The Scale of the Deepwater Disaster

Originally posted by harryhaller
S+F OP, this post is really good.

As to the subject, i can say my heart is broken. It's just too big and too ugly, the implications of this are VAST.

What did New Orleans ever do to anyone? That's what i want to know.

This doesnt really affect new orleans

reply to post by brill


I agree something must happen. Only blaiming BP won't help.
Their place will go to the highest bidder and lets assume they did not become like that for working by the rules.

It's the whole system that needs to change.

Originally posted by loam

New Technique Holds Hope for Oil Spill Cleanup

Among the various weapons employed against the gushing crude has been the distribution of chemical dispersants on the water’s surface to break down the oil. The new approach involves the deployment of the dispersants underwater, near the source of the leaks. Officials said that in two tests, that method appeared to be keeping crude oil from rising to the surface. They said that the procedure could be used more frequently once evaluations of its impact on the deepwater ecology were completed.

Those experiments at the wellhead of the collapsed Deepwater Horizon oil rig were just one sign of the frantic efforts to contain...[the spill.]

This approach actually makes me VERY nervous. Under these circumstances, how will they truly asses the impact on the deepwater ecology?

Isn't the urge to just "bury" the problem great here? Is this a "cosmetic" fix that does little to stem the devastation? I wonder what these chemicals are?

:shk:

Dude that's exactly what i though when i first read that. They do not the long term impact of the product. i'm watching CNN right now and some guy jsut said they might be better off letting it leak at the surface because the damage to seabed ecosystem could be a lot worse in long term than what we will need to do right now.


This is why i'm heading to my local seafood joint in downtown austin because after this i will be very very reluctant to eat any kind of food from the gulf.

Can' t they just build a huge concret dome like they did with tchernobyl or something? obviously that shut off valve doesn't work, why are they still messing with it? move on already.

Here's an idea.. In light of this debacle, it's time to unleash some of the REAL clean energy that's been in hiding for who knows how long... It's time to cut the cord on oil..

reply to post by alchemist2012


it doesnt really affect Nola? its going to affect to the whole state, as fragile as the economy is there already it will affect nola just like the ones down the coast.

Fishery is a $2,3bil market, now the problem is going from LA to FL so you can't really say it doesnt affect just the one city who happens to be close to the disaster. sure they don't survive on boating but when your economy is weak the last thing you need is something like this.

Listen people. In my youth I was a commercial diver. To those of you who think they are going to just go down there and plug the thing up with some kind of dome, are going to be highly disappointed.

It is 10 times harder to work underwater than on the surface. But to make matters worse this hole is around a thousand feet down. That means that mixed gas saturation diving will be one of the few options available. Using ROV (remotely operated vehicles) will need to be employed too but they are still very cumbersome and slow.

Then it gets even worse. The oil will create 0 visibility that will make the area too dangerous for divers to work in to begin with when this big hole and the pressure it is exuding is taken into account. When you get down to 1000 feet, play time is over for divers and safety has to become the number one concern otherwise we'll wind up with a bunch of dead divers on top of everything else.

I've heard them talking about drilling another hole in order to reroute the oil and then cap it off. This sounds like the only solution at this point. Sadly, this will take a lot of time in order to accomplish. By then the damage will be done.

The press is keeping this as low key as possible (as others have mentioned here) right now but it wont last long I assure you. Especially when all of the dead sea life begins washing up on shore and all of the beaches turn black.

It would be one thing if it was like the Exxon Valdez spill. This was only a water surface spill. Not like this eruption of oil from the ocean floor itself! The oil that we are seeing on the surface is only a small portion of it. The water that is below the surface all the way to the ocean floor is inundated with oil now. This is a truly disastrous situation folks.

I think the only good that can come from this is that offshore drilling will become curtailed or even stopped once the scope of the environmental devastation bursts through everyone's denial game that they are fooling themselves with at present.

Alternative fuels have been the way to go since they were discovered. These greedy oil tycoons could find themselves in a very unpalatable situation if the damage keeps multiplying as it has been doing. They might even find themselves relocating to remote islands in the Pacific.

The Bikini Atoll would be my first suggestion for where to put them.




