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."

Comments

Re:Actually it wouldn't...

[asukasoryu]

Maybe you missed the part about Revelation 8:8. Clearly this guy has the scientific know-how to figure out whether or not we're all going to die.

Re:Exponential rate

[Bigjeff5]

The million barrels per day is from a series of wild-ass guesses by a software engineer. I work in the oil industry as well, and I know some software engineers who could come up with some educated guesses regarding the volumes involved. They also understand the basic processes happening to the oil at such depths. They also understand that they are in no way experts in those areas, and would never be foolish enough to pretend they were.

The wild ass guess of four barrels per second is based on another wild ass guess of a 5ft diameter pipe. The pipe is, in fact, 18 inches in diameter, and if he were half the expert he claims to be he would know that it is impossible to drill in 5000ft deep water with a 5ft diameter pipe with current technology. The idea is absurd. So without doing any other fact checking, we know his powers of estimation are abysmal. Since the entire article is simply one guy's series of wild ass guesses, that should be enough. Hell, half his estimation for how much oil is coming up is based on his guess for why there were BP executives on the rig, and what amount of oil it would take to get them there. I mean, really? You're going to call those wild guess figures facts?

Also, even without those little facts getting in the way, he claims 1,000,000 barrels, yet the largest leak by his own estimate only puts out about 346,000 barrels a day. Being generous, how does 350,000 plus some number smaller than 350,000 (he doesn't give his "expert opinion" on the size of the second) add up to one million? The very highest number I can come up with falls 300,000 barrels short.

With the actual size of the pipe, however, you can get a pretty accurate flow rate by estimating the pressure differential between the reservoir and the head. The pressure on the reservoir should be about 15,000 psi (not 150,000, like the article states) - 5,000 feet of water plus 11,000 feet of granite. The pressure of the water column is about 2,000 psi, rough estimate. With a pressure differential of about 13,000 psi, an 11,000 foot length of pipe, an estimated density of about 900 kg/m3 (it could actually be anywhere from 750-950, 900 seems close to what other oil is in area), and assuming a smooth pipe, you get about 15.6 gallons per second, or 0.37 barrels per second.

Worst case scenario you are looking at around 30,000 barrels per day. Since there are a lot of factors involved (like the amount of friction imposed on the oil as it seeps out of the reservoir rock), and all I have are estimations, it is almost certainly a lot less than that. 5,000 barrels is not an unlikely figure for what is actually flowing out of the pipe. It isn't likely to be more than that by much at all, either, as I used pretty ideal conditions for flow. It isn't really possible for much more to flow up.

Also, I don't know where he gets the idea of a ground rupture, comparing it to the Yellowstone magma chamber. Such a thing is unheard of. An oil reservoir isn't like a magma chamber, which is a giant bubble full of liquid rock. An oil reservoir is a layer of spongy rock with oil trapped inside it. There is no bubble. It provides a hell of a lot more structure than the nothing of a magma chamber, and as oil flows out water flows in to take its place. It is not at all likely to rupture the ground, especially with two miles of bedrock in the way. The most this will ever do is squirt (that's actually a very good description of what it is doing right now - squirting).

Frankly, this guy doesn't have a clue. His wild guesses are off by a factor of 10 from what anybody who can do simple math would tell you, and most of what he states as fact are just plain inventions of his own imagination.