OK, Time to call bullshit on Gulf spill

[Anti Federalist]

Alright, enough is enough, time for everybody to beat their flaming hair out for second and listen up.

First, the new estimates on the total spill amount does not add up.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100527/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill

The high end claim is 39 million gallons in 5 weeks.

OK, that comes to 1,114,285 million gallons a day or 26,530 bbls. per day.

The BP rig Thunderhorse is 30 miles from MC252, where the current spill is.

The output of Thunderhorse is roughly 280,000 bbls. per day.

That's from 32 wells all feeding into one central production rig.

I find it impossible to believe that one heavily damaged well is producing at a rate three times that of well connected, well maintained, fully producing well would be.

Secondly, while bad, this is not the end of the world as we know it.

In 1979 a spill much worse happened off the gulf coast of Mexico, the Ixtoc 1 blew out and sank almost exactly in the same fashion as the Deepwater Horizon, in much shallower water and with much less sophisticated clean up methods, spilling more than 120 million gallons over 9 months.

[Reason]

http://media.monstersandcritics.com/galleries/2275531_16179/0214740255085.jpg

http://www.latimes.com/includes/soundslides/oil-spill/la-oil-spill.18.jpg

[Phantom]

GULF OIL DISASTER - Matt Simmons: "Theres another leak, much bigger, 5 to 6 miles away"

YouTube - Matt Simmons: "Theres another leak, much bigger, 5 to 6 miles away".flv (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDGAoU1H2gM&feature=player_embedded)

[Roxi]

This is an article from 09.... I am not saying I disagree with you, I know your experience, and I damn sure hope you are right.... does this knowledge make it possible that more would have come out than the others?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601170&sid=aNrwOK1CUmMA

[Anti Federalist]

^^Not denying it isn't a mess, what I'm saying is that it's not a world ending apocalypse.

http://psychsurvivor2.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/oilfires304516.jpg

I recall Carl Sagan giving interviews that the above fires, (first Gulf War) would not be put out for 20 years and could cause global "nuclear winter" with massive worldwide crop failures and millions of people starving to death.

The last fire was put out six months later.

[Roxi]

Also, here is a map where you can type in your city and it shows how big the oil spill is compared to your town/state

http://paulrademacher.com/oilspill/

and an interactive tool to see from low end to high end how much oil has spilled out

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/05/how-much-oil-has-spilled-in-the-gulf-of-mexico.html

[Anti Federalist]

This is an article from 09.... I am not saying I disagree with you, I know your experience, and I damn sure hope you are right.... does this knowledge make it possible that more would have come out than the others?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601170&sid=aNrwOK1CUmMA

Tiber is quite aways from the Macondo well site.

(I happened to work that project with the Horizon)

The amount that flows is dependent really on the diameter of the production casing which is the same in this case, pressure and flow rates are pretty much stable through all the lower tertiary finds.

[Old Ducker]

Alright, enough is enough, time for everybody to beat their flaming hair out for second and listen up.

First, the new estimates on the total spill amount does not add up.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100527/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill

The high end claim is 39 million gallons in 5 weeks.

OK, that comes to 1,114,285 million gallons a day or 26,530 bbls. per day.



That come to about 750 GPM and looking at the videos of the leak(s) I can easily believe it's that and probably even more.

[Roxi]

According to BP, the well was planned to pump up to 200,000 barrels a day.

using the tool I posted above, if oil was spewing out at that exact rate (200,000) then around 30 million gallons is what would have leaked so far.

[fatjohn]

http://media.monstersandcritics.com/galleries/2275531_16179/0214740255085.jpg

http://www.latimes.com/includes/soundslides/oil-spill/la-oil-spill.18.jpg

It's a big spill, but it's a big world too you know.
I call BS

Iraq threw three times as much oil deliberately in the persian gulf and not much happened.

[Anti Federalist]

According to BP, the well was planned to pump up to 200,000 barrels a day.

using the tool I posted above, if oil was spewing out at that exact rate (200,000) then around 30 million gallons is what would have leaked so far.

That's from multiple wells at the site, not just one single one.

There might be more government regulation culpability here.

Why would BP drill a well that you couldn't produce from yet?

If you don't, you lose the lease.

[Bruno]

It's a big spill, but it's a big world too you know.
I call BS

Iraq threw three times as much oil deliberately in the persian gulf and not much happened.

From the pictures and video of this small part of the big world, it does seem as there is plenty happening.

[Acala]

Amazing how icky and toxic 100% organic stuff can be.

[Anti Federalist]

Amazing how icky and toxic 100% organic stuff can be.

Hemlock and Nightshade will do a number on you too.

Most of the toxic VOCs are evaporating off pretty quickly.

