Methane-Trapping Ice May Have Triggered Gulf Spill

sciencehabit writes with an excerpt from Science that begins: "Methane-trapping ice of the kind that has frustrated the first attempt to contain oil gushing offshore of Louisiana may have been a root cause of the blowout that started the spill in the first place, according to [UC Berkeley] professor Robert Bea, who has extensive access to BP p.l.c. documents on the incident. If methane hydrates are eventually implicated, the US oil and gas industry would have to tread even more lightly as it pushes farther and farther offshore in search of energy."

Comments

Spill baby spill!

[BlueKitties]

Yeah, so I'm trolling, wanna fight about it? But in all seriousness, this is why I'm against sudden rapid expansions of industry into sensitive environmental areas.

Re:Spill baby spill!

[interkin3tic]

this is why I'm against sudden rapid expansions of industry into sensitive environmental areas.

Article says "Drillers have long been wary of methane hydrates because they can pack a powerful punch. One liter of water ice that has trapped individual methane molecules in the "cages" of its crystal structure can release 168 liters of methane gas when the ice decomposes."

Doesn't exactly sound like this was a new and unforseen problem, it doesn't sound like this happened because we were being hasty. It sounds like it happened because they were on some level being stupid and ignoring a well-known risk. In my book, that's an even stronger reason not to drill. We've known about that for a long time and the oil companies -still- haven't made sure this can't happen? These are not people who should be making potentially environment-altering decisions for the rest of us.

Re:Spill baby spill!

[Shakrai]

One liter of water ice that has trapped individual methane molecules in the "cages" of its crystal structure can release 168 liters of methane gas when the ice decomposes."

I wonder if that can be harnessed as an energy source?

Re:Spill baby spill!

[Dragoniz3r]

You'd sure think so. If, with my 20 liter tank, I can store over 3000 liters of methane gas, that would seem to me to be a fairly efficient fuel storage mechanism. The devil may be in the details of keeping the ice frozen, and decomposing it in a controlled fashion though.

Re:Spill baby spill!

[binarylarry]

....need more vespene gas?

Re:Spill baby spill!

[jbengt]

Article says "Drillers have long been wary of methane hydrates because they can pack a powerful punch.. . . " . . . Doesn't exactly sound like this was a new and unforseen problem, . . .

The drilling is taking place in deeper and deeper water. Deep waters have high pressure and the low temperature. Both of these make formation of methane clathrates more likely. The high pressures a mile beneath the ocean surface also make it easier to dissolve gas in the oil. Avoiding pipeline blockages and explosive decompressions is not trivial. To the extent the industry is pushing the limits of what has been done before (and they are pushing limits of depth) they can be surprised by details that they haven't encountered before.

Re:Spill baby spill!

[Lars T.]

this is why I'm against sudden rapid expansions of industry into sensitive environmental areas.

Article says "Drillers have long been wary of methane hydrates because they can pack a powerful punch. One liter of water ice that has trapped individual methane molecules in the "cages" of its crystal structure can release 168 liters of methane gas when the ice decomposes."

Doesn't exactly sound like this was a new and unforseen problem, it doesn't sound like this happened because we were being hasty.

But it does sound like a sudden rapid expansion. And it sure does sound that the problem was hastily ignored, because preventing it simply cost too much money.

The good news is that there will be a charity concert in New Orleans, so BP won't have to pay so much money to their victims.

Re:Spill baby spill!

[Loki_1929]

Our options are as follows:

1) Continue drilling and have an accident every few decades
2) Switch to wind/solar with all-electric vehicles immediately and pay about 5000% of world GDP in the next 10 years doing it and 3 - 5x current energy prices thereafter
3) Switch to an all-Amish life
4) Work on a gradual transition to cleaner and more sustainable energy sources by continuing to utilize what we have and what works while developing new stuff that actually works

You seem to be advocating options 2 or 3. Some people seem to be in favor of option 1. The only option that makes any sense at all to me is number 4. That requires that we drill for a while longer to continue supplying ourselves with the energy we need today while we develop better sources for the energy we'll need tomorrow. This spill, while terrible and unfortunate, is nothing compared to the havoc and destruction that will be wrought by either inaction or wrecklessly rushed actions on the part of humanity trying to fill its ever-growing thirst for energy.

That the largest economy and energy consuming nation in the world is even considering allowing its entire energy policy to hinge on a single accident is sheer lunacy. The only sane path is a slow, deliberate one dictated by need and reason alone.

Re:Spill baby spill!

[danlip]

The problem is that #4 is ofter #1 in disguise, i.e. nothing much happens to make the transition. And no one is really advocating #2 or #3, they're just used as the bogeyman by the people trying to stop the real #4.

Re:Spill baby spill!

