Posted on 05/24/2010 7:56:01 PM PDT by mojitojoe
BP oil leak: Fallen Deepwater Horizon was tapping second largest oil deposit in the world
If there is a single aspect to the dangers of the BP oil leak, it lies in the question CEO Tony Hayward and other BP executives have been avoiding since the first drop of oil went rogue: How much oil is leaking?
The real answer is - more than anyone wants to admit, because the well holds enough oil to make Saudi Arabian drillers jealous.
The oil field the Deepwater Horizon had tapped is said to be the second largest deposit in the world. Viewzone.com reports, “The site covers an estimated 25,000 square miles, extending from the inlands of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Texas. “
The oil deposit is so large, it could produce 500,000 barrels of a day for more than a decade.
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
It’s nowhere near florida or the keys.
I have been wondering how it is that a British company was drilling for oil only 41 miles from our coast. Would the UK or Norway be OK with a US company drilling in the North Sea?
Thanks. The nuke scenario is interesting.
We (the world) consumes in the order of 80 MILLION barrels per day, if “500,000 barrels a day for more than a decade” is about the second biggest deposit we’ve got then we are in serious trouble because that would mean we are running on fumes!
Just think about it, the world consumes the equivalent of the entire production capacity of that field in 23 days ((.5million x 365 x 10)/80 million). I hope we have a heck of a lot more fields in production that are a LOT bigger than that one, otherwise I’m buying shares in Huffy and Cannondale.
Count me in with the conspiracy theorists.
But my take is it was done by those who have much to lose if we can drill our own oil.
Not N Korea, not tree huggers, but Middle Easterners.
Follow the money.
He would be bummed if we drilled for our own.
The Great Unknowns in Gulf Oil Spill
The deep water of the ocean is the largest habitat on earth but it’s also the least understood, making the effects of this deep-sea spill without precedent.
As a result, scientists say, the impacts of this spill are likely to go far beyond the oiled birds and dead sea turtles, spoiled beaches and wetlands that we think of when we think “oil spill.” A substantial piece of the total impact is likely occurring under the sea, invisible (for now at least) but no less ominous than the more traditional shoreline effects. Far below the sea, the spill threatens organisms of all kinds and, indirectly, the ecosystem at large, though the extent of the danger is still obscured.
Oil on the surface of the ocean is a known quantity, says Ed Overton, an oil-spill expert at the Louisiana State University who is analyzing water, sediment, and other samples for NOAA’s scientific-support team. “It’s going to cause very substantial and noticeable damage—but it won’t take very long to find the marsh loss and coastal erosion and impact on fisheries,” he says. The effects of oil in the water column and at the sea floor, on the other hand, remains a mystery.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/238367/page/1
Why not take molten lava or melted steel and try to blast it in there with a tube that can withstand the temperature?
Are you serious? I thought Russia tried that and it didn’t work. The thought of that scares the hell out of me.
Even if it fails, glowing oil will be easier to track on the satellites. Win-win.
There is plentiful life in the deep sea that’s in danger: fish, deep-sea corals, gelatinous zooplankton like jellyfish, and benthic-dwelling sharks, not to mention the diverse communites of shrimp, crabs, worms, and other critters that live near natural methane seeps. “It’s like a lush jungle down there,” Joye says. Even if oil exposure doesn’t kill these organisms, it could have chronic, long-term effects, like impaired growth or reproduction.
Conventional wisdom suggests that oil is lighter than water and therefore floats, but that’s not entirely the case when a complex mixture of crude oil and natural gas is gushing from a well a mile below the surface, at high temperature and pressure, as is happening right now in the gulf. In this case, the gas can effervesce out of the oil, aerosolizing it into tiny droplets, much the way a fine mist emerges from the top of an aerosol can. Some of these droplets may be neutrally buoyant, meaning they move to a point in the water column where they neither rise nor sink, possibly resulting in underwater “plumes” like the ones reported. Adding subsea dispersants, which similarly break up the oil and are intended to prevent it from reaching the surface, may exacerbate this and could have toxic effects themselves.
It could take years to find out the extent of the oil’s subsea impact, but the scientists interviewed for this article stressed the importance of beginning the search immediately, even before the gushing well is capped. “If you don’t look you won’t find,” says Rick Steiner, a marine biologist who worked on the Exxon Valdez spill back in 1989. “Hats off to the Pelican for doing what they could out there, but they might have sampled 1 percent or less of the total volume of the impact.” Many other questions about the plumes remain, Joye says, including what’s happening inside them, how are they moving, whether they’re growing or shrinking, and if there are more of them.
It’s also essential to get an accurate measure of the amount of oil being released, as this would allow scientists to deduce how much oil could be hiding below the surface based on the size of the oil slick and estimates of other factors like evaporation.
On these points, the scientific community has been increasingly critical of the official response to the spill, alleging that both the government and BP have resisted entreaties to either investigate the spill’s magnitude and subsea impacts themselves or to allow independent scientists to do so.
“These deepwater effects are not going to mess the beaches up, and they’re not going to have an immediate impact on the shrimp fishery, but they could have long-standing impacts,” Joye says. These hidden impacts—and the way they are handled—could one day be considered the Deepwater Horizon’s legacy.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/238367/page/2
http://www.newsweek.com/id/238367/page/1
“Nuke it, it’s the only way to be sure,” is a quote from the movie Alien(s), I forget if it’s the first or second movie. But for why a nuke might be plausible, read the other comments.
