Beclecto

Posts Tagged ‘Transocean’

When you insult scientists who have built their entire career with passionate curiosity and ethical research, and on top of that, attempt to shush them, there is bound to be some backlash. When our own country tries to quiet ethical research that may reflect negatively on the current government spin on the oil in the Gulf of Mexico, you get a lot of scientists ready to shout their findings from the rooftops, as it should be.  The St Petersburg Times reporter Craig Pittman reported on this on August 10th.

“I got lambasted by the Coast Guard and NOAA when we said there was undersea oil,”

This, from USF marine sciences dean William Hogarth.   Some officials even told him to retract USF’s public announcement, he said, comparing it to being “beat up” by federal officials. Read the rest of this entry »

The Top Kill Process thus far, has been inconclusive.  The live feed shows changes to the characteristics of the plume, mainly in color, which indicates, according to many armchair quarterbacks, that mud is now replacing the oil that has been spewing out.  Are we loosing all the mud through the top of the blowout preventer? No one has speculated at this point, but there sure is a large volume escaping that is NOT doing its job of reducing the flow of oil from the well. Read the rest of this entry »

My Friend Chery Vaughn sent a link to this video in an email. The source is wimp.com

I did not catch the names of either man,only that their area of expertise is erosion control. The video does not introduce the men or their company but the demonstration is pretty amazing, all done with a very common, very green product: hay.  Considering the sheer volume of oil in the water, it would certainly take an enormous amount of hay, but still the ability of the hay to absorb the oil is impressive.  Watch!

[hana-flv-player
video="http://beclecto.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/gulfsolution1.flv"
width="400"
height="320"
clickurl="http://beclecto.com/"
player="2"
autoplay="false"
loop="false"
autorewind="true"
splashimage="http://beclecto.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/gulfsolution1.jpg"
/]

Please see the page Gulf oil leak live

The explosion of Transocean’s Deepwater Horizon on April 20th 2010 has caused a calamity of epic proportions.  The latest video from BP shows the eruption of oil at the Blow Out Preventer (BOP.) The previous video posted was the flow of oil and gas from one of the leaks from the crumpled riser pipe. When you look at both videos you can understand the difficulties of estimating the flow of oil and gas. Estimates range from BP’s 5,000 BPD, to 100,000 BPD, from various experts.  The site SkyTruth.org has an amazing flow of information on all  subjects related to the oil leak, from estimates of quantities, to the flow of the leak into various currents affecting our coast line.

John Amos at Sky Truth, has this to say about the leaking oil:

Why is it important to get this number right? This is about more than just liability, or PR. You can bet that our future response capacity is going to be overhauled and retooled based on this spill. If we low-ball the spill amount and rate, we run the risk of designing an inadequate new spill-response system that is doomed to fail the next time something this big occurs.

A couple of thoughts:

1) Are we really being asked to believe that the spill-response capability of one of the world’s biggest oil companies AND the United States Coast Guard has been totally overwhelmed by a spill of just 210,000 gallons per day? That’s a big spill, but not nearly as big as could reasonably be anticipated. Plenty of wells in the Gulf produce more than that under controlled flow-rate conditions; plenty of tankers plying our waters hold millions of gallons of oil.

2) BP claims the siphon they’ve inserted into the end of the damaged riser pipe is diverting 84, 000 gallons (2,000 barrels) of oil per day from the main leak to a tanker at the surface. That is good news indeed. But it’s worth remembering that for nearly a week BP stated the total spill rate was only 1,000 barrels per day.

Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, The National Incident Commander, says that all estimates are just that, estimates.  From an Article in the Mississippi Press he states:

When asked whether an estimate of 5,000 barrels of oil leaking every day is still accurate, Allen stressed that any number reported is simply a best guess.

“We are operating in an environment where there is no human access,” Allen said of the well 5,000 feet down on the seafloor. “I think it has the potential to be catastrophic. I am going to act as if it is. We all should.”

On  The Oil Drum site,   discussion abounds concerning all aspects of the leak. Many posters and independent researchers add links that were helpful for this article.Thanks guys!

UPDATE: 5/22/10

Estimates being revised upward! Sorry for the sarcasm but… what a suprise.  The latest ticker widget from PBS show’s shocking amount of oil released to date:

BP has also released a live feed of the oil leak. See it at PBS
Praying for a solution.