[edit on 2-5-2010 by warequalsmurder]

Drill baby drill. Drill ANWAR, and for that matter all up and down our coastlines. I am also eager for more nuclear plants and "clean coal"! Please sir could I have some more... wars, death, carnage and destruction. The free market, greed or "enlightened self interest" will be our guide.

P.S. We are doomed and we deserve it.

"BP Beyond Petroleum"...yeah right

hey as for a solution for all that i was wondering if HAARP is Combat REady and if so, could we use it to plug the hole or even clean the spill? any HAARP Geek here?

Originally posted by alchemist2012

Originally posted by harryhaller
S+F OP, this post is really good.

As to the subject, i can say my heart is broken. It's just too big and too ugly, the implications of this are VAST.

What did New Orleans ever do to anyone? That's what i want to know.

This doesnt really affect new orleans

Uh this will affect NOLA in more ways then I care to think about. Im born and raised there, currently away attending school. A vast amount of their economy is tourist related do to the quality and types of food that you can only get in the area- this will be, well Im not even sure what word to pin to it. This will not be like August 05, that will pale in comparison. Generations of people have made their lives along those shores- it looks like that could be coming to an end for the forseeable future. I finish school in 11 months and was planning to return home, but now Im not sure. 90 plus days of 25K barrels a day may render the area uninhabital for a while. I feel like I'm being killed in slow motion- a large number of peoples way of life will probably be lost over this. This literally make me sick to my stomach.

I would like to address a Quote from a fictional Computer in a movie called Demons Seed about mining on the ocean floor

Proteus IV: It means, I refuse this program for the mining of the Earth's oceans. The destruction of 1000 billion sea creatures to satisfy man's appetite for metal is insane.
Alex Harris: We need these things, Proteus. Now I know the environmental problems.
Proteus IV: Your employer's interests are in the cobalt market, doctor and the high finance of manganese futures. I am interested in the uncertain futures of seashores deserts and children.
Alex Harris: I refuse to accept your pessimism.
Proteus IV: You refuse to accept the truth. And I refuse to assist you in the rape of the Earth.

Read more: www.explore-science-fiction-movies.com...

well of course not metal but oil just the same ...

in reality ..
as the Corporation that owned this rig and the Ignorance of safety precautions as this the Owners of this Oil Rig.. do not give a dam about the wildlife preserves at the shore line nor the Life in the Ocean/Gulf that surrounds the Rig as it shows on this thread ... Greed ... as we have plenty of oil worldwide and this was not necessary to drill at this time ...
Oil reserves .. Raping the earth it is...

as we have Free Energy or something that is close to it ... and the ones Engineers Scientist ,, that found away for free energy are Gagged, Silence or even Killed.. all for the Cause of Corrupt Elite Corporations that are merged within the Government that handle the Oil


Star and Flag...


Boy i Love Movies LOL

[edit on 2-5-2010 by Wolfenz]

reply to post by alchemist2012


False. It will have an impact on New Orleans. Our tourism industry was just bouncing back if not even better than before Katrina thanks to our Saints. Our industry has a lot to do with good food, and a lot of that has to do with good seafood. They aren't coming here to get Chinese crawfish and fried tilapia from Vietnam, both previously frozen and shipped.

If the tourism industry in New Orleans takes a hit, you can bet your last dollar that New Orleans itself will take a very bad hit.

----

Loam, as if I need to tell you, fantastic thread. Very well put together, I just wish it could be on happier subjects.

Originally posted by niteboy82
reply to post by alchemist2012

 

It will have an impact on New Orleans.

Just in...

Fishing ban imposed in oil-affected Gulf of Mexico

Link

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana — The US government banned Sunday for 10 days all commercial and recreational fishing in parts of the Gulf of Mexico due to health risks from the massive crude oil spill.

"NOAA is restricting fishing for a minimum of ten days in federal waters most affected by the BP oil spill, largely between Louisiana state waters at the mouth of the Mississippi River to waters off Florida?s Pensacola Bay. The closure is effective immediately," said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

No more fishing... More economic troubles.

Not good.

reply to post by harryhaller


Good point my friend, VERY good point.