[TheFlashlight.org]

Yeah, the numbers indicate that these giant oil conglomerates, controlled by some of the most powerful interests on Earth, like the British crown, English and American central bankers (JPM, Citi and Fed Res is straight up Standard Oil money, now Exxon and Chevron, etc), just kind of sit on these gigantic reserves pumping enough to meet demand and charge as much as possible. They don't want to extract it all at once and cause a price plummet. And, apparently, there's a LOT of oil. Oil is such a strategic resource that it doesn't surprise me to see the confluence of central banks, oil companies, military and government right there on the forefront.

[Cowlesy]

Yeah, the numbers indicate that these giant oil conglomerates, controlled by some of the most powerful interests on Earth, like the British crown, English and American central bankers (JPM, Citi and Fed Res is straight up Standard Oil money, now Exxon and Chevron, etc), just kind of sit on these gigantic reserves pumping enough to meet demand and charge as much as possible. They don't want to extract it all at once and cause a price plummet. And, apparently, there's a LOT of oil. Oil is such a strategic resource that it doesn't surprise me to see the confluence of central banks, oil companies, military and government right there on the forefront.

Hmm, the oil companies I know involved in the upstream exploration and production are looking to get it out of the ground as fast as possible.

[TheFlashlight.org]

Hmm, the oil companies I know involved in the upstream exploration and production are looking to get it out of the ground as fast as possible.

Yeah, I'm probably being too conspiratorial about that, if that's a word. I do think the Standard Oil money is still the biggest secret fortune in the world and continues to this day.

[Old Ducker]

Hmm, the oil companies I know involved in the upstream exploration and production are looking to get it out of the ground as fast as possible.

That probably depends on the size of their holdings. Saudi Arabia, for one, has been controlling production for decades to influence (maintain) global oil prices.

[TheFlashlight.org]

I'm intrigued by this. I don't know much about geology, but I have a basic scientific understanding. And that stuff must be at extremely high pressure to gush out like this for a month with no relenting. And in the quantities we see, it's astounding! How much oil is down there? Why is it so hard to "pump" if that stuff just wants to shoot out on its own?

Does anyone know the value of the crude that's gushed out so far? And thats got to be a fraction of what's there at this one well?! I mean, this thing could have gone for how freaking long on its own? Multi years? Why do I feel like something is not adding up? I admit that it could be ignorance, but it seems weird.

[Cowlesy]

That probably depends on the size of their holdings. Saudi Arabia, for one, has been controlling production for decades to influence (maintain) global oil prices.

That's very true. If they went full-tilt all the time, they'd get bitten by storage costs. I believe some super-tankers can run to $1million/day lease-rates.

[Anti Federalist]

I'm intrigued by this. I don't know much about geology, but I have a basic scientific understanding. And that stuff must be at extremely high pressure to gush out like this for a month with no relenting. And in the quantities we see, it's astounding! How much oil is down there? Why is it so hard to "pump" if that stuff just wants to shoot out on its own?

Does anyone know the value of the crude that's gushed out so far? And thats got to be a fraction of what's there at this one well?! I mean, this thing could have gone for how freaking long on its own? Multi years? Why do I feel like something is not adding up? I admit that it could be ignorance, but it seems weird.

273 million dollars if the extreme high end of oil leakage is to be believed, with a crude price of $70 per bbl.

And it is under extreme pressure and heat, 600-700 F and over 1000 psi.

Pumping isn't required for deep deposits, they are under their own natural pressure. Obviously, the engineering prospect is to limit that pressure and control it.

Google or Wiki "Spindletop" which was one of the first high pressure deep wells.

[TheFlashlight.org]

Here are some estimates on the amount of oil.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704269204575270081524288118.html?m od=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond

Crude is like 70 bucks a barrel. So about half a billion bucks/year worth of oil coming out of that one well? 20Kper day * $70 * 365

The market cap of BP is only like 140 billion.

[TheFlashlight.org]

BP Announces Giant Oil Discovery In The Gulf Of Mexico
http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=2012968&contentId=7055818

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill

A prof in the Wikipedia article estimates the leak to be up to 100K barrels a day. BP website says they pump 400K barrels per day. I know they have a lot more than 4-10 wells.

[Anti Federalist]

BP Announces Giant Oil Discovery In The Gulf Of Mexico
http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=2012968&contentId=7055818

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill

A prof in the Wikipedia article estimates the leak to be up to 100K barrels a day. BP website says they pump 400K barrels per day. I know they have a lot more than 4-10 wells.

The lower tertiary finds, like Tiber and Happy Jack and Macando and ThunderHorse and a whole bunch more could provide a stable source of domestic oil production for decades to come.

We were just starting to scratch the surface of those finds.

This will be the end of that.