[budgenator]

"This well had been giving some problems all the way down and was a big discovery. Big pressure, *16ppg+ mud weight*. They ran a long string of 7" production casing - not a liner, the confusion arising from the fact that all casing strings on a floating rig are run on drill pipe and hung off on the wellhead on the sea floor, like a "liner". They cemented this casing with lightweight cement containing nitrogen because they were having lost circulation in between the well kicking all the way down. The calculations and the execution of this kind of a cement job are complex, in order that you neither let the well flow from too little hydrostatic pressure nor break it down and lose the fluid and cement from too much hydrostatic. But you gotta believe BP had 8 or 10 of their best double and triple checking everything. On the outside of the top joint of casing is a seal assembly - "packoff" - that sets inside the subsea wellhead and seals. This was set and tested to 10,000 psi, OK. This was the end of the well until testing was to begin at a later time, so a temporary "bridge plug" was run in on drill pipe to set somewhere near the top of the well below 5,000 ft. This is the second barrier, you always have to have 2, and the casing was the first one. It is not know if this was actually set or not. At the same time they took the 16+ ppg mud out of the riser and replaced it with sea water so that they could pull the riser, lay it down, and move off. When they did this, they of course took away hydrostatic on the well. But this was OK, normal, since the well was plugged both on the inside with the casing and on the outside with the tested packoff. But something turned loose all of a
sudden, and the conventional wisdom would be the packoff on the outside of the casing. Gas and oil rushed up the riser; there was little wind, and a gas cloud got all over the rig. When the main inductions of the engines got a whiff, they ran away and exploded. Blew them right off the rig. This set everything on fire. A similar explosion in the mud pit / mud pump room blew the mud pumps overboard. Another in the mud sack storage room, sited most unfortunately right next to the living quarters, took out all the interior walls where everyone was hanging out having - I am not making this up - a party to celebrate 7 years of accident free work on this rig. 7 BP bigwigs were there visiting from town. In this sense they were lucky that the only ones lost were the 9 rig crew on the rig floor and 2 mud engineers down on the pits." TRANSOCEAN DEEPWATER HORIZON EXPLOSION-A DISCUSSION OF WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED? Reply by Garry Denke on May 4, 2010 at 6:06pm

The "kicks" he's talking about are pressure surges from gas in the well, so everybody knew what the well was doing because it was kicking all the way down, so no surprises there. The well was drilled, Halliburton was contracted to cement the casing which was done and tested and they were pumping out the mud from the riser pipe and filling it with seawater when the explosion occurred. The riser pipes is rated for 15,000 PSI and have a 3.5 million pound load-carrying capacity, between these riser pipes and the blowout preventer is a connector device rated for 7 million foot-pounds of bending load capacity. Right now this riser pipe comes out of the well head goes up 1500 feet and is bent over and the free end is now buried in the seabed. I don't see where they were cutting costs too much. Deepwater Horizon would probably have disconnected from the well and moved on in a day or two if there hadn't been an explosion.

Re:Spill baby spill!

[ormondotvos]

The gas to oil ratio in that well is 3000 to one. Not a typo.

Re:Spill baby spill!

[thegarbz]

The problem is that #4 is ofter #1 in disguise

You deserve every mod point I have. People are instinctively reacting to the news of the disaster. They do this all the time. OOOHH there's a spill leaking out huge amounts of oil, EVIL oil companies, BAD oil companies, this would NEVER happen if we would just all switch over to alternative energy sources.

I have seen the Exxon Valdez quoted time and time again in comments here on slashdot. All I can say is wake up and expand your horizons people. Look outside the oil industry. If you want to judge human progress look at all major accidents. No one wanted to make Chernobyl melt. No one wanted to cause problems at 3-mile island. Yet while driving home from work in a Ford F250 drinking water from plastic bottles people are muttering about the evil oil companies, whereas the simple fact is as human technology evolves there will be accidents, there will be situations that have not yet been encountered before, and there WILL be dire consequences.

Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this is the last accident we'll ever see. Maybe there will be no more death from mining, maybe environmental destruction from bitumen mining in Canada (honestly this puts the BP spill to shame except that it comes with a government granted licence) will stop tomorrow. ...

A far more likely scenario is that in 50 years when the world is running of clean efficient fusion power there will be an industrial accident that will remove a small country from the world maps, and then here on slashdot with it's shiny new web 5.0 interface we can discuss how it's unsafe and we should be moving to a new source of energy.

Re:Spill baby spill!

[BlueParrot]

1) Continue drilling and have an accident every few decades
2) Switch to wind/solar with all-electric vehicles immediately and pay about 5000% of world GDP in the next 10 years doing it and 3 - 5x current energy prices thereafter
3) Switch to an all-Amish life
4) Work on a gradual transition to cleaner and more sustainable energy sources by continuing to utilize what we have and what works while developing new stuff that actually works

You forgot

5) Invest in a comprehensive expansion of nuclear power, electric vehicles and ground-source heat pumps.

Somehow people frequently find it convenient to forget that possibility when portraying us environmentalist as all being self-righteous Greenpeace members who care more about promoting our own ideology than coming up with a practical solution.

Re:Spill baby spill!

[Anenome]

You couldn't stop #4 from happening if you wanted to.

Re:Spill baby spill!

[ultranova]

It sounds like it happened because they were on some level being stupid and ignoring a well-known risk. In my book, that's an even stronger reason not to drill. We've known about that for a long time and the oil companies -still- haven't made sure this can't happen?

It could also be that it's simply impossible to eliminate the risk completely. While I doubt that the oil companies are concerned about the environment, I also find it unlikely that they want to waste valuable oil by spilling it into the ocean, not to mention get all the badwill they do when that happens.

The nasty, awful, horrible truth is that sometimes shit happens, no matter how cautious you are.

Re:Spill baby spill!

[HiThere]

Sorry, but windmills require maintenance. It's not "all gravy" once you get the mill built.

