Oil stirs troubled waters
As anyone who's ever dressed a salad in vinaigrette will testify, oil and water just don't mix.
That's especially true of crude oil and sea water that supports sea lifeforms from fish to birds to plankton to mammals.
So when we discover that 42,000 gallons of oil are leaking daily from a stricken well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, and that it could take months to stem the flow, a little concern is entirely natural.
If the pessimistic "several months" timeline turns out to be correct, and if the oil continues to gush at its current rate, we could be looking at an eventual volume of 4 million or so gallons - which puts it in the same league as the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989 (11 million gallons) or the Hebei Spirit incident of 2007 (2.8 million).
However, past experiences may be a poor guide when it comes to projecting damage from the Deepwater Horizon rig.
Firstly, this is what you might term a slow, sustained release some 60km from the edge of land, whereas most recent spills have resulted from the sudden, catastrophic impacts of tankers close to the shore.
So whereas the oil from the Exxon Valdez, or the Prestige that impaled itself on Galician rocks in 2002, was virtually certain to come on shore, there's no guarantee the coasts around the Gulf of Mexico will be impacted this time. So far, weather conditions have confined the slick offshore.
The coast of Louisiana, seen from the air, is one of the planet's most extraordinary pieces of topography. (Have a look on the Google map satellite view).
Long tendrils of land curl out into the sea like some skeletal fern, encompassing channels that carry Mississippi water far out into the gulf.
The inaccessibility of these extremities and the fertile waters have created ideal nesting grounds for birds such as the locally endangered brown pelicans.
The unusual topography of land and water in the Breton National Wildlife Refuge, about 100km to the north of the stricken oil well, supports an unusual mix of seabirds, wading birds, rabbits and loggerhead turtles in vegetation that includes mangroves.
If the slick heads east, it will eventually encounter the equally ecological important Florida Keys - and beyond that, the Bahamas.
Whether it does end up in one of these important areas, or whether it disperses quickly and relatively innocuously in open water, is conjecture for the moment.
However, the possibility of environmental damage plus the loss of 11 lives during the rig fire is already prompting questions about the oil industry's place around US coasts.
Just three weeks ago, President Barack Obama outlined plans to relax bans on oil exploration along huge stretches of US coast.
Areas of the Gulf of Mexico just east of the Deepwater Horizon site are among those where rigs could be permitted in future.
The measure was, in large part, a concession aimed at securing wider support for the climate and energy bill being re-framed by the cross-party Senatorial triumvirate of Joe Lieberman, Lindsay Graham and John Kerry (co-incidentally, a process that appears in some disarray right now).
Key aims of the new bill are support for the US energy industry and a desire to reduce US dependence on oil imports.
But even as these measures promise to create employment along US shores, the risks attendant on oil exploration and production have the potential to take away livelihoods, such as those of fishermen who are already expressing concern about the leaking well.
So it's not a simplistic equation. It's about risks and uncertainties, including the vagaries of currents and tides. It's about political and economic trade-offs, and about balancing short-term and long-term risks and benefits.
The US authorities are deploying a battery of tools against the Deepwater Horizon slick - when weather permits - including booms and dispersants.
Will they prove effective? Will the submersibles now being deployed to block the well's flow be able to finish the exacting task?
The fishermen, the bird-lovers and the oilmen all have an interest in the answers.
I'm Richard Black, environment correspondent for the BBC News website. This is my take on what's happening to our shared environment as the human population grows and our use of nature's resources increases.
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~11~RS~)
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I don't think we need over-react yet. 42,000 gallons sounds a lot but is only about 200 tons. At that rate it would have to leak for nearly two years to match the leakage from a single 100,000 ton tanker.
Hopefully the submersible will manage to get the blow-out preventer working which should sort it in a day or so. If a relief hole is required it could take a few months making the leak equivalent to one rather small tanker.
It is good that it is so far from shore which means the clean-up vessels should be able to keep it away from the beaches.
The main tragedy is still I think that there appear to have been 15 fatalities. Let us first grieve for them and their families and let us hope that they did not lose their lives due to anyone's negligence.
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I understand they are trying to activate the BOP's, the Blow Out Preventers. This would be the quickest way to stop the leak.
I was a wellsite geologist for some eighteen years, but never offshore.
