Y'know what's weird about that oil spill?

[Velvet]

It's only now becoming the biggest oil spill in US history. From the clips I've seen I woulda thought this would have taken that record within a day or two. Guess those ships hold a lot of fuckin' oil. Also, does that stat imply that it still has to spout more oil to make it the largest oil spill in World history?

[Guest Low Roller]

Actually the initial estimates of 5,000 barrels a day were heavily understated. It has now come to light that in fact the actual number is something like 12,000 barrels a day, therefore making this the worst oil spill in history.

[peipunk]

Exxon Valdez was the original name of an oil tanker owned by the former Exxon Shipping Company, a division of the former Exxon Corporation.The ship gained notoriety after the March 24, 1989 oil spill in which the tanker, captained by Joseph Hazelwood and bound for Long Beach, California, hit Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef and spilled an estimated minimum 40,900 m³ (10.8 million US gallons, 257,000 oil barrels) of crude oil in Alaska. This has been recorded as one of the largest spills in United States history and one of the largest ecological disasters.[4] In 1999, the Exxon Valdez oil spill was listed as the 53rd largest spill in history.

The Gulf War oil spill is regarded as the largest oil spill in history, resulting from the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, or the first Gulf War. The oil spill, which began on January 21st, 1991, caused considerable damage to wildlife in the Persian Gulf especially in areas surrounding Kuwait and Iraq.[1] Estimates on the volume spilled usually range around 11 million barrels (462 million gallons or 1.75 billion liters);[2] the slick reached a maximum size of 101 by 42 miles (4242 square miles or 6787 km²) and was 5 inches (13 cm) thick in some areas. Despite the uncertainty surrounding the size of the spill, figures place it 5 to 27 times[citation needed] the size (in gallons spilled) of the Exxon Valdez oil spill

Edited May 28, 2010 by Guest

[Davey Boy 2.0]

that's comforting

[Northern Wish]

Its kind of weird that it hasn't really been discussed much around here.

[Davey Boy 2.0]

Even as BP’s blown well a mile beneath the surface in the Gulf of Mexico continues to gush forth an estimated 70,000 barrels of oil a day into the sea, and the fragile wetlands along the Gulf begin to get coated with crude, which is also headed into the Gulf Stream for a trip past the Everglades and on up the East Coast, the company is demanding that Canada lift its tight rules for drilling in the icy Beaufort Sea portion of the Arctic Ocean.

In an incredible display of corporate arrogance, BP is claiming that a current safety requirement that undersea wells drilled during the newly ice-free summer must also include a side relief well, so as to have a preventive measure in place that could shut down a blown well, is “too expensive†and should be eliminated.

Yet clearly, if the US had had such a provision in place, the Deepwater Horizon blowout could have been shut down right almost immediately after it blew out, just by turning of a valve or two, and then sealing off the blown wellhead.

A relief well is â€too expensiveâ€?

The current Gulf blowout has already cost BP over half a billion dollars, according to the company’s own information. That doesn’t count the cost of mobilizing the Coast Guard, the Navy, and untold state and county resources, and it sure doesn’t count the cost of the damage to the Gulf Coast economy, or the cost of restoration of damaged wetlands. We’re talking at least $10s of billions, and maybe eventually $100s of billions. Weigh that against the cost of drilling a relief well, which BP claims will run about $100 million. The cost of such a well in the Arctic, where the sea is much shallower, would likely be a good deal less.

Such is the calculus of corruption. BP has paid $1.8 billion for drilling rights in Canada’s sector of the Beaufort Sea, about 150 miles north of the Northwest Territories coastline, an area which global warming has freed of ice in summer months. and it wants to drill there as cheaply as possible. The problem is that a blowout like the one that struck the Deepwater Horizon, if it occurred near the middle or end of summer, would mean it would be impossible for the oil company to drill a relief well until the following summer, because the return of ice floes would make drilling impossible all winter. That would mean an undersea wild well would be left to spew its contents out under the ice for perhaps eight or nine months, where its ecological havoc would be incalculable.

BP and other oil companies like Exxon/Mobil and Shell, which also have leases in Arctic Waters off Canada and the US, are actually trying to claim that the environmental risks of a spill in Arctic waters are less than in places like the Gulf of Mexico or the Eastern Seaboard, because the ice would “contain†any leaking oil, allowing it to be cleared away. The argument is laughable. This is not like pouring a can of 10W-40 oil into an ice-fishing hole on a solidly frozen pond, where you could scoop it out again without its going anywhere. Unlike the surface of a frozen pond, Arctic sea ice is in constant motion, cracking and drifting in response to winds, tides and currents. Moreover, the blowout in the Gulf has taught us that much of the oil leaked into the sea doesn’t even rise to the surface at all. It is cracked and emulsified by contact with the cold waters and stays submerged in the lower currents, wreaking its damage far from wellhead and recovery efforts. Finally, as difficult a time as BP has had rounding up the necessary containment equipment and personnel in the current blowout 50 miles from the oil industry mecca of Texas and Louisiana, the same task would be far harder to accomplish in the remote reaches of the Beaufort, far above the Arctic Circle, where there aren’t any roads, much less rail lines or airports.

In fact, it was the remoteness of the Arctic staging area, and the lack of infrastructure, that has been the oil industry’s main argument against a mandatory simultaneous relief well drilling requirement for offshore Arctic drilling. The industry claims it would be “too difficult†to drill two wells simultaneously, as this would require bring in and supplying double the personnel, and two separate drilling rigs.

