Giant Plumes of Oil Forming Below the Gulf's Surface 483
An anonymous reader sends in a NY Times article about the spread of oil from the BP gusher in the Gulf of Mexico. Quoting:
"Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide, and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given. ... The plumes are depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, worrying scientists, who fear that the oxygen level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes. Dr. Joye said the oxygen had already dropped 30 percent near some of the plumes in the month that the broken oil well had been flowing. ... [Scientists on the Pelican mission] suspect the heavy use of chemical dispersants, which BP has injected into the stream of oil emerging from the well, may have broken the oil up into droplets too small to rise rapidly. ... Dr. Joye said the findings about declining oxygen levels were especially worrisome, since oxygen is so slow to move from the surface of the ocean to the bottom. She suspects that oil-eating bacteria are consuming the oxygen at a feverish clip as they work to break down the plumes."
Worst Catastrophe In History (Score:2, Informative)
Some Good News (Score:5, Informative)
As reported by the WSJ [wsj.com]
Re:i LOL (Score:4, Informative)
Call my a cynic... (Score:3, Informative)
}"substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given"
Was there ever any doubt that it would be worse...?
Re:... Hear no evil. See no evil. (Score:3, Informative)
Well I can tell you one thing - the oil flow rate is no where NEAR 80,000 bbl per day. Only 3% of the oil FIELDS in the world produce more than 100,000 bbl per day, and these fields have dozens to hundreds of wells. The average well in Saudi Arabia, with it's immense deposits of light oil produces 5,000 bbl per day. A new field with a productive capacity of 100,000 bbl per day would be very unusual, and this is only ONE well.
The estimate of 5,000 bbl per day actually sounds high to me. This well is a mile down under immense pressure and in water barely above the freezing point. Not only that, it's a restricted flow because of crimps in the riser. There is a reason BP said 1000 bbl/day at the beginning of this event - that would be a typical flow rate from a well of this type.
So, if we wern't drilling for oil... (Score:2, Informative)
If humans never (or, say before humans did so) drilled for oil, wouldn't the oil still be there, and occasionally be released by events such as earthquakes?
It's basically a natural organic substance, not a product of man (like artifical pesticides, nuclear waste, etc), so wouldn't the earth's ecosystem have dealt with it before/if we wern't around?
Or is there something done to prepare the oil before it's extracted (like injection of chemicals) that makes it unnatural?
I'm not saying this isn't a terrible disaster, but, disasters just happen sometimes.
Re:Where's Sarah Palin (Score:1, Informative)
I'm in FL, and I can assure you the teabags are still saying it here. I guess Faux news isn't covering it or hasn't told them what to say.
Re:Help me understand oil dispersants (Score:4, Informative)
The wee beasties consume oxygen while metabolizing the oil. It's called respiration.
These "giant plumes" are total hyperbole. A few miles is NOTHING in the context of a body of water the size of the Gulf of Mexico.
Of course the press doesn't sell advertising by putting things into perspective, so we see this sort of nonsense. Which would you rather have? Biodegradation of the oil, or the oil lying around as a permanently available toxin?
Re:So, if we wern't drilling for oil... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Help me understand oil dispersants (Score:1, Informative)
That's actually the rationale. The truth is it's mostly to mask the oil by breaking it up into smaller particles so they are less easy to see. They don't magically make the oil go away or break it down into component parts like carbon. As far as the microorganisms they consume very little of the oil and the dispersants have little to do with that process. The excuse is it gives them more surface area to attack but it also uses toxic chemicals that kill the same microorganisms. The most effective way to promote the little oil eaters is to add a few nutrients the oil is lacking like phosphorus. It's actually one way to look for oil is to look for areas that are poor in certain nutrients. It's why some oil isn't eaten in the ground and some is eaten. Inspite of how serious it is notice BP's priorities. First find a way to get the oil into a tanker, translated how do we still make money off the oil rather than wasting it as it escapes. Second use dispersants to hide the scope of the problem by keeping it from making it to the surface and spreading it over a wider area. The problem with spreading it out is it just spreads out the problem it doesn't make it go away. Anyone remember the old method of getting rid of nuclear waste? They'd dump it into the ocean because they found the radiation levels were still low. That was until plankton ate it then fish ate the plankton then bigger fish ate the smaller fish. They found the radiation was low in plankton but very high in the fish we'd tend to eat. A similar process happens with mercury. It's why certain fish have very high levels, they are at the top of the food chain. Expect lots of toxic chemicals in the fish from the Gulf for many years to come. Oh the government tests for that! No actually they don't. They test to see if fish are spoiled and randomly test some types for mercury but they don't regularly test for much else. Odds are the oil will be broken down by then so you won't be able to detect the oil yourself but the toxic chemicals will still be there.
Re:Nuke the F-ING thing. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:they better stop it pretty damn soon (Score:2, Informative)
That's a bit silly. If you round the spill up to 10 billion gallons, by the time it fully disperses, it will constitute much less than 1 part per trillion of the ocean.
I can see being wary of gulf catch, but why worry about stuff from New England?
Re:i LOL (Score:5, Informative)
Bear in mind that several years ago, BP merged with another company and kept the BP name. That company? Amoco. AMerican Oil COmpany.
Re:i LOL (Score:5, Informative)
you americans are fucked, hahah. thats what you get with your evil oil companies.
