Here's another way to think of just how much oil has gushed out since April 20: At worst, it's enough to fill 102 school gymnasiums to the ceiling with oil.
That's nothing compared to the vast expanse of the Gulf of Mexico, where there are 643 quadrillion gallons. Even under the worst case scenario, the Gulf has five billion drops of water for every drop of oil. And the mighty Mississippi River pours 3.3 million gallons of new water into Gulf every second.
Under the rosiest scenario, little more than four gyms would be filled. That's how the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration visualizes oil spill volumes on one of its websites.
The solution to pollution is dilution.
For the record, the man resposible for the additional 4 trillion dollar deficit this year said we should all read HuffPo.
I’ve opined since the beginning that the damage potential was being grossly over-hyped, that’s still my opinion. You have to mix in evaporation, natural conversion, recovery efforts, the 20,000 barrels the RIT got, and the burns. I think we’re seeing a reprise of the Katrina reporting. One indication of that would be the reports claiming Florida would be devistated within 24 hours that we got about 40 days ago. There’s no doubt it’s a mess, but if they get the flow down 80 percent with the cap, and the relief well gets done in August, the recovery will be fairly rapid.
You regularly read stuff about the ‘69 Santa Barbara spill that talks about how the smell of petroleum is still in the air. It is, but it has nothing to do with the spill. There’s natural seepage in the channel. The inability of reporters to find any actual evidence of that spill causes that creative journalism phenomenon.
Ugly, but not the end of the world, as long as there’s not a runaway.