It *IS* true that with well designed equipment the maintenance costs are lower than with oil...but they need to be, because there are other costs. Specifically line ballasts to handle the periods when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining. That basically means that you need to store about two weeks usage at the rate if usage of the coldest (or hottest) part of the year. Even that's cutting your margins a little close, but you can probably import power given that much warning. (Which, of course, you don't get. You don't know how long you'll be "becalmed". If I recall correctly occasionally sailing ships would be becalmed for a month or longer.)

Solar cells are a bit more predictable, but the prediction isn't always to their benefit. In some locales you can predict a month or more of overcast per year. (I remember when I was growing up in South San Francisco it seemed like there were years without a single sunny day...though I'm sure that was an overestimation.)

So... you've got to suit your power source to your site, and you need lots of backup power. It's no wonder that oil can coal looked like better solutions, though now they're causing global problems.

Everything has problems. The question is "Which problems are easiest to solve?"

FWIW, I think that a combination of wind and solar is usually the best choice, but it comes equipped with many problems that need to be dealt with. (E.g., as a backup power source, how about you pump a bunch of water into a reservoir in a high location...perhaps with an airtight pressure cover. Then when you want to supplement your power you run some of the water into a lower reservoir via a turbine. It works, but it's not cheap.) Just remember to identify the costs of the problems, and factor them into the cost of your proposed solution. (Yes, it will make you look expensive compared to coal and oil. But they *aren't* including the costs to the problems they cause as a part of their estimated costs. They're insisting that someone else pay those costs.)

interestingly, themselves sometimes touted

[Trepidity]

Since these methane hydrates contain a significant amount of methane (i.e. natural gas), in the years since it was discovered that there are large deposits of them, they've periodically been touted as something we should actively drill for, as e.g. in this 1997 PopSci article.

Re:interestingly, themselves sometimes touted

[je ne sais quoi]

Yeah but they never get past the "touted as the next best thing" and graduate to the "best thing". The issues are precisely what is the problem with the dome on the deepwater horizon well -- the clathrates (gas hydrates) clog everything. Also, since they're a solid phase, they don't flow very well while trying to extract them. You can try heating sections of subsurface to thaw them, and you get some, but then they freeze again on the way up to the surface. You can try reducing the pressure to inhibit freezing, but then you're also reducing flow. As far as I know, to date there's only one well that's ever actually produced any significant amount of gas from the clathrates and that was essentially a fluke since the clathrates were sitting just below a traditional gas reservoir and as the gas came up from that, the clathrates sublimated and boosted the pressure slightly.

Re:interestingly, themselves sometimes touted

[interkin3tic]

Since these methane hydrates contain a significant amount of methane (i.e. natural gas), in the years since it was discovered that there are large deposits of them

The article says 168 liters of methane from 1 liter of methane hydrates... I have no idea how much methane hydrates would be released, or how much methane would have to be released before it became an issue, but that sounds like a lot of methane and I've heard methane is quite a bit better at soaking up heat from solar rays than carbon dioxide.

So, is that a concern, or would that just be a small drop in the bucket?

Re:interestingly, themselves sometimes touted

[mr_mischief]

If it's methane gas that will otherwise be freed to the atmosphere, it's much better to burn that for fuel than to free it and drill for oil under it. Methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, by about 80 times.

Re:interestingly, themselves sometimes touted

[clustermonkey]

Yeah, 'cause artificially limiting the use of available energy sources while not providing any viable alternatives won't deepen the energy crisis.

We need innovative people to come up with viable alternatives, not endlessly complain about the impacts of available options. If someone actually comes up with a feasible, scalable alternative to fossil fuels, the switch to using that idea would just take care of itself due to market forces. The ugly truth is - there's currently no real alternative to switch to and complaining without providing viable alternatives won't change that.

Re:interestingly, themselves sometimes touted

[ArcherB]

ya know, I hear this all the time but no-one ever provides a citation. Do you have a citation? (don't go look one up, you said it with such authority, you should have one already).

I don't know if you are trying to be funny or if you are just too lazy or stupid to google it yourself. Either way, I took the liberty of doing it for you. I typed in "Methane greenhouse gas" (no quotes) in the google box and pressed enter. The first link, first paragraph showed me this:

Methane

  Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere for approximately 9-15 years. Methane is over 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year period and is emitted from a variety of natural and human-influenced sources.

From now on, I expect you to be a big boy and find your own citation.

Seriously, if you were trying to be funny, then I guess the joke's on me because I don't get it. I'll be an optimist and hope that a Slash reader and contributer would know better. Allow me to "woosh" myself in the hope that it truly was a joke.

Re:interestingly, themselves sometimes touted

[falconwolf]

If someone actually comes up with a feasible, scalable alternative to fossil fuels, the switch to using that idea would just take care of itself due to market forces.

Only if that were true, but it's not. Those who use fossil fuels get to pass on the external costs to others. One way to make polluters pay is by taxing carbon. But of course some complain that that harms businesses or people. Are you one of them?