[TheFlashlight.org]

273 million dollars if the extreme high end of oil leakage is to be believed, with a crude price of $70 per bbl.

And it is under extreme pressure and heat, 600-700 F and over 1000 psi.

Pumping isn't required for deep deposits, they are under their own natural pressure. Obviously, the engineering prospect is to limit that pressure and control it.

Google or Wiki "Spindletop" which was one of the first high pressure deep wells.

Interesting, Thanks. I find mining type of activities to be really interesting, free wealth from the Earth.

[Elwar]

A simple mathematical estimate using the video you can calculate the diameter of the oil being spewed to get volume along with the speed that it is moving to calculate rate.

A high school math teacher should be having kids calculate that right now.

[Old Ducker]

A simple mathematical estimate using the video you can calculate the diameter of the oil being spewed to get volume along with the speed that it is moving to calculate rate.

A high school math teacher should be having kids calculate that right now.

It's not quite so simple. As the pressure is released to that of the seawater at that depth, which is around 2,000 psig at the opening (s), the velocity of the oil decreases rapidly so you end up with an estimate of what exists in the pipe. The openings themselves have to be estimated in size before you can calculate flows. You'd also have to know the gas content.

BP has all the videos and no doubt plenty of engineers who know how to calculate flows through an orifice. Perhaps they have and just refuse to release the real data.

[TheFlashlight.org]

The lower tertiary finds, like Tiber and Happy Jack and Macando and ThunderHorse and a whole bunch more could provide a stable source of domestic oil production for decades to come.

We were just starting to scratch the surface of those finds.

This will be the end of that.

So the government is going to say, no one go and reap those trillions of dollars of oil out there, mmmkay?

Dang.

[MelissaWV]

The numbers are utterly useless (and both BP and the White House have had a lot of trouble coming up with solid numbers). The problems are cleaning the stuff up/safeguarding coastal areas, and stopping further leaking/spillage. The Gulf is, thankfully, an area in which this spill has not spread too rapidly. Frankly, I have to wonder if some of the chemicals they've added to "clean" the spill up helped "water it down" and spread more easily. I also wonder what this will do to the weather over time.

[ctiger2]

I wonder how all this fossil fuel got way underneath the oceans floor? According to Lindsey Williams, Oil is a chemical reaction created in the earth naturally and there is no such thing as peak oil.

YouTube - Lindsey Williams on The Oil Spill catastrophe - Jeffe Rense 11/05/2010 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlMS1h3KYrE)

[TheFlashlight.org]

Watch out, I'm wearing my tinfoil hat.

Giant oil conglomerates, ultimately in bed with the most powerful geopolitical manipulators, find a reserve of oil so freaking large that it makes the resource seem virtually limitless. About a year later, convenient explosion and leak lead to predictable public backlash, leak is plugged at the moment outrage hits a crescendo due to Top Kill live stream video, Pres holds a press conference that DAY (scheduled in advance), announcing a morotorium/ban on offshore drilling in the area and announces need for "alternative" energy sources. WTF?! Halliburton involved. Shady subsidiary companies involved. Doesn't it seem like a ploy to keep control of the meme that energy, the real foundation of our economy, is scarce, and for the big conglomerates to maintain their control of this resource that is actually extremely plentiful, yet the basis of so much geopolitical power?

[squarepusher]

Alright, enough is enough, time for everybody to beat their flaming hair out for second and listen up.

First, the new estimates on the total spill amount does not add up.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100527/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill

The high end claim is 39 million gallons in 5 weeks.

OK, that comes to 1,114,285 million gallons a day or 26,530 bbls. per day.

The BP rig Thunderhorse is 30 miles from MC252, where the current spill is.

The output of Thunderhorse is roughly 280,000 bbls. per day.

That's from 32 wells all feeding into one central production rig.

I find it impossible to believe that one heavily damaged well is producing at a rate three times that of well connected, well maintained, fully producing well would be.

Secondly, while bad, this is not the end of the world as we know it.

In 1979 a spill much worse happened off the gulf coast of Mexico, the Ixtoc 1 blew out and sank almost exactly in the same fashion as the Deepwater Horizon, in much shallower water and with much less sophisticated clean up methods, spilling more than 120 million gallons over 9 months.

glad to see you take time off from killing kittens to post this.

[puppetmaster]

I wonder how all this fossil fuel got way underneath the oceans floor? According to Lindsey Williams, Oil is a chemical reaction created in the earth naturally and there is no such thing as peak oil.

YouTube - Lindsey Williams on The Oil Spill catastrophe - Jeffe Rense 11/05/2010 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlMS1h3KYrE)

didn't dinosaurs live in the middle of the earth?.......