I am assuming there were BOP's installed somewhere near the seabottom, which as I understand it, is some 1500 meters below the surface. Actually, I just checked the BBC news, and there are, and nice diagrams:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8643782.stm
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If this doesn't work - good luck! But it should, and so no point in commenting on the drilling of a relief well yet.
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Another example of the "Age of Stupid."
A so-called developed country going after some of the last drops of oil, in an expensive and high risk venture.
Joseph Tainter's "The Collapse of Complex Societies" jumps to mind.
\\\ Thought ///
This type of venture, this way of life, can be thought of as a form of self-destructive behavior, to go along with the myriad other expressions of this imbalance in human thought which so far has a firm grip on much of the world. The Ehrlich's, Paul and Anne, at Stanford University, are planning to investigate this form of insanity with their Millenium Assessment of Human Behavior program.
Good luck to them, but I think the time for deep and lengthy intellectual investigations is over.
"Stupid is as stupid does" is from the movie Forrest Gump.
Nice and simple, and to the point.
Drilling for more oil at this time is a proclamation of our psychotic mental state, and we had all better start recognizing this.
Apparently, we could reduce our consumptive impact by half by simply returning to the level of consumption of the early 1970's (Worldwatch 2010), and as I was alive and well in the early 1970's, I can tell you life was at least as good then as now. Ergo, dropping consumtion by half immediately is a win-win scenario.
Then we can build more windmills and a 'smart grid.'
- Manysummits -
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42,000 gallons a day and 15 dead...the investgators will make sure the company is not held responsible for either...more likely to blame a victim.
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@2. At 7:07pm on 26 Apr 2010, manysummits
Isn't this the big issue manysummits. We're heading back to having to consume at 1970's amounts but will have twice the population at that point. There is only so far that efficiency can get us. I also don't think that many developing countries will be thrilled at being forced to halve their energy consumption from the small amount that it currently is.
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How come the BOP is not remotely operable? Kind of defeats the object if you need to take days to operate the BOP, doesn't it.
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A pity! I doubt wether the oil company (BP?) will pay for the damage! Boycott the company and gazoline!
Let your car at the parking lot as much as possible using your foot, bicycle and public transportation!
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New wells are inevitable if America is ever to become energy self-sufficient again. Does anybody really want the West to continue to be over-dependent on oil coming through the Iran/Saudi bounded Straits of Hormuz?
If the well can be closed down quickly no permanent harm will result. Oil is organic and will be used by bacteria as food and so up the food chain. Rigs also tend to provide shelter for fish and create oasis-es of life in otherwise near sterile ocean areas.
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@7,
America becoming energy self-sufficient?! Yeh right!! They use 21 million barrels of oil per day, and now only produce 6 million barrels per day.
That's a 15 million barrel per day shortfall, over 15% of the world's oil supply. To become self-sufficient, US oil production needs to increase by over 200%!
Ohh, and the US has NEVER produced more than 12 million barrels a day. That was peak-production in the 1970's. So... yeh.
It'd be great to be energy independent from the middle-east, but it isn't gonna happen without some very serious changes indeed.
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manysummits - When was the last time the Ehrlich's were right about anything?
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The heirs of Edison could probably figure out ways to power the grid from solar or hydrogen or cow farts or 1000 things we haven't thought of. The great thing with oil is that it gives an excuse for a nice war every so often, to remind the rest of us who's boss and to take their minds off Vietnam.
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How many doom laden predictions do we have to have from the BBC?
When is someone going to point out that oil is a naturally occurring substance and not man made? How many times do we hear that coral reefs will be killed off only to find them thriving at a time when they were supposed to be eliminated?
With the desperate need for 24 Hour "Breaking News" to be breathlessly intoned over the airwaves how about banning 24 Hour news and only having 10 minutes slots every hour and something worth watching in between? Give the news teams time to check their accuracy before spouting so many inanities!
I blame it all on the paltry 3% CO2 from Mankind and ignore Mother Natures apparently inert 97%.
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Typical over-reaction from nutty environmentalists.
Crude oil is 100% natural.
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I wonder how much oil naturally leaks into the ocean from undersea deposits.
Does anybody know? It would be interesting to see how the figure stacks up against this 42,000 gallons per day.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Seems some on this page think that we should just open oil wells and let the oil spread across the land and sea as it is positive for the environment...strange thinking. Uranium is natural as well, maybe we should just spread it around and wait for the positive benefits. I am sure the mercury in the soot of coal fired power plants surely has some benefit for the children who breath it. The plague was natural as well.