And that's only half of it. Fossil fuel supporters complain about how alternative energy sources get subsidies. Well, guess what? So do fossil fuels. Here's Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) bragging about how his bill 'Has Huge Subsidies For Clean Coal! Huge!'. He starts by saying the Nuclear Power industry has received $145 Billion in federal subsides over the years. But combined solar and wind have only gotten $5 billion. In another video the CEO of Chevron agrees to lobby with Sierra Club to end coal subsidies. Those subsidies for nuclear power above? The Freemarket CATO institute reprinted a "Forbes" article printed on 26 November 2007 about how the Nulear Power Industry is Hooked on Subsidies. Among other things it says "How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors." In 2007 in the US all alternative energy sources including the $3.0 Billion corn based ethanol got, when corn is not a good feedstock for ethanol, got $4.875 Billion dollars. Subtract that $3 Billion and geothermal, solar, wind, and others only got $1.875 Billion. Coal got $3.760 Billion. Itself, oil has gotten the majority of federal energy incentives.

What is happening is the government and not a free market is picking winners and losers. The government should end all subsidies, including allowing industries to pass external costs to others, and let the different players compeat.

Falcon

Re:interestingly, themselves sometimes touted

[smaddox]

I would like to point out 2 things.

First of all, 20x more effective at trapping heat is very different from the 80x more powerful than the GP quoted.

Second of all, the half life of CO2 is ~38 years, which is several times longer than methane. So, although methane traps more heat while it is in the atmosphere, it does not stay in the atmosphere near as long.

Re:Farther offshore?

[maxume]

Depth, pressure.

Arctic?

[RobertM1968]

I wonder how they've avoided the problems up around Alaska or other places where it's actually cold enough for there to be ice - much less methane trapping ice.

Re:Arctic?

[Trepidity]

This doesn't really answer why it's not a problem in Alaska, but the temperatures aren't actually much different. Alaskan offshore drilling is in relatively shallow water, which at those latitudes is somewhere in the low single digits C once you get below the ice pack; while this operation in the Gulf was at about 1700 meters depth, where the temperatures are also in the low single digits C. (There's lots of complicating factors, but this graph of depth v. temperature for three different latitudes gives an idea.) There's differences in pressure, which might matter, but also big differences in geology.

Re:Arctic?

[LehiNephi]

Hydrates require both high pressure and low temperature to form, along with the proper composition of water and methane. Take away any of the three, and hydrates disappear. Typically the gas/water/oil is warm enough when it reaches the surface that hydrates do not form, and by the time it cools down enough, it has already been processed so that the water and methane are no longer mixed.

Re:Arctic?

[Albinoman]

I've been wondering how warm oil is coming out of ground. Surely the oil coming out from such deep depths and with all the friction from the sand it carries along the way, the oil should be pretty hot.

Re:Arctic?

[Nebvin]

I wonder how they've avoided the problems up around Alaska or other places where it's actually cold enough for there to be ice - much less methane trapping ice.

I'm a gas field operator in Alberta, and hydrates can be a massive problem, especially when the wells are not big enough to justify dehydrating the gas at the well site and has to flow to a central facility. Since I operate a sour gas field (contains hydrogen sulfide) the problem is even worse. At our normal field pressures the gas starts to hydrate at around 20 C (68 F) if we are not taking extra steps to control it. It is one of the biggest causes of equipment damage and injuries/deaths. I have never operated oil wells so I am not knowledgeable about how they effect production of oil, but I have read about deaths due to mishandling hydrates at the wellhead of oil wells in Alberta and BC. To reduce the rate that they form, we inject chemicals such as methanol into the gas, and have line heaters at regular intervals along the pipeline. They are a regular problem and danger.

oil leaks aren't natural?

[3seas]

Don't cha just gotta wonder with ocean floor earthquakes why we havn't have more natural oil spills in the ocean?

Re:oil leaks aren't natural?

[the eric conspiracy]

Of course we do. The Gulf is said to leak 2000 barrels a day naturally.

Some natural leaks in the gulf of California are even bigger.

Re:oil leaks aren't natural?

[Huntr]

The oil deposits are about 20000 ft below the sea floor. If there were an earthquake that could unleash a significant amount of oil from 4 miles down, i.e., similar to this or other man-made oil disasters, we might have bigger problems to worry about.

Re:oil leaks aren't natural?

[capnkr]

..and 2000 *barrels* @42 gal/per = 84,000 *gallons* per day. (Barrels to gallons conversion made because otherwise the numbers seem so disparate...).

The California seafloor leaks are much larger. I don't think they know exactly how much, but this source quotes "8-80 Exxon Valdez spills", I would guess they mean annually. That's somewhere between 86.4 and 864 million gallons.

probably a bit ignorant here

[nimbius]

but if the risk of offshore drilling is so great why do we continue to do it? if it costs more to make alternative fuels, where is the breaking point where a disaster is more or less expensive? why are we still allowed to continue drilling offshore when known unknown conditions exist which have not been fully counter measured?

Re:probably a bit ignorant here

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, dude, look around you. 99.99% of everything you eat, own, use, buy, throw away or want is brought to you by oil. *Nothing* matches it for chemical versatility, nothing else even comes close to the energy density of oil.

It's one of our very few true energy sources. There is also hydro-electricity, nuclear electricity, and coal/gas electricity. Everything else is farts.

You can't run our civilization on electricity alone. All air traffic would immediately and forever stop. Car traffic would essentially disappear. You'll go back to wooden sail ships (how are you gonna mine, refine and transform metal without oil? With coal? Good luck with that, *no one* is gonna want that in their backyard, except poor countries...)

