'Not for public': the oil spill may be getting much worse

[No_Baseline]

I sure enjoy this group, even if I really don't contribute anything of substance.

Not true.

And, I feel the same way every time I hit Post Reply -

Colonel Quisp, we're in the same boat here, row with us, please?

[justdrew]

It seems to me that the well casing has failed (probably on day1) and nothing can be done to seal this well. What else could account for the multiple plumes? The pressure forcing the oil up seems to me to be too great for a debris plug, but if that were somehow possible, it would certainly cause a failure of the casing, if it hasn't failed already. A bomb, especially a nuke, could collapse the seabed, to say nothing of the damage to coastal areas the tsunami from its explosion would create. This would also guarantee, imho, the opening of new vents, if indeed the seabed didn't collapse.

the nuke has to be placed why down below the sea bed, down into the hard rock. it's about 18k feet from the seabed to the oil producing bottom of the well. the nuke needs to go down to about 10k feet and off to one side (about maybe 50 years or a distance depending on the kind of rock there and the size of the nuke) so it pushes rock shut across the well hole.

failing that, we can plant some magic beans down there and hope the root system clogs it up.

[Simulist]

NeonLX, I'm terribly sorry to hear about the loss of your mom and your dad's stroke. I really wish I could do more than offer sympathy and well-wishes.

Iamwhomiam, I've been scratching my head for days over the gas price drop, too. You're right; this is very unusual. And as for energy production being nationalized, I agree. We're reaping the whirlwind now from all the greedy insanity that's been sown over the years.

[Peachtree Pam]

Looking at this disaster, and other headlines (volcanoes erupting, quakes, war war war, economic doom, etc. etc.) it's hard not to see this is the REAL end of humans on this earth. How in the world do we expect to get out of these messes alive? Why am I not screaming in terror? I'm just numb, and things are happening way too fast to even keep up with.

Colonel Quisp,

I especially remember your fabulous contributions to the "Eyes wide shut" thread - one of RI's best.

Stay with us - don't give up - you are valued by all....

[Cordelia]

NeonLX,

I'm so sorry about your losses. I think it's difficult to mourn them separately when they come at the same time. Take care of yourself.

My 'day of reckoning', and what I've been defending & fighting for, for five years, finally goes to court next week. But what's happening in The Gulf puts my small world and perils into perspective and they feel like almost nothing compared to life there, and what we all will face.......

[Cordelia]

I sure enjoy this group, even if I really don't contribute anything of substance.

Not true.

And, I feel the same way every time I hit Post Reply -

Colonel Quisp, we're in the same boat here, row with us, please?

What a lovely response.

[2012 Countdown]

BP 'top kill' falters: Macondo well keeps spewing oil into the Gulf
It will take 7 years for the oil deposit below the Deepwater Horizon well to empty if left alone.
On Saturday, BP acknowledged it may abandon its best chance so far to cork the well: the 'top kill'.

Estimated by BP to hold 50 million barrels, the seam of oil has emptied as much as 740,000 barrels (one barrel is 42 gallons), or about 1.5 percent of the total. Because of the immense pressures of the earth's innards, geologists say, the deposit will completely unload into the Gulf unless the Deepwater Horizon well is capped.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0529/ ... o-the-Gulf


=====

In the spirit of 'whistling past the graveyard' I found this pretty funny-

Oil Containment Solution Randomizer
Stephen offers BP ways to shut off the geyser in the Gulf with his Oil Containment Solution Randomizer. (04:48)

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colber ... randomizer

[NeonLX]

I typed a long, schmaltzy reply to all the well-wishers (no pun intended), but decided to cut it short: Thank you, everyone, for your kind thoughts. 2010 has really SUCKED up to this point--and this forum has helped to keep me (somewhat) sane. Y'all are great!

[justdrew]

well, they've given up on Top Kill, admitting failure now...

and...