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The west must urgently free itself from reliance on Arabian oil before it is used as a weapon against us, bio-fuels are the way to go. Africa & South Asia will suffer if we make energy out of food but I am afraid that this is a price that they will just have to pay.
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Peter317 #13: "I wonder how much oil naturally leaks into the ocean from undersea deposits...how the figure stacks up against this 42,000 gallons per day"
Why don't you google it and find out...
Natural seepage of crude oil into the marine environment
"Recent global estimates of crude-oil seepage rates suggest that about 47% of crude oil currently entering the marine environment is from natural seeps, whereas 53% results from leaks and spills during the extraction, transportation, refining, storage, and utilization of petroleum."
Their seepage estimate is 600,000 metric ton per year which is 1,643 m_ton per day.
At 300 gallon per m_ton that's 526,000 gallons per day.
Does that help?
/davblo
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14. french13 wrote:
"To minuend and Beejay
You bastards have got surely shares in petroleum industry to say such things.
Shit is natural too."
Indeed it is and is OK in its place, which is away from its producers. It is eaten by bacteria, then larger creatures and probably by fish in the sea and eventually by us. A natural cycle. Oil leaks are much the same.
Peter 317.
Yes there have been estimates of leakage from natural oil seeps under the sea. The amounts over the world are orders of magnitude greater than losses from oil wells and tanker sinkings.
Concerns arise when large amounts from tanker strandings come ashore and kill the local seals and birds. The damage tends to be short-term and surveys 5 years later always show no permanent damage at all. This repair is faster in warm waters than cold due to the faster action of bacteria in the tropics.
The sights we see on TV of people cleaning oil-soaked birds are ineffective. The birds always die very quickly but it makes the helpers feel better.
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Aussies dump climate 'nonsense'
"The BBC's Nick Bryant in Sydney says the postponement is a major climbdown by the Rudd government, which reflects the changing politics of climate change in Australia."
More on Nick Bryant's surprisingly objective blog:
"[opposition leader] Tony Abbott once famously described climate change as 'absolute crap'."
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Energy self-sufficiency is an easy goal to achieve, if politics/greed are taken out of the equation.
If the same investments were made in solar/wind/tidal/wave etc. energies that were made in off-shore drilling or nuclear energy over the last decade or two, we'd already be half-way there.
We in Britain have the capabilities to supply all our own and much of northern Europes electricity, if we invest adequately in wind/tidal/wave energy, yes it will cost a fortune, similar to the amount needed for the next generation of nuclear power plants, but it's cleaner, more cost efficient, more sustainable, than any of the alternatives.
It isn't good business though and by that I simply mean that those already with the power and money to do something about it, won't, as it doesn't fit into their portfolio of personal wealth.
...and all that is without mentioning that if we (the West) were to do all of this, we would actually have a credible arguement against allowing Iran (and others) to build nuclear power plants, instead of our hypocrisy that they simply can't be trusted to have what we already have.
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Just for the record ghostofsichuan the mercury from coal isn't in the soot. It is in the fly ash. Most of it is chemically bound and it is only the portion that reports as vapour that anyone need to bother about.
You can remove the vapour with stack scrubbers pretty effectively.A typical big coal fired power station consuming say 4 million tons of coal per year yielding 200,000 tons of total ash will emit less than 1 gram per year.
Mercury vapour is of course pretty nasty stuff and as was discovered in the 19th century is a significant health hazard. However one gram per year is not exactly a lot.
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German Chancellor Merkel dumps climate nonsense
"Frustrated by the climate change conference in December, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is quietly moving away from her goal of a binding agreement on limiting climate change to 2 degrees Celsius. She has also sent out signals at the EU level that she no longer supports the idea of Europe going it alone."
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Typo in my #17: "At 320 gallon per m_ton that's 526,000 gallons per day"
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Peakbear #4:
First, are you a skeptic? Where do you stand?
Next:
1) Efficiency gains are a first step only, but a significant one.
2) It's us, the so-called developed world, that needs to do this cut. The so-called developing countries should probably increase their energy use, if that will move the many out of poverty.
3) We will transfer our excess energy and money to them, in other words.
Without a doubt, we should bail out the Greek people. Whether we should bail out their institutions depends on whether the institution in question is psychopathic, i.e., a threat to our well-being, or not.