Food production depends on oil for everything. Fertilizers, harvesting, transportation, transformation and your drive to the supermarket. All oil.

Your job, your house in the suburbs, your car? Oil.

You want to know what your kids should learn?

How to raise, breed and ride horses.

Re:probably a bit ignorant here

[fwr]

The amazing thing is, if we allowed ocean drilling much closer to shore we wouldn't have these problems. One, the depth would not be so great that the pressure created these methane and ice / sludge pockets. Two, a leak, if one were to occur, would be much easier to contain. You could actually send someone down to fix the problem if it were close enough to the shore. You are not sending someone down under 5000 feet of water... So, ironically, it is the wacko environmentalists that are to blame for this situation. Their answer? Either don't drill at all, or if you do, drill even further out, where the problems are even greater. Yea, that makes a lot of sense...

Re:probably a bit ignorant here

[maxume]

Step 1: Use your diesel tractor to plow a field and plant some hay.

Re:probably a bit ignorant here

[h4rr4r]

You are not very imaginative. You can run on electricity alone, you use that to make whatever hydrocarbons you want.

Re:probably a bit ignorant here

[morgan_greywolf]

And, more importantly, why do we want to make drilling off the cost of Florida legal?

I'll tell you why: it's the same reason we aren't all driving electric cars. Because the oil industry, by hook and crook, has done everything it can to make damned sure we're totally dependent on them for our transportation needs, such as buying up all the patents to make sure NIMH and Li-Ion batteries couldn't be used in cars, lobbying hard against ZEV-promoting initiatives, etc. See Who Killed the Electric Car?.

Re:probably a bit ignorant here

[Trepidity]

Oil is really valuable, so there's a very high bar for the monetary cost of disaster to be not worth it, on a purely profits-vs-cleanup-costs basis.

Some back-of-the-envelope estimates. Say this disaster ends up costing BP $10 billion. Say that any given rig has a 1% chance of causing a disaster of that magnitude. So we assign a $100 million amortized cost per rig, to cover the "chance this rig will catastrophically blow up". Is it still worth drilling in that case? Well, it actually barely changes the economics at all: these deep-water wells cost about $500-600 million to drill and put into production to begin with. So add to $100m to that and total costs are basically still on the same order of magnitude.

In particular, these rigs can produce a lot of oil. BP's Thunder Horse rig in the gulf produces 250,000 barrels per day. Even if they make only $10/barrel operating profit (probably a low estimate), that's $2.5m per day in profits from the well, i.e. almost a billion dollars per year. Unless fully 10% of such wells incur $10b catastrophic cleanup costs every year, BP comes out ahead.

Re:probably a bit ignorant here

[je ne sais quoi]

"Wacko environmentalists" have absolutely nothing to do with it. The big problem with doing that is, unfortunately, there's precious little oil left close to shore. You could fill the entire U.S. coast so full of wells it looks like a pin cushion and it would hardly make a dent in the oil price. You can see the chart right here, U.S. oil production has been on a steady decline for decades and will never, ever recover, it doesn't matter how many wells you drill. Even the discovery of the north slope of Alaska and building the pipeline never got the U.S. production to recover from its 1972 peak. ANWR? Forget about it, ANWR's a blip that's laughably too little, too late. This is why the Republican chant of "drill baby drill" is so ridiculous, drilling is pointless without oil to find. We've used up most of the oil near shore, which is why BP was drilling in 5000 feet of water, it has nothing to do with environmentalists.

Re:probably a bit ignorant here

[Shakrai]

You can run on electricity alone, you use that to make whatever hydrocarbons you want.

Sure. Of course the only carbon free electrical source that can scale like that is nuclear....

Re:probably a bit ignorant here

[tibit]

Finally someone who sees the numbers for what they are.

I keep saying that BP laughs all the way to the bank.

What they are doing right now with the dome and booms is just PR stalling. They know full well that drilling the relief is the only way to fix the problem, but the public would go apeshit if they "did nothing" for 3 months. Of course the fact that they are in fact, umm, drilling the relief well is quickly lost on mostly everyone.

The best thing we can do is buy up as much of their stock as we can. That way we can partake in their profits!

Re:probably a bit ignorant here

[h4rr4r]

I think making them pay the actual total cost of cleanup might be a better solution. By that I mean they must clean every grain of sand that oil touched, if this bankrupts them good.

Only higher oil costs will move us to better fuels.

Re:probably a bit ignorant here

[maxume]

Cobasys is no longer controlled by Chevron (it is jointly owned by Samsung and Bosch):

http://www.cobasys.com/investors/

They will sell you nimh battery packs:

http://www.cobasys.com/products/transportation.shtml

Re:probably a bit ignorant here

[h4rr4r]

In a few years?
So how many tourist dollars is that?
How many fishing dollars?
What about the cost to the environment?

I think they are lucky more folks are not calling for criminal prosecution.

Re:probably a bit ignorant here

[frank_adrian314159]

I think making them pay the actual total cost of cleanup might be a better solution.

Unfortunately, their liability was limited to $75M under the 1990 Oil Pollution Act. Of course, wanting to close the barn door after the horse has burned it down, the White House now wants to increase that to $10B, a figure slightly more in line with something that would make an oil company slow down and think about how shoddily their operations are being run.