[Anti Federalist]

The numbers are utterly useless (and both BP and the White House have had a lot of trouble coming up with solid numbers). The problems are cleaning the stuff up/safeguarding coastal areas, and stopping further leaking/spillage. The Gulf is, thankfully, an area in which this spill has not spread too rapidly. Frankly, I have to wonder if some of the chemicals they've added to "clean" the spill up helped "water it down" and spread more easily. I also wonder what this will do to the weather over time.

I've been trying to run a number of equations but all come up short since they can't compensate for the mangled pipe diameters, unknown velocities and ambient sea pressure.

Then again, I'm no mathematician.

[Anti Federalist]

glad to see you take time off from killing kittens to post this.

I also steal candy from babies and skewer puppies.

[Anti Federalist]

Watch out, I'm wearing my tinfoil hat.

Giant oil conglomerates, ultimately in bed with the most powerful geopolitical manipulators, find a reserve of oil so freaking large that it makes the resource seem virtually limitless. About a year later, convenient explosion and leak lead to predictable public backlash, leak is plugged at the moment outrage hits a crescendo due to Top Kill live stream video, Pres holds a press conference that DAY (scheduled in advance), announcing a morotorium/ban on offshore drilling in the area and announces need for "alternative" energy sources. WTF?! Halliburton involved. Shady subsidiary companies involved. Doesn't it seem like a ploy to keep control of the meme that energy, the real foundation of our economy, is scarce, and for the big conglomerates to maintain their control of this resource that is actually extremely plentiful, yet the basis of so much geopolitical power?

I'm the first to embrace a credible conspiracy theory, for good reasons since they happen all the time, but kind of poo poohed the idea in this case, based on first hand accounts and personal knowledge.

However, I'm beginning to think there may be something to this...

ETA - and try buying oil on the foreign market with the soon to be hyper inflated dollar.

[Old Ducker]

I've been trying to run a number of equations but all come up short since they can't compensate for the mangled pipe diameters, unknown velocities and ambient sea pressure.

Then again, I'm no mathematician.

Sea pressure is easy if you know the exact depth; 2.31 feet= 1 psi. If the wellhead had a pressure gauge, you knew the gas content and the area of all of the openings, calculating flows would be relatively simple. Crane (http://www.pdfgeni.com/book/crane-technical-paper-410-pdf.html) has all the formulas.

[awake]

TheFlashlight.org - There is a no conspiracy, just means and ends.

'Events' that herd the masses, their representatives and ultimately the President into a narrow course of action.

By the time the climate bill comes to a vote, this oil spill will be still flowing and propagandized math estimates will tout this as the worst environmental disaster in the history of the world. Precisely the timing and effect that the planners were shooting for.

As for the tinfoil - Sorry, there is too much coincidence and way too much motive for industrial sabotage to suit certain special interests. It is all about the climate bill.

[Promontorium]

Whether or not this has been overblown by media and government, it seems to be ignored by the public.

Where the hell are the volunteers?

I love the gulf coast. It's one of the most beautiful, and certainly the most full of nature place I've ever lived. This spill is depressing me.

I'd go there in a hearbeat if I could get transportation and a place to sleep.

Of all the help people give around the world. Now dammit. Now it's on American soil. Pick up a bucket and a screen and get scooping.

More of Obama's "pressure" on BP won't magically save the dying ecosystem. Jesus Christ. The lefties get the entire federal government on their side, and then just sit back wait for people to do everything for them. Is there a website I can really press some liberal guilt and get some hippies down there?

[squarepusher]

Watch out, I'm wearing my tinfoil hat.

Giant oil conglomerates, ultimately in bed with the most powerful geopolitical manipulators, find a reserve of oil so freaking large that it makes the resource seem virtually limitless. About a year later, convenient explosion and leak lead to predictable public backlash, leak is plugged at the moment outrage hits a crescendo due to Top Kill live stream video, Pres holds a press conference that DAY (scheduled in advance), announcing a morotorium/ban on offshore drilling in the area and announces need for "alternative" energy sources. WTF?! Halliburton involved. Shady subsidiary companies involved. Doesn't it seem like a ploy to keep control of the meme that energy, the real foundation of our economy, is scarce, and for the big conglomerates to maintain their control of this resource that is actually extremely plentiful, yet the basis of so much geopolitical power?
zionists did it! ask sofia

how about oil spills ruin our climate?

[jclay2]

AF: You seem to always hit interesting posts. Keep up the good work.

[Carole]

Thanks-very interesting video.

[michaelwise]

YouTube - Complacent Liberal Media Coverage of the Gulf Oil Spill (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7YuK_z_Ay4)

[Anti Federalist]

AF: You seem to always hit interesting posts. Keep up the good work.

Well thanks, I appreciate that.

I try to keep it interesting, in between skinning kittens and building alters to Baal.