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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."
The article seems to be inaccurate in at least one respect, and one comment calls the author on it: It's not a 5-foot diameter pipe. Various sources say it's either 12-inch or 21-inch, but not five feet. One source says the largest riser pipe made is 21-inches in diameter.
[place clever signature here]
The current estimate for total world reserves is just over 1 trillion, so this guy is just a total idiot.
Well, lets see...
The Library of Congress contains roughly 1,199 kilometers of books. Assume that each shelf is roughly 30cm by 30cm, you get a volume of roughly 107,910 m3. To fill that volume with barrels of oil...
A barrel of oil is 42 US Gallons, or 0.158987294928 m3. So, you need 6.29 barrels to get 1 m3.
So we should need about 678,753 barrels of oil to constitute one library of congress.
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.
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Crude is measured in 42 gallon barrels.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrel_per_day
Finally, I'm really lazy I admit, but can someone tell me if theres a way to ignore timothy and kdawson stories?
Go to help & preferences. If you use the classic index, click on "authors" and un-check them. If you use the dynamic index, click on "exclusions" and check them.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which limits oil companies' total liability in case of an oil spill to $75 million.
It's worth noting this refers to Economic liability - i.e, liability for economic damage done to an area as a result of an oil spill. BP is still on the hook for cleaning up the mess, and that's a price tag without a limit.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
All nuclear plants are critical. That is how they goddamned work. Once again, another anti-nuke wacko proves he has no fucking idea what he is talking about, prefering to throw around "scary" words instead of actually researching shit. I swear to god, it's like knowledge is actually taboo to you people.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)