Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico - Historic Disaster

[bgd73]

It really is beyond exxon valdez at this point, by a long shot...

they even used it as a factor in abnormal high amount of hurricanes this year...

replying to suv comment:
stopping suv stops ability for more passengers in one vehicle. I just read of mercury going into history today...
the grand marquis and crown vic were only begun to be mastered since 2003, smarter engine and steering.

last step was half shafts and independent rears. Don't even lie to me about consumption, I grew up with those cars sometimes flat broke...and the carburator is in fact the champion.
I hope this all comes to a head, and I am guessing war...shamefully.
If my 3 main bearing subaru did not get at least 38 mpg... I'd be back in a v8 "hog" or whatever an idiot might call their own lack of mechanical skills... and ya know. doubling mileage means wrong mounted inlines and inability for more than 2 people in the damn tin can today...

[RobertSmalls]

Here's something I learned about this week: The Deepwater Horizon wellhead blowout isn't unprecedented, nor is it the largest (yet).

Ixtoc I oil spill - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A Mexican-operated rig in the Gulf of Mexico, the Ixtoc I, blew out its wellhead in 1979, and was not capped until ten months later. It spilled 10000-30000 bbl/day, making it the biggest accidental oil spill ever.

[Matt Herring]

I love how things like this are called "spills" as if a ship tipped over and deposited it's cargo into the ocean. This isn't a "spill"...its a ****ing disaster!

Kind of like when two cars run into each other...it's far from an "accident"...it's a "crash"...and in some cases it's a ****ing disaster too!

[Piwoslaw]

Right. Calling it a "spill" suggests that you just mop it up in a minute and forget about it. THAT'S. NOT. TRUE.

[Christ]

My only question is why there wasn't some kind of preventative measure released as soon as they found out it was pissing oil/gas all over the place?

Suggestion: How about a tanker with a pump on it to suck up the water/oil and take it back to a shoreline refinery that could separate/utilize it? Sure, this won't get it all, but it could have curtailed a large portion of it so that the problems we're facing now might have been off in the future a while, still.

Suggestion: Kelp netting around projected affected area. Very expensive, but helps to prevent the millions in land/wildlife cleanup that will most certainly come at the expense of the taxpayer. (Yeah, BP's not going to give a solid answer as to what "legitimate" claims they're going to cover, nor will they mention who gets to decide what's "legitimate". Good luck locking that one down, Obama.)

[dremd]

It is not a spill, I spilled my orange juice today, it is a LEAK, a huge one.

[NeilBlanchard]

Christopher,

They had a so-called fail-safe device, called a "blowout preventer" on the well -- it is the *only* thing they had in place. And obviously, it failed.

The pressures are enormous -- there is ~5,000 feet of water above the well head, and they drilled it at least 13,000 feet below the ocean floor. They were licensed to drill as deep as 18,000 feet, and there are some people who claim that BP had drilled this well as deep as 25,000 feet (illegally). So, the temperatures of the oil, and the pressures on the methane compress it about 3,000:1, but it then expands which cools it, causing ice to form. The methane *may* be being absorbed in to the water, but this will cause dead zones because it depletes all the oxygen in the area.

This is an epic disaster. Some people are predicting that the oil cannot be stopped, and it will continue to gush until the oil/gas is depleted, OR until the pressures are equalized! By BP's own estimate, that would mean that about 50 MILLION BARRELS in total will be in the water.

That is 2,100,000,000 GALLONS of oil, and who knows how much methane....

They have been dumping in chemical dispersants willy-nilly -- these are probably toxic and they will break down the oil into smaller droplets -- so that it will affect smaller animals and plants. The dispersants may also have numerous other more subtle affects, like endocrine disruptors -- which affect the hormones and may produce a myriad of reproductive distortions...

[Superturnier]

Originally Posted by RobertSmalls

Here's something I learned about this week: The Deepwater Horizon wellhead blowout isn't unprecedented, nor is it the largest (yet).

Ixtoc I oil spill - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A Mexican-operated rig in the Gulf of Mexico, the Ixtoc I, blew out its wellhead in 1979, and was not capped until ten months later. It spilled 10000-30000 bbl/day, making it the biggest accidental oil spill ever.

Ixtoc. -that sounds toxic to me.

[kstruve]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

This is an epic disaster. Some people are predicting that the oil cannot be stopped, and it will continue to gush until the oil/gas is depleted, OR until the pressures are equalized! By BP's own estimate, that would mean that about 50 MILLION BARRELS in total will be in the water.

That is 2,100,000,000 GALLONS of oil, and who knows how much methane....

I did a quick graphic to show how big that amount of oil is. It's a cube, 655 feet on each side.

[redyaris]

The price is always right... when some one else is made to pay!