We are going to dismantle the psychopathic parts of capitalism. I'm not sure yet if that means wholesale replacement, or piece by rotten piece.
That is what we are going to do.
- Manysummits -
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There's a list, and it's growing, and it is sounding the death knell of the global powers that be who have worked 'a desolation' upon the Earth and its denizens:
1) An Inconvenient Truth
2) The Corporation
3) Avatar
4) The Age of Stupid
5) Capitalism - A Love Story
- Manysummits -
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Crude oil is completely natural....that's why I have a couple of glasses with my breakfast! Perleeze.
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@24. At 8:24pm on 27 Apr 2010, manysummits
I'm definitely a skeptic, graduated in Geophysics and Oceanography and Postgrad in Meteorology/Climate Modeling (You can download the model I used for 4 years if you wish). Personally I think Peak Oil will determine things in that the consequences will destroy the economy from having to move from a growth economy to a steady state economy. I've thought about it lots but it basically doesn't work well even without the lack of energy we will have at the same time
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manysummits - I see that you declined to answer my question in #9.
I know why.
Now in #24 you fully reveal yourself. Interesting. It explains why you would continue to worship the false prophet of doom Ehrlich. The truth doesn't matter to Watermelons.
Then in #25 you put forth such 'evidence' as Gore's science fiction film - banned from use in UK schools I understand due to its fiction - and Avatar.
I just don't know what to say. You said it all. But I think you forgot to add 'The Day After Tomorrow' to you bibliography.
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I fail to see how the oil sands in alberta are worse than this.
Maby this will stop the uneducated histarics surrounding canadian oil.
That said hope the capping effort is successful.
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Oil seeps into the athabasca river in alberta naturally, been leaking out of the oil sands for hundreds or thousands of years, this however is not natural.
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Considering the time necessary to stop this "natural" leakage (perhaps weeks) and the quantity, this will cost a lot to Florida!
The fishermen will also appreciate the "natural" nature of it
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BP says it is using "state of the art technology" to stop the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. The same company, while campaigning for drilling rights in ANWR (Arctic), argued that it should NOT be forced to use this technology because it is not proven!!
One can imagine what environmental catastrophes await us, if they go ahead and start drilling in the far more hostile environment of the Arctic.
I hope the public and govenments realise the need to reduce our dependence on petroleum.
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so we'll just set fire to it;as if that'l solve the problem meanwhile bird sancuarties etc;are in danger
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melty @26:
"Crude oil is completely natural....that's why I have a couple of glasses with my breakfast!"
Do you eat cowpats and mud for your breakfast then? I mean, both are completely natural.
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Given how many oil rigs are in the North Sea, its lucky that there haven't been more problems there. And since that oil is the only thing that has propped up the UK economy for the past 30 years, that was a good thing. Now that that oil is running out, the UK looks like Greece to me.
Shame that Brown sold off all the UK's gold so cheap.
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#33 inherent wrote:
"so we'll just set fire to it;as if that'l solve the problem"
Don't worry about that. There's not a hope in hell that anyone can "set fire to it". This is more crackpot "science" from the AGW "community".
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...And that last comment of mine is a genuine prediction, by the way. I'm prepared to have my theories tested against the real world instead of tailored to fit my internal fantasy, like AGW.
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As all out efforts are in progress to cap the oil-well as soon as possible, the possibility of treating the spilled oil aerially, with some chemicals (preferably alkalies) and removing it out of the sea-water, should also be explored.
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I wonder if Palin will take any notice of this oil spill with her outburst of "Drill Baby Drill"
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Bowman at #36
What makes you think that "inherent" is part of "the AGW community"?
Or is it a label you apply willy-nilly to any poster whose views you disagree with?
As far as I can see he doesn't mention GW (AGW or otherwise) in that or any other posting.
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#40 simon-swede wrote:
"What makes you think that "inherent" is part of "the AGW community"?"
I didn't use the word, but I don't see AGW "community" members disagreeing with each other much -- do you?
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bowmanthebard #36: "Don't worry about that. There's not a hope in hell that anyone can 'set fire to it'. This is more crackpot 'science' from the AGW 'community'."
bowmanthebard #37: "...And that last comment of mine is a genuine prediction, by the way."
US Coast Guard sets fire to oil leaking in Gulf
/davblo
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Oh wait -- I see what you mean now. I guess it's pure bias on my part!