Re:probably a bit ignorant here

[Chris Burke]

BP has made a lot of noise about how they've paid more than that already, $300 mil+ I remember reading.

But speaking of closing the barn door, if that sounds like it's just PR, well the PR loss of having this spill go on right as they're talking about expanding off-shore drilling is costing them a lot more money than they're worried about spending on cleanup. Higher liability for this spill means little compared to losing out on profits from a bunch of future wells. Even if they're only delayed.

Re:probably a bit ignorant here

[Anonymous Coward]

Oil companies are out there to make money. If you had offered Chevron a high enough price, they probably would have designed and developed batteries for you. And sold them to you. It is not Chevron's fault that a gallon of gasoline is worth 55 man hours of manual labor in terms of energy, and so way less expensive than your batteries.

Notice how IBM decided to start supporting Linux, despite the fact that it is a competitor to what was then their core products. They would rather cash in on their competitors products than not, especially if it means their competitors won't.

Re:Farther offshore?

[T Murphy]

Sharks, which tend to stay relatively close to shore, eat the hydrates to power their lasers. This has caused the hydrates to be in relatively low concentration in shallower areas.

Re:Farther offshore?

[TubeSteak]

Is there a correlation between the amount of methane hydrates and the distance from shore?

The correlation is between distance from shore and depth + temperature.
Here's some nice graphs showing depth vs temperature for methane hydrates

And here's a picture of seafloor depths for context

Re:Farther offshore?

[MichaelSmith]

Whats needed is a fully submersible drilling platform. Fortunately Ed Harris is still available.

Better Article

[bill_mcgonigle]

This one has more detail, and is actually really-well written. Really, an AP story with some investigative journalism. Kudos, guy, you're making your co-workers look bad. :)

Re:Better Article

[nbauman]

I agree. That was the best story of dozens that I read on the entire subject.

There were 2 reasons for that: (1) Schwartz and Weber interviewed Robert Bea http://www.ce.berkeley.edu/~bea/ and (2) They were smart enough to understand what Bea was talking about.

The reason Bea is so brilliant is that (1) He understands the technology thoroughly and (2) He concentrates on the question of why engineers don't do what they know they have to do in order to prevent accidents. Bea does for civil engineering what Feynmann did for the Challenger disaster.

Re:It's the BP spill, not Gulf spill.

[dAzED1]

I worry about permanently assigning blame only once those responsible decide they're going to do nothing (or next to nothing) ala Exxon Valdez. Accidents happen, and unless BP acted in gross negligence, and unless they don't put much effort in to fixing the problem, I won't be worried about permanently affixing their name to it.

But ymmv, I'm not your spiritual leader.

Re:When industry polices itself...

[clarkkent09]

The problem is we need oil and we need those companies to drill for it. Given that there are about 4000 oil rigs in the gulf, it is unrealistic to expect 0 accidents forever. When you say the government needs to step in and make industry take actions you are almost always on a very slippery surface. The devil is in the details. Can the accidents still happen even if those regulations are followed exactly? Unless those regulations require miracles then the answer is probably, and they just allow the industry to say "Hew, it's not our fault, we followed the government's safety rules exactly". Much better to require as we do now for the companies that own that oil to pay for the cleanup. What is needed is full enforcement of that, but my prediction is that after years of wrangling and lawsuits, BP will really only pay a fraction of the true cost.

You're seeing the problem

[sean.peters]

Clathrates require enormous pressures and very cold temperatures to remain stable. Warm them up to room temperature... and let's just say your gas tank won't be remaining whole very long.

Re:You're seeing the problem

[apoc.famine]

Like you said at first, they ALSO require pressure. And they're shock-sensitive. Shock, minimal temperature changes, or minimal pressure changes can make them go back into gaseous form.

There is a ton of energy available in this form, throughout the oceans. It's a concern that the instability of these methane structures could actually cause some rapid climate change, if they're disturbed by warming oceans, current changes, etc.

That same instability makes them damn hard to mine for energy. A number of companies and research organizations have tried, but so far, everyone that's disturbed them has watched as the methane bubbled up to the surface, and escaped into the air.

Re:You're seeing the problem

[b4upoo]

I do not get why lowering a containment dome over the leak allowed freezing. I don't know what an oil and water mix can take to freeze solid. If that is the issue why not simply add a heater inside that container?
                    Further why do we not have containers poised above every valve cluster in case of urgent need? Why was this never required? Why were the shut off valves not tested every day or two? And why not simply bolt some lead on that container to increase its weight? I am on the edge of believing that the entire drilling industry is not composed of mental rejects with about the morality of a mass murderer.

Re:You're seeing the problem

[ormondotvos]

Go the theoildrum.com for the complete explanation by "shelburn" and until then stfu.

Re:You're seeing the problem

[Laser_iCE]

I went there, CTRL+F "shelburn" and found this article on the home page.

Re:You're seeing the problem

[davaguco]

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6444#more

Clathrates == Oceanic farts: smelly and too warm

[Anonymous Coward]

So, is that a concern, or would that just be a small drop in the bucket?

Read up on the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. The whole world was so warm, there was basically no ice anywhere on the surface (maybe some at extreme depths), and the Arctic Ocean was warm enough for alligators. One theory for why temperatures spiked so high has to do with a runaway positive feedback loop, where rising temperatures cause clathrates to melt out, which causes more heating.