Actually, it's what Americans get when they let a British oil company deploy a Swiss drilling platform with German companies responsible for safety. Massive US lobbying efforts by BP also contributed to the lack of regulation, all in the name of international fairness and free trade.
And historically, Europe's record on oil spills is far worse than that of the US [wikipedia.org]. Of course, being obedient little nationalists, Europeans love to find fault with the US while their own governments are screwing them.
Hopefully, as a result of this disaster, the US will severely limit the ability of foreign companies to lobby in the US, and hopefully it will kick out European oil companies with their poor safety records once and for all.
Re:Nuke the F-ING thing. (Score:5, Informative)
It isn't as bad as the Ixtoc I [wikipedia.org] spill that went on for 9 months and didn't kill the gulf. That was 30,000 barrels per day for 9 months.
Re:... Hear no evil. See no evil. (Score:5, Informative)
That video of the leaking pipe shows stuff coming out of it at a rate of about two pipe diameters per second, if you just watch how fast the moving stuff moves. Some simple math puts that flow rate, for the 20 inch diameter pipe that it's said to be, at 80,000 bbl/day.
The math: the pipe area is ~2 sq ft, the flow rate is ~3 ft/second, the volume per second is 6 cu ft, which is about 45 gallons or one barrel per second. That's ~80k bbl/day.
If my math is wrong, please show me how it's wrong. It's the same math that the univ professors are using.
Re:Help me understand oil dispersants (Score:5, Informative)
That would put it on par with Ixtoc I, which went on for 9 months and didn't kill the gulf.
That would put it well ahead of Ixtoc 1, which at its worst had only half the current best estimate of 50,000 barrels a day for Deep Horizon. Ixtoc 1 in the end released 3 million barrels over 9 months, the largest accidental oil spill in history. Deep Horizon should only take 60 days to break that record, and we are now on day 30.
It should be remembered that Ixtoc 1 was just off the southern Gulf coast of Mexico, hundreds of miles from U.S. waters. Before dismissing the effect of Ixtoc 1, examining studies of what happened in Mexican (not Texan) waters would be in order.
Re:Where's Sarah Palin (Score:5, Informative)
Re:... Hear no evil. See no evil. (Score:5, Informative)
I work as a Petroleum Engineer. The thing about flow in oil and gas wells is that the natural gas has a density that varies with pressure. When the pressure decreases as the fluid flows up the pipe, it increases in velocity and the volume that the gas takes up increases. When the fluid exits the pipe there is going to be a large pressure drop and will give the appearance of a much larger flow rate with small droplets of oil. The flow of hte fluid out of the pipe in the video is not one continuous phase of oil. Gas to Oil ratios in producing wells commonly range from 500 scf/ BOPD through 50,000 scf / BOPD.
Re:i LOL (Score:3, Informative)
BP's corporate headquarters are still firmly rooted in the UK, and all major corporate decisions come out of corporate home base. Trust me, I work for them.
Re:Worst Catastrophe In History (Score:4, Informative)
At 42 gallons/barrel, that would be 5 million barrels per day. TTBOMK, no oil well in history has ever come within an order of magnitude of that sort of flow rate. BP's estimate is 5,000 bbl/day, often converted to 210,000 gal/day by the media. Even the nightmarish estimates some academics are putting out are on the order of 80,000 bbl/day, or 3.4 million gallons/day. You appear to be off by a factor of anywhere from 60 to 1,000. Using BP's estimate of the flow is rate, and your estimate of tanker capacity, it's about one tanker every 300 days.
Re:Man! (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps you should go donate blood to the red cross. It'll make you feel better.
The Red Cross is doing just fine [charitynavigator.org]..
Net Assets $2,559,637,123
We have determined that this charity has a privacy policy which requires you to tell the charity to remove your name and contact information from mailing lists it sells, trades or shares.
They sell my blood [slate.com] for $200 a pint and then sell my name and address as a blood donor.
Re:... Hear no evil. See no evil. (Score:3, Informative)
Relief wells don't relieve pressure on a well by pumping oil out of the reservoir, it would take years to measurably reduce the PSI.
What relief wells do is push material in to the well along the pipe column of the original well. The idea is to plug the well up with debris (mud and rocks, stuff that his much more dense than the oil) and thereby reduce the pressure so you can cap the well.
It's not relieving pressure like a relief valve in a pressure cooker, it is relieving pressure like cholesterol in a clogged artery.
Re:... Hear no evil. See no evil. (Score:4, Informative)
Scf is standard cubic foot - a measure of volume of gas at a pressure of 1 atmosphere, BOPD is industry jargon for Barrel of Oil Per Day, I believe he meant bbl, which is the unit for a barrel of oil. Scf/bbl is also simply called GOR, or Gas to Oil Ratio.
According to wikipedia, anything less than 10,000 GOR is considered an oil well, and anything over that is considered a gas well.
I have heard that this particular well was very gassy, but I did not hear anybody getting picky about calling it a oil well instead of a gas well so I'd assume it's under 10,000 GOR.
The gist of it is, even experts - who may know a whole lot about about calculating flow rates with various methods - cannot give you an accurate estimation of the flow rate if they don't take into account the various additional factors that are unique to oil. Calculating the flow of an incompressible liquid is a lot different than calculating the flow of a compressible liquid when you come from great depths, and the details are critical for a remotely accurate estimate.
In other words, the fact that it came from an expert doesn't make it any less of a wild ass guess if said expert does not have all the relevant information.