I wondered the same thing and couldn’t find much information on it. I did just see they have postponed the attempted ‘fix’.... again.
As the oil leak disaster in the Gulf continues to grow larger, frustration keeps growing as well. Doug Suttles of BP admits it won’t be a modest spill. The EPA had ordered the use of less toxic chemicals, which BP has ignored, and the man in charge of Coast Guard operations is “happy” with BP’s response. BP is also putting off till Wednesday the “Top Kill” operation, which has more people mad and BP sounding more and more afraid to do it.
Let’s start with BP’s Doug Suttles. “ Everyone is very very frustrated about why we haven’t been able to bring this well to stop flowing so far” , said Suttles. He added that BP has the resources to stop the growing spill. Doug Suttles also said that the operation called “Top Kill” which will use heavy mud and cement to try to stop the leak will not happen until at least Wednesday. Originally it was going to be done last Sunday and changed to Tuesday.
BP’s John Curry on why the operation has been delayed again. “ Our goal, of course, is to succeed. We want this as much as anyone and our best chance of success is looking like Wednesday morning”, said Curry. He said more time is needed to get equipment in place and test it.
While Doug Suttles tries to talk the talk, BP is not walking the walk. BP is still using the banned in the UK chemical dispersant to fight the oil today, despite orders from the EPA to stop using it, and BP this weekend saying that it would stop using it. This chemical is called “Corexit 9500”. Besides the fact that less harsh chemicals are available, at least five different kinds, BP’s Doug Suttles said that they haven’t found another dispersant that is both less toxic and readily available. This contradicts a report over the weekend that says a less harsh chemical IS available and sitting in a warehouse in Houston, Texas. Again, Doug Suttles contradicts that report by saying, “ If we can find an alternative that is less toxic and available, we will switch to that product. To date, we’ve struggled to find an alternative either that had less risk to the environment or that was readily available”, said Suttles.
The EPA said that the chemical being used by BP, Corexit 9500, has not been studied enough to know about long term effects. BP told the EPA it would switch to a less harsh chemical, and now they are saying that nothing else is available.
Now this is really pissing me off. Adding insult to injury, anything to try to hide the mess. Bastards!
...Suicide dolphin bombers...
In contrast to what everyone else is saying, Adm. Thad Allen, who President Obama picked to head the Coast Guard oversight of the disaster, is satisfied with BP. Allen said that coordination between BP and the Coast Guard was going well and he does not see the need to take over primary responsibility for the on-going operation from BP. Adm. Allen seems to be the only one happy with BP, although legally as we have learned, the U.S. can’t take over the BP operation. As with this entire situation, there are conflicting reports, and viewpoints and there doesn’t seem to be a unified opinion about anything.
On one hand we have Interior Secretary Ken Salazar not confident that BP knows what it is doing and is threatening to push BP out of the way if the government doesn’t like the way BP is doing this operation. This conflicts with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs who cites a 1990 law that make it illegal for the federal government to take over an oil company operation during an oil leak disaster. Further confusing the messages coming from the federal government which is conflicting in itself, is Adm. Allen questioning Ken Salazar’s threat to push BP aside. Allen wants to know what we would replace BP with.
As the oil leak grows larger, it seems that the words are getting harsher from both sides. BP responded today that it is doing everything possible to stop the leak, but the federal government has ultimate control. My question to BP is, if the fed’s have control, why is BP still using a chemical the the government ordered them to stop using?
BP has stated that they are still using the “Corexit 9500” because nothing else is available, at least nearby. That conflicts with a weekend report saying that there is a warehouse full of the safer chemical in Houston, Texas.
Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is holding to his statements of last week and said again on Sunday that this is BP’s show. But, BP’s Doug Suttles is saying that the government could be in charge if it wants to be. One person who seems to know he is in charge of something is the mayor of Grand Isle, Louisiana who told the Coast Guard he didn’t want unsightly containment booms used around the beach because it would be “unsightly” for beach goers. Admiral Mary Landry said the Coast Guard has to respect the wishes of local leaders.
Not yet
Another thing, nobody knows what all the dispersants might do to Florida’s delicate marine and coastal ecology, especially the coral reefs which already took a hit from the cold this winter.
KEY WEST — About 12 miles north of Dry Tortugas, the crew on the Mattie Fay hauled up their shrimp catch and got oil.
Tar balls were tangled in their nets with the shrimp. There was tar on the shrimp, tar on their boots, tar on their gloves.
“We just come on in after that,” said Brian Williams, 30, a member of the Mattie Fay crew. “We didn’t drag no more. Once we saw that, we pretty much wrote it off.”
Unbelieveable. I don’t think I’ve ever prayed so hard in my entire life (not just about this, all of it)
And what kind of dark irony is it that the leftists voted in a super majority of leftist greenie environmentalists, and it was THEY who possibly caused (by neglect, a blind eye or overtly) what could be the greatest ecological disaster of our time.
I’m sure Obama will get in another round of golf tomorrow. Or bow to one of our enemies.
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