So no, not just a drop in the bucket.

Cheers,

Alternative sources could compete

[sean.peters]

... if 1) we didn't massively subsidize the use of fossil fuels, and 2) the price of various forms of environmental devastation wasn't treated as an externality. Consider that the continental shelf is the property of the US government, and we have been and continue to lease the mineral rights to BP, et al, for way below market rates. And that we provide massive security services to various oil companies in the form of huge military commitments in the Middle East. And we provide an enormous interstate highway system, the cost of which is only partly offset by user fees such as tolls and gas taxes.

Also, consider that fossil fuel extractors and consumers are essentially paying nothing for the privilege of dumping huge amounts of greenhouse gases and other pollutants into the atmosphere, even though everyone is paying the cost in the form of climate disturbances, poor air quality, etc. And that when these major spills happen, the companies involved generally get off without paying significant damages (note that after years of litigation, Exxon ended up paying a tiny fraction of the total estimated damages from the Exxon Valdez spill - local fishing and tourism industries were left holding the bag).

Greener alternatives such as wind and solar could compete, if the true costs of fossil fuels were paid at the pump. But they're not.

Re:Alternative sources could compete

[oldspewey]

To badly paraphrase Noam Chomsky, capitalists are actually big fans of socialism. They love the idea of socializing harm ... it's the profits they don't like sharing.

Re:Alternative sources could compete

[falconwolf]

To badly paraphrase Noam Chomsky, capitalists are actually big fans of socialism. They love the idea of socializing harm ... it's the profits they don't like sharing.

No, that's neither capitalists nor free market supporters. What those are are corporatists or Fascists.

Falcon

Re:Alternative sources could compete

[arkane1234]

which embody most of the capitalistic world, so let's not go splitting hairs.
If it quacks like a duck...

Re:It's the BP spill, not Gulf spill.

[itlurksbeneath]

And what if it turns out that, in fact, BP broke no regulations, bent no rules and this was simply something that nobody could have for-seen and no safety equipment on the planet could have withstood the pressure released from below the earth's surface? Would it be the Mother Nature spill?

Also, I don't think a lot of you appreciate the safety culture in an offshore environment for American companies. Safety is number one. Nobody wants to die on the job, nobody wants their actions to cause somebody else's death and no company wants to tell someody's loved one they died on the job. Safety is a very serious thing offshore - for employees and employers. Following procedures, regulations, safety protocols is paramount to everything else.

Article says 7665 gal/day.

[Chris Burke]

The California seafloor leaks are much larger. I don't think they know exactly how much, but this source quotes "8-80 Exxon Valdez spills", I would guess they mean annually. That's somewhere between 86.4 and 864 million gallons.

They're talking about the total volume of oil residue contained in the down-stream sediments in the seabed, deposited over an unknown period of time. And it seems like they're talking equivalent pre-biodegraded volume, but I'm not sure.

The statement about the rate of seepage was slightly further down:

There is an oil spill everyday at Coal Oil Point (COP), the natural seeps off Santa Barbara, where 20-25 tons of oil have leaked from the seafloor each day for the last several hundred thousand years.

25 tons/day * 7.3 bbl/ton * 42 gal/bbl = 7665 gallons/day.

That's tiny compared to this spill at 200,000 gal/day.

compensation for vicrims

[falconwolf]

The good news is that there will be a charity concert in New Orleans, so BP won't have to pay so much money to their victims.

If it ends up like Vladez oil spill BP won't have to pay anything. More than 20 years later the fish have not recovered and the fishermen have not been compensated. Heck, oil still persists, is still found. Large corporations laugh while going to the bank to make another deposit while the people pay.

Falcon

Re:compensation for vicrims

[mi]

If it ends up like Vladez oil spill BP won't have to pay anything.

The compensatory damages, that Exxon is on the hook for, exceed half a billion dollars. That's in addition to their spending on the actual clean-up...

The Supreme Court (in a 5-to-3 vote, with your beloved David Souter writing for the majority) did remove the punitive $2.5 billion as "excessive"... But the compensatory $507 million were left standing... Yes, it took much too long. Maybe, if the plaintiffs weren't greedy (greed is only good, when you are making something, that other people want), they would've gotten their compensation 20 years earlier...

while the people pay.

"The people" (including The Children[TM]) also use the oil. Every day... We can't do anything without it.

Re:compensation for vicrims

[DigiShaman]

Really, oh great prophet? And what better way would that be? Keep in mind that everything modern is based on the hydrocarbon, from lipstick to plastics. Quite frankly, I'm not sure we would have reached the technological progress we have so quickly without it. Whether or not the time compression was worth it or not, I will leave up to you to decide.

ExxonMobile doing great

[jeffsenter]

Sadly, BP should hope that things work out for it the way things worked out for ExxonMobile after the catastrophe of the Exxon Valdez.

Exxon had a drunk for a captain who crashed a poorly designed oil tanker causing one of the worst environmental disasters in history. The region's environment still has not recovered two decades later. But ExxonMobile sure has! ExxonMobile is the most profitable company in the world. From 2005-2009 the annual profit for ExxonMobile averaged $36 Billion!