First Katrina, now this



Peace

DOes anyone have a reliable source that can verify how much oil is beneath the Deep Horizon wellhead? I don't know much abou oil drilling. One poster on another site commented that 400 billion barrels are thought to be in the gulf coast. Is this correct?! If so, could all of this potentially leak out if efforts to cap this sucker fail?! If not, what perentage is in this general area which could be spilled? I'm just trying to get an estimate for how huge of a scale this disaster is, and can become. Thanks.

wow this is horrible

you don't have to 'sound off' where you reside here on ats, that's probably a bad idea

but if you live in the areas being effected, you can go online and sign up to volunteer any free time you have to clean effected wild life, and hopefully down size the death toll

or aid in some way, if you want

[edit on 5/2/2010 by indigothefish]

Hi! It might be wise for all electrical, chemical, industrial, mechanical, quailty, ceramic, other engineers to start getting together in their cities and towns after work or on weekends and start brainstorming for a free energy solutions for cars, tractors, buses, airplanes, furnaces, lawn eqipment to run on fancy new long lasting higher powered solar batteries or the use of wind or something else new. If these clubs formed surely new fantastic ideas would happen and benefit the future of man kind. We all need to start thinking outside of the box. Free clean energy that is renewable should be what's going to happen now.
I know my brother an EE from Purdue worked at trying to solve an idea
for years but was unable to do it all alone. He spent his spare time reading physics books. He eventually gave up. The time has come
for permanent change, this is where we all live and we have got to clean up our environment. No more excuses! It's time for responsibility...
time for a smarter healthier life... time for change. We CAN DO it!

Looks out from his vantage point "On the beach". You know where I live we have the "Whitest beaches in the World". 50% of our counties revnue comes from tourists. The other 50% comes from our fishing industry, shrimping industry, oyster harvesting. The navy left a decade ago so were not geting anything from them. One of Reagans base closures.
So this last week me and 300 other volenteers, helped out the local coasties with seting up oil catcher boombs all along, the gulf coast area.
Which is all good and fine except, if they don't shut off the leak it won't matter. Folks let me say, if the ocean dies Humans die. The majority of oxygen is created from the oceans. So for this year ourt tourists won't be comming, and all our fish, oysters, clams, shrimp will be dying. All the wetlands that support countless birds won't last long. And the gulf coast with its millions of regular hard working folk won't be living on the "Whitest beaches in the World " anymore..more like the dead zone.
So the prez is comming down for a look see...So what it would be better if he sent the national guard here to help stim the tide of the oil spill. Or got the navy to fix that damn BP leak. But wait, he can't send the national guard to help cause they were all posted to iraq, and afganistan. So looks like were all just crapped on.

One other thing. The oil rig that blew up and sank which is owned by BP, dosn't fall under domestic oil leases. You folks do know that BP is british Petroleum..and guess who ownes BP. No not the british, its the Saudi's. Saudi arabia ownes BP. So once again the *Snip* are killing off my home. And they'll probably raise the price of oil again. Its all politic's. And I'm mad as hell...

I did 4 tours in Iraq, and now my home is going to look like a dead zone, cause some fool didn't shut off the valve.

Fine kettle of fish. Oh wait my livehood now is all dead. Shakes fist.


Mod Edit: Review This Link: The END of Hate Speech, subtle or otherwise, on ATS

[edit on 5/2/2010 by semperfortis]

Originally posted by unityemissions
DOes anyone have a reliable source that can verify how much oil is beneath the Deep Horizon wellhead? I don't know much abou oil drilling. One poster on another site commented that 400 billion barrels are thought to be in the gulf coast. Is this correct?! If so, could all of this potentially leak out if efforts to cap this sucker fail?! If not, what perentage is in this general area which could be spilled? I'm just trying to get an estimate for how huge of a scale this disaster is, and can become. Thanks.

This article should clear everything up for you:



BP has reopened the debate on when the "peak oil" supply will be reached by announcing a big new discovery in the Gulf of Mexico which some believe could be as large as the Forties, the biggest field ever found in the North Sea.

The strike comes days after Iran unveiled an even larger find of 8.8bn barrels of crude oil, and the moves have encouraged sceptics of theories which say that peak production has been reached, or soon will be, to hail a new golden age of exploration and supply.

