

No it's not. "Tar Heel" comes from the early industry of tar production, which was made from pine. It has nothing to do with petroleum washing up on beaches.

[SkyDancer]

The exact etymology of the nickname is unknown, but most experts believe its roots come from the fact that tar, pitch and turpentine created from the vast pine forests were one of North Carolina's most important exports early in the state's history.

Because the exact history of the term is unknown, many legends have developed to explain it. Many believe it to be a nickname given during the U.S. Civil War, because of the state's importance on the Confederate side, and the fact that the troops "stuck to their ranks like they had tar on their heels"

A town in Bladen County, North Carolina, is also named Tar Heel. The term "Tar Heel" gained popularity during the Civil War.

Also the origin of North Carolina's nickname is grounded, at least in part, in one of the state's major products during the Colonial Era -- tar. The tar was made by slowly burning the wood of longleaf pine trees. One legend attributes the name to the laborers who walked out of the woods with the sticky black substance on their shoes. Other stories go back to the Revolutionary War, when North Carolina soldiers continued marching after wading through a river coated with the viscous liquid.

IOW - there are many interpretations of where and how the Tar Heel nickname came from .... a friend from NC told me the story of tar oil washing up on the beach ....

PS Elvis is alive in a Texas rest home.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

PS Elvis is alive in a Texas rest home.

And Ossie Davis is the greatest JFK ever.

[SkyDancer]

Yep - great movie ....

[GOYAKLA]

As a kid, 10 in 1945, swimming South Miami Beach between the Government Cut Jetties and Serviceman’s Pier, my family and many others encounter oil on the beach. In the 41-43 it was from from tankers sunk by the German U-Boats. It continued but got less into the 50’s. The oil came from the sunken wrecks.
These tanker sinking’s were all along the eastern coast, Florida to New York.

[Joe Marine 76]

> “As a kid...” <

As a kid, in the 50’s and 60’s, we used to swim in the “Little Mystic River” next to Doherty Playground in Boston’s Charlestown neighborhood.

In those days there were a number of logging companies there and the logs were penned in the river prior to processing.

The water in the Little Mystic always a sheen on it. The Townies called that area “The Oilies.”