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Davblo at #42
I guess the prediction was just more crackpot 'science' from the anti-AGW 'community'.
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42. At 09:43am on 29 Apr 2010, davblo wrote:
"US Coast Guard sets fire to oil leaking in Gulf"
Fair enough -- I stand corrected! I admit I was mistaken.
However... I see that what they set fire to is oil after it has been collected in a boom. The impression I got from the story I read yesterday was that fire was a way of clearing it up, where I see now that it's a way of getting rid of it after it has been cleared up, which is not quite the same thing.
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It's interesting how much less tarry crude oil there is on beaches in the British Isles today compared to the 1970s. In Ireland, we used to carry a can of lighter fluid and some old rags in the car to dissolve it from shoes etc. after being on the beach. It was routine.
I suppose most of that oil came from the Torrey Canyon. I remember putting a lump of it in the fire as an experiment... That would be "setting fire to it after it has been collected" too.
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bowmanthebard #45: "I stand corrected! I admit I was mistaken."
Thank you.
There is...
(a) being mistaken
(b) being mistaken having called the one's who were right "crackpots"
The difference is that (a) warrants an admission whilst (b) warrants an admission and an apology.
You still owe an apology to both "inherent" and the "AGW community" for calling them "crackpots".
/davblo
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Davblo at #47
Oops! Then I guess my #44 warrants my giving an apology for the crackpot comment too? Therefore I apologise unreservedly for using Bowman's language.
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Dear inherent,
I offer you my apologies for calling the "setting fire to the oil" idea "crackpot", and for assuming that you were a member of the AGW community, or that the idea was one of theirs.
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Knowing that some very knowledgeble and smart engineers are being employed to solve this problem, I'd sure like to have daily updating about all the major possible avenues to contain the problem being proposed. Having a background in science, it is surprising to me that this is so problematic. Oil and water don't mix and oil rises, since it is less dense. A large vunnel shaped object with a pipe or hose connected at the top lowered from a ship over the outflow could capture the oil, oil will displace water in the funnel and push it down and rise to the top, a pump would siphon the oil out of the large funnel. Containing at the source should be much easier than over hundreds of miles of surface area. Dispersing oil into the water should be bad for sea life (in my humble opinion).
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[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]America becoming energy self-sufficient ....
42,000 gallons a day and 15 dead I want to make HIM happy
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"thepelicanbeef" at 50
According to an article in the New York Times yesterday:
"... Crews were building a containment dome, a 4-story, 70-ton structure that the company plans to lower into place over one of the three leaks to catch the escaping oil and allow it to be pumped to the surface."
See: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/us/04spill.html?ref=science
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I understand that a containment dome is now in place but that unfortunately it covers only one of the three leaks. It is still unclear how well it is working.
Hopefully it is and all will be covered and most of the leak contained within the next few days.
Apart from Richard's (and my own) concerns in regard to the environment there are some quite large concerns about clean up costs. For example there are I think at least a million of us in the UK alone whose present and future pension income depends at least in part on a continuing flow of BP dividends.
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@Richard,
Somehow I missed this one - the last couple of weeks have been (unfortunately) very busy for me. Cheers for the article...
As I have been posting updates on some of the other blogs regarding the spill, I would point out that it is much worse than the 42,000 gal per day initially reported - at a minumum, 210,000 gal per day - or 5,000 bbl per day - and they are now saying it could be as much as 60,000 bbl per day.
Even at 210,000 gal per day, we are now at over 4m gallons spilled - and possibly much more.
With the failure of the 'box' we are looking at at least 2 months for a relief well to be completed - and its a small target they have to hit, 18,000 ft down and a half a mile away.
I mentioned in another post and still wonder if they have a 5th grade class brainstorming for ideas to stem the flow of oil from the seafloor. It sure seems like it...I didn't have much hope for the silly box to work...
Have you ever seen the brown pelicans gliding over the water? They used to fly along my boston whaler, so increadible with their 6-8 ft wingspans, just gliding 6 inches above the water. So beautiful and wonderous.
If ever you have the chance, the southern Louisiana coast is beautiful and full of life - you should visit, and in the meantime, let us hope and pray that these wetlands can be saved and will recover soonest.
Perhaps now that so much has changed with regards to this environmental disaster, it is time for an update...hint hint...
Kindest.
Kealey
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