Grandson of explorer Jacques Cousteau slams ‘bullshit’ claim that oceans absorb pollution
Phillippe Cousteau, Jr., grandson of famed ocean explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau (pictured), has a unique position in today's media when it comes to discussing British Petroleum's massive Gulf of Mexico oil gusher. Unlike many others who've tried, he is capable of framing the massive and yet-unchecked disaster for the masses, placing the true scale in terms most humans can grasp.

That's why, appearing on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday, he called "bullshit" the "perfect" term to describe the right-wing media's repeated claim that the oceans can simply absorb all of mankind's pollution.

After noting that public officials in at least one Louisiana parish he'd visited have actually taken over BP's equipment to jump-start the cleanup effort, Cousteau paused, wearing a pained expression.

"It's a little too late, though," he said.

"I hear this on the right wing media outlets," began Maher. "The ocean is so vast, I've heard the phrase, 'It will take care of itself.' That's bullshit, right?"
Story continues below...

"Yeah," Cousteau immediately replied. "Absolutely. Of course. I mean, listen -- it's the perfect word. It's, it's uh ... It's bullshit."

He continued: "[The oceans are] the life support system of this planet and we've been dumping in it, we've been destroying it for decades and we're essentially maiming ourselves."

Cousteau recently dove into the Gulf oil slick, swimming with a camera crew through a toxic soup of oil globs and chemical dispersant. He called it "disgusting" and "one of the most horrible things I've ever seen underwater."

He and Maher also discussed the massive Pacific garbage patch, which by some estimates is larger than the state of Texas and largely comprised of disposable plastic products, which is made from petroleum.

Cousteau and a team of explorers were the creative vision behind the BBC high definition documentary series "Oceans," which led the team in 2007 to capture over 400 hours of film exploring the world's most important bodies of water. In the series credits, fellow explorer Paul Rose explains their goal with the project was to put the world's oceans into a "human scale." Cousteau has effectively done just that with the Gulf oil gusher by diving a shallow water oil-dispersant plume.

In the first weeks of the disaster, BP was heavily criticized for delaying release of video showing the deep water Gulf oil gusher. When video was finally released, the company lied about what took so long, then perpetuated it's estimate that 5,000 barrels of oil were venting per day. CEO Tony Hayward would later claim there is no way of knowing how much oil is gushing into the Gulf, contradicting his company's earlier claim.

Independent scientific analysis of the gusher indicated that figure was really 70,000 barrels or more, per day, spewing into the fragile ecosystem. At that rate, BP's disaster topped the infamous Exxon-Valdez spill in just four days.

Government scientists now estimate up to 19,000 barrels of crude a day have been gushing into the Gulf since the drilling rig sank on April 22, two days after a blast killed 11. US officials have suggested the Gulf oil gusher will go down as the worst ecological catastrophe in U.S. history. Every effort to cut off the flow has since failed and it may be months before the oil giant can finish drilling relief wells and ultimately cap the gusher.

BP's chief operating officer Doug Suttles has stressed "patience" in the matter.

President Obama has promised to do everything possible to help Gulf Coast residents whose livelihoods have been affected by the disaster.

[Jeff]

What gets me is that all morning long, they were showing what was clearly a failure, but the newsreaders were dutifully reading the scripts they were fed, making no commentary on what was clearly a different situation given the video. Fucking black volcano spewing out from a hole and these idiots are reading text from two days ago.

"Why, again, aren't actual, paid journalists from our famously free press watching the cams? In other protracted disaster stories -- Apollo 13 and the Iranian Hostage Crisis come to mind, along with Hollywood paparizzi -- we had exactly that level of coverage. An intern could do it, for free, or a stringer, for what, $20K? But the press isn't watching the cams! That, to me, is almost the oddest part of this whole story."

http://www.correntewire.com/oil_fail_ne ... er_package

[DoYouEverWonder]

At this point, instead of stopping the gusher, shouldn't we try to 'contain' it instead?

