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Gulf Gusher Worst Case Scenario
An anonymous reader writes "Here's a listing of several scientific and economic guides for estimating the volume of flow of the leak in the Gulf of Mexico erupting at a rate of somewhere around 1 million barrels per day. A new video released shows the largest hole spewing oil and natural gas from an aperture 5 feet in diameter at a rate of approximately 4 barrels per second. The oil coming up through 5,000 feet of pressurized salt water acts like a fractionating column. What you see on the surface is just around 20% of what is actually underneath the approximate 9,000 square miles of slick on the surface. The natural gas doesn't bubble to the top but gets suspended in the water, depleting the oxygen from the water. BP would not have been celebrating with execs on the rig just prior to the explosion if it had not been capable producing at least 500,000 barrels per day — under control. If the rock gave way due to the out-of-control gushing (or due to a nuke being detonated to contain the leak), it could become a Yellowstone Caldera type event, except from below a mile of sea, with a 1/4-mile opening, with up to 150,000 psi of oil and natural gas behind it, from a reserve nearly as large as the Gulf of Mexico containing trillions of barrels of oil. That would be an Earth extinction event."
We're all going to die!
Wasn't this the movie that killed John Cusak's career?
I don't understand, how many in Library of Congresses?
4 BPS*24 hrs/day*60min/hr*60sec/min = 345 600 barrels per day, not 1 million.b
use Volkswagen beetles, not LOCs.
Sweet informative mod.
"Extinction" is a very high bar to clear, except for losers like panda bears that are large enough to shoot and barely capable of reproducing without assistance.
Barely capable of reproducing without assistance can refer to many slashdot readers. However, you do make one good point:
(source)
The moral: Pandas are SUCH assholes!
I think that the second half of this post says that that the oil leak is bad, or could cause the end of the world, or something. However, it's such a gusher of spastic sentence fragments that I can't quite be certain.
Someone should drop a containment dome over this guy's keyboard until he's learned to organize his thoughts.
Most people would starve to death.
The obesity epidemic cured in one blow! Thanks BP, Transocean, and Halliburton!
mmmmmmm.... long pig.....
+1 Disagree
There are 42 gallons, not 55, in a barrel of oil.
Not that it makes it any less of a disaster, but it is the correct number.
Ah, you're thinking in METRIC barrels, not IMPERIAL barrels
Agreed. Personally, my reaction to the situation is "Eh, whatever." and will likely remain such right up until there's a flaming cloud of shit hanging overhead. Freaking the hell out never improves situations.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Pfff, that can’t happen until after Revelation 8:7.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
So, at a rate of 4 barrels per second, there is a library of congress worth of oil being dumped into the Gulf about every 47 hours.
Can we have that converted to the Firkin/Furlong/Fortnight system of units please?
Meh. I won’t be worried about that until verse 7 happens...
The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down upon the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
The other other white meat.
"Extinction" is a very high bar to clear, except for losers like panda bears that are large enough to shoot and barely capable of reproducing without assistance.
You realize that you just described most overweight geeks, nerds and dweebs on the planet, don't you?
But what if, when Jesus said "and the first shall be last, and the last shall be first", he was talking about those angels? ;)
Clearly he was describing a LIFO queue data structure, not angels.
Texas, Schmexas. I live in Alaska, which if cut in half, would make Texas the third largest state in the country :D
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Hey, everyone here knows that software engineers are quite wary of Caldera type events, for a good reason.
Ezekiel 23:20
Is that in Imperial or Metric?
First one, then the other.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Unless all written knowledge is wiped clean (I doubt it), then our books would still be around to transfer the knowledge.
At least, until Amazon decides to remove them from our Kindles.
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
Well, at least they would try if given the opportunity!
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Assuming the following:
Cost to drill well and get oil to coastal refinery: $1 Bn
Daily cost to run the well and pump oil to refinery: $150 K
Average value of oil over repayment period: $85 / barrel
Prevailing Interest Rate (opportunity cost of using the cash to drill and run the well): 10% -- this roughly BP's return-on-assets for 2010
Years to repay: 3
We can figure that the well would have to produce around 16K to 17K barrels per day to pay for itself at the end of 3 years of operation.
These numbers are still rough, but it gets us in the ballpark. 5 years takes you to 13K barrels per day. 2 years is about 20K barrels per day.
If you assume that the well could expel 2x to 3x per day than a controlled well, you get a range of 26k to 60k barrels per day being spewed into the gulf.
That's 1.8M US gallons of oil per day.
Someone else needs to take over from here. How many gallons of water does a gallon of oil pollute in this scenario? 100 gallons of water plluted per gallon of oil?
That means 180M gallons of water polluted per day. Or 18B gallons of water polluted by the end of 100 days when we expect the oil to stop flowing due to the new well being drilled.
If that is polluting the water to a depth of 100 feet and there are 7.5 gallons of water per cubic foot, you get almost 1 square mile of water polluted to a depth of 100 feet. But we already know that the slick is over 10,000 square miles on the surface. Either the depth of the pollution is far less than 100 feet or the gallons of oil being spewed is far greater than 10's of 1000's of gallons per day and is well into the 100's of thousands of gallons per day range.
In any case TFA's reasoning about the tar suspended in the water seems to be bourne out by the fact that there are many areas where the surface slick has not reached the shore but there are tall balls washing up on it.
I would guess that TFA is generally correct and that what we are facing is, in fact, a "volcano" of oil.
The population is greatly decreased,
and now the odds are greatly increased,
that I may someday get a chance
to kiss your lips.
I thank the Lord each day,
for the Apocalypse.
Folks are mostly disfigured or dead,
but sugar I won't let it go to my head
My Mammas face has dripped down into the dirt,
but I'm still chasing chittlins, whiskey and skirt.
panda bears that are large enough to shoot
But after eating and before leaving?
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
No, no, White meat, not Wight meat!
Hey, it doesn't stop all of the software engineers here giving their unqualified opinions on climatology.
Or software engineering, for that matter.
I just had a troubling thought... imagine telling them how the sun works.
I can see it now: A mad rush to mail/telephone their representatives to ban that burning thermonuclear device in the sky.
He who has no