“but I could certainly see how it could kill the Gulf for several years if the containment efforts fail. It could easily be worse than Chernobyl time will tell we have to get thru the hurricane season and the relief wells have to work.”
Oh GOOD GRIEF. You are beyond common sense now. It is oil, oil evaporates, oil gets eaten by microbes, oil sops up sediments in the sea water and sinks and rots on the bottom. Half the volume you see coming out of the hole is methane that disperses in the air, the other half will be gone in a week from evaporation and microbes. The rest will take some time, but this is NOTHING the earth hasn’t fixed on it’s own many millions of times over.
So you are of the opinion that a single PIN HEAD size of oil in a larger-than olympic size pool (just the Gulf region) is dangerous?
//a single PIN HEAD size of oil in a larger-than olympic size pool (just the Gulf region) is dangerous//
Well if that is the situation then no, but it does not look like that is the situation out there. No one knows the vlolume of oil coming out down there, but the estimates have been raised yet again.
Look your math is fine, but I look at what is going on from the satellite photos and other more close up images, and as I see it the magnitude and scale of it, it is not adding up for me.
You are forgetting the about the effects of the oil and the dispersant Corexit combined.
What the Corexit does is keep the oil from binding together so there is no slick.
But the Corexit goes right thru skin etc and it takes the oil with it. Once in the body it ruptures cells including red blood cells. Now anything that breathes water and swims thru that is probably going to die, not to mention porpoises and whales.
Will the Earth fix it? Yes eventually, the question is how long.
So yes I am worried about the ecosystem of the GOM or least large segments of it. It is no doubt that large parts have already been killed. How much more will be killed and how long will it take for a true recovery to happen in the Gulf is the question for me, and that all depending if killing the well is successful.
“It is oil, oil evaporates, oil gets eaten by microbes,..”
Have you heard of Corexit?