Since it's becoming apparent that they can't stop this thing and if they continue to try, they are likely to cause even more damage, why don't they go back to trying to pump it out of the water? This could be done at different levels. One system for around the well head to collect as much as possible directly. Another system for pulling out the oil in the plumes that have formed. And another system for pulling out the oil on the surface? Got anything better to do for the next two months?

[jingofever]

What gets me is that all morning long, they were showing what was clearly a failure, but the newsreaders were dutifully reading the scripts they were fed, making no commentary on what was clearly a different situation given the video. Fucking black volcano spewing out from a hole and these idiots are reading text from two days ago.

"Why, again, aren't actual, paid journalists from our famously free press watching the cams? In other protracted disaster stories -- Apollo 13 and the Iranian Hostage Crisis come to mind, along with Hollywood paparizzi -- we had exactly that level of coverage. An intern could do it, for free, or a stringer, for what, $20K? But the press isn't watching the cams! That, to me, is almost the oddest part of this whole story."

http://www.correntewire.com/oil_fail_ne ... er_package

The press has been dutifully repeating the 12,000-19,000 figure, but there's a funny story about those numbers:

..."What everyone on the panel agreed was that due to the low-quality data BP provided to us, it would be irresponsible and unscientific to estimate an upper bound to the emission," said Leifer. "So what we presented in the [plume team] report is a range of expert opinions on what the lower bound is."

Wereley said he was surprised to see the estimate of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels and was "disappointed" with the way that the press release was phrased.

"I was really confused when I read the press release yesterday," he said. "I had to read it several times."

An official from Department of the Interior agreed that the plume analysis did not set an upper limit on the amount of oil spilled, but said that the estimate of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels per day was based on the area of overlap between the three different methods of estimating the flow.

But Leifer said that he thought combining the analyses this way was comparing apples to oranges...

[82_28]

I don't think there is any containing it. That's what the parish people were saying. It should have been boomed up immediately.

Read this sad state of affairs:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/5/11 ... ing-School

[DoYouEverWonder]

I don't think there is any containing it. That's what the parish people were saying. It should have been boomed up immediately.

Read this sad state of affairs:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/5/11 ... ing-School

There certainly is a way to contain it. But that means switching gears, getting BP out of the way and bringing in tankers to suck this shit up. The problem is they're going to have an endless supply of fuel that's they're going to lose money on because they have to get the water out first.

They did it in Saudi Arabia. They can't do it here? Bull.

[MacCruiskeen]

[...]

The press has been dutifully repeating the 12,000-19,000 figure, but there's a funny story about those numbers:

..."What everyone on the panel agreed was that due to the low-quality data BP provided to us, it would be irresponsible and unscientific to estimate an upper bound to the emission," said Leifer. "So what we presented in the [plume team] report is a range of expert opinions on what the lower bound is."

Wereley said he was surprised to see the estimate of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels and was "disappointed" with the way that the press release was phrased.

"I was really confused when I read the press release yesterday," he said. "I had to read it several times."

An official from Department of the Interior agreed that the plume analysis did not set an upper limit on the amount of oil spilled, but said that the estimate of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels per day was based on the area of overlap between the three different methods of estimating the flow.

But Leifer said that he thought combining the analyses this way was comparing apples to oranges...

When video was finally released, the company lied about what took so long, then perpetuated it's estimate that 5,000 barrels of oil were venting per day. CEO Tony Hayward would later claim there is no way of knowing how much oil is gushing into the Gulf, contradicting his company's earlier claim.

Independent scientific analysis of the gusher indicated that figure was really 70,000 barrels or more, per day, spewing into the fragile ecosystem. At that rate, BP's disaster topped the infamous Exxon-Valdez spill in just four days.

Government scientists now estimate up to 19,000 barrels of crude a day have been gushing into the Gulf since the drilling rig sank

5,000? 70,000?? 19,000??? "no way of knowing"?

And this could go on for seven years.

Pass me that pitchfork.