In a hearing in Canada’s Parliament last week, Ann Drinkwater, president of BP Canada, told stunned and incredulous members of Parliament that she had never compared US and Canadian drilling regulations. In fact, whether by design or appalling ignorance, she had precious little in the way of information to offer them about anything to do with drilling rules, effects of spills, or containment strategems. All she wanted was relief from “expensive†regulation, so BP could go about its business of putting yet another region of the earth and its seas at risk in the pursuit of profits.

Asked if BP knew how it would clean up oil spilling out under the winter ice in a blowout, Drinkwater told the parliamentary hearing, “I'm not an expert in oil-spill techniques in an Arctic environment, so I would have to defer to other experts on that."

"You'd think coming to a hearing like this that British Petroleum would have as many answers as possible to assure the Canadian public. We got nothing today from them," groused Nathan Cullen of the left-leaning New Democrats, after hearing from the ironically named Drinkwater.

The fundamental problem in the US is that politicians purchased by campaign contributions are unwilling to look at the real risks of offshore drilling, whether on the two coasts or up in the Arctic region. With luck, maybe at least the Canadian government will conclude that such drilling in their northern seas makes no economic or environmental sense. In both countries, the amount of oil provided from offshore drilling would, over the next decade, be less than could be saved by simply making automobile mileage standards stricter.

All this is even more true when the drilling in question is in the fragile ecological environs of the Arctic Ocean.

Dave Lindorff is the founder of the new collectively run online newspaper ThisCantBeHappening.net, which also features journalists John Grant, Linn Washington and Charles Young. This and Lindorff’s other work can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net

[Guest Low Roller]

To Punk: Yep I meant worst oil spill in American history.

[Kanada Kev]

[phishtaper]

I found this on the Hamilton Spectator website and grabbed it before it disappeared. The size of the spill is staggering when put into perspective. Map of the size of spill superimposed over lake Ontario.

[Basher]

I found this on the Hamilton Spectator website and grabbed it before it disappeared.

I love how the Spectator ensured that Toronto was covered by the transposed slick while Hamilton was spared.

[Northern Wish]

I bet the map would look very similar if they mapped the increased levels of health problems along the plume of pollution from Hamilton harbour that travels with the prevailing winds.

[guigsy]

Its kind of weird that it hasn't really been discussed much around here.

once upon a time this place used to be a music message board.

[Davey Boy 2.0]

the Before Time

[Guest Low Roller]

once upon a time this place used to be a music message board.

[Schwa.]

"Nineteen dickety-two"

[nibbler]

Its kind of weird that it hasn't really been discussed much around here.

I was thinking its kind of strange that it is being discussed around here.

I posted a related article a couple days ago which explains how despite the events unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, BP is presently lobbying the Canadian Government to soften regulations for offshore drilling in Canada. As you may or may not know, BP has big plans to drill for oil in our Arctic waters.

Edited May 28, 2010 by Guest

[RobL]

they can't stop the oil. But they can put a cam down their to show live footage of the oil spilling out hmmm??

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/horizon-oil-spill.html

[Davey Boy 2.0]

yeah I'm sure mounting a camera and plugging a gushing hole or three at 50000 psi should be more or less equivalent in terms of difficulty

[bouche]

from wikipedia -

Steven Wereley, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University, analyzed videotape of the leak using particle image velocimetry and estimated oil flow rates at between 56,000 to 84,000 barrels per day (8,900 to 13,400 m3/d), or equivalent to one Exxon Valdez spill every 3.5 to 2.4 days.[59] A second, smaller leak has been estimated to be releasing 25,000 barrels per day (4,000 m3/d) by itself [60], suggesting that the total size of the leak may well be in excess of 100,000 barrels per day and could possibly be one of the largest oil spills in history and the worst man-made disaster recorded.

[Guest Low Roller]

Did anyone ever report what caused the explosion?

[Tungsten Gruvsten]

I think it was North Korea wasn't it? Sorry i'm only half paying attention...

[Esau.]

Did anyone ever report what caused the explosion?

I don't recall where I heard or read this and I could have a few details mixed up, but from my understanding a governor on one of the engines failed causing an engine to run too quickly which allowed for a sudden influx of natural gas to travel up the drill column and the safety devices in place to stop the engines when that happened failed and didn't shut it down. Ultimately providing an ignition source which caused the first explosion.

[Ms Zimmy]

Did anyone ever report what caused the explosion?

I know someone who is a steel inspector on oil rigs for Norway. I asked him about the spill and what happend and can it be stopped and this is what he said:

it was a drilling rig that lost control of it's well. There is a thing called a BOP that sits on the seabed, it's kind of the regulator for the well. There was a pressure increase and the BOP didn't do what it was supposed to and seal the wellhead. So now you have a shit load of crude oil spilling out of the earth more than a km under water. If the Americans maintained their equipment and didn't man their platforms with mouth breathers and ex cons, this could have been avoided.

And for your last question, no, they have lost control.

[AD]

I know someone who is a steel inspector on oil rigs for Norway. I asked him about the spill and what happend and can it be stopped and this is what he said:

it was a drilling rig that lost control of it's well. There is a thing called a BOP that sits on the seabed, it's kind of the regulator for the well. There was a pressure increase and the BOP didn't do what it was supposed to and seal the wellhead. So now you have a shit load of crude oil spilling out of the earth more than a km under water. If the Americans maintained their equipment and didn't man their platforms with mouth breathers and ex cons, this could have been avoided.

And for your last question, no, they have lost control.

Your friend sounds like a wee bit of an asshole, expertise aside.

[Kanada Kev]

Your friend sounds like a wee bit of an asshole, expertise aside.

Why?

The guy obviously knows the technical aspects of the industry and I'm sure has a way better understanding of the operations on rigs. Being in that industry he's probably noticed first hand how rigs are operated differently by various crews/corporations/countries.