The US Supreme Court was also generous enough a few years ago to reduce the punitive damages award against ExxonMobile for the Valdez from an original jury amount of $5 Billion down to $500 Million (about five days worth of profits).

energy

[falconwolf]

For Pete's sake, the guy was saying we should stop oil production to force people to use non-existent renewable energy.

Ever hear of geothermal? Solar? Wind? They all exist. And if they were given as much in subsidies as coal, nuclear power, and petroleum they would be producing a lot more energy.

Falcon

Re:energy

[ArcherB]

For Pete's sake, the guy was saying we should stop oil production to force people to use non-existent renewable energy.

Ever hear of geothermal? Solar? Wind? They all exist. And if they were given as much in subsidies as coal, nuclear power, and petroleum they would be producing a lot more energy.

Falcon

Um... no. No they would not.
Geothermal, while prevalent in some parts of the world, is not that big of a resource here. And most of the places where geothermal is available are national parks. Could you imagine the uproar if you tried to build a power plant at Yellowstone?
Solar is nowhere near efficient enough to power the country. It can be a nice boost, hardly economic, and government subsidies are not enough to help. For starters, government subsidies exist. There are also several tax breaks you can receive for "greening" your home, but it will never be enough to make it cost effective:

He found the cost for an installation ranges from nearly $86,000 to $91,000, while the value of the power produced ranges from $19,000 to $51,000.

I don't know about you, but I don't have an extra $91,000 sitting around to spend on something that will save me $51,000 over the next 20 years. Also, this study fails to consider the sunk costs. In other words, if I were wisely invest that $90 G's instead of blowing it on solar panels, it would grow. Take whatever money it would have made and add that to the loss. I'm not alone here. A very small percentage of Americans have $900.00 to spend, much less $90,000.00. Oh, and then there are cloudy days, night, snow covered roof tops, hail, shadows from when the sun crosses to the other side of your house and so on that make solar an even less economic proposition.
Now, if you are talking about massive power plants located in the desert, when then you have other issues. See, you green buddies at the Sierra Club tend to block most of these programs because, even though they could save the earth, they may endanger a turtle that lives in the sand. That pretty much stands for any of these green projects. Someone, somewhere is going to get their feelings hurt. And these someones tend to have lawyers. So, don't bitch at me. Call the Sierra Club!
Finally, Wind! Wow! This is a fun one. I'll start with this quote:

Another interesting point with wind systems is that fossil fuel plants normally run on standby to support the wind fluctuations that occur. So, not only do we see only 8 to 10% of a rated power output, but this is offset by the fossil fuel consumed an not delivered to the grid. The net result is that most wind packages deliver less then zero power, when you consider the wasted fuel at the fossil fuel plant.

Of course, as the Kennedys showed us, some people don't like the way they look. You remember Ted Kennedy, right? That big green liberal that BLOCKED wind power because it might disrupt the view from some of his mansions?

So, in to put it more succinctly, renewable energy does not exist, at least not to the point where it can completely replace fossil fuels. While all these other ideas do produce energy and will reduce our fossil fuel dependence for producing electricity, I believe the only viable solution is nuclear. Oh, your green buddies blocked that too!
Now the elephant in the room that I've ignored until now is that all the proposals yo

Re:energy

[ArcherB]

Well, since hippies hate nuclear (because of a very small chance of a meltdown), wind (because it kills birds), hydroelectric (because it interferes with fish), solar (because it's ugly/turtles/godknowswhy), coal (because it's dirty), oil (because it's dirty), gas (because it's dirty), geothermal (because it requires you to dig holes), and even wood (because you have to cut trees and make smoke), why don't we just cut the middle men and burn hippies for power?

Your ideas fascinate me. Where can I sign up for your newsletter?

Actually, I think the goal is not saving the earth, turtles or fishes. I believe that they hate the fact that someone, somewhere is using more than someone else. Actually, it's not even the fact that someone has more than someone else so much as it is the fact that someone has more than they do. If they can drive all of mankind back to caves and trees, we'll all be equal. It doesn't matter if we are all equally impoverished and equally miserable. All that matters is that no one is getting more than they are. I sincerely believe that is the goal.

Case in point.

Re:peak oil

[falconwolf]

Siiiigghhh.. fish farming.. you know, as opposed to getting in your boat and going out to fish in the ocean then being surprised when one day there's no fish?

Oh that's what you mean? Like farmed fish don't need to be fed and don't know massive amounts of antibiotics. Except they do. Farmed fish requires vast amounts of wild caught fish to feed. Daniel Pauly "a professor of fisheries science at the University of British Columbia, has calculated that it takes 2 to 5 lbs. of anchovies, sardines, menhaden and the other oily fish that comprise fish meal to produce 1 lb. of farmed salmon". Because they are packed into small areas they also need those antibiotics, which end up in the ocean leading to antibiotic resistance. Fish farms also create dead zones.

1. Seven Reasons to Avoid Farm Raised Salmon.
2. Fish Farms: Underwater Factories
3. Farmed or wild fish: Which is healthier?

Still think fish farming is the answer?

Falcon

gas/oil ratio units

[Zinho]

By weight or volume?

It's by volume, in units of standard cubic feet [1] of produced gas per barrel [2] of oil produced (i.e. after the gas has escaped).

[1] "standard" meaning "at standard temperature and pressure"
[2] 1 barrel = 42 US gallons