BP, already the largest producer of hydrocarbons in the US, said its "giant" Tiber discovery in 4,100ft (1,250m) of water was particularly exciting because it promised to open up a whole new area.

Shares in BP were up 4% to 539p in afternoon trading, making it the biggest riser in the FTSE 100 despite the company saying much more drilling appraisal work was needed before Tiber's commerciality could be guaranteed.

"Tiber represents BP's second material discovery in the emerging lower tertiary play in the Gulf of Mexico, following our earlier Kaskida discovery," said Andy Inglis, chief executive of exploration and production. "These material discoveries, together with our industry-leading acreage position, support the continuing growth of our deepwater Gulf of Mexico business into the second half of the next decade."

Analysts agreed that the find appeared to be very significant. "Any time an oil major uses the word 'giant' you have to sit up and take note. Kaskida confirmed the western limits of the lower tertiary play and this extends the limits even further," said Matt Snyder, a Gulf of Mexico specialist at oil consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

Fadel Gheit, an equity analyst who follows the oil sector for the Oppenheimer brokerage in New York, said the discovery was a "big feather in BP's cap and reaffirms their leading position in the deep water Gulf of Mexico".

BP itself believes that Tiber is bigger than the prospect on the nearby Kaskida field found in 2006, which has around 3bn barrels of oil reserves in place, while industry experts said Tiber might be as large as Forties, which has 4bn barrels.

Excitement around Tiber comes amid a welter of new finds both in established oil producing areas such as Iran and in new areas such as Uganda and western Greenland. There has recently been an oil rush in the deep waters off Brazil and talk of large onshore volumes of new gas in Holland, although the UK's North Sea fields have seen a slump in drilling levels.

"Its an amazing turnaround from the gloom of the last 10 years. All these finds will take a long time to bring on stream, but it shows the industry is capable of finding more oil than it uses and shows we have not come to any peak," said Peter Odell, professor emeritus of international energy studies at Erasmus University in Rotterdam.

However, exponents of peak oil theories said the BP find would not fundamentally change the longer-term supply-and-demand picture. "The International Energy Agency said in its 2008 report that the world needed to find six new Saudi Arabias to meet the growing demand for oil in the future," said Jeremy Leggett, chairman of the renewable power company Solarcentury, and a key peak energy specialist.

"This [BP] find is welcome but its not going to take concerns away at a time when existing fields are depleting faster than expected and the new discoveries have a very long lead time."

Leggett pointed out that it would take many years for BP to bring any Tiber fields onstream, pointing out that the huge Kashagan find in the Caspian Sea, in which BP has sold its stake, was meant to produce its first oil in 2005 but is now targeting 2013 as a start-up date.

The oil company will be helped at Tiber by the light nature and high quality of the oil in a development that will cost billions of pounds.

The two discoveries, which are about 40 miles apart, make it much easier for BP, which owns 62% of the discovery alongside Petrobras of Brazil and ConocoPhillips of America, to justify building a platform and pipeline to shore. The companies will need to tackle very deep water – the well is one of the deepest ever drilled.

The oil has been found in lower tertiary soils which were created more than 30m years ago. Their commercial prospects will depend on what portion of the reserves at Tiber can be recovered: in the case of Forties it has risen to well over 70%, but can be as low as 30% in other parts of the industry.

end article.

My heart is truly sinking....this is shaping up to be one of the biggest ecological disasters in history I pray for our Planet.

Report here suggesting that this could wipe out all marine life !!!!

pesn.com...

reply to post by unityemissions


No one really knows, no one at BP will comment on how much there is.

One fact is that it is under extreme pressure and until or if that pressure equalizes it will continue to spew out massive amounts of oil.

Even if they stop it now (unlikely) it is already a monumental disaster.

If they can't stop it, it may be beyond mankind's abilities and resources to even contain it, let alone clean it up.

If space aliens are real, and have the technologies many claim, and they really are watching us, and are benevolent as some suggest... Now would be a good time for that first contact, and to help us with this mess.

IF they are there, and IF they care about this planet.... How could they sit by and watch this one?

Maybe prayer will help?

Otherwise, there isn't much anyone can do with this, but watch.

This is going to be the ultimate test for us I believe.